Chap. 12

The GAP

"Toph, hold on." Bosque said with a sigh, as he grabbed the young Earhbender's collar and pulled her back from the street, just like he had for the last four blocks. Since Toph couldn't see in front of her, the young girl had trouble figuring out where the end of the block was, and where the busy streets began. She wasn't bothered by it though, and refused any help from the others even though it was in her best interest. They weren't surprised by it, as Toph had always put a strong value on her independence, but the idea of having to stop her at the end of every block in the city was not very appealing to them.

"Come on, I'm sick of stopping every five minutes." Toph said, as the squirrel dragged her back. "Do you really think that these people won't stop their….."

"Cars." Bosque said.

"Right, cars, for a kid walking in the street?"

"Oh they'd try to, but people can't always stop in time." Desierto answered. "And if that happened, I have this sinking feeling that you might cause a little earthquake to save yourself."

"And that's a problem?"

"Toph, we're not trying to draw attention to ourselves." Katara admonished. "We can't bend, and walking the street with these things speeding around is going to cause problems no matter what. You need to think of your own safety as well as the group's and just try to blend in."

"Yeah, cause we need all the help we can get." Sokka said, as he tried to ignore the people staring at him. There had been a small crowd at each traffic light (no small surprise for any city) and while most of the people had ignored them, the Avatar Gang's clothing had drawn some attention. Sokka grimaced as he remembered the little kid who had asked him, very loudly, what anime character he was supposed to be. Trueno had been able to get the kid away, but Sokka's ears were still ringing. And what was that thing on his shirt? Sokka wondered. Is that what anime is? Some big guy with flaming gold hair, bending down and screaming like he's taking the biggest dump in the world? And that big metal man- thing on the back that had light shining from it like it was a god? Thank God I'm not an anime character!

"Hey man, I gotta ask, where'd you get that suit?" a voice asked suddenly. Sokka turned and saw a tall, dark-skinned man, dressed in jeans and a sleeveless blue and orange numbered shirt looking down at him.

"Uh, I got it back home in…… Chinese." Sokka said, trying to stick to the story the Knights had come up with.

"Uh, you mean China?" the man asked in amusement. Sokka quickly nodded, trying to play along.

"Still learning English, I take it?" the man asked again.

"Yeah, it isn't easy."

"Don't worry, you sound pretty good to me. Not even an accent on ya. What brings you to the big city anyway?"

"I'm part of this acrobat troupe with these guys." Sokka answered, gesturing to the others, who quickly nodded their agreement. "It's our first time here though, and we still need to get some appropriate clothes. Our valets are taking us to the GAP for them." Sokka said.

"Well you're close to it at least." The man said, gesturing to the building on the other side of the street that said GAP across it in big letters. "So where are you guys supposed to perform?"

"Um, we're performing…. In…" Sokka stalled, trying to think up any location that the Knights might have mentioned. Finally, one came to mind and he spurted out, "Brooklyn."

"And you guys are going to the GAP for clothes?" the man said in amazement. "Look, lemme show you at least one thing in case you run into any brothers over there. Gimme your hand."

Curious, Sokka put out his hand, which the man took and reshaped into a fist. As Sokka watched, the man then lightly brought his own fist down onto Sokka's. Putting his hand on Sokka's arm, the man led Sokka through a strange and complicated handshake that involved tapping, grasping, and several other variations on the basic handshake. But Sokka watched carefully and after been guided through it once, he was able to duplicate the movements on his own the next time.

"Nice! Guess Asians have more rhythm then I thought." The man said with a laugh as the light changed. "Just remember that, and you'll do fine if there are any brothers where you perform. Later." The man said as he walked off.

"Uh, thanks." Sokka said, as he looked at his hand in slight curiosity. Shrugging it off, he followed the others across the street, while Bosque and Hierro headed down the street to find the pawnshop and subsequently, money.

"Interesting custom." Iroh said, as he caught up with the boy. "I wonder what it means?"

"Sorry, trademarked secret." Trueno replied. "But you did pretty good Sokka. A lotta white guys can't do that."

"We'll talk more later." The ram said, as the group came to the doors of the GAP. Oscuridad walked to the doors first and as he came close to them, they opened up of their own accord and he walked inside. The Knights followed suit, except for Desierto, who stopped just as the doors shut behind him. Turning around slowly, the wolf saw the rest of the gang standing outside, looking at the doors and obviously wondering how they worked. Stretching out his hand, Desierto beckoned for them to come closer. They did so, until Aang was right at the door. Once he was close enough, Desierto reached out and as the doors parted for his hand, he grabbed the young Avatar and pulled him inside. Using his other hand to hold the door open, he said, "Come on guys, they're not going to hurt you. Just walk towards them and they'll open. Now come on, before I drag somebody in through the glass." With motivation like that, the group had no problem getting inside.

