Lygin Lou Cho was the second son of a noble earth kingdom family and as such felt he deserved respect from these groveling, dirt covered peasants. He was about to find out that he was very, very wrong.
Toph approached the earth kingdom training master who was in charge of remedial drills and saw Lygin sitting looking lazy and board having finished most of his drills the day before. The drill master shouted for attention and the students all stood and bowed to her as she came to stand up beside him. He was well enough she supposed for an earth kingdom master, but no student of hers would ever be allowed to be called a master with such a weak stance. Turning her eyes to the teen Toph sized him up and called a set of practice armor to herself from the nearby shed. Padded armor in hand she walked up the Lygin and said, "Lord Lou Cho, of Amerlin estates of the eastern earth kingdom, I challenge you to a battle of stone." She dropped the padded armor into the petrified teen's hands and turned her back on him heading for the dirt arena that stood as both training grounds and trial grounds for bending battles at her institution.
She entered through the defendant's arch of the arena as was her right as master of this place into the staging area where Chen was already waiting for her. Aang was beside him shifting nervously on the balls of his feet. "Relax TwinkleToes, he's hardly even a novice, he won't even touch me."
"It's not you the Avatar is worried about." Chen chuckled holding out the heavy dress armor she had finished for important ceremonial events only a few weeks ago.
"Come on Chen, teaching this this kid a lesson hardly qualifies as a ceremonial battle" She complained ignoring the armor he presented to her.
Chen raised a brow at her and said, "You've grown too Sifu," giving her breast a not so subtle nudge as he set the armor to her shoulders. Toph could practically feel the heat coming off of Aang's cheeks a few paces away as Chen said, "This will fit you better, and you're less likely to come spilling out of it and really give that poor kid a heart attack."
Toph snorted and glared at Chen, but she let him settle the breastplate and position the other pieces around her strategically so that it was easy for her to pick them up with her bending and snap them in to place as they moved like liquid against her skin forming and fitting into every curve of her body perfectly. She could feel Aang's eyes on her and she had been told how impressive the process looked to an outsider before, but feeling the spike in Aang's heart rate and blood pressure was still strange for her. Nothing used to surprise him about her.
"I'll tell the smithy in town to prepare some more simple steel for your play armor tomorrow and we'll re-work it." Chen promised handing her the decorative flying boar helm.
Toph snorted at the heavy helm and removed the metal band that wrapped around the top of the helm slipping it over her headband. The fluid metal settled in a mimicry of the cloth band around her head with a triangle shaped tiara supporting the front of her bun while metal strips wove themselves over her scalp binding her hair into it's bun form no matter how much her fighting dislodged it. Until she removed the circlet, her hair would remain in its bun, the only issue with it was once she did remove it, her hair inevitably came undone so she usually ended up having to ware the damn thing for half of the day just to find the privacy she required to re-do her hair.
Chen smiled and placed the helm back on it's rack, "Try not to send this one home crying to his rich noble daddy, eh Sifu? It took you three years to convince his poor mother to send him."
"He was terrorizing the whole damn village with his shoddy bending and lack of discipline." Toph complained.
"And he'll go right back to it if his dear old mummy and daddy come down and rescue him from the monstrous Sifu." Chen chuckled and knocked his knuckles against her pauldron playful.
"I'll do my best." Toph said unconvincingly.
"Maybe we could have the Avatar mediate the battle for us." Chen suggested.
"Nope. We never needed the Avatar to settle things at the school before and we don't need him now."
"I simply meant since he's here…" Chen reasoned.
"You've never been simple before Chen, don't start now. Come mediate the match." She said brokering no more argument and almost successfully ignoring the pinch of pain that came from the sinking feeling she could feel growing in the young man behind them.
Toph walked out onto the field to find the stands half filled with students and staff members from the school. They all cheered when she came out followed dutifully by Chen. Clearly the boy was ill-liked by his peers who often chose to cheer for the underdog just for the fun of it.
Lygin came out of the opposite side of the ring looking too small in his ill-fitting armor. Toph really had tried to guess the best size for him, but she also knew that one of the assistants would have outfitted him with better fitting practice armor had it been available. Chen took his place blasting a column of rock up overlooking the arena and said, "As defendant do you require a reading of the rules for the battle of stone?"
