This is a contest fic for *daughterofthestars on deviantArt and her pic titled "Ambushed". It's a sad, sad picture, and she did so well conveying the emotion and pain. :O Anyway, she got many offers from writers to expand on her short descriptive story and thus, the contest was born. Honestly, I don't care about being the best. I just wanna see the other entries! :D
UPDATE: I won da contest! :D This is officially the contest version, edited with the help if my amazing beta reader, Capt-BA from dA. She's the shiz, and I am so grateful for her wisdom and patience! There will be an Author's Cut, a full multi-chaptered fic to continue and further explore the characters! Yay Tokka!
[h e a r t],
Nyx
2. Ambushed
The night started clear and cloudless, but by the dawn everything around them would be drenched in shades of crimson and smoke.
The acrid stench of smoldering earth and terror permeated the night and clawed at Toph's lungs until she was coughing violently. There were almost two dozen Firebenders and numerous tanks surrounding their camp from what she could tell. The rush of her own adrenaline made her nearly deaf as well as blind, making everything hazy and fragmented. She'd never choked in battle, but this was different tonight. Something was very, very wrong this time.
She raced down the twisting narrow path, barely avoiding trees and other obstacles in her way. She finally gave up the thought of surprising her enemies and she began to use the earth to rocket herself forward, great pillars pistoning from the ground like stony extensions of her own legs. She pushed on, heedless of the tree limbs slapping at her arms and face, until she stumbled onto the horrific battlefield that was once their peaceful campsite.
This was a nightmare.
It had to be a nightmare.
Firebenders were everywhere. They circled Appa, who bellowed in pain and rage as a blast of fire caught him along his flank. The great bison hooked one soldier with a horn and tossed him into the trees and slammed a group of three hard to the earth with his mighty tail. She could feel Katara and Aang nearby. They were back to back, simultaneously guarding one another and striking out at their opponents with well aimed strikes of bending. Her heart stopped when she failed to find Sokka through the agitated and enraged energy of the earth.
The Firebenders were focused mostly on Aang and Katara, so Toph threw multiple boulders crashing into the Firebenders' ranks. She launched a barrage of rocky missiles at their attackers as Katara flung a stinging whip of lethal ice and water across their bodies. She whirled and lunged at her enemies, a graceful and deadly dance in the midst of a fiery battle.
Tonight, as she got her adrenaline under control, Toph held the advantage. She could see he enemies clearly while they were blinding themselves with their own billowing clouds of smoke. She used this advantage to slam a Firebender on her right against a tree and hold him there. She launched the man in front of her into the air, taking grim satisfaction in his terrified screams as he careened away from the burning camp. To her left, she suddenly sensed Sokka as he dropped another Firebender with a vicious swing of his club. Relief crashed through her and she grinned in spite of their circumstances.
"You hurt, Boomerang Boy?" she called out. She commanded a jagged earthen wall to burst from the ground in her attacker's face, and he crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
"Minor scratches. You?" Sokka grunted as he swung his club at another enemy's stomach, making him collapse in a heap.
She didn't have time to respond. Aang had been separated from Katara and was now surrounded by heat and flames. Come on, Aang, go all Avatar on their butts, she thought desperately as she watched the exchange. He held off blazing wall of fire with well placed gusts of air, the element he always reverted to in a crisis, but he was quickly being overwhelmed. A blast caught him on his left side and he cried out in agony. Panicked, Toph rent the earth beneath him even as he fell to his knees and dropped him out of harm's way.
A primeval scream ripped from Katara's throat as she sent icy daggers stabbing toward the men who had injured Aang. Three of them dropped without another sound, but the others turned to meet their assailant head on. Steam joined smoke as fire and water hissed and clashed angrily against each other, twisting and lunging like enraged serpents. She was holding her own despite being outnumbered, but fatigue and fear was causing her to slip. One of them men got past her defense and slashed at her arm with a dagger and Katara screamed again, this time in pain, and she fell to her knees clutching her now useless right arm. Toph started to run for her injured friend, desperate to help her.
"TOPH! BEHIND YOU!" It was Sokka's scream that alerted her to the fire pulsing towards her. The fire she couldn't see. The heat of it she could feel, but heat was everywhere, and it was impossible to tell where the dangerous element was. She stood frozen, eyes wide with fear, unable to sense a safe escape.
She was slammed to the ground just as the night exploded around her. Unbearable heat engulfed her and the last thing she remembered before she passed out was the feel of Sokka's still body covering hers and the feeling of the Avatar bursting up from beneath the earth.
And then there was darkness.
-
His first thought upon waking was that he'd been on the wrong side of an arctic hippo stampede. Surely, he'd been trampled into the ice and left for the buzzard-fox's to pick apart. He shivered violently, and that sudden involuntary movement left him in breathless agony. He was so cold, and in so much pain.
What happened to me? he thought. He was having a hard time focusing.
"SOKKA! Oh, Spirits, you're alive!"
"Toph... wha?"
He sat up blearily, limbs numb and ears still ringing from the explosions. He felt a pressure on his chest, and drowsily realized that Toph was squeezing him tightly. He took a breath to try to put words to his scrambled thoughts.
"Shh," she cut him off. "You're hurt."
"Mmn." He tried to figure out where, but the numb stinging seemed to be everywhere. He lifted a hand, focusing on Toph's form. "Joo?"
She forced a choked laugh. "I'm fine. Stay still, stay quiet." Her voice had a waver in it that he'd never heard before. "Aang went to get Katara. You're going to be okay."
"What happened?"
"It was an ambush..." She said slowly. "They attacked while we were asleep..."
The ringing in his ears had dimmed and the overall ache had begun to draw back to individual wounds. His head was still a little fuzzy, but he started to take mental stock of his parts and pieces. Various scrapes and bruises, a bump on the head, pain in his wrist... probably sprained. He wiggled his fingers and blinked his eyes, all the while Toph kept drawing him closer and tighter.
He tried to wiggle his toes, but his feet were still numb. He couldn't feel anything. His heartbeat sped up, and Toph tried to sooth him. "Shh, Sokka. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay..." Was she trying to convince him or herself?
"Toph... I can't feel my feet."
Her hands clenched and she closed her eyes tightly, silent sobs contracting her chest and closing up her throat.
"Toph? ... " His throat closed up, but his muddled brain couldn't figure out why. Dull pain throbbed in waves up his legs and left him breathless. All at once realization came crashing into his mind. With a valiant fight against unconsciousness, everything went dark again.
-
The sound of rain beating a staccato rhythm against the roof is what woke Sokka from his fevered nightmare. He bolted upright gasping for air and clutched wildly around the bed for his boomerang. The dream had been so vivid. Firebenders everywhere, attacking his friends, his sister. He woke when the explosion in his nightmare erupted above him and Toph, blinding and deafening him. So much heat and pain, the feel of her tiny body huddled beneath him, and oh, spirits, the pain….
He ran through the same mental checklist as in that horrific nightmare. Head, fingers, wrists, eyes, no bruises, no scrapes. He sighed in relief and chuckled to himself. He was being ridiculous. It had been nothing more than a nightmare. He was safe and whole, still tucked away in the lavish bedroom at the Fire Nation Royal Palace.
Unease crept through his body, wrenching his gut with growing terror. When had they arrived at the palace? He couldn't remember arriving. Actually, the last thing he remembered was Toph kissing him on the cheek and then laying in his sleeping bag as giddy thoughts swirled through his mind.
"Oh spirits, no… please, please, please let that just have been a bad dream," he whispered to the silence.
He took a deep breath and prepared for the most difficult moment in his life. He tried to wriggle his toes and….
…nothing. Nothing happened.