Oh my goodness! Finally, another chapter! I know that's what you're all thinking, and I'm sorry for the delay. Last week was busy. But here is another chapter for you. And the next one is half-written, so that should be up in a couple days.

Anonymous I Think - Rui and the other students are in their low teens, like 13-14-ish. Give or take.

Thanks for all the reviews, as always. They keep me going! :)

Chapter 26

Weaklings. Wouldn't even make it through the first round of an earthbending tournament. Toph had expected a more interesting fight from Hari's lackeys, but apparently it was not to be. And she had been so excited about the prospect of real combat again! Ah, well. Luckily enough, Toph was an adept enough bender to make even a fight against these dullards interesting.

There were four of them, and though initially their numbers had made them cocky – particularly when they found out they were fighting someone who couldn't even tell what color their hair was – a few minutes in, and they were getting wary. Scared, even. But Toph wasn't about to let them run off. She tried a bit of ribbing to bait them. That usually worked with thick-headed mercenaries.

"You know, the only sad thing about this situation – besides your fighting abilities – is that I won't be able to see the looks on your faces when I beat you individually into the ground." She paused in consideration. "Then again, you're probably so ugly I'm lucky I can't see you." Toph's quick duck was informed by steady ripples along the ground about ten feet ahead of her. To make the men even angrier, she finessed the evasion into a casual bob of the head. A rock of considerable size skimmed her hair. "Oh, really? That's supposed to hurt me?" She laughed derisively.

A couple more stones predictably came her way and she avoided each of them in turn, taking up a defensive dance which, to rile them up even further, she made to look as accidental as possible. At one point, she even feigned a trip to avoid a couple boulders that were thrown at her from either side. She heard the two benders groan in annoyance and disappointment.

"Hey, Tophie!"

"Ty Lee?" Toph leaned back and bent her legs to let another rock pass harmlessly across her body. "Why aren't you out paralyzing people? I can feel a pretty big group of these idiots scaling the far wall."

"On my way to help with that, actually. But Katara asked me to deliver a message. Um, something like, and I quote, stop fooling around and beat 'em up."

Toph groaned. "Oh, come on! One, she's not the boss of me. Two, I'm enjoying myself for the first time since I don't even know when." She crouched under another poor attempt at earthbending and lifted an arm, sending a pillar of rock under the jaw of the unlucky attacker. He yelled in pain.

"Oh? I heard you've been having plenty of fun with Aang latel-"

"Shut up, Stretch." Fine. If Katara wanted to suck the fun from every situation, then so be it. She'd beat up the annoyingly boring earthbending squadron.

"Alright, guys, sorry to disappoint, but the dance is off. You don't have enough rhythm for a woman of my talents."

"Do those talents include making out with the Avat-"

"Shut UP, Stretch!" To emphasize her point, Toph bent down to reach her hands to her right ankle and threw her arms up, lifting arms and torso in a smooth arc over her rooted feet, and ending with her hands gripped tightly together at her left ankle. As she did this, a wave of earth burst from the ground at her right and curled with a rushing sound over her head, ending at her left with a impact so strong it shook her chest. Toph was now protected from view by a small dome of rock. But while they couldn't see her, she knew exactly where the four benders were.

Toph stacked her fists on top of each other and twisted. With the motion, the dome above her cracked and split into four even sections, each fully facing one of the benders. She fell to her knees and spread them on the ground, solidifying her stance, then punched her fists upwards and outwards, sending the four slabs of the igloo flying in all directions. Three of her opponents caught their respective rock full on and fell unconscious. One of them, the only one with any real talent, barely avoided the hurtling mass by flipping over the top of it with the use of one hand.

But while he was in the air and falling toward the ground, Toph spun toward him, drew a boulder from the ground, and propelled it to the point in the air where his torso should have been, based on a rough estimate of the arc of his jump and the height of the dome wall that Toph had sent toward him. Toph was a little off, but by the sound of his cry, instead of his stomach, Toph had hit him a little lower. The man was completely incapacitated and ended up down on the ground, groaning in agony.

Toph grinned, pumped her fist in victory, and sealed her foes with belts of earth. This was too entertaining. She laughed and ran after Ty Lee's retreating foot-beats.

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"Alright, that should be enough, Tami." The chubby girl was breathing heavily as she bent one last barrel of water from the outer wall to the courtyard pond. Katara and Rui were slowly swaying arms and bodies back and forth, maintaining a large dome of water bounded by the pond's stone wall. It rose to a height of about ten feet above their heads, and given the pond's size, Katara thought they had enough water to do what she planned. She only hoped Ty Lee and Toph would get everyone out of the way first.

"Yeah, come on, Tami. Help with this. I'm getting seasick with all this swaying."

"You're not the boss of me, Rui." But Tami took up a position at Rui's right and started swaying along with the form. Her pigtails bounced with each turn, and Katara noticed Rui staring at the girl's hair, fascinated.

It was a look she'd seen before, on the face of someone who had been gazing down at her lips at the time. She remembered the heat in his expression, his breath on her cheeks, his mouth hovering over hers…but why hadn't he kissed her? Katara blinked. Why had she expected him to? She was angry at him for attacking her in the first place! Escape plan, my foot.

Katara shook her head to clear it. "Focus." The command was more for herself than her student, but Rui blushed and turned back toward the water dome.

"Right. Sorry."

As Katara continued to sway, she risked a glance over her shoulder to see how Retzl and Paetr were doing. It looked like Toph and Ty Lee had reached them and were helping to keep the soldiers away from Hari's trapped form. Katara couldn't do anything with the water until they were all safely on the other side of the pond. Hopefully now that help had arrived, either Retzl or Toph would be able to unblock the doorway. But those soldiers were tenacious, and they kept coming over the wall.