"As writer of the rules for the battle of stone and Master Sifu of this institution, I do not require a reading of the rules." Toph answered in her smuggest tone.
Chen continued the ceremonial start of the tournament by saying, "As challenger do you require a reading of the rules for the battle of stone?"
"Umm yes? Wait um no… maybe?" Lygin stammered his heart hammering like a hunted jackrabbit. Chen waited patiently until the boy stood straight and said, "No."
"Does anyone among the official attendants of this challenge require a reading of the rules for the battle of stone?" He continued.
"I as the Avatar and an official spectator of this challenge request a reading of the rules for the battle of stone." Aang said now standing in the front of the stands looking down on the field worriedly.
"What?! Oh you have got to be kidding me!" Toph yelled stomping her foot and settling the myriad of stones that had been rising off the ground with her anticipation for the start of the brawl.
"A request has been made for the reading of the rules for the battle of stone. As mediator of this battle I find the request of the Avatar to be a valid one. The reading of the rules for the battle of stone will commence."
"Seriously?! This is ridiculous. Quit waisting my time." Toph yelled from more than a hundred feet below them.
"The rules for the battle of stones is as follows:" Chen began only to be cut off by Toph's bellow.
"That's it! You're next TwinkleToes! I challenge you next." The entire crowd gasped and tittered amounts themselves.
Chen paused and said, "The rules prohibit the defending party from challenging a spectator while in the ring."
"Oh really is that so Mr. Know-it-all? Then I challenge you Rockhead" She screamed back at him in frustration. This time the whole stadium went silent watching with bated breath as mom and dad sparred verbally with one another across the arena.
Chen sighed and buried his head in his hands, "You can't challenge me either Sifu…"
"Well who the hell can I challenge?"
"No one. You're the defender."
"Well who made these stupid ass rules?"
Chen sighed again, "You did Sifu."
That stopped Toph's rant as she remembered that the reason she was really here had nothing to do with either man who currently held her frustrated attentions and she sat forcefully on the dirt bending a rock tent above herself as she had as a frustrated child and allowing Chen to continue with the rules.
"Oh Sifu T, you never change do you?" Aang said under his breath smiling.
Chen sorted and softly answered back, "Sprits I hope not." The two men shared a conspiratorial smile before Chen continued.
"The rules for the battle of stones is as follows: Each earthbender will have three seconds to create a platform six feet tall, not to take up more than their half of the arena. An opponent must knock the opposing bender off of his or her platform to win the round. A maximum of six rounds will be held until one opponent is unable to battle or concedes. At the end of six rounds if both benders wish to continue the battle, the mediator will determine if a winner can be decided by knockouts in previous rounds or if a seventh round will be allowed. The seventh round has no limit is can only be decided by forfeit or the inability of one or both combatants to continue fighting."
Aang winced, "How often does it go to seven rounds?" He asked Chen quietly.
"Against Sifu Toph? I have a scar for every last one." Chen said solemnly. Aang winced but nodded his head in respect at the older man. He could see why Toph liked him, they similar in so many ways, but Chen was respectful and stoic where she was brash and high spirited. Aang formally bowed his thanks.
"Now that the rules for the battle of stones have been read the battle will begin on my mark." Chen announced. Preparing himself, Chen bent a fist sized stone against a great metal bell that hung over the defendant's side of the ring causing it to ring out with a deep melancholy resonance.
The moment the bell rang Toph's stone tent split apart and dissolved back into the ground just as the stone rippled out from her feet in great waves until her entire half of the arena was six feet higher than it had begun. Settling into smooth stone long before the second tone of the bell rang out signaling the true beginning of the battle. Lygin had been raising sections of earth a few feet wide around him to the six foot height one piece at a time and ended with a rather small island in the middle of his half of the ring. The sheer inequality on the field was rather pitiful when the second toll of the bell came and it came as a surprise to no one when the second toll had yet to ring itself out before the young man was sent sprawling off the back of his platform into the dirt six feet below.
The bell rang a third time and Chen flattened the arena with a lazy stomp of his foot as the attendants came out onto the field to check on the young noble. An earth kingdom master in his gold and jade robes came out onto the field and gestured at Lygin as if he was trying to instruct the young man on a better approach before the beginning of the next round.
