AN: Hey, guys. Thanks for all of your wonderful reviews and your support! It's really heartwarming and encouraging. And well, for those complaining about the length of my chapters…sorry! It's only going to get longer as the story progresses .;
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Friday, May 24th, 3021
District 59, Omashu, Earth Kingdom
3:34 PM
"We have arrived at the city of Omashu. It is currently 3:34 PM on a Friday afternoon, May 24th. Thank you for traveling with us on the Earth Continental and we hope you come back soon."
With a loud hiss, the automatic train doors slid open, unleashing a hoard of passengers out into the already crowded subway station. The peculiar sense of organized chaos that reigned in the city subways only intensified at this new addition, so no one noticed when a small slip of girl, dressed in a thin green T-shirt and loose knee-length black nylon shorts, emerged out of the train with them, pushed along by the current of people flowing out into the station.
Stepping out of the metal confines of the train, Toph let out a relieved sigh when her bare feet pressed against the hard stone tiles of the subway underground.
'Thank the Spirits for stone floors! I hate that stupid junkyard metal…'
The station was packed with well-dressed men and women, each of them busily hurrying to their destinations, and the vibrations of their obnoxious footsteps—coupled with the cacophony of a hundred different voices holding their own separate conversations—was enough to disorient Toph, which served only to infuriate her already frayed nerves.
Toph Bei Fong paused to scowl at the enormous crowd amassing around the subway corridors before diving into the crowd, rudely shoving her way through the tides of overdressed people and giving a vicious glare to anyone who so much as looked at her oddly.
Even as she swam through the crowd record time, a grumble of impatience rumbled from her throat.
The anticipation was killing her, she wanted to hurry up and taste what life outside of Gaoling felt like, and experience what it felt to finally be free and in a completely different city so far from home.
But from the vibrations she could feel pounding within the earth, there was little more here than steel cages and an avalanche of a thousand stomping footsteps bouncing against the tile floors.
Finally pushing her way through the oppressive crowd of self-important men and women, Toph emerged from the musty and overcrowded corridors of the subway and into the afternoon light of the city of Omashu.
She inhaled a deep breath of air, taking in the smell of the city—a lurid mix of animal feces, human urine, and choking carbon monoxide smog. The whispering voice of the earth tickled at her feet, reporting of a decadent city densely populated with sodomy, crime, and hubris.
Her brilliant smile, lighted in expectation of a bustling utopian metropolis—it was supposed to be the most romantic city in the world, after all—fell in the harsh face of reality.
Suddenly, the idea of finally being free and independent from her parents didn't seem so glorious. What was there to do in a place like this? There was no burst of energy, no new fragrance of life that she always imagined she would feel when she finally escaped Gaoling with no intentions of returning—ever.
Was this the smell of freedom? The feeling of independence she had so longed for?
Toph shook her head, 'What a disgusting place.'
*****************
Hall of Destiny, Spirit World
A dream of endless possibilities lay at his doorstep.
It was a room, an endless room, filled with an oppressing shroud of darkness that permeated every corner—stretching toward the very edges of oblivion. Darkened and shrouded in this endless fog were hundreds of thousands of characters, personas, emotions, and other transient snippets of existence that played themselves out before his eyes.
A shadow—no, a silhouette—appeared in the black haze, and the misty darkness seemed to swirl around it, enveloping it with all the care of a lover's gentle touch.
Lost and alone, he stretched toward the obscured figure, accidentally bringing forth a blaze of brilliant blue light at the motion. The flash of light leapt out into the darkness, and the mist parted before it, rewarding him with a brief glimpse of a woman, dark skinned with bright azure eyes that stared out at him through the darkness.
She reached out to him beseechingly, her arm stretching like a bridge crossing over the abyss, but the dark veil swung back just as quickly as it had parted—consuming the woman entirely and leaving nothing more than a clear echo of her voice ringing in the shadows.
"Why didn't you tell us you were the Avatar?"
The mist shifted again as his outstretched hand, risen in an attempt to take her hand, fell back to his side, abandoned.
Beautifully clouded green eyes burst into existence just inches from his face—gifting him with an intense gaze that expressed a thousand indescribable emotions in just one glance—
"Do you really think friendships can last more than one lifetime?"
The eyes closed shut and turned away, disappearing into the fog, but a flash of recollection had burst into his mind, a memory of clasped hands—a small hand, rough and callused fingers from use but smooth palms, deceptively small.
He stepped back, startled as brief flashes of memories and experiences suddenly swelled in his head.
Like a crack in a dam that first trickles before unleashing a deluge of water, he was suddenly besieged by a clamor of visions suddenly playing themselves out before his eyes—simultaneously painting a picture of a thousand existences unraveling themselves all at once. Figures began phasing into existence, crowding the shadowy room with their numbers and packing the room like sardines until suddenly their bodies were pressing against him, jostling him roughly around.
Before he knew it, he was suddenly swimming in a sea of moving bodies and, with them, an ocean of memories from thousands of lives, thousands of existences.
The dark mist began shifting—swirling into a furious maelstrom of shadow as it coalesced into a monstrous typhoon as hundreds of glowing blue eyes suddenly stared out at him from the darkness. He was spinning, soaring, as the raging storm seized him from the shuffling crowd, like a withered twig torn off its branches by an unstoppable ocean, and sent him soaring into the sky—buffeted by harsh winds.
Piercing even the harsh screaming of the wrathful typhoon, a thousand voices spoke in flawless unison from the endless darkness below him—their combined voices suddenly echoing unceasingly off the walls of darkness, as if they were suddenly in an enormous canyon.
