AN: HAPPY FANFIC-IVERSARY EVERYONE! Rise and Fight turns 1 today! Enjoy this extra long, extra angsty anniversary chapter everyone!
But first, role call!
Thank you to Ambiguity in D Major, AUehara, B00kFan, Bardur, BooksAreMedicine, cerokun, childofthegarlicbreadassassin, ChubbyTabby, Cindar, Daughter of the Cedar, diesfromfandoms, enticement, EvilAngel310, EvilPopcorn, fallenangelsofolympus, Fanficer112358, fanheart1296, Flip Ants, Goikuchan, Goldenbrook15, GuardianXAngel, Heavensguard, Iris Irine, Justonefan, kat1114, Kimberly T, M. , Magyk Knight, Malevolent Dark Reflection, Melantha963, Mommy'sLittlePyro, mon-petit-pois, Mr. Haziq, Nilinara, NNeko, NorthOfTheFuture, Ourozero, prodigious11, qazkara, RedHerring1412, RhiannonGrey, S'hana Zi'ah, Sea of Crossroads, Sewrtyuiop, , Soirreb, soul Eater Herondale, Soulessazn, StarLuce, The Arcticourt Spellwright, The Guardian White Wolf, TheRealSokka, UmbreLab, Violet Avrie, viva la bee, whattheDalek, WriterGirl7673, yoko.25, Yumi Take, baesharam, BarnabusAmbrosiusIII, BBLimits, bionicle45678, catchstraw, Cuetlaxcoyotl, Drako90451, eloquentstars, Emerald Sage, Furryfuzzy, HatethePlayer-NevertheGame, idiocypersonified, JellybeanTango, Kage Getsuga, Kageriah, kittycat1810, lilo202, mousecheesecake3, NatNicole, NellYgermany, Night13, nikesilvermoon, NotReallyAQueen, novelreader, of-the-sunshine, PokeSpeBanette, Quinnec, rudefool, Sara Snow, sarahxcrawford, Sea of Vinegar, Southern Hearts, Stereophonic Aftershock, SundarDibujar, The Quiller, Thunderblade14, Tragic Songbird of Eddis, ValkyrieVeela, Vandenberg, Wings As Eagles, XSilverXGoldXSonataX, for reading, following and favoriting.
Special thanks to Kimberly T, NatNicole, Yumi Take, SpiritMonkey, Quinnec, Vandenberg, mon-petit-pois, Sam, WriterGirl7673, PokeSpeBanette, S'hana Zi'ah, Malevolent Dark Reflection, XSilverXGoldXSonataX, Tragic Songbird of Eddis, diesfromfandoms and Reality Rejection Service for your reviews, and making this story even better. And all you guests. You definitely brighten up my day.
Also, it seems I have misjudged the canon position of Tu Zin. For the intents of this story, Tu Zin stands west of Gaoling.
Speaking of anniversaries, for those of you have read my story, Revenant, I feel obliged to give you an update as the anniversary of its completion passes. A continuation is in the works. Not a sequel, mind you, but something more like an end piece. I'm really excited for it, though. If you haven't read Revenant and Ghost!Zuko sounds at all interesting to you, feel free to head that way.
Thanks for sticking around.
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The first day passed slowly. Much too slowly.
They trained in a huge, mismatched cavern of natural caves and earthbent pockets. Stalactites hung high above them and a little stream gurgled between two stone badgermoles on the other side of the cavern.
Two boulders stood proudly at the center of the room, unscathed, unscratched and unmoved. They would have been laughing at him if they could. Toph laughed for them.
Aang sat against the stone and buried his face in his hands. When would the day end? He's too homesick to focus, too frustrated to even stand and the task of earthbending loomed over him so menacingly that it controlled him more than he controlled it. Toph's mockery didn't help.
"You really hate this place don't you."
Did he really have to answer that? "I just hate being so… trapped." He was on the verge of screaming, but as he looked up and met nothing but dull, brown earth, he could only muster a sigh. "I'm an airbender. Air needs to be free."
