TOPH
Toph Beifong was the greatest earthbender of all time.
Sure, that Bumi guy was pretty good. But he had a hundred years of experience on her, and they were still evenly matched. And had he invented a whole new type of bending out of spite and anger? Nah. He just sat in Omashu all day being crazy.
So, Toph figured, if she could train the Avatar to earthbend, why couldn't she teach other earthbenders how to metalbend?
The idea had been in her head ever since she started teaching Aang, and once she got the hang of that, her confidence grew. Obviously it was impossible to pursue it while the war still raged, but after fighting Azula and her armies, almost dying, and finally coming to Zuko's coronation in relative peace, she started to look at it more seriously.
Despite her heroics in battle and training the Avatar and literally saving the world, her parents did not re-welcome her with open arms like she'd hoped. Since she wasn't of age, she didn't have access to much money beyond her normal allowance and the bit she'd stockpiled from Earth Rumble competitions. Of course, she could have begged it out of Zuko with his piles of Firelord cash, but that wasn't her style. Toph had always figured things out on her own, so she did. She found an old firebending academy building in Gaoling that had been abandoned during the war and fixed it up for her purposes. Then it was time to find some students.
She had noticed her space bracelet start vibrating when she was out in public sometimes. At first she wondered if she were subconsciously metalbending it herself, but then it occurred to her that maybe it signaled someone's potential for metalbending. So she started trying to figure out who was causing it.
Eventually, she narrowed it down to earthbenders having emotional responses to their environment. Oftentimes it was younger kids, too young to reasonably be trained (yet), but she did find a few older ones. Since she had no idea what to expect, she decided to start with just three.
To convince their families to let them come, she preferred to rely on the clout of her travels with the Avatar over the Beifong family name. She would pull that card if she had to, but it still left a bitter taste in her mouth. But nonetheless, they all welcomed her and agreed to send their kids to her to be taught.
Her first day of official classes finally arrived, and Toph was more hyped up than she'd ever been, save the Day of Black Sun. She wanted to get started, beat some skill into them, make them great and show the world how great she was. Not that she didn't already know, but more people knowing was always nice. Thanks to meeting their families, she already had begun to form relationships with Penga, Ho Tun, and M- The Dark One.
Penga was—well, probably what Toph would have been like without an outlet for her earthbending. Minus the shoe obsession, of course. She was immature, but she seemed to pick up on things quickly and want to prove herself.
The Dark One clearly hadn't outgrown his Blind Bandit fanboy phase, which made Toph a little smug. He wasn't all that interesting besides his penchant for irritation, moping and grumpy poetry, but she hadn't been lying when she told him he had potential. He just needed some shoving in the right direction.
Ho Tun was the one she couldn't figure out. He was always so anxious, hiding something besides his embarrassment over the spider-wasp incident—she was sure of it.
But for now, it was time to start the day. She took a deep, invigorating breath and strode into her training room.
-ooo-
"Alright, lily livers, line up!" Toph commanded. To their credit, all three of her pupils immediately stood to attention despite their surprise. "You all know who I am and I know who you are, so we're not going to waste time on introductions. Today we're going to be practicing basic earthbending forms so I can see your skill levels. As you can see-" she gestured to the stone blocks across from them "-your materials are there. Start with showing me your horse stance. Any questions?"
There was silence, and Toph took a breath to move on before Penga cleared her throat. "Um, my hand is raised."
Toph pointed to her eyes, cocking her head sarcastically.
"Oh! Right, sorry," Penga giggled. "But that was my question. How are you going to see if we're correctly in horse stance?"
In answer, Toph stomped her foot on the floor, making them all startle. "I can feel where your feet are, and I can tell none of you are doing it right now."
"Sorry, Sifu Toph!" they chorused, scrambling into position. Toph stomped again to check them.
Not having any formal training, The Dark One's was the worst, but it still wasn't too bad. And they were still all better than Aang had been initially She could work with this.
"Is that the best you can do?" she said out loud. "Come on! Show me what you got!"
Penga and Ho Tun grunted, repositioning themselves and standing more securely. The Dark One made some kind of complaining noise and did the same.
"All right," Toph said. "Ho Tun, have you had formal training?"
"Y- yes, Sifu," he replied, sounding embarrassed.
"Good, you can help the others when they go wrong. Now, push those boulders to the wall," she demonstrated briefly, "like that."
They all did so, to varying degrees of success. Wait, no—Ho Tun hadn't done anything. Toph could feel him trembling, and he sniffled a bit.
"Hey, Ho Tun, rabba-roo got your ankle in a twist?" she questioned, striding over to him.