"Awaken, young Avatar, and grasp the Destiny of which you have been given. You are our adopted descendant, the forged legacy of a legend that has disappeared from this world for centuries. Ever since the Reincarnation Cycle was broken five hundred years ago, the world has been thrown into an abyss of chaos unlike any other time in history.
"We stand now on the brink of oblivion, as humanity's connection with the elements wanes and drowns—forgotten in the eternally shifting tides of war. You are all the world has left, the Avatar spirit's last ambassador to the world."
"However, tread lightly, Ambassador. You must exert your might with restraint, for your power and legacy is unlike any of those before you. Your potential for creating sheer, raw devastation is only matched by the ferocity of the entity you hold. You must be wise in the use of such power, lest you tip the world beyond the edge that brinks oblivion."
"You are not one of us, and you never will be. But you are all we have left. Godspeed, young one!"
The screaming winds from the tornado suddenly disappeared, and the darkness parted into light—brilliant, blazing white light that obscured everything.
*****************
Underground Ruins, Omashu, Earth Kingdom
4:12 PM
"…Ugh…"
A tremulous hand slipped onto the shattered earthen floor below and the limp body of a small child collapsed onto the ground, kicking up a small dust cloud that quickly filled the tiny enclosed space.
Dazed gray eyes opened slowly, their stormy depths unfocused as they gazed at the blurry world before them.
He was in some sort of tiny cavern of some sort, as he was entirely surrounded by walls upon walls of broken up rocks and…rubble?
It was some sort of miniature tunnel, walled in on all sides by mountains of shattered debris—fissured concrete, twisted metal, and all—with an enormous Plexiglas cylinder with steel reinforcing supporting the entire underground structure. Over on the far side was something similar to a ramp, formed by jagged metal and busted rock that twisted upward, highlighted by a continuous stream of sunlight that illuminated the tiny place.
He frowned, sweeping the tiny pebbles and dusty soil that had collected on his body.
'Definitely some kind of ruins' he noted, gazing at the twisted sticks of metal that jutted out from the walls.
He stumbled toward the lighted ramp, but a sudden wave of nausea washed over him and his legs gave out—he crumbled once more onto the floor with a weak gasp.
Bile flooded up his throat, and he had no choice but to let it spew out on the ground in front of him. A putrid stench choked the stale air around him and he tore his eyes from the greasy mess, as the remains of the unknown fluid elicited another wave of nausea.
Swearing in frustration, he fumbled around blindly and his hand crashed against something hard and circular—it was that cylinder thing.
Clutching to the cylinder to help lift himself off the ashy floor, he took a glance at the reinforced cylinder and a flash of reflected light off of a silver tag caught his eye.
Project Avatar: Specimen A4179
It was embedded in clear, blocky script near the bottom of the cylinder's base.
He traced the imprinted letters with his finger, feeling a hitch catch in his throat as he gazed at the impersonal letters.
'Specimen A4179…'
Hadn't he fallen out from something when he woke up? Had it been from this cylinder?
He only had a vague recollection of ashy, debris-littered dirt falling into his mouth before becoming conscious.
He gritted his teeth, trying to remember what had happened…and how he had gotten into his place.
Vague flashes of color flickered in his mind, images of a billowing red cloak collapsed onto asphalt floated into his mind before he felt a vicious jab against his skull—forcing him to abandon his thoughts and grasp his head as the tiny cavern spun nauseatingly, threatening to make him vomit all over the floor again.
'Who AM I?' He wondered, as he collapsed onto his knees. He couldn't remember…couldn't remember anything at all.
But the image of large block letters embedded into unforgiving steel haunted his thoughts. The numbers and letters were swirling in his mind, and they began to rearrange themselves in the darkness behind his eyelids.
…Specimen A4179…
…A4179…
…Aa179…
…Aan9…
…Aang.
Blazing blue eye sockets slammed open.
*****************
District 51, Omashu, Earth Kingdom
4:26 PM
Toph jerked her head up, suddenly snapping to attention as her usual laid back demeanor completely evaporated.
Wiping a stray smear of ketchup from her lips, Toph leapt off her plastic stool and slid out the door of the fast food restaurant, abandoning her surprisingly delicious meal of overly salted fries and a greasy cheeseburger.
She walked out onto the city sidewalk, taking care to avoid several glass shards from a beer bottle lying on the floor, and took a deep breath, tuning out the pervasive cacophony of city life—that nigh omnipresent sound of chattering conversations and rumbling automobiles.
She stretched her vibration sight to its very limits, painting a picture of her environment with the sonar pulsations of the urban jungle around her. A myriad of vibrations assaulted her feet—the intermittent beatings of a million human hearts pulsating at their own rhythm, the heavy tremble caused by a hundred cars lining up on the streets, the stomping of shoes against concrete and asphalt, the splattering of a spilled drink, the screaming of machinery in the nearby factories, and…there!
And tiny, gentle vibrations—like the sound of a silver wind chime ringing gently in an utterly silent room.
That was the curious sensation she had sensed before, a vibration so light that it seemed almost alien in a world full of stomping feet and grating steel. Once she isolated it, its gentle tempo stood out alarmingly, like the ringing of a cell phone in the middle of a movie—easily overwhelmed by the sound of the theatre but, once heard, unmistakable.
And it pulled at her very soul, a forceful tug that had dragged her off of her stool and into the dirty street without her realizing. Something about the noise had been so rejuvenating and familiar that it raised her spirits and demanded her absolute attention.
Maybe it was even the strange drive that had pulled her out of her home in the first place.
Twink. Twinkle.