"Let me tell you something about freedom, kid. And it's got nothing to do with space. Because let me tell you, if you dropped me out of the sky, I would not be feeling free."
Aang huffed at that. Toph continued her monologue while waltzing around the cavern, offhandedly calling up walls of stone to shatter. She seemed disinterested in her own words, which only made Aang feel even more mocked.
"Freedom's about having control; being able to choose what you want to do and doing it. And you're the Avatar. You can control everything, save people maybe, but you might figure that out too."
He stood shaking a little, whether from fatigue or anger or disbelief, he wasn't sure. You can control everything. That was as unlikely as sunlight in the Underground, but Toph continued, brushing dust off her armor.
"Feeling trapped isn't getting you anywhere. You hate this place? Free yourself." She said it plainly enough, but Aang heard the taunt loud and clear.
Free yourself. As if it was that simple. As if she believed he could do that. Freeing himself from the tunnels was a longshot in itself, but to free himself from his greatest burdens, his duties, his expectations; that was impossible. They stacked over each other, layer by layer, crushing him like dark, choking earth.
Aang laid a hand on the nearest cavern wall. Earth. His heart pounded slower in his chest, as if it had found the right beat to dance by. He closed his eyes and imagined the stone shifting and cracking to the surface, the soft loam compressing and gravel turning to dust. The wall pressed back, stubborn. I can control this. For just a moment, the stone walls felt less like a barrier but more like a canvas.
Free yourself. His hand fell back to his side. His heart quivered and all of a sudden he became keenly aware of Toph standing behind him, feeling his every move, judging him, probably sneering. Anger welled. He couldn't do it; she knew that, didn't she? More than anything, she shouldn't want him to. Freeing himself, running away, shedding his obligations; that would destroy everything she'd ever worked for. He couldn't leave. He was the Avatar, and he was trapped in this prison, prodded forward by fate and bound to his destiny. He could change nothing; not even a stone would bend to his will.
"I can't control anything!" His arm tensed. For once, Aang let his anger translate into force and he regretted it before his fist even touched the stone; mostly because it didn't. Where his hand should have connected with the wall was a crater as wide as two strides. At the center of it, air brushed at his knuckles.
"Well." Toph looked on with some sort of grim amusement. "I guess there are things we can't control. But dirt is definitely not one of them."
Shame coursed through Aang's veins, but awe left everything else in the room fuzzy. Toph laid a hand in the crater.
"Pretty good. Determination's better fuel for earthbending than anger, but we can work on that later. I feel like there's a lot that you'll be changing around here."
Toph left the cavern and the rest of the day passed by a beat faster.
Weeks washed away like dust along the stream bed.
Mornings, or at least what passed for mornings in that sunless place, were eaten away by training. Mindless work filled his time afterwards, usually chipping away at the cavern, widening it little by little, until dinner was called. Evenings were calmer, spent around a brazier in the command room, dining on whatever rations they found that day.
It was dull, but not maddeningly so; in fact, when the cavern was large enough for Appa to roam in and when the tunnels started to fill with soldiers and messengers milling around and awaiting orders, it's wasn't really bad at all.
The tunnels were warmer with bustling in the background. Toph smiled more, and not that crude grin that she used to favor; the one she wore now was unmistakably mischievous, and a lot more happy.
He reads her letters for her, writes her replies and, when the paperwork's done, they sit back by the warmth of the fire. She's not at all a sentimental person, Aang suspects that with the battering position she held, it would be nearly impossible to be one and still sane, but some nights she'll stare up at the ceiling, draw a long breath, and start.
"Reminds me of old times." A story was bound to follow. They weren't sugarcoated as Katara's tended to be, nor calculated like Sokka's; just plain and spontaneous and usually nothing but tragic.
...
In the north, speaking of the rebellion was practically taboo. He gleaned whatever information he could, but it was usually slow, fruitless work, and the more he learned the less he seemed to know. In the end, Aang wasn't really sure if he wanted to know.
He didn't have much of a choice with Toph. War stories were her favorites, and there were many nights when Aang found himself hearing them over a blazing fire. But she told them well, and when stories weren't told in vague, bitter whispers, they took on a sheen of reality.
