They had been on Ember Island for a few days when Sokka and Suki returned from the nearby town with two alarming pieces of paper.

In the intervening time, Aang had been rotating his training. One day he would do a couple of hours of earthbending with Toph, the next firebending with Zuko, Waterbending with Katara, non-bending combat with Suki and so on and so forth. Inquiries had even been made about having Ty Lee teach him chi-blocking. The rest of the time he spent enjoying himself.

The first was an advertisement for a new play that was being put on on the island- specifically, a new play about them. It had paintings of people who looked vaguely like the eight members of Team Avatar, as well as Azula and Ozai looking menacing on the top. The bright golden letters on the paper gave its name as "The Boy in the Iceberg."

"They're going to absolutely butcher it, I can already tell," Mai said glumly.

The second piece of paper was a newsletter, detailing what the Fire Nation's brave men and women were getting up to in the field.

"Why should we be interested in Fire Nation propaganda, Sokka?"

"Because it says that the Fire Army is conducting operations against partisans in the area of an Earth Kingdom town called Gaoling, and that 'prominent supporters of said partisans' have been arrested."

"And?"

"Well, do we know anyone prominent in Gaoling who the Fire Nation might want to target to get at us?"

"Oh no." Toph sat down heavily.

"My parents live in Gaoling."

"How would they be able to tell who your parents are?"

"I come from a very old and wealthy Earth Kingdom family, which means I have a last name- Beifong."

"Oh. Yeah, that would do it," replied Zuko.

"They were never good parents, exactly. Once they realised that I was blind, they refused to let me do anything because they considered me too helpless. People in the town didn't even know I existed."

She smiled.

"Still, didn't stop me becoming the greatest Earthbender to ever live, but my father didn't learn about any of that until Aang, Katara and Sokka came to Gaoling and I beat up several Earthbenders in front of him. He still didn't take the hint that I was actually able to look out for myself, so I ran away to teach Aang earthbending."

She stood up again, filled with a newfound resolve. "They might be overprotective fools, but they are in a Fire Nation prison because of me and so I should go and bust them out."

"Then I'll come too," Zuko announced. "I did resolve to right the wrongs of the Fire Nation and now seems as good a time to start as any."

"What about the rest of us?"

"You're on holiday, remember? Aang has training to do and the rest of you have relaxing to do. Besides, if we go charging in there mob-handed we will draw attention to ourselves."

"Speaking of which," Zuko rounded on the Avatar, "just because we're away, don't think you're going to get out of your firebending practice so easily. If I find out you've been slacking off..."

He let the implied threat hang in the air for a second.

Aang nodded. He knew that Zuko wouldn't really do anything to him, but not doing the firebending would make his life harder.

"Same goes for me. If I find out you haven't been doing earthbending- and I will find out - I will flatten you."

There was nothing implied about Toph's threat.


The next morning, the two of them got ready to depart for wherever Toph's parents might be held.

"Good luck!" Aang called out.

"Bring back a souvenir!" Added Ty Lee.

"I will!" Zuko smiled at her and hugged Mai goodbye.

"It's a shame you can't stay here," she said.

"Well, I never did like it here..."

"That's a lie and we both know it."

"Fine. But this shouldn't take too long."

"Be back soon! We need Appa back, apart from anything else!" Sokka told him.

Zuko snorted. "Charming."

Eventually, with their goodbyes said, Toph and Zuko boarded Appa.

It was a new experience for Zuko to be actually flying Appa, and a sign of how much he was now trusted by the group that he was allowed to.

Or maybe it was just that if he tried anything, Toph would wreck him. It was fortunate that Zuko had no intention of trying anything.

"Yip Yip!"

Together, Zuko and Toph rose into the sky. The Earth Kingdom awaited. The rest of Team Avatar waved them off for a while, before eventually making their way towards the beach.

Toph and Zuko flew onwards in silence for quite a while.

"So, do you know where we're going?"

"I think so. It's quite a way to Gaoling, but we shouldn't have to go that far. According to the paper, these prisoners were moved to a Fire Nation fortress called Fort Azulon."

"So we have to break into an advanced Fire Nation base then. Do we have a plan for that?"

"I have my ways. I was an exile for three years, and then a fugitive for a few months. I have knowledge of Fire Nation bases in the area and the ability to sneak in."

Toph seemed disappointed that the plan didn't involve just bursting in through the front door and taking the fortress in a straight fight.


The two kept flying for the rest of the day, before making camp on one of the easternmost islands of the Fire Nation for the night and making the crossing to the Earth Kingdom the following day.

The Earth Kingdom was just as Zuko remembered it; vast, and desolate.

He didn't really like it there.

As they came in to land near a village on the western coast of the Earth Kingdom, Zuko steeled himself. This could be a trap.

