Hope ya'll are ready, 'cause guess what? I'M BACK! HAHA! *Ahem* Alright. Now that my insanity moment is over, I now introduce the next installment of The Shadowbender, The Unyielding Element of Earth. I'm really sorry I haven't updated in a while- I've just had some writer's block. Hope y'all like this.

Chapter 7: The Unyielding Element of Earth

"YES!" Aang shouted, waking all of us. "It's finally here! Earth-" He was silenced by a chokehold, courtesy of me.

"Shut... the hell... UP!" I yelled the last part, then fell back into my sleeping bag, asleep the minute my head hit the bag... well, the ground, actually. Toph swiped the bag away right before my head touched it, resulting in brief agony.

"What the fuck?" I screamed at her. She grinned at me, and I glared back. Ever since I told her about what I was able to bend, she had been jumping in anticipation of 'training' (more like torturing) me with Earthbending training. I was all for training, but right now, all I wanted to do was go back to sleep. So I turned my head and closed my eyes, hoping to get in five more minutes.

Big mistake.

"Wake up, Bones!" Toph yelled in my ear. I jumped to my feet, holding my ears for dear life. Whipping my head towards her, I growled.

"If you do that again, I will kill you, got it?" My hair was a mess, puffed out and hanging out. My pupils were slitted, and my sharp teeth were bared into a snarl. All in all... I looked pretty damn scary. But as usual, Toph was unfazed.

"Fine, go back to sleep," she said, still smiling. Walking away, she turned back towards me. "You weren't training today, anyway."

My eyebrow twitched uncontrollably. "WHAT?" I screamed, nearly breaking everyone's eardrums. I was about to shrug it off (with difficulty), but then I found out something that made me want to bang my head against a wall.

I couldn't go back to sleep. And I think Toph knew this.

"DAMMIT!" I screamed.

"Calm down, Loki," Sokka said, holding his ears. "It's not that big of a deal. Besides," He siddled up to me. "We get to watch Toph beat the crap out of Aang," he whispered so the others couldn't hear.

I smiled at that, and weighed my options. I didn't hesitate. Aang epically failing was better than trying to go back to sleep. I usually couldn't sleep, anyway, so what was the point?

"Fine," I replied, sitting down on a rock. "I want to watch this anyway."

Toph grinned, then turned towards Aang. All traces of humor were gone. "Alright, Twinkle Toes. Let's go."

Aang jumped in excitement, then went to follow Toph to the large rocky clearing in front of our camp.

As it turns out, I was glad that I did decide to watch Aang train. He needed to start all over in terms of style, because this was his natural opposite. Sokka and I couldn't stop laughing as Aang blew himself back into a wall trying to move a rock that was twice his size. Katara looked worried as Toph ruthlessly trained Aang, basically breaking him down. She had him lifting weights while standing on two rocks 10 feet off the ground. Breaking through stone with his bare hands. It did look a bit brutal but hey, that's life as the Avatar. Although, I really did wish it was me training instead. The energy now in me wouldn't go away, and I needed to discharge it somehow. Then I got an idea.

I was now focusing intently on the two training. My eyes took in every movement Toph made, my ears soaking up every instruction she gave. This translated to knowledge, which in turn gave me an idea on how the basics of Earthbending worked. I would need it for what I was going to attempt. This would probably infuriate her, me not waiting, but as usual, I didn't care.

I wanted to Earthbend.

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That night, as soon as everyone was asleep, I levitated up from my sleeping position. I didn't need Toph knowing where I was.

Drifting across the clearing, I wondered where I would go to train. Somewhere far from here, obviously, where no one would find me. After several minutes, I finally came across a clearing similar to the one near our camp. I put my feet on the ground and utilized my Seismic Sense, stretching my field of 'vision' to the camp. All of my friends were still asleep, still there. I grinned. Good.

