A/N (insert generic pleasantries here]
Avatar (the real Avatar, not that Smurf-ahontas turd) is owned by Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante Dimartino.
One Piece is the property of Eiichiro Oda, a man whose very farts exude more creativity than most of his contemporaries put together.
xXx
"Damn-it!"
A cry rung out through the forest, traceable to one lone firebender, who had momentarily stopped in his efforts to limp towards the Shandian ruins after a brainwave had hit him.
'That guy had more of those fire-dials!' Zuko berated himself, thinking back to the fight he had just survived.
"I wouldn't expect to get that much use out of that particular Flame Dial." Shura sneered, having recovered from his shock, "it's almost empty, I was going to switch it out soon anyway," he gestured to his pockets.
"Too late to go back now, I've left him long behind." Zuko debated, breathing a long exasperated sigh, he had been walking for some time after he had defeated the priest, the distance back would be a pain to travel, that being if he would even be able to find his way back to the battle-site.
"I should probably just find Chopper, he can probably heal some of these injuries, if I get attacked in this condition I'm gonna be in trouble." Zuko had already given himself some basic first aid, most of his injuries were superficial, but he had seemingly broken a couple of ribs when he fell from the canopy. "I've still got a long way to go to get to the ruins, I hope the others are having a better day than me!"
xXx
There were several figures on Skypiea which were generally regarded with respect, or if they warranted it, fear. The top of that list surely belonged to Enel, followed by his priests, everything below that could technically be considered as inconsequential. However there was person that felt he could make the most legitimate claim to sixth place out of all of Enel's soldiers, the person in question however, was not exactly having a good day, he had noted the vast majority of the divine enforcers under his command falling in battle being overwhelmed by the Shandorians, while the Priests weren't exactly picking up the slack, and now he was in a fight himself.
"Punch Mountain!" The robust man slammed his hand downwards, aiming for his opponents head, the opponent in question, moved sideways to avoid it, riding a pillar of rock away and out of his reach as his hand smashed into the ground, causing it to shake and then splinter.
"You're pretty strong! But you're really predictable!" the cocky tone of his opponent rang out.
When he was done here and it was time to deliver his report to Enel, Yama would probably omit the fact that the opponent he was having so much time defeating… was a little girl about one twentieth of his size.
Toph took the opportunity to taunt her opponent as she racked her brain thinking. Sure, she had barely taken a hit for the duration of this fight, a couple of glancing blows here or there, a lump or two of rock shrapnel launched from his attacks occasionally getting a hit in before she could stop it. the simple fact was, Yama was not an opponent she was well equipped to face, he was too acrobatic, meaning that she could only roughly guess his landing by his trajectory, meaning that she had to dodge far further than usual to make absolutely sure that she actually was out of his range, this gave her much less time to launch a counter-attack. She felt some confidence however, in the fact that even though she couldn't see him; she knew that Yama was in a notably worse state than her.
He was definitely bleeding more than her, the occasional small vibration of a drop or two of dense liquid against the soil proving that fact, and he seemed to be walking slightly funny and avoiding the use of his left arm in his punches.
No, if this were just a matter of dealing out damage, Toph would be the clear winner. However, all the superficial advantages in the world didn't matter if she couldn't put him down for the count. And there-in lay her problem, Yama was too resilient to be floored by anything short of her best, and Toph couldn't conjure up anything large while he was attacking her, he was making sure to not give her too long to summon a significant attack, speaking of which…
"Stomach Mountain!"
Yama slammed into the ground in the form of a belly-flop, Toph, who had sensed him leaving the ground and correctly judged his momentum and his rough trajectory, had long since jumped aside, propelled again by a pillar of earth. Skidding to a halt some distance away she immediately jumped on the spot, her bare feet slamming down hard, sending out a large pulse of earth.
'Break his footing!' she repeated the first fundamental part of her combat style in her head, as the wave collided with Yama, who was just returning to his feet as the ground beneath him became wholly unstable, he wobbled only slightly, his weight being too great to displace easily.
Toph followed up with a sequence of five flat punches striking the air, in sync with each punch, five boulders, each the size of Toph herself flew forward. 'Lock him down.' she recalled the second step, one that was only necessary when dealing with a noticeably tougher opponent, she was preparing to move on to step three, when she noticed.