Katara and Sokka had fought in the rebellion; he knew that. He didn't know that Sokka and Toph had lead one of the most successful line of raids in the history of the war. (They were prison breaks. A bulk of the earthbender population had been held on barges off the shore of the mainland. All it took was a respectable plan of attack, a bit of sailing and being aware that coal and steel were decent ammunition for earthbending. Then it was a matter of rinse and repeat.)
Katara had once held down the Serpent's Pass from a fleet of warships long enough for an entire battalion to pass. She and Toph had been thrown in prison together in some backwater colony, which they promptly broke out of and liberated. (She had looked like a monster on that pass, but it didn't last long. She was back to fawning over everyone like a mother turtleduck when they reached the other side. As to how they ended up in prison, well, in short, Toph had gone on a bought of gambling. The escape itself had been such a throwaway experience that no one back at camp had realized they were gone.)
Then there was Zuko, dragon of the rebellion himself. Their meeting at Tu Zin hadn't given Aang any insight into the man. Aang realized long ago that he was just a failure away from being in that man's shoes.
"Bit of a grouch. Helluva leader. Drama queen, if you ask me." Toph told of him coldly when he came up, and that was often, but she gave him credit where credit was due. Often, she'd fall deep enough in the past to forget the contempt he was held in the present, and the story went on with that air of adventure.
(She'd once caught him sneaking off at night with dao swords strapped on his back and a wooden mask over his face. He had been headed to a stronghold to free their captives, an operation that had been vetoed by the council that evening. When they'd first met, underneath Gaoling as the annual Earth Rumble had come to a close, he wore red and gold that made the other fighters' heartbeats squirm. "I heard this is where I could find some warriors." They had taken back the city barely a week later.)
It was battle after battle, adventure chasing adventure like heartbeats. Her words were enthralling, but less like an innocent circus act and more like a duel to the death being played out in front of him. Worst of all, when silence started to spread, Aang was reminded whose blood was bound to be spilt.
On the nights where stories chased away sleep, he wondered whether the Water Tribe had been wise in keeping the rebellion in the quiet.
After his first lesson in metalbending, Aang stared at the door for hours.
It was one of the several steel doors that led out of the little bubble of the base Aang knew. On the other side would be a guard or two, skilled enough in the art only to move the steel pistons within the locks and allow passage to those deemed an ally. In the months he'd lived under the Si Wong, he'd seen the door creak open and closed hundreds of times and caught glimpses of the torch lined walls on the other side.
It was bewildering to think about. Even if just half of the labyrinthine etches he saw on the map were accessible, he could still probably walk out there and navigate himself to the Outer Wall of Ba Sing Se without having to set a foot on the surface world.
The surface world. He's not sure when he'd taken to calling it that, but he did know that more than anything else, he wanted to be out there. The tunnels weren't suffocating anymore, in fact it's almost homey in ways, but he yearned to see the sun and feel the wind carrying him high into the sky. The open airs were as much a part of him as the tattoos on his skin. They'd been apart for too long.
Ability had blocked him before, but today, he'd finally gotten those stubborn coins to fling themselves into the cavern wall. After he'd spent a few minutes gazing in disbelief at the entry holes in the earth, Aang's legs steered him straight to the door.
He could bend the steel just a few inches, enough to unlock it and then...
"You know, if you wanna go; just go."
Aang didn't jump, not physically at least, his flightiness had been crushed flat some time ago, but guilt seized him cold. "I - I wasn't going to…"
Toph rolled her eyes. "Horrible liar. Don't waste your breath."
"You're - You're not afraid of me running away?"
A smirk rolled onto her face. "Here's the thing, kid. If you ran away thinking you're ready to face whatever's up there, then you probably are." She threw an arm over his shoulder like they were old buddies and led him closer to the door. "If you left because you couldn't handle it anymore, you're too weak to be worth training anyway."
The comment might have stung a few months ago, but a smile finds its way on Aang's face. "I'm going to take that as an, I trust you."
