A/N: Heh. Toph in Wonderland. You thought you knew Alice in Wonderland? Well welcome to my version. And now the moment you've all been waiting for! The battle!!! Bring on the angst and the blood. (gets out the popcorn and tissues.)
Summary: AU. Taang. What I need is a different sky... She killed off all I love in a moment of time... now she's mine... There's a place where the puddle can take me... to another world... Belief and disbelief, love and hate, forgiveness and revenge...
Pairings: Taang, Zutara, Smellershot, Jemai and Ty Lokka (Among others.)
Warnings: Slash, Femmslash, my perverted brain and OOC like whoa.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the plot, but I did rewrite most of the actual Alice in Wonderland thing… with help from Frank Beddor, who wrote the very wonderful Looking Glass Wars.
L I N E B R E A K
Azula stood up and smirked, "Why hello, your Highness…"
She jumped down from her high throne and made her blue fire in one hand. Zhou and Long Feng were busy with Jet and Aang, and Toph's other friends were in the middle of card battles. Much clanking all around them.
Toph readied the marble under her bare feet. She still wasn't used to wearing shoes even though she could see through her eyes as well as the next person. She narrowed her eyes at the still scantily clad woman in front of her.
"Ever heard of wearing long skirts, Auntie?" Toph asked.
Azula threw the lightening ball at her, but she blocked with her piece of marble.
"Yes… but it's more fun to lead men on," Azula replied, stepping forward with her right hand and punching. Lightening poured from her fist as Toph let the first marble stone back into the floor and took up another in front of her face.
Azula scoffed quickly and ran toward her estranged niece. Toph blocked her punch and kicked. Azula fell to the ground.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Auntie…" Toph cooed, punching a rock at the woman as she tried to get up.
Azula smirked at the ground and suddenly sent lightening in Aang's direction.
Toph wasn't fast enough, "Aang! Watch out!"
Jet looked over at his fighting partner as the lightening hit. Everything seemed to go in slow motion for Toph. Longshot shot another arrow, piercing another card guard and ran over to the wounded Aang. Smellerbee took over double time, but Zuko and Katara came to her, and they all went back to back as they fought the card guards. Jet narrowed his eyes at Long Feng and Zhou and kept fighting, as if killing Long Feng and Zhou would avenge Aang, if death were the small dodo boy's case.
Toph put a hand over her mouth as the tears started pouring out of her eyes. She bit the palm of her hand, causing it to bleed slightly. She licked the warm blood off her hand and turned to the now standing Azula.
"My name is Toph Heart, the Rightful Queen of Hearts. If you killed him…"
"I don't know what I did, Princess…" Azula replied.
Toph screamed and pounded the ground hard with her foot, causing a rock to fly up in front of her. She spun around and kicked at the rock as hard as her tiny legs would allow. The rock went to Azula so fast that Azula was knocked down. Before Azula went down, though, she shot at the young princess with a ball of lightening that hit the small girl in the shoulder.
Katara, Zuko, and Smellerbee were out of breath, but they continued on valiantly.
"Man… these things never stop coming!" Zuko panted.
"It's Long Feng and Zhou's magic… they conjure up more as we split 'em in two…" Smellerbee replied, looking over quickly at Longshot and Aang. Longshot had dragged the unconscious dodo bird to the side and had given the small boy his shawl thing.
But Smellerbee had let her guard down. She was whacked in the side of the head with one of the card guard's many weapons.
"Smellerbee, no!" Katara yelled as her friend fell down. Longshot looked up from tending Aang and stood. Zuko punched the nearest card guard with some fire and it melted to the ground, disappearing. He quickly left his future Queen of Diamonds to drag Smellerbee over to Longshot, keeping a careful eye on the card guards and the others.
Mai moved herself and the card guard she was fighting over to Katara's battleground. Zuko looked at his friend with apologetic eyes and then began fighting a particularly brutal card guard.
"Give up, Kitty Boy," Long Feng said, putting up another wall as Jet tried to slice at him.