Yama had taken the first two hits full on, one hammering into his stomach, the other spinning off from an impact to his head, but he had managed to either bat away, or dodge the others. He was now charging again.
Toph was prepared to dodge when she realized, she was standing inches away from a large stone mural, a mural which was adjoined to a small weathered stone building, if she dodged, Yama would power through both.
"I think I'm going to be taking this one." Toph cracked her knuckles as she stepped forward. 'He has enough strength to smash stone like it was made of glass! This guy might actually be a challenge!'
"Go right ahead, but can you not do any damage to the ruins in this clearing?" Robin asked casually, as she fell into line behind the Earthbender, stopping at the edge of the new clearing.
"Sure." Toph smirked before pointing at the now-recovered Yama, "Hey fat-ass! Get ready to go toe-to-toe with the greatest Earthbender of all time!"
Abandoning her motion to dodge, Toph quickly summoned as much rock as she could, raising it upwards quickly into a wall between her and her encroaching attacker.
The barrier crumbled away, Yama's fist ploughing straight through it, before following up into Toph's head. An appreciative grin spread onto his face as the Earthbender was sent tumbling, skidding to a stop several metres away from where she had been standing.
"Toph!" Robin's concerned voice broke from the edge of the clearing, 'why did she do that? Why didn't she just dodge again?!' Robin had been content to just observe the fight, as she felt that fighting alone was something that Toph both wanted and needed, while she had promised not to step in, she was fighting with herself to not go back against that promise.
'Wait.' Robin examined her last thought. 'A promise, is that why she didn't dodge?' Robin thought suddenly. 'She didn't want to go back on her word to me?'
Her thoughts were interrupted though, by a cough.
"Urgh… Don't worry Robin, I'm fine," Toph groaned as she stood slowly, and turned back towards Yama. "That was a good hit though! If that had hit me full-force you might have had something to brag about!" A noticeable bruise was already forming on the girl's cheek, complimented by a slow, steady streak of blood flowing from a cut above her eye; the cut had probably been obtained upon impact with the ground. She did note that if it hadn't been for the earth-wall she had formed which had taken the sting out of his punch, she would very likely be dead.
'Wait, the impact? What did I hit?' Toph slammed a foot down, instantly feeling the feedback, the mural, the building, both had been shattered. She had gone straight through the mural, the decaying stone not offering much resistance, whereas Yama's body, following up on his punch had smashed the building. Her head dropped. "Bastard… I'll get him for that…"
"Well this battle just got a lot easier for me!" Yama roared triumphantly, "How'd you expect to target me with that much blood blocking your vision?"
To his utter bewilderment, the girl simply started laughing; even the stoic woman he had attacked at first seemed amused suddenly, both being broken out of a unanimous feeling of regret for the destruction of the relics. "What's so funny?!" Yama roared, incensed at what he perceived to be a sign of disrespect.
"Ah…" Toph finally managed to regain control of her voice and breathing. "Oh, thank you for that, really, but seriously… didn't Conis say that Enel could overhear every conversation on Skypiea?" Toph directed the question at Robin.
"I believe that's true, yes." Robin noted, still wearing a jovial expression.
"Damn, Man-Mountain here must be pretty low on the pecking border if Enel didn't tell him about my… 'Circumstances'" Toph pointed out in an amused tone, throwing a cursory grin towards Yama.
A vein popped up above Yama's brow, as his temper flared, both from the apparent disrespect and from being left out of the loop.
"Multi-Punch Mountain!" the giant charged forward, his right launching into several astonishingly fast punches his arm moving too fast to be visible to the human eye. 'She's too hard to hit with strong attacks, so let's try weaker and faster!'
Toph grimaced as he approached, but found that, with some difficulty she was still able to keep up with his arm's movements, as she weaved around his blows.
While the average human would be fooled by the speed of his movements alone, thrown off by the fact that his arm seemed to be blurring due to its pace, Toph did not have that problem, at least at this range. She could distinctly feel every movement he made down to the very muscle, she could feel his arm coil before every blow, and could accurately judge the intended direction, putting her a split second ahead. The difficult part was to actually match his speed, to actually avoid the punches for long enough to field a counter-attack.