'Footsteps?' She wondered, curious at how those footsteps could be so…light, even gentler than the tender pitter-patter of feet usually made by small children or drizzle against the grass.
Despite her initial misgivings about the filthy city, Toph was quickly finding that the broken city of Omashu had its own hidden gems.
Well, more like diamonds in the rough, really.
'Like those french fries or whatever they're called' she thought, not realizing the hungry smile that had over taken her lips at the thought.
Toph shook her head, she was getting distracted too easily —she needed to hurry up and find whoever was making that sound.
But still, this was definitely one of diamonds—one of the things that were helping her feel like this trip was actually worth the effort.
The vibration pulsed again, and she took off at a run, a sense of insatiable curiosity driving her forward and boredom burning the bridges behind her.
"…Come, walk with me…"
*****************
District 51, Omashu, Earth Kingdom
4:30 PM
Aang wiped the stray traces of dust that still clung to his head, even after all this time, and sighed in boredom as he sat on a metal bench by a bus stop, watching warily as cars of all shapes and sizes rolled by on the street before him.
He didn't know what it was, but something about the city—with its rough asphalt streets, towering skyscrapers that shadowed the streets like a gathering of titans, and the heavy blanket of smog and pollution that hazed the air—made him uneasy.
It was…a serious case of déjà vu. He had been here before, or at least to a place very much like this—a place with looming skyscrapers, sandpaper asphalt roads, and choking black smog.
Lots of choking black smog…or had it been smoke?
Split second visions of a red cloak—singed, torn, and blackened—blossomed in his mind for a brief second before a vicious, pulsating headache thrust itself into his head.
Aang grabbed his bald head, trying to massage it to ease the sudden pain, and growled in frustration.
Every single time.
Every damn time that he tried to remember what happened to him before he woke up in that little junkyard of shattered concrete and twisted metal, it felt like he just smashed headfirst into a brick wall.
A stranger nonchalantly passed by him, a tall young man simply moving by as if unaware of Aang's existence. Even so, a thrill of fear and paranoia clutched at his body, and Aang barely held himself from panicking.
It was only after the stranger disappeared from sight, his form obscured in this distance by the faint shroud of smog that covered the area, that Aang could relax again.
It was unnerving, this city. There was something about it that, even in broad daylight, set his teeth on edge.
In this city, wavering shadows in the bright sunlight took form and became hulking demons, innocent bystanders became shambling corpses of the walking dead or insidiously disguised assassins, and even the very earth beneath him felt like a bleeding sore—as if the ground below had been cleaved open and infected with pollution until it was just a pulsating, bleeding bruise that squished at every step.
Aang shivered, he was definitely losing it—he needed to get out of here quickly.
Just as it passed in his thoughts, a bus growled its way up the road and swung its doors wide open, letting Aang slip out of the grimy air that tainted the city streets.
*****************
Closer.
The gentle whisper of the unique footsteps breezed across the ground again and Toph charged at it in a dead run—she was still too far away .
She could feel the gentle shuffle, and its accompanying footsteps, vanish into the hulking frame of a rumbling bus just as the vibrations her feet picked up painted a picture of a thin, slender figure of a person probably around her own age.
"Wait!" she cried, stretching an arm toward the bus, and heaving a relieved sigh when it waited for her approach.
Toph raced all the way up to the bus stop, her hair slipping out of its bun and flying everywhere as she jumped through the open doorway and onto the bus.
Bad idea.
"A—Aaah!!"
Toph made a noise somewhere between a squeak and a yelp when her world, usually so brilliantly illuminated by the whispering vibrations of the earth, went dark.
Completely, utterly dark.
Crap.
Her foot slid on surface she couldn't see and, suddenly, she was falling through the air, in a sea of darkness that she couldn't see through. Slipping into an abyss she couldn't perceive the bottom of.
'The fricking bus is made of metal! Duh! Why hadn't I realized that earlier?'
Clasp.
Toph found herself suspended in the air, hanging only by a gentle but firm hand clasped on her shoulder.
"Hey, you okay?" said a disembodied voice, ringing out in the darkness. It was a light tenor voice, definitely male but quite young—probably around her age, she concluded.
Toph righted herself, trying to gather together the last scraps of her dignity, and brushed off the offending hand.
"I'm fine."
She wobbled around anxiously, reaching out and managing to grab hold onto a metal bar by sheer luck—which she then clung to like a life line.
Her efforts were ruined, however, when the bus pitched forward as it moved ahead once more and the motion crushed her against the pole, painfully.
Damn it. This sucked.
It was even worse than the subway. At least, there, she could just stand up and let herself be swept up by the river of people shuffling toward the entrance and exit. All she had to do, then, was to listen for her stop.
Again, the same calm hand rested gently on her shoulder as the person's other hand gently pried her hands from their death grip on the pole.
"Hey, come on…let me help you sit down."
The young voice echoed out in the darkness soothingly even as Toph tried to pull her hands from his grip.
Toph struggled against the tight grip his hands had on hers, her own pride absolutely refusing to compromise for anything less than complete independence. However, when the bus jerked up with a loud crash from a speed bump on the road, bile rose in her throat and Toph let the youth gently push her into a seat.
An invisible seat in the middle of an equally invisible world. It was a forlorn sensation, worse than being marooned on an island in the middle of nowhere.
She felt a small air displacement beside her, indicating the youth had taken a seat next to her.
'This is humiliating' she thought, even as a shameful blush spread over her cheeks. Never before had she needed such help from anyone, much less a complete stranger.
She hated, now more than ever, her blindness and the stupid idiot who was trying to help her.