Once inside the store, the reactions were rather varied. Katara and Jin's reactions were pretty much slightly different versions of this;

(Happy, excited voice)"Oh my God, I've never seen so many clothes in one place before. Come on we've gotta get started (followed by running off towards most exciting looking clothing)!

As for the boys and Toph, it was more like this;

(Extreme sarcasm and disappointment) "Oh great, this'll be just like when the monks/Gran-Gran/the palace attendants/my parents dragged me to the cloth merchant. Oh, most joyous of all days."

"Come now, it won't be that bad." Iroh said. "After all, you have been wearing the same clothes for a long time now. A little variety is good for you in all aspects of life."

"Uncle, you realize it is kind of hard to get excited about clothes." Zuko said.

"Besides, it's kind of hard to enjoy variety when you can't see it." Toph added.

"True, but think of it this way. This is a chance for you to pick out what you and you alone like. I am sure that must appeal to you and Zuko, Toph."

The old general seemed to have struck a point there, as Toph thought for a moment, then began to smile and said, "All right, let's go do this. And we're staying away from dresses."

"Great. I'll help you find Jin and Katara and we can all work from there. After all, I still more about fashion in this world then you guys." Luz said, as she moved forward and took Toph's hand. As the two of them walked off, Agua asked, "So, any ideas what you guys might like?"

A while later, Aang and Iroh were off with Oscuirdad and a few of the Knights, getting opinions on his fashion sense, while Zuko and Sokka where making their way through the store on their own. Neither of them had wanted to have the Knights pick out their clothes, so they had opted to walk through the store and find their own clothes. The Knights had agreed to this, as long as the boys came back with any clothes they'd selected. But now Zuko and Sokka were starting to regret their decision, as they had no idea of where to begin looking for clothes and had gotten rather lost.

"I knew this was a bad idea." Zuko muttered as Sokka led them through another corridor of clothes.

"Oh come on, it could be worse." Sokka said.

"We're lost in a large clothing store in another world. How can it be worse?" Zuko snapped.

"Don't complain too much, I think we might've just found something we can use." Sokka said, as he gestured towards a display of shirts and pants.

"Hmm. Maybe this was a good idea." Zuko said. The clothes looked fairly interesting, with designs of dark red and blue sketched all over them. "At least they seem appropriate." The former prince said.

"So let's see what we can find." Sokka said, as he started looking through the clothes. Zuko nodded and started to look as well. After about twenty minutes, the two brothers had managed to find a pair of acceptable outfits.

"Now all we have to do is make sure they're acceptable for the outside." Zuko said, as he picked up his pile. But as he turned to leave, he noticed Sokka looking at something else on the table.

"What is it now?" Zuko asked, impatient to get his new clothes checked out.

"I'm not sure." Sokka said, as he put down his pile and pulled something up from the pile. Zuko saw that it was a strange, flimsy cloth…. Thing. It was made of very delicate looking fabric, with two large 'cup' sections.

"I think it might be a weapon or something." Sokka said after a moment of thought.

"We're in a clothing store. Why would there be a weapon here?" Zuko asked.

"Well look at it. It's probably some kind of double slingshot. I mean, you could easily spin it around, and it looks like it can hold a lot of ammo."

"Sokka, I really doubt that." Zuko argued back.

But before they could make any kind of decision as to what the strange thing was, a voice said, "Uh, what are you guys doing?" Both boys turned around to see Luz standing there, looking at them with a strange expression on her face.

"Oh hey, we're just looking around. What are you doing here?" Sokka said, quickly dropping the device and grabbing his pile of clothes again, as Zuko quickly did the same.

"The same thing as you." The fox said. "But um, why are you doing it here?"

"What do you mean? There are decent clothes here." Zuko said.

"Oh man, I wish you guys understood written English." Luz muttered to herself. "Do you know what that says?" she asked, pointing to the large sign above her head.

"No."

"It say's "Women's Department."

For a split second, the two boys looked on in confusion, then they looked down at the clothes they'd selected, noticed the sparkling designs, the size of the clothes, the curves of the pants, and threw the clothes down in horror.

"Oh thank Darya we didn't try them on." Zuko swore, as he frantically wiped his hands on his shirt.

"But I don't understand." Sokka said. "If this is the women's section, then why is this sling here?" he asked, bringing up the cloth thing.

Seeing it, Luz stared at the two boys for a long, long, moment, and finally said, "Sokka, that's called a bra. It's ladies' underwear."