Yama was perplexed, even at top speed he still struggled to hit the girl, he mixed his punches thoroughly; hooks, straights, uppercuts, the entire works. But he still couldn't land a hit. In desperation, he decided to throw in his injured left arm too; this had no effect other than tiring him faster. He eventually relented after Toph, who had taken advantage of the slowing speed of his attacks resulting from his fatigue, had managed to jump clear and get some distance.
Both fighters took a moment to regain their breath. Both were planning their next move ahead.
'I've got it!' Toph extended both arms fully in front of her, her palms facing downwards with her index fingers and thumbs joined with their equals; she then slowly began moving her hands apart.
Yama, seeing her movements and knowing that the girl was preparing something in spite of the fact that there was no visible sign of any movement from the earth, charged forward again, launching himself at the earthbender, "Stomach Mountain!"
As soon as Yama left the ground, she jumped clear on another Earth-pillar, Yama's body slamming into the ground again, however instead of attacking Yama when she landed, she chose to mirror her last action, raising her hands together again in front of her, before drifting them apart, a wide, open-mouthed, cocky smile on her face as she did so.
Robin looked on, confident that Toph could handle herself here, at least against this man, but confused as to what she was doing, there were no visible signs of anything happening to the ground while Toph made these motions, which stood out of line with everything she had observed so far about bending. The archaeologist continued to watch as Yama launched another attack, which Toph dodged, before repeating that same motion once more.
xXx
"So, you're from the same tribe as the Guerrillas attacking the island, a Shandorian?" Nami inquired at one of the new arrivals on the scene.
"Yeah!" a little girl, who was smaller even than Toph, yelled proudly. "I'm a brave warrior of Shandora."
"Whoever you are, can you stop yelling?" Katara groaned, placing a palm to the side of her head. "My head still hurts… stupid golden staffs…"
Soon after their encounter with Enel, Gan Fall had departed on Pierre, claiming that in the midst of all the chaos he would scout out 'God's Shrine' which apparently was Enel's home, too look for the men who used to follow him, men who were now apparently enslaved. Not too long later, Nami and Katara had been intercepted by a small waver, which had emerged from the forest, a dial being used by its passengers to form a cloud current from the shore of the island. The passengers in question were Conis, Pagaya and a small girl who the Skypiean father-daughter duo had apparently rescued from a stranded waver.
The Merry was now following the cloud current that Pagaya had formed, using it as a shortcut off the island, bypassing the meanders of the one they had been following prior.
Their journey was going pretty normally when all of a sudden, the girl, who it turned out was named Aisa, hit the deck screaming.
"Aisa? What's wrong?" Nami rushed over, followed by Katara who had briefly paused to pull some water to surround her hands, being prepared in case of an injury.
"I could hear them, their voices, they vanished!" The girl replied, sobbing openly as she recalled the images and the sounds that had briefly flashed through her mind.
"What?" Katara answered succinctly, seemingly not having any answer to what she had just heard.
"Wait. Can you use that 'Mantra' thing that the priests use?" Nami inquired pausing for a moment to think.
"Yes, ever since I was born, I just keep on hearing people's voices vanish! I even see how it happened!" The girl said, her voice low and detached.
"That sounds awful!" Conis exclaimed, throwing her hands to clasp over her mouth.
"Aisa, I'm sorry to have to ask you this, but…" Katara looked uncomfortable for a second as she considered her question; she didn't want to pressure the girl into thinking of things that were obviously traumatic for her. "But, have any of our friends, the people from the blue sea, have any of them…'vanished'?"
"No." the girl replied simply, still sounding slightly upset. "Apart from those two." She said gesturing towards the still unconscious Usopp and Sanji.
"But they're alive? So a voice vanishing doesn't necessarily mean they're dead?"
"No, but it usually does, especially on this island." Aisa said bitterly. "Most of the people getting hurt are the Divine enforcer squads and…and my people." Aisa rose up from the deck slowly, looking forlorn.