She turned and glared at where she thought he would be,
"What do you want?" she demanded, her red face twisting into a scowl.
*****************
Aang watched in fascination as the dark haired girl burned the empty seat next to him with a vicious death glare.
He leaned forward, gazing into those oddly glazed eyes so full of frustration and anger.
'Hmm, I wonder…' Aang thought, musing over an idea that suddenly popped into his head.
He reached out with his arm and waved his hand frantically over the girl's eyes, watching expectantly as they didn't even blink in the slightest and remained glaring at an empty seat.
'Yep,' He concluded, 'She's blind, that explains why she was having trouble walking earlier.'
But still, it didn't explain how she was able to run earlier…
"Well?!"
Oh. Right. She was still talking to him. He really should stop getting distracted so easily.
He shrugged, despite knowing that she wouldn't be able to see it anyway
"I just wanted to help you, that's all."
The blind girl before him scowled menacingly, somehow even more pissed off than before—although Aang had no idea how. He was just being nice, no need to get all ticked off…
"I don't need your help!" She growled, obviously offended by the suggestion that she needed help.
Aang sighed; well, somebody was a little sensitive…
"I didn't say you did. I helped you because…well, it felt like the right thing to do." He said, fumbling for an answer that he hoped would appease the dark haired girl next to him.
The slender but wiry girl growled, taking a wild swing at in the dark—completely missing him, but she got her point across.
"I don't want your damn pity!" She spat, her already agitated face twisting up in a mixture of rage and humiliation at her vulnerability. She couldn't even hit him! Damn it!
'By the Spirits,' Aang grumbled mentally, 'I can't win with this woman at all, can I?'
"No, no! That's not what I meant!" Aang soothed, trying to cool his companion's volcanic temper, "What I meant was…um, uhh…like—have you ever gone for a midnight snack even though you weren't hungry?"
She just blinked, giving him a weird look, 'What does that have to do with anything?'
"Uh, yea? I guess I have…" The girl trailed off, not really knowing where he was going with this.
"It's kinda like that. You're not hungry, so it's not like you need to get a snack—but you still get this urge, you know? So you eat it, and suddenly you feel much better."
"…"
Silence.
Aang tittered nervously, his mouth deciding to blabber on in small chance that he would potentially say something that would save him.
"That was why I wanted to help you, and it wasn't like you needed it or anything—it's just like, I needed to get my snack and, err—"
'What the heck am I even saying?'
She burst out laughing in the middle of his sentence, loud, raucously infectious laughter that echoed in the enclosed space of the bus and gathered them more than a few irritated looks from the rest of the passengers.
Aang couldn't help but laugh with her, and their laughter harmonized in the metal confines of the bus—unmindful of the obnoxious glares they were attracting.
She settled down after a while, and gave him a cocky grin,
"You're an idiot, you know that?"
Aang smiled back at her, forgetting that she couldn't see it
"Oh, thanks…" he said, amusedly.
They quieted into a comfortable silence, only broken by the constant rumbling of the engine that roared every time the driver accelerated.
"Soo…where are you going?" Aang said conversationally.
Toph blinked. She opened her mouth to answer, but closed it before anything could come out.
Where was she going? What was she going to say? That she had only jumped on the bus because she'd felt those weird footsteps going into the bus?
Yeah, like that would go over well.
Toph faked an arrogant sniff in the air and crossed her arms,
"It's none of your business" she said airily, mockingly fanning herself
Aang chuckled at her impression, a lighthearted sound that plastered an involuntary smile on Toph's face as well.
"Well, I'm going to the Metrorail actually, so I can get out of the city."
The gentle words slipped from his mouth and into her ears, but all Toph could hear was a symphony of melding words that became a seductive whisper echoing into her head.
Freedom.
Toph perked up, her body suddenly sitting on the edge of her seat.
"Oh? Why?"
"I…I don't know, really. Something about this city puts me on edge. It's…kind of like I've been here before, but it really isn't a good feeling. I really don't want to be here."
Toph frowned thoughtfully. Now that he mentioned it, something about the city did make her…wary. She didn't know if it was the poisoned air, or just the filth the littered the streets of Omashu, but something about the city seemed threatening—as if she was constantly being watched.
Toph was unable to suppress a shiver at that thought.
"Arriving at: Oma Metrorail Station."
Aang jumped to his feet at the announcement of their arrival at the Metrorail Station, but then hesitated as he looked at the girl beside him.
Aang shook his head, why was he feeling so conflicted? He needed to leave this city immediately, his intuition was practically screaming at him at this point. But, as he gazed down at the lonely blind girl now sitting all alone, he couldn't help but feel a powerful wave of regret tugging at his heart.
"That's…this is my stop, I should go."
Toph cringed; she hadn't thought that they would eventually have to part ways so soon. She clenched her fists, feeling as if a part of her heart had just been brutally torn from her chest, as she tried to scramble for words to say, but nothing understandable came out.
"A—Ah, I…Er…"
The sound of footsteps in the bus rose and faded.
Toph sat there, alone once more in the darkness of the iron bus—utterly blind and isolated once again from the rest of the world.
'Wait…What am I doing?!' she thought, 'What was the point of running away from home? It…it was…'
'It was to find a friend, to be able to live a normal life. I have a chance at making a friend now, if I take the opportunity. What am I doing giving that up? Rock-like, Toph!'
"WAIT!!" Toph cried, jumping to her feet.
She stumbled blindly in the impenetrable darkness, wildly swinging her arms in hopes of trying to touch something—touch anything in the endless void that was her world.
Nothing came, nothing material touched her grasping fingers and despair struck her like a harsh blow across the face.