"Dyahhh!" Sokkka screamed as he dropped the bra and frantically began to wipe his hands as well. "How can they just leave these things lying around?" he said.

"Oh knock it off. It isn't like somebody wore it." Luz snapped. "Look, why don't I just tell you two where to look before you get mistaken for cross-dressers?"

Both boys nodded, and the fox said, "Go make a left at that big sign there and keep going. You should find a more appropriate section in a few minutes."

The boys quickly took off, while Luz watched and smiled. "Thank God we weren't shopping for tampons." She said, as she got back to her own search. As the fox looked over at the table next to her, she looked over it's stock before finally finding the right size and color of sock. "Now if she'll just wear them." Luz sighed, as she started to make her way back to the other girls. They'd been able to pick some good outfits, but then they had run into a rather large problem. Actually it wasn't that big, but it was growing fast. Compared to that, Sokka and Zuko's problem was nothing……

"I told you, I'm not doing it!" Toph snapped again, as Luz returned to the changing room, Jin and Katara standing to the sides.

"Still no good?" the fox asked.

"She is dead set against it." Katara answered, holding her own clothes in one hand. "Are you really sure she needs these things?" she asked, holding up the sneakers in one hand.

"Absolutely. This isn't like the Earth Kingdom or even Ba Sing Se." The fox answered. "The streets are filled with heaven knows how much trash and germs. If Toph goes around barefoot, I don't know how badly she could get infected if her feet get cut. Besides, even in New York, no one walks around barefoot."

"I don't care!" Toph yelled from inside the changing room. After Luz had carefully and gently told the girl that she would need shoes in the city, Toph had responded back quite vehemently and since then had refused to leave the room.

"I've been walking barefoot since I joined up with you guys. I've walked through forests, mountains, and who knows what else and I've never gotten sick from it. So you can forget those stupid shoes!"

As Toph went back to her silent defiance inside the room, Jin said, "Wow. I knew Earthbenders went barefoot to get a better connection with the Earth, but I didn't think it was this important to them."

"It's different with Toph." Katara explained. "Toph sees with Earthbending, so she needs to be as connected as possible to the Earth to see properly. If she puts on shoes, it'll be like she's seeing through a veil."

"I see." Jin asked. "But how can Toph see with Earthbending?"

"She can sense the vibrations in the earth around her, and use it to get a picture of what's around her." Luz answered. "Unfortunately, the shoes would mask it somewhat. But it's just not possible for her to walk around barefoot."

"Can I see those shoes for a moment?" Jin asked suddenly. Nodding, Luz handed over the sneakers that she'd found for Toph. Looking over them, Jin felt along the bottom of the shoe, squishing the rubber underneath her fingers. "Is it possible to take this stuff out?" Jin asked.

"But wouldn't that ruin the shoe?" Katara said.

"No, we could take it out, and maybe Bosque could fill it in with some hollow wood. That would vibrate much better then this, and give Toph a clearer picture."

"That might actually work." Luz said thoughtfully, rubbing her chin. "We'd have to leave some rubber in for comfort reasons, but I've heard of blind people wearing hollow shoes for similar reasons. Bosque could definitely do it, and if nothing else, it's at least worth a try."

"All right, but would Toph go for it?" Katara asked.

"I can't imagine why she wouldn't." Luz asked. "She won't like the shoes no matter what we do, but I imagine she was really mad about not being able to see and having to rely on everyone to guide her around. It's a good thing I didn't mention a cane."

"WHAT WAS THAT??!!" came a yell from the changing room, as Toph stomped her way out. "Listen here furball, I am not going to walk around with a cane! I can get around just fine!" Toph snapped, poking her finger against the fox's chest. As Luz and Jin retired to calm the young Earthbender down, Katara wisely stepped back and let them go. However, as she moved back, she felt a hand tap her on the shoulder. Turning around in surprise, she saw Bosque standing right behind her.

"Wow. This is almost exactly what I pictured when I imagine Toph shopping for clothes." The squirrel said, looking at the scene behind Katara.

"Actually, it went fine until we got to shoes." Katara said. "How did it go at the pawnshop?"

"Actually, Tierra got it wrong." Bosque replied with a smile. "Apparently, it changed into a coin shop. I thought that I'd have to make a bunch of weird wooden knick-knacks, but instead, Hierro just made a little gold and silver, and the guy gave us about three grand for 'em!"

"Is that a lot?" Katara asked.

"Even in New York, that should last us for the day." The squirrel replied. "Hier is just telling the others now, and I figured this was were you guys would be."

"Actually, it's kinda funny you came here." Katara said. "You might be able to help with this shoe problem….."