'Thank goodness.' Katara breathed a sigh of relief, before feeling slightly guilty for it, she had just heard Aisa express fear at how most of her people were dying and her first reaction was to be relieved regarding the fate of her friends. She berated herself for not being empathetic; glad that she hadn't saw fit to speak her mind.
"Three of the priests are now down." Aisa decided to inform them, Partly because she felt she owed Conis and Pagaya for saving her life, and partly because she wanted to get the info off of her chest.. "Gedatsu was beaten by that Tanuki"
"Chopper." Nami confirmed. "not a Tanuki."
"And Shura was beaten by that guy with the two swords and the scar on his eye."
"Zuko!" Katara expressed, relieved that, while the firebender got into a fight, it sounded like he left it in better shape than his adversary.
"There's loads of smaller fights going on, but I can hear two 'voices' blaring louder than the others, they're fighting near the ruins." Aisa explained.
"When you say, 'hear' do you literally hear them?" Nami pondered.
"Not exactly, although that happens sometimes. It's more like I can just tell roughly where they are," upon seeing their confused expressions she elaborated further. "It's like having a compass in the back of my head, I just get this subconscious feeling pointing in the direction from where the 'voice' is coming from, and some of them are bigger voices, but even they aren't easy to find, unless they're fighting."
"That sounds like a useful ability to have in a pinch." Katara said, offering a smile.
"It… it is useful, but…" Conis stopped there, not really finding the words to continue. Katara got the gist regardless and stopped asking. She already knew what Aisa was going to say.
"Oh, by the way Nami, what do you think of this?" Pagaya decided to lighten the mood as he took Nami aside to show her the waver that they had found on board the ship that fell from the sky, It was now fully repaired.
While a delighted Nami thanked Pagaya, Katara followed Aisa to the edge of the ship, where the girl was staring out into the forest, looking helpless.
"It's not easy to be left behind when your tribe go off to war, is it?" Katara asked solemnly
"What do you know about it?" the girl snapped back, her friends were clearly a touchy subject.
"More than you could ever know." Katara answered simply.
The answer caused Aisa to pause and stare in to the eyes of the older girl before swallowing and starting to speak. "I just wish I could do something to help them return safely, But I can't! I'm not strong enough."
"I know the feeling." Katara said sympathetically, putting a hand on the girl's shoulder. "Just work hard enough so that one day, you will be strong enough to help them." Katara's voice gained an edge to it. "And beyond that…hope that soon there won't be a need for anyone to fight."
Aisa just stared, considering the older girl's words before suddenly throwing both hands to her head.
"Aisa? Are you okay?" Katara asked, she was glad that she now knew what caused this effect on Aisa.
"The… the girl, who could control Vearth… she." Was all Aisa could manage to mumble out before she paused needing to take a breath.
Katara's heart immediately sank, from hearing those words. 'Toph? Her voice vanished? It can't be!'
xXx
(A few minutes earlier)
Robin watched with subdued interest as Yama launched his body again, Toph clearing the impact easily by jumping left before reverting back to the same motion, raise hands, split them. Toph's tactics had eventually become clear to anyone observing the battlefield carefully, but Yama was not doing this, the pace and ferocity of his attacks had increased in a negative correlation to his focus. Why?
"Whoa, I probably would have felt that vibration from the other side of the island!" Toph leered, before dodging left again as Yama soared towards her.
"I'm going to kill you!" the intellectual might of Yama's reply was staggering.
"All that weight must have a lot of drawbacks, especially when it comes to getting a date…" Toph offered with a deceptively sympathetic tone, "But it must be useful in battle at least, or it would be… if you could actually hit me..." She finished, her expression turning flat.
Robin laughed heartily at that. The Earthbender had obviously learnt a lot from the spectacle sport that was the Earth Rumble, because while Yama's fighting style gave her some difficulty, she sure as hell had her taunting skills to fall back on, her insults had been deep and varied, and had succeeded in the purpose of making Yama so livid that he couldn't see through Toph's strategy.
Yama launched himself upwards, spinning in mid-air before launching into a kick.
Toph hesitated slightly as the spinning made it difficult to pinpoint his exact trajectory, however Yama, in a blind rage, and not knowing of the actual blindness that was keeping his current position hard to guess, still ended up yelling out as he attacked, giving the girl all she needed.