I slid into the stance that I saw Toph use, and I remembered her words. Steady and strong, like a rock. It was easy enough, although I knew it was harder than it looked for most people. Thankfully, I wasn't most people.

A large boulder was several yards in front of me. I took the stance, and I focused. Finally, after a couple of seconds, I was confident, and punched forward with my fist. The result was earsplitting to say the least, as the blast shook my foundations, but I didn't move. I was suddenly thankful I had put up the soundproof barrier around the clearing. That shit would've woken people in Ba Sing Se.

I looked around for the rock, and to my surprise, I found it in the wall I pushed it towards, completely embedded. There was no way I was getting that out. I grinned a shit-eating grin. This was going to be easier than I thought.

Next, I worked on raising pillars of stone from the ground. I started simple, raising two foot pillars. I became adept very quickly, and I steadily increased the size of the pillars from two to three, then three to four. Soon I was raising ten-foot tall stone pillars twelve at a time, then knocking them down with a single stomp. That simple gesture gave me a new idea, one I knew would be useful.

I crouched in the center of the clearing, getting ready to spring up in the air. The idea was to jump into the air and come back down punching the ground, similar to what I did to knock Toph out of the arena at Earth Rumble 6. But this time, I was gonna use Earthbending to make stone spikes radiate from the epicenter (me) like a shockwave. It would be devastating, and that's exactly why I was trying it.

I leapt up with force, leaving a small crater behind me. While soaring up, I concentrated as hard as I could on my fist, and started the descent. The wind whipped at my face, nearly blinding me. But my concentration never wavered, and I struck the ground with a force that rattled my bones. I would have to work on that.

I looked around in astonishment as the shockwave rippled throughout the clearing. All at once, stone spikes shot into the air, but didn't come back down as I had expected. It was then I realized that I would have to do some power adjusting. Earthbending has to be prescise and sharp, the exact amount of force has to be exerted to get the results you want. I suddenly admired Toph's ability to do this so... easily.

Going to work on an aspect of basic training, I pushed my limits until dawn. I was slightly out of breath by then, and I decided to go back to camp. That was the plan until I heard her voice.

"Ya know, you could have waited," Toph said, walking up from behind. I turned towards her, expecting to see an angry face, but it wasn't so. Her expression was... disappointed, with a bit of softness in it, if only a speck. "If you had let me help you, maybe you wouldn't have had problems, you idiot." Her voice was lower now, and somewhat hurt. My brain twisted as I confronted this new person. This wasn't the Toph I knew.

"Who are you, and what did you do with Toph?" I asked warily, nails already sharpening.

She walked up to me and slapped me across the face, hard. "Is that better?" she asked, her eyebrow twitching.

"Much," I replied, rubbing my face. "So, what did I do wrong?" I started to walk back towards the camp, motioning for her to follow. Then I remembered that she couldn't see, so I simply shifted my foot in the direction of the camp, and she picked up my intention instantly.

She smiled, and started to explain how to improve the 'epic fail', as she put it, that was my training.

Tomorrow, well, later this morning, I was lifting boulders three times my size before anyone was even awake. Though that changed as soon as I dropped the boulder on my foot.

"FUCK!" I yelled, waking everybody up.

Toph was rolling around on the ground, laughing her head off while the others looked at us strangely, and I don't think I could blame them.

"What's wrong, Loki?" asked Katara, a hint of worry in her face.

"What... does it... look... like?" I managed to get out, hopping on one foot. Toph was hysterical with laughter by then, and I felt like hopping over there and strangling her.

"Okay, I'm gonna put this out of my mind and go get something for us to eat." Sokka jumped up and grabbed his bone machete. "We're eatin' meat!" He ran away to find some, a happy smile etched on his face. We all shook our heads.

"Yo, Aang! Wanna train with me today?" I asked him. I saw him cringe at the mention of training, and he shook his head feverently.

"No thanks," he replied. "I have to practice Waterbending right now, but... maybe later."

