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I apologies this chapter is short-ish compared to the others, or at least I think it is.

On with the show!

Disclaimer: …
_-

The heat around her was unbearable. All around her blue flames twisted and danced, circling her, trapping her. She watched with fear induced nausea pooling in her stomach as flames turned to flesh before her, shimmering scales replacing fire. Dancing cerulean sparks turning to living muscle. The heat remained as coils of blue steel scales wrapped around her in a possessive, deadly embrace.

Then a voice, one that hadn't been heard for a full year since its owner's downfall echoed into her ears, "Ty Lee, what a fool you are to try and tame a dragon," Coils tightened to the point of almost being unbearable. The beast that held her shifted, and she saw her reflection in a huge golden iris, "but what a weak dragon I must be to have been so easily tamed."

Ty Lee groaned as she woke. Her head was pounding and her body ached. Bleary gray eyes opened to bright light streaming through the window near her and she groaned again as the light hit her.

"Look who's back from the dead," despite the pain of moving the acrobat rolled over to see Toph leaned back in a chair beside her, "mornin', sleeping beauty."

She smiled slightly at the young earth bender before putting a hand to her fore head as her temples began to throb, "how long have I been down for?"

Toph smirked, "a month," when she felt the surprised jump in the acrobat's heart beat, the earth bender laughed and held up her hands, "joking. Maybe a few days or so, but that's most everyone," The creak and sudden glint of metal when the earth bender raised her hands made Ty Lee's stomach turn.

"Toph, your arm…" she stared. Even though she knew full well it wasn't true the young earth bender always seemed unbreakable. The smooth silver that glinted before her served as proof that wasn't so.

Toph grinned ruefully, "yeh, I learned the hard way to stay away from beasty's mouth," she ran her other hand over the smooth metal that had replaced a majority of her left arm, "damn good thing I can metal bend or this would really suck," as if to prove she was all right she flexed the metal fist.

An exhausted Katara made her way into the room, "Toph, I told you to rest that a little while longer."

"Yes, mom," Toph laughed, rotating her metal wrist just to irritate the water bender.

Katara pinched the bridge of her nose, only noticing Ty Lee had woken up when the acrobat tried to sit up and groaned with the effort, "Ty lee, don't!" the water bender rushed to her and helped her shifting pillows behind her back so they sat her up, "you shouldn't be moving too much," she scolded.

Ty Lee smiled at her concern, "I've taken harder hits and gotten up."

Katara snorted at her, "I doubt that. You're lucky your head didn't crack from impact."

The acrobat smiled weakly again in acknowledgement of what the healer had said before moving on to ask, "How are the others?

Toph was first to answer, "We're all up. You took the hardest hit."

Katara shook her head again, "I believe being the only one not to break, but LOSE an arm would count as the 'hardest hit'," she flicked the metal, making a soft pinging noise.

"Yeh, whatever Sugar Queen, point is everyone's fine," one of the blind girl's ears twitched, "Sunshine's coming this way."

"I will cut off the other one," Mai said as eyes turned to her in the door way. Her silver eyes met the stormy gray of Ty's and the acrobat saw concern and relief swim in the quicksilver pools; she masked it quickly, she sighed, "finally," before turning, ducking her head out the door way and calling, "Ty's up."

The remaining group filled into the room, Sokka leaning on a crutch, his leg still healing from the previous attack, Zuko's arm and chest were wrapped completely, Aang seemed to be the only one fully recovered.

Sokka grinned and walked to her, patting her shoulder in the rough friendly manner, "glad to see you're awake. You almost went the same way Toph did," he joked, tapping the earth bender.

Toph punched him the way she usually did, only slightly harder to make him wince, "watch it, your leg coulda gone the same way."

Katara sighed, it was clear she was not in the mood for joking, the bags under her eyes and the slight shaking of her hands leant proof to obvious exhaustion, "Sokka, you can't replace a missing head," she sighed.

Sokka, in a vain attempt to lighten the dark mood that was hanging in the room, "you don't know that. It's never been tried before."

Katara shot him an unimpressed look, "I don't think Ty wants to be the test dummy for that." Which Ty Lee weakly shook her head to in agreement.

Zuko spoke next, his tone equally as weary as Katara's, "Now that you're up, we can start preparing for the search."

Katara's protests were immediate, "none of us are ready to travel yet."

The acrobat was even more confused now, coupled with the pain in her head was even more discomforting, "search?"

Sokka stepped in while his sister and the fire lord began quietly arguing over the plans, "after the attack everyone kinda came together. We're going to mount an expedition find the dragon… and kill it."

-D.-

(Yeh so I was discussing this chapter with my friend/editor Ryan and I had to ask about Toph's arm, cause I didn't know how people would feel about that. His reaction, "awesome, now she can have a combustion man arm."