"Kick Mountain!" Toph carefully noted the location of the source of that sound as She ran forward, before changing her stance.
Yama landed left leg first, with a thunderous crunch, the ground sagging beneath him, before turning to see his target, unscathed, at the centre of the clearing. She had slid beneath him while he was airborne, slight grazes were visible on her knees, as if to demonstrate the point.
Even in his angered state, he was able to suddenly note something, 'she's been making a point staying away from the centre of the clearing. Even when it put her closer to the line of fire, why would she suddenly change?' he scanned the battlefield.
"Finally realizing it?" Toph sneered. "Because it's probably too late now, just saying."
"What are you planning?!" Yama yelled, only confused at what he was seeing.
Robin watched in interest, while there were several fairly shallow craters scattered around the clearing, there were seven craters running around the clearing, they were fairly deeper than the others, formed by multiple impacts on the same spot, and… they formed a nearly-perfect circle, which Toph was now standing at the centre of.
"Nevermind! It doesn't matter, because I'll kill you before you accomplish it!" Yama yelled, dismissing his own question. In a new development he pulled a large sash from somewhere under his clothing, A sash which was covered with several dials on one side, he threw the sash over his shoulder, the dials pointing outwards. Then he charged.
"Axe Mountain!" He charged, aiming to slam his dial-coated stomach down where Toph was standing.
"Perfect." Toph smirked before leaping backwards quickly clearing the impact by some distance as her landing was simultaneous to Yama hitting the ground.
Yama had designed his Axe Mountain attack carefully, a multiple use attack of extraordinary power, 10 impact dials, every alternating one being charged, the other 5, not. The target would be hit by 5 impact dials, half the power of a reject dial, force which would be excessively lethal. The other 5, would be simultaneously charged by the same impact, allowing the process to be repeated.
However, while he had occasionally missed a target with the attack, he had never had this happen, from the moment of impact, something was severely wrong, and before he knew it, he was buried up to the highest one of his several chins in rock. Utterly perplexed by the turn of events, he looked towards the girl he had been fighting.
Toph Had taken her chance, the second Yama had hit the ground, which to his surprise; offered far less resistance than he thought it would, she had attacked. She had closed the top layer of Earth back up around him, but also had done something else.
Robin was amazed. She knew that Toph was powerful, but the strategy here was also surprisingly clever, the Archaeologist had seen what Yama had not. When he impacted, he had broken a thin layer of soil, and immediately fallen into a pre-prepared, deep, dark pit hollowed out in the ground. The walls of the pit were not like the soil and rock above, this was compressed rock, extremely dense, this dense stone had promptly moved forth and locked in on him. Toph had been digging that hole throughout the entire battle. She had been making him attack in that circle, to keep him away from where she had been laying her trap. Yama had been so concerned with focusing on Toph, that he wasn't paying attention to what she had been focusing on.
Yama, impact dials rendered unusable by his current position, was well and truly stuck. all of his considerable height and weight counting for nothing if he couldn't get the momentum to make his mass count.
Toph advanced, cracking her knuckles.
"Mercy… Please!" Yama gasped. The compression of the stone surrounding him was too dense, he couldn't breathe properly.
"I may have done it." Toph told him. "I may have offered you mercy, but not now."
"w..Why?" Yama pleaded. "Is it…because of the ruins? I'm sorry! I've…seen the error…of my ways!"
"I really don't give a crap about historical stuff…" Toph stopped in front of him; even just his head was almost the same height as her. "But… she does." Toph said, pointing to Robin. "And you made me break my word to her." Toph raised and bent her right arm out in front of her, her forearm parallel to her chest.
Yama could do nothing but watch as dozens of large chunks of soil and rock rose up around the girl before they started to shrink, 'no,' Yama realized 'they aren't shrinking, they're compressing!'
Toph closed her right fist, summoning the shards of compressed rock to surround her arm like a gauntlet, from her fingertips to just below her elbow.
"Make sure to mention to your God…" Toph said ominously as she cocked back her fist. "that you were beaten, by a 13 year old blind girl." She finished with a smirk.