They hid Appa in a nearby forest, donned Earth Kingdom disguises, Zuko becoming Lee from the tea shop once more, and then walked into town. It was run-down, and many of the houses were deserted; Zuko saw scared faces peering out of doors and windows at them and swiftly vanishing. A pair of Fire Nation sentries observed them warily, but made no move towards them.

"Fort Azulon shouldn't be far up the road."

"Why are we here then, and not there?"

"We don't want to hang around making them suspicious before we strike."

"So how do we pass the time? And how is Prince Zuko going to get into a Fire Nation fort when he's so recognisable?"

"Uh, I don't know, we make conversation?" Zuko smiled. "But Prince Zuko isn't going to get in."


"If your parents were so bad, then why are you risking your neck like this to rescue them?"

Zuko immediately regretted asking the question. Toph tensed up.

They sat around a fire in the forest, cooking a meal they had bought the ingredients for in the town and chatting.

"Because it's the right thing to do. And they are my parents, whatever else they may be."

"I'm glad you're able to feel that way."

"You don't?"

"My father is literally the Firelord, the man you've spent months trying to overthrow."

"And your mother?"

"I... don't know what happened to her. She vanished in the night a few years ago, the same night Firelord Azulon passed away and Ozai came to the throne."

"If she was in danger, would you attempt to rescue her?"

"Absolutely. She was just as much a victim of Ozai as I was- as Azula was."

He looked at her. "Hey, maybe they'll even acknowledge how powerful you are once we've rescued them."

Toph snorted. "Don't hold your breath. Last time I tried the "beat up a room full of powerful benders in front of them" strategy, my father imposed harsher restrictions on me."

She had a question of her own. "You said earlier that you weren't going to enter the fort. What did you mean?"

"Oh, I said Prince Zuko isn't going to enter the fort."

He reached into his bag and brought out a familiar mask, of the type traditionally worn by performers in Fire Nation theatre.

"But the Blue Spirit is."


Night fell over Fort Azulon, and the shadows gathered outside its walls.

The darkness provided the perfect cover for two figures to slip in close to the base of the walls.

Both were dressed entirely in black, and both wore blue masks, but one was much taller than the other, and wielded two curved swords. The other was unarmed.

The Blue Spirit and the Blind Bandit worked their way around the base of the wall, looking for their entrance. They eventually found it, in the shape of a sewage pipe.

The Spirit really wished Katara were there in that moment. Still, the Bandit made do by ramming a large circular section of Earth up the pipe, preventing anything nasty from hitting them as they followed behind it. Once she was sure they were through the wall, she then ripped her way out of the pipe and dropped down into the interior of the fort.

The mess that was sure to follow was not going to be their problem. The Spirit briefly thought about how much he pitied the cleaners at this place given what they would have to do come the morning. Once in, he took the lead, weaving in and out of cover, making sure not to alert any guards.

They had a near miss at one point, turning into a corridor just as a patrol came round the corner from the other direction, but they were able to dart back into cover just in time.

The Spirit kept his eye out for the cells, but it was the Bandit, who had seismic sense after all, who eventually found them. She marched up to a locked doorway and put her hand over the lock, before jerking it towards the centre of the door. There was a click, and the door swung inwards.

On the other side of it, a row of cells stretched down a corridor. There were no guards about. The Spirit shut the door after them as the Bandit marched down the corridor.

The Spirit realised that the Bandit probably already knew which cell she was looking for.

Then the Bandit halted in front of one of the doors, and took a deep breath.


"Who's there?" A familiar voice came out of the darkness.

"Father?" In spite of everything else, Toph suddenly felt very small. Zuko had taken up position a while down the corridor, keeping watch.

Toph felt her father move towards her in shock. "Toph?"

Toph fumbled at the back of her mask, in an effort to get it undone. It took a lot longer than she would have liked, but in the end it did. Meanwhile father moved to wake up mother, and they crowded to the front of the cell with plenty of questions.

"Toph! Where did you go? We were so worried about you! We thought the Avatar had kidnapped you!"

"The Avatar did not kidnap me, thank you very much. I went of my own free will."

"But why?"

"Why? You know why! He offered me what you refused to- the opportunity to live my own life!"

She breathed in and out in an effort to calm herself down. Getting angry was pointless, and she was not here to berate her parents.

Well, maybe later. Right now there were bigger problems.

"Me and my friend," she began, deliberately using the wrong sentence structure, "are here to get you out. You're in here because of me, and I intend to change that."

"You shouldn't have come."

"Why not? Do you still think I'm too weak? You saw what I did to those wrestlers, and I can metalbend now."

Father laughed hollowly. "That teacher did say you were the best Earthbender he'd ever seen."

Toph provided them a demonstration of her new abilities then, by tearing their cell door clean off its hinges.

It clattered to the floor, and there was silence for a good 20 seconds as her parents took in what they had just seen.

"Well? Are you coming or not?"

Just as she said that, she felt movement down the corridor and knew that it was too late.