She snorted. "Whatever, kid. The world's a mess. One day you'll be begging to have it back nice and easy down here."
"I don't think that day is today, though."
"Ha." Toph flicked her free hand and the door gave a familiar clunk. She gave him a slap on the back, maybe for reassurance, maybe to propel him out into the firelit tunnel "Take a hike, kid. When you get back, maybe we can talk about taking that bison of your's on a walk."
"The first tunnels were paved in blood."
It was one of her worst stories. He should have known there was nothing good to be heard of Tu Zin. He remembered his time in the icy north, years ago, staring down at an ill defined map as Sokka traced a finger over a line that snaked from south to north. Even then he had faltered as he passed the town, even then his eyes had gleamed with pain.
It was early in the march. Their numbers were occupied with the tribespeople of the south, a few Earth Kingdom citizens who had banded with them from the last town, their crew from Gaoling, herself and Zuko. When they entered the ghost town to rest before making the final stretch to Gaoling, morale was strong.
Fears of pursuit, which had constantly overshadowed them at sea, had been left at shore. It proved fatal.
"They came in the night." Toph's voice was flat and indiscernible. "A low blow...but effective."
Some were smothered in the flames, others crushed by falling timber; those would be the gentlest deaths that night. Their forces razed as easily as grass in a dry field, and she wanted nothing more than to be as blind in the night as her allies. Bodies fell like raindrops, heartbeats burned to the ground.
Their enemies had surprise, numbers and a psychotic Firelord on their side, the perfect ingredients for a slaughter. Lightning crackled, agony rang in the air.
She had been ready to die that night, young, as she'd always expected, but in a moment, as if she herself were struck by lightning, she found the idea detestable. She felt Katara, that spirited, foolhardy girl who'd never had a day of training in her life, fight with what little water she had against an enemy she could never defeat. Her brother scrambled through hostile ranks, drawing attention, signing his own death warrant, sword in one hand, the other dead at his side. And Zuko, he stood in a sea of enemies, more fire than man. She saw bravery as tangible as the stone beneath her feet, something fiery and worth defending. And she did not die that night, rather, she learned that retreat was always a viable option.
Dust swelled into the sky, infusing itself with the smoke filled wind.
She bounded into the pit at her feet and shouted for them to follow. She widened the tunnel, willing it to go deeper and deeper and deeper… Shuddering breaths echoed behind her, her own joining the chorus as they ran. She doesn't know how many perished in those tunnelways, whether from untended wounds or exhaustion or crushed underneath the stones she caved in, but there are too few footsteps.
They reach Gaoling. The world smelled of death.
But the damage had been done, and somewhere in those blood watered stones a barrier had shattered inside her, and love and hate burned more fiercely than she'd ever felt it before. The world smelled of death, and a fire had been lit.
He was deep into his second autumn, likely his dozenth journey through the tunnel ways, as he lead Appa through Si Wong Pass, a tall, smooth limestone passage that lead to the eastern shore of the Earth Kingdom. From there, it would be a short flight to the Eastern Air Temple.
Aang whistled an old tune as he walked, which echoed through the winding, torch-lit tunnels. It helped keep the ghosts at bay.
The melody stuttered for a moment, as footsteps played through the ground. He felt them long before he heard them, and it would be longer still till he saw who they came from. He felt two pairs, one lithe and graceful, more at home in a royal palace than in a mildew stained burrow, and the other steady and firm, characteristic of an earthbender.
Despite the graceful gait, the former seemed to have a heaviness pulling at their frame, as if their clothes were lined in lead - or laden with hidden weapons.
Aang kept whistling. The next turn opened into a stretch of hall, where at the end, two figures interposed the usual bleak of the tunnel. Even from a distance, Aang could distinguish the red and black robes of the woman on the right, the more nimble footed one.
The Fire Nation apparel alarmed him for a moment, but he quickly proved it irrational. Plenty of Fire Nation soldiers had revolted against their country and joined the rebellion. Another woman walked by her side, in green garb, barefooted, likely an earthbender. If they were hostile, Aang could simply cave the place in.