"Yeah, yeah, alright," Toph said at his retreating back as he went to the pond with Katara. "Go splash around until you feel better."

I rolled my eyes and smiled at her attitude. "So what do we do now?" I asked her.

She smiled. "What you do now is the same thing Aang did before he wimped out." Toph pointed to a boulder on top of the ramp that was used the previous day. "You're going to stop the boulder when it reaches you, alright?" She started to walk up to the boulder, but turned her head to face me. "And for your own damn sake, don't pull the same shit Aang did yesterday. At least let the boulder have the satisfaction of crushing you."

I shook my head and slid into the stance I was taught, bracing myself. When she reached the giant rock, she waited a moment before shoving it without any effort off of the cliff and down the incline. It hurtled down, coming straight at me at an extreme speed.

I stood firm, and held out my hand in a stopping gesture. When the boulder finally reached my position, it impacted my hand with enough force to create a giant dust cloud.

"Hey, Bones!" I heard Toph call, a tiny rasp in her voice due to the dust cloud. "You alright? Don't die on me now!"

"I'm fine!" I called back. In a few moments, the dust cleared. A pile of rock was in front of me, probably the remains of the boulder. When Toph saw this, she smiled, and after shaking off the dust, I smiled back.

"Looks like you pass this part, Bones," she said, nodding her head in approval. Suprisingly, I didn't react to my nickname- I think I was getting used to it. "That's it for today's training. Take a break."

I took her offer graciously, seeing as I might not get another chance like this again. Walking over to the rock wall, I slumped down and rested myself. But then I started thinking- Toph was never this generous. But that thought came a second too late, and before I knew it I was in the rock, not knowing how i got there.

Suddenly, I heard someone knocking on the rock and with it came Toph's voice. It sounded like she just finished laughing. "That was priceless! Gosh, I can't believe you fell for that! So the punishment is... to stay in there as long as I want you to. Bye!"

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I don't know how long I was in there, but I knew it had to be around sundown by now. And I was running out of air to breathe. There wasn't enough to make a light breeze, much less to get out of here. I was enclosed in a perfect cube, rock all around me. Then I got an idea. It was a long shot, but it might work.

I crossed my legs and stretched my arms, then planted my hands on either side of the cube. I concentrated, and in a moment, my whole body was shaking with the stored sound inside me. Concentrating even more, I focused the shaking into my arms. Pretty soon, my arms were vibrating so much that they looked like they were still. And seeing as my hands were on the rock around me, the vibrations were being transferred to the rock, making it crack and rumble.

Seconds passed, and I felt the rock starting to crumble under my hands. I concentrated even harder, and soon, slabs of rock started to fall. In a mere minute, I was free. Sheets of bedrock and stone littered the clearing, and I was covered with dust once again.

"Damn," I said, blowing out a sigh of relief. My whole body twitched uncontrollably for a second then stopped. "I'm glad that's over."

"Me too," said Toph right behind me. I didn't flinch, just turned around and bonked her on the head.

"Ow!" She tried to punch me, but I held her head, and she couldn't reach far enough to hit me. This continued for several minutes, with her failing each and every time.

"Next time, don't do that." I turned my back on her and started to walk away.

A pause. "Loki," Toph said. I continued to walk. "Loki, I'm sorry, alright? Is that good enough for you?"

I stopped, and my head turned slightly to face her. I smiled, a sincere one. "Yes."

I swear I heard a sigh of relief. Just then, Katara ran up to us. "Have you guys seen Sokka? He hasn't come back from getting breakfast. I think something happened to him."

Aang, who was meditating close by, turned around. "We'll find him, Katara. Don't worry." He then turned to Toph and I. "We'll split up. Toph, you go check that way," Aang said, pointing north. "Loki, you check the forest. I'll check the path leading out of the clearing."