"No… don't do it!" Yama pleaded, tears falling from his eyes before the last sentence really rung in his ears. "Wait, you're blin-" his question ended unfinished, as Toph's fist slammed into his face at blistering pace, enhanced as she bent the rocks to propel her arm faster and harder. She heard and felt a crunch, which she assumed was Yama's nose, maybe his jaw, or a cheekbone. It turned out she was right on all three counts, but had also missed one other thing.
xXx
"That Vearth girl… she… " Aisa said, gasping slightly.
"Toph?" Katara asked, her eyes widening in shock and fear, she saw only one of those emotions written on Aisa's face,
"She defeated Yama!" Aisa delivered, surprised.
While Katara clutched a hand to her chest in relief, Nami asked who Yama was, finding out that he was Enel's chief enforcer, technically one step below the priests, But more lethal than two of them, outclassing Satori due to physicality and the fact that he possessed a greater killer instinct, and surpassing Gedatsu by intelligence.
"She beat someone stronger than Satori?" Katara asked, genuinely surprised.
"Not definitely stronger." Aisa said, letting an odd grin onto her face "But Yama's hurt or killed more of my people than Satori and Gedatsu put together. I'm gonna shake…Toph was it?" Nami nodded to the question. "Yeah, I'm gonna shake Toph's hand if I see her, that bastard deserved it."
Katara and Nami exchanged nervous glances, they were beginning to see what an ability like Mantra, the ability to perceive the moment of someone's death like that, could do to a child's mind.
xXx
Robin walked forward from the edge of the clearing, clapping all the way. "Nicely done Toph." Toph had impressed her thoroughly by her ability to adapt. Yama was not perhaps her ideal opponent, just for his acrobatic tendencies.
Toph looked toward Robin, an odd grin on her face as she slowly pulled her arm back from the bloodied, unconscious face of her opponent. "Nothing to worry about, it would take someone way stronger than that to put me down."
"Are you alright?" Robin noted that Toph's voice sounded oddly pained.
"Fine…" Toph let out a noticeable whimper in spite of her words, she started to let the earth fall from her arm, starting at the elbow. "I just… may or may not have broken every bone in my hand, that's all." Toph tried to swallow down the sudden signals of agonizing pain shooting up her right arm but it was in vain, as her eyes started to water, if only slightly. In spite of this, she never let the smirk fall from her face at all.
'With her power it's easy to forget that she's still so young.' Robin noted with a bittersweet smile on her face. "Come here, I'm not within miles of a Doctor's skill level, but I know some medical basics."
Toph walked over begrudgingly, offering her hand for a kneeling Robin to begin patching it up.
"I'm sorry." The Earthbender said suddenly, "about the ruins." She then clarified, looking suddenly distant as she turned her head towards the remnants of the mural that Yama had hammered her through.
"It's no big deal, Toph." Robin offered, despite her best efforts she couldn't keep the slight twinge, a feeling of loss, from entering her voice, as she busied her hands with checking over Toph's.
"It is a big deal." Toph's voice dropped. "You had faith in me…and I blew it." the girl wasn't crying, but her voice was subdued, resigned.
"I did have faith in you." Robin said with a smile. "And you came through completely. You beat him and you lured him away from most of the ruins at the same time."
"I know but..." Toph's low voice wavered heavily. She HATED this feeling. The feeling of being underestimated was one she was used to, it hurt sometimes, but she could cope. What she could not cope with, was not being able to meet people's estimations, the feeling of letting people down despite her best efforts. that was when she felt truly handicapped.
Seeing that Toph didn't quite respond to her last attempt, Robin tried a new tactic, "You need to learn to laugh when you're sad." The archaeologist said at last. Toph noted an odd undertone to her voice, but disregarded it.
"Laugh when I'm in pain? I'd look like an idiot!" despite her words Toph felt a smile pulling on her face at the oddity of what she had just been told.
"No you wouldn't." Robin stated flatly. "Ok, maybe slightly, depending on your company people might assume you're insane." At that, both of them looked at each other, expressions flat, Robin still kneeling so that she was level with Toph's face. Moments of silence passed.
"Katara would blame you for my new-found 'insanity' and kick your ass." Toph theorized suddenly. simultaneously both of them burst into laughter. They continued until Toph broke the mood again, no longer sad, but seemingly reflective.
