For a few agonizing moments, Toph was the most sighted person in the world. The irony wasn't lost on her, though she couldn't laugh at it, not yet. Maybe not ever.
She had felt the earth shake by itself before, of course. In Gaoling, there had been earthquakes every year or so. They had been small, as earthquakes go. Her parents noticed glassware that had fallen to the ground and broken, or pictures that hung askew on the walls, and had their servants fix it; but all Toph could think about, at those times, was how much power it took to move that much earth that quickly. If one could feel how deep and widespread it was, one knew that a thousand earthbenders in unison couldn't muster a small earthquake if they tried. Maybe a powerful spirit could, but if it was angry enough to do that, it would flatten cities before it was satisfied. It was easier not to think about it at all.
This was not a small earthquake.
She no longer had to send a shock through the earth and feel the waves that came back; the rolling quake brought an image of the entire city to her. She could feel it through the soles of her feet and the tips of her fingers, everything in sharp focus, all the way to the very outskirts of the capital. Every rattling brick building felt as though it was growing out of the earth, for that moment. Even the sandy ocean floor was brought into greater focus, and she could feel the immense weight of the ocean pressing down on her and found herself gasping for air as if she was truly drowning.
The worst of the shaking was coming. She could feel it as surely as her own heartbeat. As she knelt outside the palace gates, Toph's mind moved quickly. It coming from miles away, almost due east, in the sea. The earth was shaking vertically, mostly. The palace was made of solid stone, but most of the city was brick. It was fall, and moss was growing on the north face of every roof, weeds through every crack in the pavement, and a city full of firebenders was about to panic.
Damage control.
She couldn't reach the whoel city, but in the market district and the upper circle were within her range, so she settled into the best stance she could when the ground was beginning to really shake. All at once she was aware of Zuko behind her, in his own firebending stance. He moved close behind her, bracing her body with his, putting his hands on her shoulders, pushing her down. With a fast and precise movement of her hands, she sent out massive stone struts to tent the people inside a gross of buildings from the rubble. As a massive headache claimed her focus, the earth knocked her off her feet. She landed on her chest, the wind knocked out of her; and then Zuko landed on top of her, and she wheezed again, digging her fingers into the shaking ground.
There was nothing she could do to dampen the destructive waves of earth that rolled through the city. They were too powerful, even for Toph Beifong.
It felt like an eternity before the shaking stopped. In the aftermath she heard silence, and her labored breathing, and Zuko's, and screams, and then dull footsteps.
Her students were rushing out the gate, soldiers and palace servants flooding around them. She knew it because she heard their voices; their heartbeats and breathing weren't there when she slapped the ground for a reading. Maybe, Toph reasoned with herself, maybe she was stll in shock. Maybe the earth was still moving a little and drowning out the little sounds.
"Sifu, we need to go help people!" Toph's youngest student, Zel, shouted.
At that moment, Toph felt she'd never been more proud of them. "You and one other stay here and assist people in the palace," she gasped. Her lungs still felt on fire, and now the air was dusty, too."The rest of you come with me."
They went to the outskirts first, riding some nobleman's balcony that had fallen down, two students on each side propelling the chunk of stone along the ground. They earthbent bricks off of families huddled in a corner, off of hippocows and komodo rhinos trapped in stables. Off of a mother and the crushed body of her child. Off of a home where no one had survived. Sometimes when they began to move the bricks, the rest of them would fall, and there was nothing they could do. Worst was when firebenders panicked and tried to blast the stone off, and of course, there was something flammable on the stone. Hadn't she told them? Toph thought to herself, biting back manic laughter. Hadn't she just lectured her students about this?
It was an hour of bloody work before Toph felt something new. Something worse.
They had lifted a piece of wall off a house when Toph turned away, shifted her feet, and wiped her eyes (it was the dust, she told herself, that was making her eyes water). Her toes sensed something, like a dough roller sliding across the ocean floor, crushing the earth beneath with its weight. It was miles away, but it was coming fast.
"Shit, motherfucker, fuck, shit," she said.
"W-what is it, sifu?" Lo Ting was one of the students that had come with her, and his familiar voice was somehow less grating now.
"Get..." she began, then paused to think. "Get four others and meet me by the docks, immediately."
It felt like an hour, but in reality it was a scant few moments before they were organized. Her students moved quickly.
"If you have ever been passionate about earthbending," Toph said to her assembled students, "this is the time to let it show."
They were certainly a ragtag group. A fat kid (Lo Ting), a short kid, a lanky teenager, a guy who always smelled like pee, and a sweet kid with an uncontrollable tic. She knew their names, but wouldn't allow her mind the brief moments it would need to recall them. No time, not now.
"We have a mountain of water coming at us," she went on. "No idea if waterbenders would even help, but it doesn't matter, because we don't have any. My best idea is a wall at the shore, but keep in mind it's gonna have to be massively thick at the bottom. You guys got anything better?"
"We can erect it in thin layers," said Pee Guy. "First a tall one at the shore, then shorter ones as we move back."
"Maybe we can make a tunnel underneath the city to take some of the water?" said Tic Girl.
"It's just too fucking much water," Toph muttered, massaging her head. The pain was pounding, now, and beneath the throb there was the growing awareness of the wave coming closer and closer, pressing on her mind. "We could cancel the wave by concussing the earth in opposite time with it, but that...wouldn't work, we'd have to go too deep." She knew she was grumbling to herself, almost inaudible, now, but like a turtleduck retreating into its shell, she couldn't stop herself from pulling away in her panic.
"W-what if we raise up some pillars?" Lo Ting said hesitantly.
Toph looked up, eyes wide, and snapped. "That's it. Not pillars, pillar. We'll raise the whole city up."
She didn't need to see to know her students looked doubtful. "Sifu, is that even possible?" said Pee Guy.
"For us? Have a little confidence. It's the only option, and we're the greatest earthbenders in the world. If we can't do this, no one can."
She had no idea. It seemed far-fetched.
They rounded up the rest of the students and spaced themselves around the city, mostly at the outskirts, and did as Toph had taught them long ago: propelled themselves by breaking their focus into two. One half focused on adhering one chunk of earth to their feet; the other focused on pushing the other chunk of earth away. Toph stood near the center of the city, pushing her focus as far as it would go, encompassing almost all of the city within her range. As they rose, she rearranged the stone around them to create a pillar beneath their slice of earth. It was the most powerful she had ever felt; her head hurt so much it felt as though it would collapse into itself, and at the same time it was exhilarating. All of this is part of my body, she was saying with the channeling of her chi, and I am pushing the rest of the world away. I am raising my body up. It will be. Move to accommodate.
They inched up slowly, so slowly. A finger's breadth, a hand's, an arm's length, the height of a man. Of ten men, of a hundred, and then, at Toph's signal, they stopped. As a wall of water rose on the horizon and then crashed down around them, she sunk to the ground and the world went black.