They met in the middle, Aang halting his song and the two dropping their words.
The red clad woman gave the two airbenders a fleeting glance. Her face was pale and distant. "The Avatar?"
"Yup, that's me. I'm Aang." He offered a hand in greeting. She accepted the gesture hesitantly, but didn't offer a name in exchange.
She made eye contact with her companion. "I guess it is true."
"I was rooting for it." She smiled slyly and shook his hand as well. "If you see the Chief anytime soon, tell her the place is seeded."
Aang didn't know what to make of that, so he told them he surely would. The earthbender kept up a few more rounds of idle banter (Where you going? You're younger than I thought you'd be. Your bison's pretty cute.) while her companion stayed aloof. Her eyes had turned from cold, to plain hostile.
The earthbender laid a hand on her friend's shoulder, which was not appreciated, said her farewells and led them both away. He didn't continue his journey till their footsteps were out of his range.
The red robed one reminded him too much of too many people. Her eyes were filled with emotions Aang had seen too many times over. Hate and loathing, regret and blame, and sadness. There was always sadness.
He decided not to mull on it. Aang lead Appa deeper and deeper into the halls, whistling away the darkness.
"Box of standard rations. Cured jerky. Dried fruit." Aang read the script written on the side of the crate. "Ugh. Canned sea prunes."
"Good, good." Toph was leaned against the wall, stifling a yawn. Inventory check was a staple task every week, a rather dull one, with only sporadic deliveries keeping the job from being wholly monotonous.
He reached for a parcel crammed in between the crate and the storage room wall. It was soft, wrapped in brown leaf and tied up with twine.
He read the label. "Common citizen outfit, two pieces. Special order #247."
"Oh." A little bit of light caught in her eyes, filling them mischief. "That's for you."
Aang stared at the parcel for a moment, before turning to his sifu, who rolled her eyes. He took that as a go ahead. He set the package on the rations crate and started untying the rope.
"A few days late," Toph remarked. Aang pulled the twine free, revealing a pair of dusty brown and gray clothes. "But I thought they might let you blend in a little better when you go on your little adventures."
He pawed the cloth, which felt warm and soft, when he suddenly spotted a hint of orange behind the surface gray. His heart quivered incredulously in his chest.
"And that… I thought you might want it when the time comes." Aang pulled the robes out from the back of the parcel: orange and yellow cloaks, brown trousers, and a red sash. "They're a few sizes too big, but you're what? Fifteen still? You have a few growth spurts left before you'll be needing that."
A smile broke onto his face. The colors of the Air Nomads seemed foreign in the ennui of the underground, but so familiar and bold and beautiful in his own eyes; he couldn't help the rush of joy he felt.
Aang turned to Toph again, making the first step towards her and wrapping her in an embrace and saying thank you, thank you, thank you a dozen times over until the word became devoid of meaning. She met him halfway, wrapping him in a headlock and grinding his head in a noogie.
"Yeah, you better be grateful! Had to make a special order for that. Had to find a tailor, buy the cloth, find the dye. So much trouble for a lightfoot like you."
Both laughing, Aang somehow wrestled the hold into a hug. "Thank you, thank you, thank you. This means so much to me."
He wasn't sure why, perhaps being wrested away so savagely from his home had made him painfully attached to it, but the idea of being able to face the world in his people's colors filled him with giddiness, but also a certain type of bravery. For once, he felt willing to face anything.
Toph smirked again. "And here's the best part." She stamped a foot on the ground, willing a section of floor to launch a long staff of wood into the air and right into her palm.
Aang stared at the sandalwood pole in awe. "But… how?"
Toph shrugged. "I knew a guy who was completely moon-eyed for your little airhead culture. I pulled a few strings."
The glider was laid in his hands. He gave it a light tap on the ground, and straight, onyx wings sprouted from the staff. He could almost feel the wind carrying him high, high into the sky.
He mouthed another thank you.
Toph fixed her eyes on the staff, and for a moment, a forlorn expression washed over her face. Then, like a quick change artist, a tired smirk fixed itself in its place.