"You really had faith in me to beat that guy?" she asked, her voice low.
"Completely." Robin replied simply, before being shocked as Toph her pulled into a hug.
While Toph's spirits rose, Robin was contemplating…
20 years at sea, and no-one had ever warmed up to her as fast as the Straw-Hats, to them, with the exception of Katara, and maybe Zoro, whom she couldn't figure out, she was like one of the family, Toph made that clear to her, would she finally be able to just settle with a crew? To loosen the noose that had been tightening around her neck since she was 8 years old? It seemed too good to be true…
Ending the hug quickly, Robin did her best to repair the damage to Toph's hand, which wasn't as bad as first thought; all it required was two splints for her two broken fingers. Toph made minimal fuss over the injuries now; while they had been painful she had received worse. No broken bone would ever compare to burn wounds in her opinion. Toph then took a moment to consider something, out of all the physical injuries she had ever received, the one which stood out as both the most painful and debilitating, was the only injury that had inflicted upon her by someone who was technically an ally, she never did get revenge against Zuko for burning her feet.
Robin did her best; she had only picked up the bare minimum of first aid on her time out on the ocean, she didn't know much about cleaning cuts or soothing bruises, injuries which were too trivial to be essential survival knowledge, but she could set a broken bone back on track at least.
"Can you feel anyone nearby?" Robin asked after receiving Toph's assurances that she would try to avoid using her injured hand.
"Nope, there's too much of that solid cloud around." Toph replied. And Robin confirmed with a nod.
"Onward I guess, the Ruins are made of stone, so you should be able to see your way inside them."
"That's good."
"But like you said, there's lots of solid cloud around, so you'll probably need my help with that."
"That's bad."
"But once we get past that, we should be fine."
"That's good."
"Stop that."
"No."
xXx
For the few actual denizens of Upper Yard, certain things could occasionally get awkward, the island had very few notable landmarks, at least at ground level. There was always one thing that aided their navigation however, rising high into the atmosphere from its roots on the western side of the forest, into the clouds above the clouds was a massive plant, a beanstalk, spanning hundreds of metres in height, and dozens of metres in circumference. It was referred to, as Giant Jack.
At the foot of this odd plant stood another oddity, an odd brown creature, antlers, a blue nose, red shorts and a pink top hat? Definitely not your average Fauna.
Chopper scanned up and down the Beanstalk, he was trying to work up the courage to climb it, his incentive for doing so being that he thought the city of gold lay atop the solid cloud higher up the massive plant, this incentive was about to be reinforced by another one.
"There! I've found you!" an excited voice emanated from behind Chopper while a hand found its way to his shoulder.
The reaction was instantaneous, as whoever had placed the hand on the reindeer's shoulder, was promptly sent flying back as Chopper transformed into his quadripedal form, and started running up the beanstalk, screaming in terror.
"Chopper! Calm down! It's me!" Zuko yelled up the Beanstalk after his fleeing crewmate to no response, before realizing something. "Wait, is he Running? is he running VERTICALLY?" Zuko could only stare in wonder at the odd powers which a sense of fear seemed to grant the Reindeer, then, after Chopper had disappeared from view into the solid cloud canopy above, he sighed, and began to climb after him.
"You'd think… what with being in a pirate crew and all…" Zuko ran an inner-monologue as he climbed, panting with effort due to the steepness of the plant and the injuries he was bearing. "…that he'd be a little bit…braver."
xXx
It was a rare occurrence for a gathering of people, especially a gathering as diverse as the people who currently resided at the edge of Upper Yard's forests, to be completely of one mindset. Alas extreme circumstances had a habit of causing such things. On board the Going Merry, Katara stood alongside Conis and Pagaya, staring in horror at the sight before them, just below them, sat low on Nami's waver, Nami and Aisa were mirroring this action.
Indeed, there weren't many other reactions one could have to seeing what was in front of them, A gigantic, green snake, the length of its body being beyond perception, the girth of which, being astonishing. if the creature wanted to, it could easily claim the boat before it as its next meal.