Something seemed to swim uncomfortably in Aang's stomach as he watched the proceedings. They reminded him of the Agni Kai performed in the fire nation. He shifted uncomfortably and Chen whispered quietly, "Non-master earthbenders may each choose a master to guide them during the event. Not that it will help, but this is meant to be a learning experience for them, not a real battle. When we take our master tests with Sifu Toph we have to go all seven rounds. There are no masters to guide us then."
Aang looked up at the older man where he stood on his pedestal of stone, "Do you have to win?"
Chen shook his head, but any trace of the amused smile he usually wore when talking about Toph was completely gone, "We have to survive. This whole place was built on top of a metal mine. She only teaches metal bending to her masters. I am the only metalbending student at the institution and even so, I doubt there will ever be another metalbending master so long as Sifu Toph lives. I barely escaped with my life during my earthbending mastery tournament and both times we have fought a battle of stones since. There isn't a soul on this earth that could best her in a metalbending only tournament. Not even you Avatar."
"She uses metalbending against you before she teaches it to you?" Aang asked looking down at his once innocent friend with worry across his brow.
Chen nodded, "She says it is the only way we will ever truly learn. I bent metal for the first time during my master's trial. It's like the way Fire Lord Zuko talks about learning to channel lighting or Fire Lady Master Katara learned to bloodbend. I am the first and thus far only of her masters, but Korn will face his master tournament in nine weeks. Some of the younger hopefuls are taking bets on whether he will metalbend, but I already know. Korn will metalbend during his tournament. He will metalbend or he will die."
Something hardened in the pit of Aang's stomach and his curiosity over the match turned to ill concealed worry over the distinct hardening he was seeing in this toughest and closest friend. Having found the Avatar in a vulnerable position Chen reminded him coldly, "She's not the little girl in the white dress anymore; she's not even the girl from Earth Rumble Six. She's the woman you made her into by dragging a twelve year old girl into a war she could never win. She killed those parts of herself a long time ago. She ripped them out of her soul and left them to die on a battlefield for you and you left her to figure out how to live without them alone."
Aang's fingers crushed the metal under them with the strength of his anger. It was mostly directed at himself, but a part of him knew that Chen wasn't being completely fair either, "I was twelve too." He reminded him.
"And that Avatar, is the only reason you are welcome on these grounds." Chen said redirecting his attention to the field below him on which the challenging corner was finally starting to clear out of masters and attendants.
"How long have you loved her?" Aang asked not looking at Chen, but knowing he could hear him anyway.
"Long enough to know it was never me that she needed." Chen responded not looking at the young man next to him.
Lygin lasted four founds before forfeiting the match. Chen nodded stepping down from his spire and turning to Aang with a smile. "If he makes it through the night, he'll do well here," he said with a nod of satisfaction clapping Aang on the back jovially.
Chen suddenly laughed at Aang's horrified and shocked expression, "Not like that, she barley bruised him. Some of these young noble twats decide it's too much work or they don't take kindly to being tossed around the ring by a woman and take off back home in the middle of the night after a battle of the stones with Sifu. If he chooses to stay, he'll keep his attitude in check and work harder for the next time he faces her and she'll start training him twice a week one-on-one. It happens this way with most of the older noble boys we get. The girls have usually fought so hard to get to our front door that they wouldn't risk their position here for anything and the younger ones grow up smarter than all that, but these older boys always come to a crossroads with the Sifu. If she chose to challenge him instead of letting me or one of the earth kingdom masters it means she think's he's ready for some real training."
Aang nodded in agreement a little impressed with Chen's insight into Toph's mind. Once they made it down to the defender's staging area Chen went to help his master with her armor, but Aang was stuck frozen in the doorway in shock. She had released the headpiece from her hair and was busily shaking several feet of thick black hair our of the headpiece to fall, still half curled from its bun, below her hips. Chen accepted the headpiece from her as she bent backwards in her armor gathering her hair between her hands and soothing it down by combing it with her fingers.
"It's just hair TwinkleToes, I mean I know you don't have any, but the rest of us don't shave it off every few days so it tends to grow." She teased him form between the hairpins clamped between her lips.