We all nodded approval and set out to the area we were assigned. As I entered the forest, my senses went haywire. Something was up with this place, something familiar. Suddenly, a figure sped by on the edge of my vision. My nails automatically lengthened, and my eyes slitted. Shrouding my self in darkness, I became the color of the forest around me. I crouched down, bracing myself. The aura... it feels so damn familiar. Then I was hit.

The force of the impact drove me through the tree trunk I was behind. I hopped up, then almost immediately winced. Getting thrown through a tree isn't the most gentle thing. I don't know what hit me. All I remember is a searing hot flash of light... My eyes widened. That distinctive flash. Holy shit.

A Lightbender.

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I was warned this time as the beam of light came towards my face. Sidestepping effortlessly, I sent a crescent of darkness to where the beam came from. I heard a startled grunt, and I knew I had hit my target.

"So... a Shadowbender," the voice said in contempt. "Your kind is disgusting, still hanging on to this world like vermin. You should have been wiped out with the rest of your kin." The person stepped out of the shadows, and he appeared to be a guy about my age. His silver hair came to his upper back, and his eyes were an icy blue. Lean and agile, like me. He was wearing a white and gold tunic with with silver shoes. I was shirtless and I had on baggy pants. He looked like royalty... the kind I despise.

"As you should've," I replied back in a cold tone. "How are you here? Lightbenders and Shadowbenders should've died a long time ago." Then I paused. "In that case, how is Rinca here? She should've died."

The other guy groaned. "There's more of you? Damn, this day just keeps on getting better. Maybe you should ask them, you idiot." A blue fireball suddenly sprang up in the palm of his hand. "Huh. That's one more to incinerate."

My head tilted as I observed the flame. The only other person that I know of with blue fire was Azula. Then I reached a conclusion.

"You must be Granz, The Blue Flame." I grinned, showing my sharp teeth. "You know, I was supposed to assassinate you before our Nations were wiped out. Looks like now I have the chance."

He observed the color of my skin and my teeth. Once he caught a look at my eyes, though, his widened. "And you must be Loki, The White Shadow." His eyes narrowed. "Do you know how many important people in my nation were killed by you?"

I pondered for a moment, then replied with a smile, "One hundred and forty-six."

This got him mad, and he charged at me, the blue fire now completely enveloping his hand, which was poised to impale. It was then we began the dance.

He thrust his hand towards me, and I dodged, spinning around to punch him in his jaw. Granz bent backwards just enough for the attack to miss him. He switched tactics then, crouching down and sweeping my legs from under me. I landed hard on my back, but I leaped up quickly to avoid an axe kick coming my way. Pivoting, darkness coalesced around my fingertips and I slashed him across the chest, the shadow claws propelling him through a tree.

Granz recovered quickly, and he rpeatedly shot beams of light in my direction. Each one was scorching to the touch, and though I evaded most of them, some struck my torso and legs, forcing me down to one knee. But I wasn't done. I held my hands out, and a big, dense ball of water appeared in between them. I sucked in plenty of air, then blew outwards, making the wind into a helix (spiral funnel-like, for those that don't know). The helix impacted the water, and a giant, spiral torrent of it rushed at Granz, hitting him square in the chest. He was thrown through several trees before finally coming to a stop.

We both got to our feet, Granz staggering more than me. "Let's end this," he growled, and he rushed at me with amazing speed, blue lightning around his whole arm. I nodded in agreement, and stone arose around my right arm, making a devilish looking forearm. Then I charged towards him. Granz raised his arm, poised to slash downwards, as I did the same.

Time seemed to slow down as we reached each other, and without any warning, we both slashed at each other's chest. A big explosion occured when the lightning and the hardened stone collided.

When the dust cleared, we were standing just a couple feet apart, our right arms slick with blood. I looked down, and I saw that I had a shallow diagonal cut on my torso, where blood flowed freely. Looking at Granz, I saw that he had the same cut, just a bit deeper. In a couple of moments, there was a pool of blood below each of us. Suddenly, Granz backed up, limping and staggering, and started to retreat to the forest, which at this time was starting to burn, due to the heat of Granz's attacks.