"You can thank me tomorrow in training. I except 110 percent, no, 120 percent, Avatar." She stifled another yawn. "Have fun with your toys. We can finish inventory later."
She hesitated. Before she left the room, Toph gave him one last smile. Her eyes glinted lowly; something worn and tense and inconsolable.
"Rebellions don't die overnight."
It was simpler to say they do, less messy, less convoluted, but it wouldn't be true. Rebellions had to be kicked down and choked out and locked away; dying quietly would have been a kindness.
The start of the end, she remembers, was carried on the backs of messenger hawks. The strike on the Fire Nation had failed. The news spread across the shore like a tidal wave, and with it came fear and outrage and anger, all misdirected and incoherent and wasted. She had spent too many nights stiff with despair, too many nights that could have been spent reining those emotions into fatal action.
The Fire Nation took back the coast, slaughtering any allies that tried to return from the siege. They were pressed back from Ba Sing Se. Somewhere in the cold, distant sea, a ship carrying the fire of the rebellion was set ablaze. Behind the walls of Omashu, panic rocked the streets and coursed through the tunnel ways.
Red and black gathered around the city, primed, but never striking.
"Would have been better if they did." The flames roared as Toph poured the rest of her drink in the brazier.
Aang's voice is barely above a whisper. "They didn't attack?"
"No. Even worse." Her eyes were cloudy, whether from the liquor or the memory, he wasn't sure. "They called a grace period."
The offer was laid. She hadn't thought twice of it; it was too glaring a trick and her loyalties were too entrenched to even consider it.
They were given a month to turn themselves over to the Fire Nation and declare themselves a servant of the empire. If they did so, they would be returned to their homes, and if they paid their taxes and acted like a good little slave, they would be spared from the Phoenix King's wrath.
It was a load of komodo dung. She'd rather burn alive than ask mercy from the man that had razed her home and slaughtered the few people she called friends.
But hope was a hard thing to keep, and too late did she realize that not all her troops were as ready to face death as she was.
She could never sleep at night, too haunted by the footsteps she felt of dozens abandoning the city. She never stopped them. When the fires rolled over their walls, Omashu was but an empty shell.
He dreamed of phoenixes and ash and bloody swords when he was awoken by a deafening crash. It reverberated, the sound still shaking in the air when another crash echoed. His heart pounded. He leapt from his bed and peeked out his door.
Toph swept through the hallway, her armor unscathed, a golden sun glinting at the center of her breastplate. A helmet was tucked under her shoulder, metal gloves adorned her fists and a dagger listed at her belt. Two soldiers flanked her side.
She walked three paces past his door before whirling back to face him, eyes like white fire. "If you're going to stick your nose into something, do it with pride at least."
Aang slinked into the hallway. "What - what was that?"
Toph scowled. "Get to the bunker."
He stood there for a count of ten. His hands shook. Toph always answered his questions, no matter how painful it might be to hear them.
"But…"
"Go." She gritted her teeth and disappeared into the hallway. Another crash boomed from the darkness, like the heartbeat of the earth itself.
He clutched his arms, mind still groggy from waking up, ears still haunted from Toph's words. Was it a test? It took only one order to destroy Toph's world; she knew more than anyone else that some orders were made to be broken. Was he to follow her?
Get to the bunker. Toph's sightless eyes seemed to bore into him. Go.
She knew that there were orders that had to be broken, but Toph knew better than anyone else to never give orders lightly.
He ran for the bunker, and locked the door behind him. The room opened up just as it had years ago, quiet, desolate and unmovable. He fell to his knees before the dais.
Crashes boomed somewhere far, far away.
His eyes were bleary and his breath shallow, but the display before him caught Aang cold. The rubblehad been cleared off, the mountains remade, and new cities decorated the surface. Little blue flags painted the north. Green markers swarmed in the Si Wong and scattered around the Earth Kingdom. Red counters washed over the dais and encircled the green of the desert.
In the center of it all, a golden yellow coin glittered.
Crashes roared in the dark; the sound of stone and fire hurled against metal. Aang had never felt more trapped.