Everyone assembled could only stand and watch, not wanting to do something that might cause the beast to rampage, however, they were not the only people present, there was one more, decidedly closer, so to speak, and he, unseen, and unbeknownst to those who were not actually inside the beast, was not aware of this tentative pact.
Without warning, the snake started lashing its body wildly, seemingly in pain.
"Hang on Aisa, we're getting out of here!" Nami yelled out to the girl who stood behind her on the waver, before applying the throttle, barely evading the lashing tail of the snake. In her efforts to avoid being smashed by the creature's erratic movements however, Nami was forced to steer the waver back into the forest, the snake, for a reason only known to itself, attempted to pursue them, only causing them to go faster in desperation.
"Darn, they might need my help, Conis, can you look after Sanji and Usopp for a while?" Katara asked as she threw two straps with water-skins attached over her shoulder. "They're in no danger, just try to make sure they don't do anything reckless."
"I will." Conis assured eager to move past the rocky base which their temporary alliance had originally been established upon. "Are you going to be okay on your own?"
"I'm going to have to be, aren't I?" Katara pointed out with a smile, Conis, seeing the logic of that statement merely nodded. "Pagaya, you have that dial that makes clouds right?" Katara asked, suddenly having an idea.
"Yes, I do." Pagaya fished around in his pocket for a moment, "Here, just point away and press the apex. Are you going to take the Crow or our Waver?" Pagaya gestured down towards the two wavers that remained now that Nami had taken hers.
"I would, if I wasn't going alone." Katara considered briefly. "I have my own method, and it's probably faster." With that said, she pointed the dial outward towards where she had last seen Nami, trusting that she would easily be able to follow the snake's trail. A milky jet of the liquid cloud fired off, defying gravity as it lingered in the air. Katara was forced to concede, while this island was a complete totalitarian hell-hole, these dials were just incredible, both practical, and awe-inspiring.
Without a word, the waterbender leapt up, making to jump on the stream.
"Wait that's not-" Pagaya moved to warn the girl, thinking that she had made an oversight regarding the cloud. 'This cloud has the properties of a liquid, not a solid!'
He was quickly proven to be mistaken about her intentions, as in tandem with Katara's feet making contact with the ice, she had made motions with her arms, to weave some of the cloud from her immediate vicinity into a flat, shallow, pointed board, weaved from ice. Quick as a flash, she landed on the ice-board, then using her waterbending, she propelled it forwards along the stream, kicking up a trail of cloud behind her.
"Oh, that's waterbending!" Conis exclaimed.
"Look's handy." Pagaya said simply.
xXx
Katara knew that she would need to move quickly as she followed the debris left in the snake's path, the Snake was lightning fast despite its speed, and if it truly was hungry, then it'd be at full pace, trying to outclass Nami's waver.
"I'm coming Nami! Hold on!"
xXx
A/N Boom, that's another chapter out of the way, can't really say how many more chapters Skypiea will take, somewhere between 3 and 5 to my best estimate, I am kind of eager to get it out of the way, because unfortunately it's the one place where you can't really put too many of your own plot ideas into action, it's a good arc, the dials and the fights, everything is wonderfully creative, but there's that sense that it's kind of isolated from the rest of the One Piece world. Either way, I've got decent plans for the end of Skypiea, and big plans for after Skypiea.
In other notes, Peter Jackson has once again made me his bitch with another finely crafted adventure to middle earth, but I won't bore you with that too much, saying that a Peter Jackson LOTR/Hobbit film is great is like saying "the sky is blue" at this point. Just know this, for LOTR fans, I may have a LOTR crossover forming in my mind.
Sorry if anyone felt that Toph was maybe a touch too sensitive in that conversation with Robin, I'm still trying to get her character down, because she's a tough but interesting nut to crack, a good balance of both untouchable badassery, and heightened insecurities.
I will admit that I haven't done nearly enough with Katara yet, but honestly, I'm gonna sound like a biased bastard here, she's just not as interesting as Zuko and Toph are. She's a good character, don't get me wrong, but there's not as much room to manoeuvre with her in terms of writing, regardless, I will be trying to improve in that regard.
Haven't really got anything more to say, but I hope you enjoyed the chapter, please leave a review, whether negative or positive I'd like to hear your thoughts.