"Why isn't your cut deeper?" he asked, his breathing ragged.

"Just a healthy coating of dirt I covered myself with." I forced a smile. "Nothing special, ya know?"

He paused, just staring at me. "I'll remember this, and don't think I'll forget you." Granz said. With that, he staggered off. I tried to go after him, but I dropped to my knees after I took about 10 steps. Lightbending hurts a Shadowbender much more than any other bending art and vice versa.

After what felt like hours, but in reality was only just a couple of minutes, I felt Toph running towards me. "Loki!" she yelled. She probably felt my heart rate slowing down. I couldn't call back and say that I would be fine. She sounded worried, and I suddenly felt ashamed that I had to put her through the trouble of finding me.

When she reached me, her dull eyes widened, and she immediately dropped down to inspect me. Toph ran her hands over my body, feeling the extent of my injuries. When she finished, she had a sad expression on her face, with a whole lot of worry. I didn't understand it.

"Come on," Toph said, a lone tear on her face. Her voice was soft. "Let's get you to the others." She offered her hand, but I stood up without any help.

I wiped the tear from Toph's face, and put my hand on her shoulder. Her eyes widened even more, and a light blush was shown on her face. "You haven't seen this before, have you?" I gestured at my wounds, and she nodded.

"I guess I'm just not used to it. It'll go away in a while. That I'm sure of." She shrugged my arm off and punched my arm. "So stop treating me like a little kid, alright?"

"But you are little-," I was silenced by Toph's glare, and I breathed out a sigh of relief. This was the Toph I knew. "Fine, let's go." We only took one step when we both heard a deafening roar. We looked at each other. "Sokka!" we said simultaneously.

We ran to the scene, and I was stunned by the sheer size of the animal Aang was facing. A sabertoothed moose-lion, and it was heading straight for him, fangs bared.

"Aang!" I called, getting him to face me. His eyes widened for a millisecond, then returned to normal. I've been worse, and he knows it. "Face it head on!"

"I can't!" he replied, sending the animal over his head with a gust of wind, only for it to turn and charge straight for him again. "I'm not an Earthbender!"

"Come on, Twinkle Toes!" Toph said angrily. "Just face it already!"

"Um, Aang?" Sokka said, finally talking. "It would be really great if you could GET RID OF IT ALREADY! I am not staying here, I can tell you that!" He continued his efforts in getting out of the giant crack he was stuck in.

Aang's eyes met mine, and I nodded my head slightly, encouraging him. Some things you need to experience for yourself without any help, and this was one of them.

He steeled his determination, and got into the stance that Toph taught him. He waited patiently for the beast to approach. I silently prayed for his safety, knowing that if this didn't work, there would be no second chance. But I discarded the thought immediately- he's the Avatar for goodness' sake. This shouldn't be a problem.

And it wasn't. Aang brought up a decent-sized boulder, and pushed it with all the force he could muster. The rock smashed right into the beast's midsection, driving it a good distance away. Aang started to smile, which pretty soon turned into a full-blown happy fit.

"I did it!" he cried joyfully. "I can finally Earthbend! Did you guys see that? Did ya?"

Sokka, who was just dragged by his hair out of the ground by Toph, shook his head. "Dude, what are you on? Seriously..."

I covered my ears, my head ringing from the migraine Aang was giving me. "I don't know and I don't care. Just make him stop!" I turned to Toph. "Please silence him... quickly."

Toph grinned. "Gladly."

So, what did y'all think? Pretty good? So-so? Anyway, I want y'all to review, because it's seriously the highlight of my day... seriously. Next installment, Tales of the Desert, is gonna come before the Monday after next, 'cause of school and all. Well, catch y'all on the flipside, and keep reading my stories (yes, I said stories). So, without further ado... peace!