"I'm so sorry, Sifu Toph!" he burst out, beginning to cry. "I thought maybe- I thought I could- if I just-"
"Spit it out."
"I can't bend!" he moaned.
"What?!"
"I mean, I mean- I could, when I was younger, but then- well, it sounds stupid, but I think a spirit took it away from me."
Penga gasped somewhere in the background, but Toph barely noticed. "What? How?" Her mind raced with the possibility that something other than Aang could take away bending.
"Well, um, it tried to attack me and then after that I couldn't bend anymore." His voice quivered. "My sifu said I needed to unblock my earth chakra, but every time I tried it just felt like the spirit was coming for me again."
Ohh, so it was just a blocked chakra. Toph felt a weight slide off her shoulders. "Ah," she reassured him, "don't worry about that. Just be patient and don't give up, and don't try to fight it when you feel afraid." She rolled her neck around until it made a satisfying crack. "Ground yourself and focus on your neutral jing. You know how to do that, right?"
Ho Tun shuffled nervously. "W- well, yeah, but I'm not very good at it. And- and I'm not good when everyone's looking at me. Too much pressure."
"Earthbending is all about pressure, Ho Tun. Pressure and how to work with it, not against it. Let it happen, then move along with it. It's not your enemy." Toph closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, then back out, to demonstrate. "See? Pressure." She moved the earth as she breathed.
"Not my enemy," he repeated thoughtfully. "Not my enemy. I'm working with it, not against it." He set himself in his stance more solidly again and breathed in. "Pressure is not my enemy, not my enemy."
Toph almost yelled at him to shut up as he kept repeating that last, but thought better of it just in time, as his body relaxed and stiffened at more regular intervals. Suddenly he shoved forward, moving his boulder a tiny bit.
Penga clapped and cheered, and The Dark One didn't make any snide comments.
Ho Tun stood there a moment in shock.
And then- "I did it!" her pupil practically screamed in her face, then audibly slapped his hands over his mouth. "S- sorry, it's just that I haven't been able to do this in … almost ten years." He sounded like he was about to cry again.
Toph panicked. She slapped him on the back heartily.
"Well good job, then. Don't stop there, keep going!" She pointed in the general direction of Penga and The Dark One. "And you two, stop gawking and get back to your exercises!"
"Yes, Sifu!" they replied with opposite levels of enthusiasm.
-ooo-
They trained the whole morning in basic techniques, Ho Tun still marveling at his refound ability. He grew more confident as he went, even if his force was less than the other two. The Dark One had the most control over precision, while Penga, despite her youth, had the most power. Ho Tun was somewhere in the middle, but his stances were the best.
"Sifu," Penga moaned. "How much longer do we have to practice? I'm tired!"
Oh, right. She was used to gauging the time by where she felt the sun, and they were inside. "Ten more minutes. Then we'll have lunch. Now, forward stance!"
Her pupils lunged forward again, panting. It reminded Toph of her early days of sneaking out, practicing outside the Earth Rumble arena with whatever leftover pieces of earth she could find—like how she'd found The Dark One. She'd pound her daily frustrations into the ground, imagining she was burying all the people forcing her to act like a timid, helpless, high-society girl. But it was never enough. She would always have to go back home and pretend to be that again, day after day.
One day, she happened to overhear some of the arena-goers talking about an open challenge for anyone able to cough up the cash. Toph's heart leaped at the opportunity, and from there, it was only a matter of begging her father for some spending money and sneaking out like she normally did, and she was in the arena for the first time as a competitor. She stood on the stage, flexing her toes on the smoothed ground, and basked in the praise—the first time she had ever been recognized for her talent and not her status. Toph wiped the floor with all her opponents, and then Aang—ugh. She didn't hold it against him anymore, not really, but it still stung in the moment.
Anyway, if these kids were anything like her, Toph had nothing to be worried about. She had always prided herself on being able to read people, despite her limited knowledge of body language. But people always had verbal tells, and what she couldn't read in their faces showed up in their attitudes. Penga, Ho Tun and The Dark One all had excitement plain to her, even with their different ways of showing it. They would be great, because Toph would make them be great. Not as great as her, of course, but still great. She was sure of it.
-ooo-
"Alright, lily livers!" Toph declared as they walked back into the training room after a lunch they had all devoured heartily. "We're getting right back into it, so stretch again and I'll teach you how to metalbend."
"We're doing it today?!" Penga squeaked. "Oh my spirits I am so excited!"
Ho Tun cheered. The Dark One started to as well, then seemed to check himself and turned it into a poorly disguised grunt of uninterest.
Toph smirked. "What, did you think I called this a metalbending school so we could practice warmups?"