Was she too late? Had he already left?
Clasp.
"Hey, what's wrong?"
Toph grinned in relief, basking momentarily in the sound of her companion's voice as she clung desperately to his arm.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
She could feel his pulse through his smooth skin, a pulse light and rapid like the gentle flutter of the wings of a small bird taking flight. It was so much different from the heavy pounding pulses of everyone else in this city, their hearts weighed down by their own burdens until their hearts sounded like the heavy beating of a drum.
Wait. What was she doing?
Pull yourself together, Toph Bei Fong!
The blind earthbender jumped off his arm as if it had suddenly caught fire, her blind eyes and isolated feet completely oblivious to the heavy blush and awkward grin that had overtaken Aang's features.
Toph stuttered, trying to pull together the shattered scraps of her mind and her dignity together to form a coherent sentence.
"I, uh…erm, just…I just remembered that this was my stop too!" she exclaimed, the last part of her statement flying out so fast that it was practically just a blur of sound.
Aang blinked, taking a moment to just try and decipher the gibberish that had flown from those lips of hers.
"Oh. Right! Okay, then! Come on, let's go!" he said, excitement filling his voice as he dragged his friend, his first friend, with him.
"Hey! Wait! What're you doing?!" Toph said, her energy draining away as her voice took a dangerous edge.
"What? I'm just trying to help you!"
"HEY! I told you that I don't NEED he—!"
Toph blinked her wide eyes in confusion; bewildered when a gentle finger pushed against her lips, silencing her
"I know you don't…" came the quiet whisper.
"…But it's what friends do, they help each other even when they don't need it."
Toph flushed crimson beneath his finger, 'Friends…we're friends…'
She finally found what she was looking for, her first friend.
*****************
The City Limits of Omashu, Earth Kingdom
4:43 PM
A tall man dressed in sunglasses, a formal dark suit, and slacks stood alone in a darkened alley of the outer reaches of the city, looking entirely out of place from the rest of his environment. The alley was littered with all sorts of miscellaneous garbage and its walls were adorned by a bulbous mass of obscene graffiti painted in bright, lurid colors.
The dark haired man stood there silently, a lone sentinel watching the Shu Metrorail station on the other side of the street.
A flash of green and a flutter of dark hair emerged from the station, accompanied by another child he was not informed of.
The man reached into his pocket, withdrawing a cell phone, and quietly dialed a number.
…
"Sir. I've found the girl."
…Unintelligible mutterings from the phone whispered in the alleyway.
"Green shirt, black shorts. She's accompanied by a boy, around her age, orange shirt, black pants, and a yellow jacket—"
Rapid mutterings from the phone cut him off, the sound harsh and rather high-pitched.
"No sir, I can't identify the boy, she must have just met him."
…
"They've just exited the Shu Metrorail, sir. They're heading due west, taking Bumi Avenue. At this rate, they'll probably reach the city limits in half an hour."
…
"Yes, sir."
The man slipped out of the alley, into the open walkway by the street, and allowed himself to get absorbed into a crowd of similarly dressed professionals, all the while surreptitiously shadowing the two children up ahead.
*****************
Aang smiled as he watched his new friend—Toph, she had said her name was—chatter at him from the corner of his eye.
Toph was special, he didn't know how exactly but somehow it was almost obvious. There was something about her that was…different from anyone he had met before—although, that was an admittedly short list, considering he had awoken up in a dump or ruins of some sort with no memories whatsoever.
But, still.
Whereas everything else he'd met in Omashu immediately caused his hackles to rise or his palms to perspire with a cold sweat, being around Toph was…relaxing. She was fiercely independent and powerfully driven; she did whatever she wanted the way she wanted to do it, and that kind of blasé confidence was infectious.
Despite their rocky beginning, Aang felt truly at ease with her, laughing along and joking…As if she was merely an old friend, returning from a long trip at a far-off country and they were just catching up with each other.
There were a few things he still wondered about though; like how Toph, being the volatile and easily offended person she was, could handle being blind when she clearly interpreted anything anyone did to 'help' her as being a severe insult and thus in need of a severe beating.
'Sheer stubbornness', Aang guessed as he rubbed the bruises starting to form on his arm, 'something Toph has in spades.'
'No wonder she seemed to be constantly pissed off. It must be infuriating', he mused, 'to be continually patronized by the people around you, when all you want is to be independent.'
"Hey, Twinkletoes—"
Aang shivered gently, his eyes fluttering closed.
He couldn't help it. It felt so…familiar. It felt right for her to call him that.
—Twinkletoes.
There was a cloudless blue sky was above him, and a thorny bramble of branches underneath.
He was lying on it, and…who was that above him?
Dark hair, pale green eyes.
Was it…
"What are you doing here, Twinkletoes?" An authoritative voice demanded of him.
"Don't answer to Twinkletoes! It's not manly!"
…Toph?—
WHAM.
"Twinkletoes!! Have you even been paying attention?!"
Aang groaned from his position of having his face planted into the asphalt.
He shuddered on the ground, trying to pull himself up as he felt Toph's glare burning into the back of his head. She seized him from the back on his shirt and pulled him to feet.
Aang moaned in pain at the abuse, his face still reeling from the impact.
"Serves you right for day dreaming on me." She said, crossing her arms unrepentantly as if he had mortally offended her.
Aang clutched his head tearfully, "Did you really have to hit me so hard?" he whined.
"Yep." Her face was characteristically unyielding.
