A/N- Sorry for the long weight and shortness of this chapter but I've had drama practice every night straight for the last three weeks. But now the play is over so you don't have to worry about late chapters any more. But on a bad note my mom thinks me and my sisters fight over the computer too much so now we're on a set schedule and I only get about an hour on the computer a day so for now on chapters will be shorter but I guess the good part of that is there will be more of them till the end b/c I am getting close to the end.

Thanks to twilight Rose2

Disclaimer- Not yet

"Earthbenders into your tanks!"

She looked at him and gave him a quick smile "I have to go and so do you." she pulled her hand out of his and walked over to the tank she had just finished repairing. She got in just as a whole crowd of earthbenders and Water Tribesmen came rushing down the ladder and into the room.

Sokka stood stock still as the subs scraped the shore of the main island. His heartbeat strangely calm. He had just told Toph his feelings for her, now win or lose, life or death he could go into battle without any regrets, he just wished he knew how she felt. She had smiled at him, which was a good sign, right? The sub started to open, letting a strong light fill the dark interior, and he forced his mind clear. He needed to be fully alert for this battle.

As Toph stood in the tank she couldn't shake this strange feeling she had. For some reason she felt like she should have told Sokka how she felt before leaving him. There was an overwhelming sense of foreboding around her, like she was never going to get another chance to tell him. As the sub scraped against the shore she forced her self-calm, and made her mind focus on the task at hand.

There was shouting all around him as he rushed forward onto the shore, his sword held steady in front of him. For some reason he couldn't help but stay close to Toph's tank as the rush of warriors surged forward pushing him deeper into the fire nation capitol.

Then he saw them, the opposing army, running towards him fire shooting from their hands. He held up his shield effortlessly blocking the attack. Then with the swing of his sword brought down one enemy. He quickly jumped back as he saw flames rushing at him from the right. He saw his attacker being brought down by a powerful water attack coming from a group of swamp benders as he rushed forward trying to catch up with the tanks that continued to push through the enemy forces. As he ran he was continuously blocking and dodging blows from enemy weapons that were coming at him from all sides, he was in an endless sea of metal clashing against metal, each sound ripping through him with terrible force. But worse than that was the fact that with each enemy he was forced to face, Toph got farther and farther from him. He had this strange need to be near her, to protect her, even though it would be pointless, she could take care of herself after all.

He stumbled and fell, flat on his face. He rolled onto his back just in time to block a sword being swung right at his head. The force of the sword slamming into his shield sent tremors up his arm. He used his legs to knock his enemy off balance causing him to fall to the ground. Before he could stand up a spear was thrust towards his gut, he quickly grabbed it before it could make contact and ripped it from his opponents grasp. He jabbed the handle into the man's ribs shoving him away. He then used the spear to knock the feet out from under everyone surrounding him. He jumped to his feet and quickly rushed past his fallen opponents, dropping the spear and picking up his dropped sword as he did so. About 20 feet away was the tank Toph was in and he started for it. Suddenly it was engulfed in flame as a huge firebomb exploded tipping it over onto its side.

Toph felt the rumble of the tank beneath her as it started to move. Soon afterward She heard shouting and what sounded like mass confusion. There were running footsteps and clashing swords all around her. Pained shouts also filled the air as men fell to the ground never to rise again.

She swallowed hard concentrating on one thing only, Sokka. She had to make sure he was safe. She could sense him running next to the tank but he soon started to fall behind as Fire Nation soldiers attacked him. But she couldn't just stand there like a bump on a log she forced herself to think of something other than him and started her assault on the soldiers around the tank. She used her earthbending to launch disk shaped boulders into the Fire Nation troops crushing them three at a time.

After a minute or so she couldn't stand it any longer, she extended her 'sight' outward searching desperately for Sokka. She grew frantic when she couldn't find him; he was nowhere near the tank anymore. Holding in her panic she threw another disc into the crowd of Fire Nation soldiers. She searched for him again, nothing. She couldn't sense any thing more than 10 feet away, there were just way to many vibration obscuring her vision.

'Maybe if I was on solid earth' she thought 'Besides I'll fight better from the ground'

She earthbended a huge disk up to eyelevel, but instead of throwing it out of the tank she turned it so it would work as a shield for her body. She then jumped out of the tank.

Sokka cried out in anguish. With tears streaming from his eyes he blindly ran forward cutting down any in his path, not even stopping to see if they were friend or foe. He received a severe burn to his shoulder but didn't stop running, he didn't even notice the pain it was causing him to swing his sword. The only thing he felt was despair, anger and sadness, the only thing he saw was the burning tank, it filled his whole vision.

When he reached the tank nothing moved. With inhuman strength he pushed the tipped tank right side up. He climbed inside where he found several earthbenders groaning on the floor, luckily no one was severely hurt, but Toph was nowhere to be found.

A burst of flame engulfed her rock shield as she landed on the earth. Locating her attacker, she kicked up a pillar to slam into the man's chest knocking him backwards and onto the ground, he lay there coughing and sputtering before he was knocked unconscious by another rock delivered straight to the man's head. As soon as she took care of that soldier Toph noticed two more advancing on her. Luckily they weren't fire benders or they could have got her from the side. She quickly turned and launched her shield at them throwing them backwards and away from her.

She pulled up a hollow pillar around her to protect her from any attacks while she searched for Sokka. She took a deep breath and concentrated. The first thing she noticed was the difference being on the ground made, she could now sense individual heartbeats in the people around her, or in some cases lack thereof. She could also sense, and not just hear, each fiery explosion caused by fireballs being launched from the battlements above the battle field. But unfortunately even with these few additions to her site she still couldn't locate Sokka. There were too many vibrations and heartbeats to discern any differences of one to another.

She cursed and slammed her fist upon the ground sending out a massive shockwave radiating from her little fortress. The force knocked out several fire nation solders that were converging on her getting ready to breakdown her protective walls. Just then there was an explosion just a few yards away. The vibrations cut through her core like a sword; they caused her walls to crumble before their awesome power and sent her flying from the ground.

'Maybe I have the wrong tank. Yeah that's it I just got confused Toph's all right' his panic subsided though he still couldn't seem to shake the feeling of unease that had been with him since the beginning of the battle.

He quickly blocked a blow from a club and used his sword to knock the weapon from his attackers grasp. He then kicked out sending the man sprawling on the ground. Then he noticed it, the unnatural disturbance in the earth. It was as if a violent tremor had rippled through the earth causing the rocks to jut out at odd angles in a rippled manner. It was a clear sign of earth bending.

'Okay so maybe that was Toph's tank but she wasn't in it when it exploded. Yeah that's it' his panic began to rise again if he was right then that would mean Toph was out on the battlefield unprotected. 'Or maybe it's not Toph at all maybe it's some other earthbender'

His eyes quickly scanned the area around the disturbed ground. There were chunks of loose rocks littering the ground, along with many fire nation solders that looked as if they had been either thrown back in the explosion or possibly hit by the earth bending attack. Then his eyes rested on a splash of green within all the red and it took a minute for his brain to process what this could be.

He gasped pulling the smoky, deadly, air into his lungs, holding it there with out even realizing it. He ran forward and there he saw her, Toph, lying in a crumpled heap on the ground. She wasn't moving, it didn't even look like she was breathing, and Sokka's heart stopped as he struggled to gain control of the immense panic, rage, and sadness threatening to overrun him.

A/N- Again sorry for the shortness and the cliffhanger but the next one shouldn't take to long. please review on your way out.

-Megi