"Uh, no, Sifu, I'm sorry-"
Toph cackled. "Don't worry about it, just line up."
They did, and Toph bent three pieces of metal toward their rock piles, relishing the gasps as she did so. "Alright," she said. "We'll start small, not because I think you can't handle it, but because it's different than normal bending." She gestured to the metal chunks. "These all contain earth, just mixed in in tiny pieces. That's what you'll actually be bending, so focus on those. Any questions?"
Ho Tun cleared his throat shyly. "Um, could you show us again?"
Toph picked up his piece, moving slowly so he could see it. "The way you move is important, sure, but you also have to feel it," she reminded him. "Maybe even close your eyes." She shrugged, and added a little more quietly, contemplating: "Maybe it only works if you can't see. Not like I would know any different."
Penga gasped. "You don't know? But I thought sifus knew everything!"
Toph bit her lip. Oops. She cleared her throat and scowled toward Penga. "Was I talking to you, shrimp?"
"N- no, sorry Sifu Toph."
"Anyway," Toph continued, a little edge in her voice, "if there are no more questions, please begin trying to bend that metal."
Cue overexaggerated straining and groaning.
Toph rolled her eyes but stayed silent. Her pupils continued their attempts, panting and grunting as though they were carrying mountains.
"Don't push so hard," Toph reminded them. "Just focus."
"But I don't wannaaaaa!" Penga started crying. "And I want my shoes back!"
"You'll get them back when you're done!" Toph barked. "Although if you keep whining, I might just go back on that."
Penga fell mostly silent at the threat, but still grumbled under her breath about a "meanie sifu."
"I don't feel the earth," Ho Tun complained. "How am I supposed to focus on it?"
If only Toph could teach everyone her foot trick. She rolled her shoulders back. "What do you feel?"
"Ummm…I don't know. The ground under my feet?"
"Can you feel the earth in front of you?"
"Not…really?"
Ugh. Maybe they did need more basics. "Work on that first. If you can't feel that you're never going to feel the earth inside of metal."
"Okay…" Ho Tun stepped closer to his boulder, like he needed to make sure it was still there. "Should I close my eyes or something?"
"Yeah, do that." Toph could have kicked herself. Some teaching that was. Maybe she had assumed they were more self-sufficient than they actually were. Could she even do this right?
She shook her head slightly, trying to clear her thoughts. Of course she could! She was Toph Beifong, the greatest earthbender and first metalbender of all time! She just…had to get through today.
She clapped her hands sharply. "I hope you were listening to that, Penga and M- The Dark One, because I'm not repeating myself every time."
"But before you said-"
"Shut up!" Toph scolded her. "I'm sifu, not you. We clear?"
"…yes, Sifu Toph," Penga returned glumly, along with an equally dreary response from The Dark One.
"Alright," Toph sighed. "Now focus on your boulders and where they are…"
-ooo-
"Sifu?" It was the first time The Dark One had spoken in a long while. It had been two hours, or two days, somewhere in that range. "They are tired, and may need a rest." His voice betrayed his own unmentioned exhaustion.
Penga gave an emphatic "Yeah!" from her sprawl on the floor, still a bit wavery from crying at her last failed attempt.
Ho Tun sighed. "Yeah," he admitted, tapping nervously on the wall he was slumped against.
This isn't giving up, Toph reminded herself. There will be more days. She stood up straight, nodding. "All right, lily livers, pack up! Make sure you're here bright and early tomorrow, and get a good night's sleep!" She poked Penga's side, earning a yelp, and gestured them toward the door. Slowly and stiffly, they picked up their shoes and bags and clumped outside.
"Bye Sifu!"
"Bye Sifu Toph!"
"Goodbye, Sifu."
When the door finally closed, Toph sunk to the floor with a sigh. Even training the Avatar wasn't this hard! At least he had enough physical prowess, she just had to deal with his mental stuff. But kids? They were exhausting.
Admittedly, she was a little worried that none of them had been able to so much as budge any of their metal, but it could easily be chalked up to first-day jitters. It…just would have been nice to know that she wasn't completely out of her mind trying to teach them something most people considered impossible.
But for now, she needed to rest. No matter what, she'd be no use with no sleep. Running away from Azula that one time had proven that. She chuckled lightly to herself, recalling more fond memories of her knucklehead friends. They had stuck by her then, and she was more than sure that they would now, whatever happened.
Even if…no, she wouldn't fail. Even if it was a little rough at first, Toph would live up to her stereotype of being stubborn. She yawned, stretching her arms behind her back. Tomorrow was full of possibilities, and she couldn't wait to see what was next.
AN: And that's a wrap! For this one, anyway. I hope you all enjoyed the ride despite how slow the posting was haha