As they continued to traverse down the jilted sidewalk, the signs of the dissipating became evident with every step. Where goliath high-rises once overshadowed the city streets and steeped most of the city in perpetual shade, the streets and plazas were now surrounded by smaller two-story buildings built of humble concrete and wooden frames instead of soaring metal frames and tinted glass.
The pervasive stench of human waste was beginning to fade from the air, and the hazy smog of pollution that cloaked the industrial sectors of the city thinned at the edges of the urban metropolis. Roads and sidewalks, once smooth from constant maintenance, were now broken up and cracking as little plants and shoots took root on the man-made rock and broke it open.
The road was relatively empty, compared to the steady hustle and bustle in the center of Omashu, but something about the sparse crowd seemed a little off…
Toph turned her head slightly to the side, a useless gesture born out of habit rather than practicality.
Thump. Tha-Thump. Thump.
There it was again. The same heartbeat.
Toph casually slung an arm around Aang's shoulders, pulling his body against her own and ignoring Aang's startled reaction.
'What the—?' Aang practically jumped off the ground in fear and surprise when Toph pulled him against her.
She turned her head gently against his cheek, her whispering breath tickling his ear and sending shivers down his spine. Aang only stared in shock at her face, only now realizing that Toph was rather pretty—with her fine porcelain features, those lighted jade eyes, and the inky black bangs that framed her face.
But, as pleasant as it was having her close, it terrified him that she was right there. Being around Toph was a lesson in pain and it would be so easy for her to inflict her own brand of affection on him at this proximity.
Toph was scary…
"Twinkles, we're being followed."
'Followed?'
With that, Aang's anxiety about Toph's proximity faded away, replaced by worry and a harsh onset of paranoia.
Aang tensed in anticipation, and looked over his shoulder warily, 'Where are they? Is there going to be a fight? Or are they just watching us?'
Toph squeezed his shoulder, her adroit fingers digging into the tense muscle.
"Relax, Twinkletoes. We don't want to tip them off just yet."
The scream of skidding wheels rung through the sparsely occupied streets, followed by a roaring rumble of firing engines as a fleet of cars suddenly turned into the street corner and whizzed past them, sending Aang's heart rate skyrocketing in anticipation.
This situation was becoming too dangerous.
Detaching itself from the fleet of cars just passing them by, a silver Mercedes rolled up beside them, parking itself by sidewalk and just behind them. Aang and Toph turned around to look at them, trying to be as non-threatening as possible, as four suited men emerged from its cabin, each identical in their formal suits, dark slacks, and black sunglasses.
One of the men took a step forward, a dark-skinned man with a bulky, muscular frame visible even through his three-piece suit.
"Ms. Bei Fong, your father has been looking for you since your disappearance. Please come with us, we will escort you back home."
Toph took one glance at the four menacing men and took off at a run, racing down the sidewalk and leaving everyone else behind.
In that second, Aang's mind whirled to sort its priorities, storing the detail that Toph had run from home for later, and settling one on thought.
Enemies.
The four men rushed to apprehend her but, just as they came within an arm's length of Aang, time seemed to slow down, and everything was suddenly crawling at a snail's pace. The world around him seem to blend all into one motion, one in unity and he was suddenly aware of just exactly where the four men were standing, and the distance between him and Toph.
Aang blinked.
The cityscape around him spun into a blur as his body obeyed commands that were not his own. He was suddenly watching himself as his body shifted into a fighting stance and delivered a crushing blow to the lead man's abdomen—sending him flying across the street in an explosive rush of air.
The other three men reacted immediately, moving to engage him, and Aang saw them move almost sluggishly to withdraw a small handheld double-pronged device. At the flick of a switch, the twin prongs sizzled with such a powerful electrifying energy that Aang felt he would be able to pinpoint them even with his eyes closed.
He had never seen such a device before, but his mind already knew what they were.
Tasers.
Electrocution. They were going to subdue Toph via electrocution.
His mind briefly flashed with the mental image of Toph screaming on the floor in agony as hundreds of volts of electricity razed through her tiny body.
A furious, righteous rage boiled up in Aang veins, his blood seemingly turned into liquid magma as he found himself sliding into the midst of his enemies, smashing one man into the lamp pole with a roundhouse kick that roared like the crashing of thunder as rushing air came screaming out from his limbs.
These were scum.
He slid onto the ground, the momentum from the roundhouse kick sliding him out the way of a potentially crippling jab from a taser, and kicked the man's feet out from beneath him before smashing the suited man into the ground with a brutal thrust of his elbow to the face, the force of the blow even tearing up the concrete on the other side of the man's head.
No mercy.
The fourth man came at him much more hesitantly than the rest, wary after watching the others brutally subdued with little effort. The suited man attacked him with short, quick jabs of his taser but Aang just seized his hand, twisting the wrist until he could feel the gentle bone structures in the arm twisting, breaking, and shattering from the strain, before slugging the man in the face and sending him flying down the street.
"You idiot!"
Toph's familiar voice pierced through the crimson haze of fury that had settled over his vision and Aang found himself emerging out of the primal mentality that had fallen on him.
A small hand reached out from behind him, grabbed at his arm, and dragged down the street at a full blown sprint—leaving the crumpled forms of the four men behind.
"Why didn't you tell me that you were an Airbender?"
—"Why didn't you tell us you were the Avatar?"—
Aang shook his head, pushing away the odd whisper that had hissed in ear at the question.
His mouth formed an 'o' in surprise, 'An airbender…? Is…Is that what that was?'
Airbender…the word—it sounded right, as if the very word was purposely formed to express the essence of that freedom, that power, that fluidity that had filled his body and taken a life of its own.