Chen scrabbled a little at the side of her bust trying to unlatch her armor before huffing and drawing apart its internal clamping mechanism with his bending. "You're gunna take an arrow or an axe between these plates one of these days and there isn't going to be a metalbender around to get this contraption off of you so the healers can get to it." He chastised her noting the lack of external clasps in her new armor.
"Aww but Chen, it looks so pretty without all the stupid clasps." She teased and he rolled his eyes at her.
"You're blind Toph, you don't care what anything looks like and I personally prefer you alive." He said literally bending the pants off of her and revealing her silk master's robes still un-crimped underneath.
"I suppose I'll just have to keep one of you big strong metalbenders around then won't I?" She said obstinately, shedding her pauldrons, grieves, bracers, and gloves in one abrupt movement and letting them clatter to the ground as she went back to fixing her hair.
"You're going to be the death of me woman." Chen groaned bending down and beginning to collect her armor.
"And that's a promise." She said with something that in another woman might have been described as a giggle.
Aang bent to help Chen collect her armor and the older man nodded his thanks directing the avatar to the armor stand which already held her chest plate and armored pants.
"Damn it" Toph swore as the hair pin she was about to use dropped out of her hand.
Aang bent and picked it up for her as she struggled with the hair that had escaped her grasp while she was fumbling with the pin.
"Thanks TwinkleToes." She said taking the proffered hairpin back as Chen stepped up and took control of her hair just as readily as he had handled her armor. His large hands neatly swept her hair away from her face and began shaping it into her customary bun as she let him take control of it for her.
It seemed like such a casual act that it almost bled of the intimacy between the pair and Aang began felling like he was intruding on something he shouldn't be seeing. For some reason this simple act was making him far more uncomfortable than anything he had heard the previous night and he turned to leave before Toph said, "Hold up Aang, it's lunch time, let's see if Iroh is free and we can catch up in the states room."
She was pulling her bangs back with her headband when he turned back to look at her. Chen stood once more beside her armor rack checking everything over. She turned to him placing a hand against the older man's cheek in silent thanks. Chen took her hand in both of his, but instead of looking down at her he locked eyes with the Avatar over her head and whispered "go" against the tips of her fingers guiding her towards Aang with a soft hand on the small of her back. Aang gulped at the intensity in the older man's eyes, but held out an arm to Toph nodding his thanks to Chen and confirming that he understood the meaning behind Chen's actions. Toph, party to only a small portion of the exchange and ignorant to its significance, ignored the proffered arm punching the younger man in the shoulder jokingly instead.
"See TwinkleToes, I didn't even leave a scratch on the kid." She insisted bumping into him jokingly. Aang smiled down at her and laughed at her antics as they made their way back to the school's main building.
Lunch and tea with Iroh lasted much of the afternoon and it wan't until the maid came to call them to dinner that the trio were brought back to reality from their trip down memory lane and their task of filling Aang in on what he missed during his absence. "Perhaps the young avatar should come to our meeting tonight." Iroh suggested packing up his tea set.
"Nah we got it Pops." Toph said turning away from Aang so he couldn't see the expression on her face.
"Meeting?" Aang inquired.
"It's nothing TwinkleToes." Toph assured him picking herself up and heading for the mess hall.
Dinner was a rowdy affair as always as every student, master and staff member apart form the kitchen staff gathered in the booming stone room and ate the day's fill. A raised dais held Toph and any visiting masters as well as her own masters. At the moment Aang sat between Iroh and Toph while Chen sat at her right hand. Below them in another pair of split tables also raised a few feet of the ground sat the resident masters and below them the room was filled with students and staff mingling and joking through their dinners. Toph smiled looking out over the room and noting that Kygin was still almost his piers although a little worse for ware. She nodded in his direction to Chen and the older man smiled and grunted his recognition.
As dinner wound down after plenty of good food and friendly conversation, Toph stood. The hall was filled with a clattering as everyone in lower daises stood facing her and a hush fell as they bowed. Toph merely nodded her acceptance of their show of respect and with a single forceful heave bent a hole in the floor through which she plummeted sealing it behind her as if she had never graced the hall.