How many ladders were there, anyway? Fifteen? No matter. As long as she could direct this mass of water enough to funnel it out the door, she and the students would be able to bend enough of it to the side to wipe the wall clean of the things. And if she was lucky, she'd take out most of the soldiers in the process.

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Retzl ignored the protests of her struggling father and stepped towards the blocked door. The two waterbending students who had arrived minutes ago were now efficiently blocking incoming soldiers from getting in her way. Whips of water laced back and forth in front of them. They were pretty good, Retzl had to admit.

Retzl sighed. The students – Lina and Sora – had told her that Katara wanted the door down, but until Toph and Ty Lee had shown up, they had all had their hands full fighting off the swarming horde of soldiers. Why were these idiots so dedicated to her father? She couldn't understand it. He had no estimable characteristics to recommend him. Maybe he had just bribed them all. Retzl heard Paetr at her back and felt renewed fury at her father for manipulating him. She directed that fury to the task at hand.

Her feet planted, she swung each arm one by one in a forward arc, as if pounding down a stake. With two strokes, the wall fell back into the earth it had so recently escaped. Done and done. Now to get Hari out so they could move him. This wasn't quite as easy a task as trapping him had been. She had to be careful not to crush anything vital. Although if he lost a finger or two, really, who would complain?

Deftly, she pulled rock away from the heavyset snake in small chunks, knowing she was supposed to hurry yet not willing to let Hari get away by dying. But even as she worked, Retzl had to smile at the two bending teachers behind her. Even as they fought off groups of five or six soldiers at a time, they spoke to each other as if they were sitting down at a tea shop.

"I said to drop it, Stretch."

Retzl heard a loud crack as of rock on bone. That had probably hurt. She was tempted to turn around to see.

"I only asked what it feels like to-"

"I know what you asked, and I'm not going to answer you!" Another two cracks in rapid succession. Toph was punctuating her conversation with earthbending.

"Why not? I mean, you must have an opinion on the consistency of the-"

"Consistency?" A thud of rock against flesh. "That's the word you choose to apply to my make-out sessions?"

"I'm just curious, Toph."

"I'm not telling you-" Another crash, this time as if two boulders were hitting each other. "-anything about that."

"Aw, no fair. You don't tell me anything fun anymore."

Retzl heard a couple male grunts, and then the thudding sound of two bodies hitting the earth.

"Have I ever told you anything fun before?"

"Good point." Another set of grunts, and another set of thuds.

"Is that a new paralysis technique?"

"Yeah, two at a time. So much more efficient."

"Very nice."

Another chunk of rock pulled from the ground, and Hari was free enough to move. Retzl threw Paetr a grateful look, noticing he had bent a strip of ice around the man to prevent him from bending. Now to move out of Katara's way…

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"Okay, we have to go!"

Toph grimaced and punched another soldier in the jaw with a rock-coated fist. What was Katara's plan, anyway? Toph felt some sort of shifting mass on the other side of the courtyard. She could only guess at what it might be.

"What do you mean? I thought we were trying to clear out these soldiers." Oh, now that was a satisfying crack. Toph grinned and pulled back her fist, hearing the man crumple. What was that, twenty-three, now? She'd have to pay more attention. She was sure Ty Lee was counting her victories and would be more than happy to compare later on.

"Too many of them. She's gonna sweep them out with the pond."

"Come again, Blondie?"

"Sweep them out. With the pond. Anyway we need to get over there before she does. And I have to keep track of my father, so could you back us up while we go?"

Toph shook her head. "Katara is more insane than I am, sometimes." She cracked her knuckles. "Don't tell her I said that."

"I am so going to tell her you said that." This from Ty Lee, who nimbly downed another adversary, giggling with delight as she did so. "But I think we should go now, Toph. Katara won't be able to hold onto that water for much longer."

Toph really didn't think this was a good idea. "If she can barely hold on to it, how can we expect her to bend it?"

Paetr spoke up, fighting as he did so. "Actually, I think she should be able to just release the water and give it a general suggestion of where to go. If that makes sense." He paused to avoid a few attacks. "Which is why we need to get out of the way, I think. Otherwise we'll be caught up and dumped out with the soldiers."

Toph raised an eyebrow. "Okay, Smartypants. You've convinced me. And I guess it's too late to stop her." She sighed. "Well, what are we waiting for?" She turned toward the shifting mass, where she assumed Katara was holding back a deluge. "Let's get over there. Blondie, wanna help? Just copy my form."

"Right."

Toph smoothly windmilled her arms and locked them slightly behind her hips, her fingers splayed. Then she scooped her hands forward and up, crouching down as she did so. "You guys might want to hold on to each other. This is gonna get bumpy." With one final twist of her wrists, the earth beneath the group – Smartypants, Blondie, the captive Sir Porkius, Stretch, the two waterbending students, and Toph – raised up about two feet. Toph started punching her fists forward, towards the opposite wall. With each punch, the disc moved forward. Blondie, bless her quick-learning heart, figured out the move, and started punching on the offbeat to Toph's rhythm, such that the disc started almost gliding across the courtyard.

"Not as smooth as a waterbending ride, but we'll get you there in half the time." Toph grinned at the sweat tickling her eyelids. Others were not so content with the sudden transportation.

Toph heard some groans of protest. One of the waterbending students had fallen to her knees. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

"Hold on, Lina. We're almost there."

Ty Lee laughed. "In other words, wait to vomit until we can get away from you!" She giggled some more.

At the sound of liquid hitting stone accompanied by a telling smell, Toph knew the child hadn't been able to follow Ty Lee's advice.

"Oops."

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Alas, no Zuko yet. He's probably in transit. Gasp – or maybe he was attacked by bandits on the way! Oh noooooo