Toph was still glaring at him as they ran down the street, her blind eyes miraculously meeting his own. Her eyes were shining, almost glassy.
Is…is she…?
"Come on,Aang! Don't you know? You can't Bend in public! That's practically begging for theDai Li to come swarming in—especially when you do it in the middle of a major city, in broad daylight!"
The Dai Li.
'Why does that sound so familiar?'
"You can't Bend in Omashu, and you definitely can't Bend in Ba Sing Se. The Dai Li are everywhere, Aang, and they always know. If you get caught Bending by anyone, no one ever sees you again."
"And you just airbended, Aang. We need to get out of here. Now."
'We?'
Aang's eyes widened and his feet slowed in hesitation, prompting Toph to give him a rough tug that dragged him into a full sprint again.
"Toph, what are you talking about? We? Aren't they only after me, Toph? You…you don't need to go with me—"
The raven haired girl sprinting just a few steps in front of him gave an impatient sigh.
"Shut up, Twinkletoes. You're not going to get rid of me that easily. Get this through your head, Twinkles, because I'm only going to say this once. I'm going with you, whether you like it or not."
"But—!"
"AND, you're going to appreciate it! Because, you're so freaking clueless that you decided to broadcast your Bending to everyone in Omashu! Where have you been living, Twinkletoes? Under a rock?"
"Weelll, actually—"
"—You need me, Twinkles—admit it."
Aang only smiled through her obstinate rant, wondering what he had ever done to deserve such a loyal friend that she would throw everything away just for his sake. It was both heartwarming and heart crushing, joy at his first friend's declaration of loyalty, but agony—agony for her, agony that she would be losing everything for him, just worthless him.
"…Thanks, Toph…" Aang whispered, his voice carrying gently into her ears as the last vestiges of his anger washed away into happiness.
"Don't thank me just yet, Twinkles! We're not out of the fire yet!"
And indeed, they weren't.
The duo had almost reached the city limits, and the sidewalk was already beginning to crumble into white dust under their feet, but the road had split into a large, open area containing a four-way stop.
Six silver Mercedes cars barricaded the other three roadsides, two cars per road, and effectively cut off any chance of a quick escape. The glossy, silver doors were swinging open and muscular dark suited men were emerging from the cars in groups of four, crowding the perimeter with hard-jawed and emotionless visages. As one, each and every one of them reached into their jackets and pulled out a double-pronged device.
Aang tried to imitate his previous fighting stance but, now that he was consciously trying, he realized he had no idea what to do.
The silence stretched out dramatically, as both parties stared each other down, waiting for their opponents to make the first move.
Toph scowled. She preferred to wait for her opponents to make the first move to reveal deficiencies and weaknesses in their style, but they didn't have time to just sit around in Omashu.
And they had been effectively blockaded by the Bei Fong guards. There was no running from this confrontation, and she was rather die first than be the damsel in distress and let a little girl like Twinkletoes take them all on.
"Che. Pansies."
'Well, if Twinkles here is going to be Wanted by the Dai Li…Heh, I can't let a little girl like him show me up!"
Stomp. Crush.
Toph lifted a single foot and crushed it against the ground, dragging much of the dirt with it.
The earth beneath the battlefield rumbled and rolled, throwing everyone except for Toph off balance. A sudden burst of kinetic energy rolled into the asphalt, tearing it up like toilet paper, as enormous shockwaves roared from her Toph's foot like the epicenter of an earthquake.
The men burst into action, trying charge at them despite the ground rolling beneath them as their devices sizzled with electricity.
For a split second, Aang saw, instead of the dark suited figures charging at him, the silhouettes of fully armed military men highlighted against a background of a furious explosion that painted the sky black with choking ash and smoke. He heard the sharp crackling report of gunfire in the muffled air, and the grunting of thousands of other men on the floor—in various states of fatal conditions.
The asphalt on the ground had been torn up beyond repair, and the once towering skyscrapers reduced to mere rubble and charcoaled ash. He saw a figure robed in crimson, kneeling on a particularly seared patch of broken rock.
—'Brother!'—
He blinked and shook his head, the vision dispelling as soon as it came.
Aang found himself sliding into a wide footed stance and whirled into a powerful roundhouse kick that sliced the air—forcing out an explosive wave of violent wind that sent the men flying backwards and smashing onto the concrete sidewalks and the rough asphalt roads.
A collective groan sounded from the men has they tried to stumble to their feet, only to be knocked down by another explosion.
The underground turbulence had reached to its peak, and the ground beneath the blockade of cars burst into an explosion of roaring earth, shattering the make-shift barricade as it crushed the cars into limp piles of debris and shattered metal as well as blasting everyone in the vicinity with a shower of jagged rock shards.
For a moment, the battleground was covered in a smokescreen formed by a cloud of airborne dirt and rock. When it cleared, Aang noted that all of their opponents were lying on the floor, in various states of injury, as they all collectively moaned in pain.
Toph struck the air with one hand, bending the earth under the men to rise up and encase their limbs in large casts of stone.
"Come on, Twinkles!"
She grabbed his hand, and they finally broke past the city limits and into the mountainous wilderness beyond the city of Omashu.
*****************
Friday, May 24th, 3021
Beneath Lake Laogai, Beyond the Outer Wall of Ba Sing Se, Earth Kingdom
6:56 PM
A tall, black haired and balding man with a braided beard sat at his desk, a fine construction from the most expensive wood there was to be found in Ba Sing Se and emblazoned with decorations in the purest, most refined gold. He was dressed in a stately dark green robe with gold cuffs and an Earth Kingdom symbol imprinted onto its back.