"I'm afraid, Miss Beifong, your parents are going nowhere. And neither are you."


At the approach of footsteps, Zuko had drawn his swords and taken a fighting stance. His hopes of singlehandedly dealing with whatever threat emerged were dashed, though, by the arrival of what seemed to be most of the garrison. Their commander stepped forward, and delivered the opening threat.

"Wait, how do you know who she is?" Toph's father protested.

"She's blind, she's small, she can still somehow see despite that and she's here to rescue you. It was quite obvious."

He looked around, confused. "Where are your friends, girl? I presume that's one of them, and I intend to find out which one, but there are eight of you are there not?"

"You sound disappointed."

"We went to all that effort deliberately spreading the location of your parents' imprisonment, this doesn't seem like a large enough return."

So this was a trap.

Toph looked to have come to the same conclusion. Instead of looking defeated, though, she turned around to face the commander and his men. Zuko noted the stance she assumed.

"Father! Mother!" She barked.

"Yes Toph?"

"Watch this."

She turned her head slightly. "And for Spirits' sake pay attention this time."

With that, the Blind Bandit launched herself at the Firebenders, and the fight was on.

Zuko stared as she manipulated the Earth underneath her to slide under the first blow, and launched that Firebender head first into the roof. She followed that by grabbing the nearest cell door, removing it from its hinges and launching it at another guard, who was knocked against the wall. A third punched at her, only to miss and have his fist hit the wall. As he cried out in pain, the wall swallowed his hand, trapping him in place.

Zuko was so engrossed in the fight that he forgot that he should have been helping, while Toph's parents were by turns worried sick and beginning to offer words of encouragement to her.

The Commander came at Toph with a sword, which she caught using her metal bending and ripped out of his hands. She then punched the air towards him and ducked as a huge section of wall flew over her head and collected him, knocking him back several feet.

Eventually, Zuko decided that he should probably help as well, and so ran at the nearest guards. The first was distracted by Toph and had no situational awareness, so it was easy to club him over the head with the hilt of his sword. The second, though, was paying attention and launched a fireblast at him.

Zuko rolled out of the way, and went on the offensive, slashing at the guard with his swords. Before he could bring the fight to a successful conclusion, though, his opponent received a brick to the head and went down like a sack of rice.

"I had that!" He protested, but Toph had already moved on. There were by now three guards left, and Toph bodily picked up one by metal bending his armour and threw him down the corridor before sinking the next into the floor.

The last guard, seeing that he had run out of friends, ran away.

Toph smiled, out of breath, and turned back to her parents.

"Do you still think I'm helpless?"

Neither of them spoke for a very long time, trying to comprehend what had just happened.

"Well... clearly not."

"We should go."

Toph led the way out of the corridor, and made her way towards the outer wall. As she approached, she put her hands together and parted them again, and an opening appeared in the wall. Zuko and the Beifongs walked through to freedom.


Back at their camp near the village, the four of them sat around the fire, awkwardly.

"So... you're friends with the Prince of the Fire Nation." Toph's mother said politely.

Zuko may have been the enemy, but he was still royalty and the Beifongs were accustomed to high society.

"Yes, he joined us at the South Pole, and has been helping us ever since."

"You're really helping the Avatar end this war?" Her father asked.

"Yes, father, how many times do we have to go over this?" Replied an exasperated Toph.

He sighed. "I'm sorry, Toph. We just saw what you did back there, but... it's new for us. We went from having a helpless daughter to a great bender."

"Sounds to me like you would prefer the first option."

"No! But that's what we thought we had, and it will take a while to adjust. We didn't want you going out on your own and now you're going to fight the Firelord."

"I'm not going to fight the Firelord, Aang is."

"Still, this may be a change for us, and not who we thought you were, but... we're proud of you, Toph. Thank you."

Toph's father changed the subject.

"What shall we do now? We're a long way from Gaoling."

"When this war is over, I shall see to it that you have nothing to fear from the Fire Nation." Zuko promised them. "Just like everyone else in the Earth Kingdom and beyond."

"But until then, I'm afraid you're just going to have to lay low."

The two of them only nodded, and lay down to go to sleep.

"Tomorrow, we should be getting back to the others," Toph said.

"I hear there's this great play in town that we should go and see..."


Two days later, the tranquility of Ember island was interrupted by the return of Appa, with Zuko and Toph on his back.

"How was it?" The others crowded around the saddle, asking a million questions, as Toph and Zuko carefully dismounted.

"The prisoners were indeed my parents, and we did rescue them."

"Well, Toph mostly rescued them. She took on something like 15 guards at once and won!"

"It's Toph, what did you expect?"

"It wasn't what they were expecting, that's for sure, but, presented with proof that I wasn't helpless, I think they believed it."

"Took them long enough!" Sokka laughed, and they moved towards the beach again; Aang had some training to catch up on.