"Never… my friend could be dead… I thought you two were good. You had the best stories to tell Princess Toph… remember the Walrus and Carpenter? MY story? Those funny little nursery rhymes?" Jet asked. "Am I gonna have to tell them to Katara and Zuko's children? Sokka and Ty Lee's? Toph and Aang's? Smellerbee and Longshot's? I mean, if your little toys and your precious queen haven't killed them already?"
"Who says your going to live through this, you mangy animal?" Zhou asked, punching fire at him. Jet blocked with his swords and thrusted both at the twins. They fell on the floor, dead.
"Two down… about thousands more to go…" Jet said, walking over to them and pulling the swords out of their gushing bodies.
"Good job, Jet!" Mai panted, "Now the card guards will… stop coming!"
Jet smiled at his beloved and entered the fight with the last of the card guards. Longshot joined soon after, making things a bit faster.
Up on the marble dais, Toph and Azula were still at it.
"You killed everyone I love… Mom, Dad, Aang?" Toph shouted, thrusting another rock at the woman, "I thought you were family!"
Toph had found that every punch she thrust at the woman she remembered something from her childhood. She remembered Aang when he was a dodo bird. She had met him in the garden, hurt and almost dying. She had asked her mother if she could keep it as long as it was hurt. Her mother said yes, and Toph had nursed the young bird back to health, and watched him fly away, only to come back in the summer. And every summer after that. On the day before her parents' death, Ursa had turned him human.
Another time, Azula had come to visit when Toph was eight. Azula had taught Toph how to fight, and Long Feng had taught her Earthbending later.
That was why Azula and she wasn't getting anywhere. Azula knew what she was going to do next.
Then time to try something different… Toph thought, smirking. She felt eyes on her. All her friends had defeated the card guards and were watching her. Longshot was tending Aang and… was that Smellerbee? Oh… not her Queen of Spades! Not Longshot's Queen of Spades!
Toph breathed in slowly, still holding her burnt shoulder. Stepping forward, she made her flat hand go in an inward cutting motion, making a small, gopher-like trail up to the soon-to-be-ex Queen of Hearts. Azula wheezed as she was forced to do the splits, turned away from the small heroine.
"Mai! Knife! Now!" Jet yelled, catching on to Toph's plan.
Ty Lee jumped up to the dais before Azula could stand and blocked her chi in Azula's shoulders and the tops of her legs near her pelvis.
"Ty Lee… I'm surprised that you and Mai—"
"And Jet," Ty Lee put in, smirking.
"—and Jet, decided to turn on me…" Azula finished, unmoving.
Mai, with great agility, threw up a knife straight into Toph's hand. Toph motioned for Ty Lee to back up and the Pansy obeyed. Toph put the knife to Azula's throat and the Queen of Hearts gasped as the cold metal touched her. Toph, with no feeling, stabbed the woman in the throat and slid the blade slowly across it.
"Off with your head, Auntie…" Toph said slowly.
The sun was rising through the skylight window in the ceiling… wait… the sun was rising…
Ty Lee smiled, "The sun! Oh! I haven't seen the sun since Iroh was alive!"
Toph smiled weakly and blacked out, feeling herself sink to the floor.
"PRINCESS!" Ty Lee and a few others shouted.
A/N: Smellerbee: Oh, thanks a lot, Toph-sama.
Toph-chan: Didn't I slit Azula's throat in Elemental Chaos, too?
Toph-sama: Yeah, yeah… anyway. I think there's one more chapter, and then the sequel is going to start with Toph's marriage… since, you know, Ty Lee and Sokka will already be married, and so will Zuko and Katara… and heck, so will Smellerbee and Longshot!
Aang: You have the sequel in mind already?
Toph-sama: Well… maybe the wedding will be a prologue to Toph and Aang with CHILDREN!
Zuko: What? I'm going to have grandnieces and nephews?
Toph-sama: YES!
Iroh: GRANDBABIES!
Toph-sama: You're supposed to be dead.
Iroh: Sorry…