His office was a room entirely coated in stainless steel, with its walls were littered with posted notes, papers, and reminders of all kinds. In the background of the room was an enormous virtual map of the Earth Kingdom that helped illuminate the room.
The man was at his desk filing out several papers for a report to the Earth King, when another man, dressed in a similarly dark green robe and a large green Li that obscured his face, entered the room.
"Report." The balding man said, not bothering to look up from his work.
A manila folder was pushed onto the desk, careful not to disrupt or smear any of the drying calligraphy on the formal papers.
"At approximately 4:50 this afternoon, two Bender signals were located in the city of Omashu, less than a mile off the eastern city limits. They've been identified as powerful earthbender and airbender signals. The surrounding area was dealt a surprising amount of devastation in a rather short period of time, but it is nothing a team of earthbenders can't fix in a short while."
The seated man quirked up an eyebrow in curiosity.
A rogue earthbender in Omashu? Quite the rarity these days, considering how extensive the information system held by the Dai Li. Not much got past them, especially not in the way of Bender potentials going unnoticed, but the occasional rogue Bender wasn't unheard of.
He opened the folder, scanning its detailed contents along with the clips of several high quality photos of the devastation wrecked into the area, as well as some more photos of the Benders themselves.
The Man stopped listening for a second, his gaze suddenly focused on the tiny earthbender girl for a brief moment.
She looked familiar, very familiar.
"Our surveillance cameras and sentries in the area have identified one of the perpetrators, the earthbender, but the airbender is a virtual unknown to all of our databases." The Agent continued, not noticing his superior's growing impatience.
"Well?" Was the curt reply.
"The earthbender has been identified as the sole daughter of the Bei Fong family, I'm certain you're quite familiar with them."
That made sense. The Bei Fongs were an elite family, one of the richest in the Earth Kingdom, and it would be child's play for Lao to just bribe the doctors and nurses into silence. If any family could get away with concealing their child's earthbending, it would certainly be the Bei Fong family.
Which also explained why Lao had been so insistant on holding onto his, oh so valuable 'privacy'
The balding man leaned back on his chair and laughed uproariously, his mind whirling even as he laughed at the irony.
"You mean the blind little girl that they've been trying to hide from us for over thirteen years?" he asked to confirm, an amused grin gracing his features.
"The very same."
The bearded man stroked his braided beard, 'Oh, Lao. You've tried so hard to keep your little one from us, only for her to run away and help blow up part of a city block of Omashu in broad daylight.'
'It is quiet curious, though…What other secrets are you hiding from us, Lao, my friend?'
Pushing aside his momentary curiosity, he turned his attention to more important matters. Something about this airbender rubbed him the wrong way.
"Tell me what we have about the airbender."
The Agent shook his head, "Just about nothing, sir. The child is a virtual unknown. Prior to today, his face has never been recorded in any of our surveillance cameras as well as any of our formal documentations. He has no birth certificate, no social security number—nothing. For all intents and purposes, he doesn't exist. The little that we have are just records of his travels around the city earlier today."
The balding man scowled thoughtfully, 'An unknown has existed for this long without us knowing? It is possible that the Earth Kingdom has been infiltrated then…but why by the Air Nomads? They've made themselves perfectly clear that they have never interested themselves in war, or even espionage. Could this be some sort of taunt, or something completely unrelated?'
"I presume that you have accounted for the possibility of him being a spy or military agent, and then discarded it?"
"Yes, sir. No self-respecting infiltrator would reveal himself like that in broad daylight."
Which made the dilemma even more curious.
How could a civilian remain completely undetected for even one day? The Dai Li had virtually every street corner of every city in the Earth Kingdom stocked with sentries and observers watching for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
They had every mode of communications tapped, observed and recorded. They had a thorough personal file and information sheet on almost every single inhabitant breathing in the Earth Kingdom. For Spirit's sake, it was even legally required for communications manufacturers to include a recording device to their products.
And the satellites which managed communications recorded every single conversation, which was then forwarded to the Dai Li.
There was no way the boy could have simply appeared in the middle of street like he did, you had to be born in Omashu or enter Omashu in order to exist in Omashu.
Unless…
"Sir Long Feng?" asked the Agent, slightly unnerved by the silence that had fallen on the room.
The bearded man hushed him.
But, that was impossible. All records and witnesses had testified that the subject had been administered the lethal injection…
And even if it was a dud and the injection was faked, the subject would have been buried under a mountain of broken concrete and twisted metal for three years now. Three years crushed under a ton of debris with no food, no water, and no oxygen to breathe.
However, this was still too much of a coincidence for it to be overlooked. He would just have to make sure, run a test perhaps…
He had always suspected that the fool, Gyatso, had been hiding something, after all.
Long Feng glared at the agent standing in front of him, all vestiges of amusement or friendliness disappearing in place of cold determination and cruel calculation.
"Agent 009, please order a dispatch of the best Strikers we have on standby. It will be a Highly Classified Retrieval mission. Their orders are to capture, and capture only, the boy and the Bei Fong girl, by any reasonable means possible. They must not kill either of them."
The Agent raised his head in shock,
"But, sir! You know the Strikers aren't trained for Retrieval missions!"
Long Feng gave him a frigid smile.
"I know. Make sure they aggravate the boy as much as possible; they may resort to harming the Bei Fong girl, if necessary. I simply must check something."
The Agent blinked at probably the oddest set of orders he had ever received, but he bowed his head subserviently.
"Yes, sir."
He turned to leave to the office but was stopped by Long Feng before he could exit.
"Oh, and bring me all the files relating to Project Avatar while you're at it."