Somehow I get the feeling I won't be finishing this thing before Volume 4 starts. Or ends. Oh well. Here's some more fighting.
The air thumped and crackled across the Goliath's head as it was assaulted by a spectacular fireworks show of shots and blasts converging from four different - and changing - angles.
As Weiss lurched around at the whim of Aang's earthbending, she silently fumed over her position. Their Dust attacks were no stronger coming from the golem, and -
She arched her back just in time to avoid the upswing of the elephant's trunk. The black appendage then wrapped itself around the stone arm behind her, and with a heave, severed her from it, still half-locked in a now-falling piece of rock.
Glancing in alarm toward Aang, she saw him reach both arms in her direction and make pulling motions, and shortly she was reattached, good as new. Aang then prepared a left-handed punch, and she was dragged back by the golem's mimicked motion.
And, she mentally resumed, while the golem could increase the force behind their blades, she had to focus all of the Aura she could muster into her arms to prevent them from snapping in the process. She had her doubts that even Myrtenaster would remain intact were it not for her Aura.
As she steeled herself again, the earth holding her suddenly rushed at the gargantuan Grimm. The beast attempted to turn its head and block the rapier-punch with its tusk, but it was outsped, and her sword struck just to the side of its skull-like face-plate, leaving a cut in its thick hide.
Too thick. There was no hint of red.
Ruby rode in on a right hook as Weiss was recalled, but her scythe met the white armor, which still proved impregnable. Brushing her hair out of her face with her unfavored right hand, Weiss shouted to her partner, "Honestly, Ruby, is there anyone crazier than you?!"
Carried up on the wind from the ground below came an exuberant cry of, "Heigh ho, Foofoocuddlypoops! Creatures of Grimm, eat hot karma!"
Looking down resignedly, Weiss found herself watching Sokka, seated on the back of some kind of burly brown quadruped, slicing left and right at Grimm with his club as his steed did the same with its oversized fangs and antlers. The pair charged through waves of monsters like a speedboat over the water, completely undeterred by any counterattacks; now and then Sokka's boomerang lashed out for a more distant strike, always finding its way back to his fingers even after multiple improbable ricochets.
Weiss rolled her eyes and tutted. "Whatever." Casting a hexagon of glyphs around her, she sent a series of small, target-seeking energy snakes at the Goliath's eye.
A Boarbatusk reached maximum spin and shot toward Katara like an earthbound cannonball. Sidestepping the roll, she pirouetted and directed her large supply of water around her in an arc. The flying stream made a full circle and washed over the boar from behind, hijacking its own momentum; another revolution later, the Grimm was hurled far into the distance, its long squeal of disapproval growing steadily quieter.
As Katara's foot scraped on the ground to halt her spin, she noticed Zuko dueling an Ursa nearby. The bear raised its arm to slash, and Katara thrust out both of hers and engulfed the paw in liquid. The Ursa looked at her, then got a fireball to the cheek.
Katara tugged on the water tube and the Ursa was yanked to the ground. Zuko then swung his leg around in a jump and delivered a fiery falling kick to the monster's neck - there was a distinct snap.
As more Grimm gathered, the waterbender and Fire Lord jogged over to one another and formed up back-to-back.
"There's a river nearby," Zuko said over his shoulder.
Katara, who had been wrapped up in the moment, paused briefly to think. Upon reflection, she remembered seeing the river from above on the flight in, though her first glimpses of the village had at the time burned all other images from her mind. She mentally kicked herself for letting the potential advantage slip by.
"I should go," she told Zuko. "Are you okay here?"
"I've got this," he replied firmly.
Katara pulled her hands in and waves crashed around her, and then she rose her arms and was elevated above clawing height. Dropping herself outside the ring of Grimm, she surfed away.
Moments later, she heard a powerful cry and explosion, and glanced back to see black bodies growing hazy against the glow of a vast swirling inferno, streaks of which appeared to take on uncanny hues of green or purple.
Toph would never have admitted it, but this golem thing was difficult for her. Sure, she was the greatest earthbender in the world (regardless of what that Bumi guy said; he was crazy anyway), but the Avatar State imbued Aang with the knowledge and skills of countless past Avatars who had mastered the craft, making it relatively easy for him to map his movements onto the earthen body. She had no such shortcut, and had to concentrate intensely to control two arms at once.
Besides that, while the Goliath was huge enough that its vibrations were impossible to miss, she was not used to looking at something of that size as a single living - ish - creature. A mere badger mole this was not.
The thing's trunk rushed up at her, and she made a blocking motion with her arm, raising up the next boulder down on the golem's chest to cover her cave. The walls shook around her at the impact of the nose-limb, trails of dust falling from overhead.
She could see just as well from inside, of course, and considered leaving the rock there for protection, but then she heard muffled shouts, and removed it to find out what they were yapping about.
"What?!" she shouted vaguely.
Blake responded from the left, "Can you spin me?!"
Toph held her left arm out straight, and Aang moved Ruby and Weiss in above to distract the giant Grimm. She began twirling her left hand at the wrist, and, slowly, the end of the rock-arm holding Blake detached only just so from the rest of the stone and began rotating as well.
Blake held out both of her arms, one gripping her sword and the other the sharpened sheath. As the spinning speed increased, Toph got the idea, and moved the whirling Blake-saw toward the Goliath's trunk.
The elephant let out a trumpet of pain as its proboscis was repeatedly slashed. As Toph eased Blake this way and that to maintain contact with the writhing trunk, Yang shouted over at her.
"Toph, listen! I get stronger the more I'm hit! Can you hit me against your chest?! I mean, not your chest, but -"
"Are you sure?!"
The trunk snaked out of Blake's reach, and the Goliath pushed forward with its tusks, striking the golem in both shoulders before pulling back again in preparation for a repeat.
"Do it!" Yang cried.
Toph clenched her right fist and slugged herself in the gut. Then she raised the arm and felt for Yang's vitals. She seemed woozy but alive; shortly she punched her own fists together, and Toph felt a small burst of hot wind from her direction.
"Now shoot me at it!" Yang commanded.
"In case you die," Toph yelled as she pulled her arm back for the blow, "you should know you're awesome!"
Toph punched, and at her command, the golem did the same and blasted the end of its arm - containing Yang - off at the Goliath, whose head had just lunged forward again.
By the feel and soundscape of the impact, the rock around the girl was explosively pulverized - the distinctive gunshot sound of her gauntlet was almost completely lost in the rest of the noise. But more importantly, she had stricken the beast directly between the eyes, and Toph unmistakably felt its skull-plate crack in a spiderweb pattern.
The brute was still standing, though, and its trunk curled up in search of Yang. The boisterous brawler slid down the elongated nose to the center of its length and then walloped it once, twice, thrice - until she broke clean through. Toph felt the half-appendage thud against the ground with Yang on it, and then her attention was returned to the elephant proper when it angrily slammed the golem with its tusks again.
Equally unrelenting, Toph reentered her stance.
Katara balanced atop a miniature wave as it sped along through the chaos. On either side of her, kept aloft by a raised arm, an additional bubble of water floated, and whenever she became the object of a Grimm's attention, one or the other would take on the form of some horrible icy spike or blade or claw, and lash out.
After a few suspicious seconds of nothing attacking her, she discovered the reason: something big, brown, and furry was standing over a pile of evaporating corpses. The thing turned toward her and she hopped off her liquid conveyance and into a firm stance, but Sokka, who she just realized was mounted on the animal, yanked on its huge horns and it stopped in response.
"Whoa there Foofie, that's just my sister. Cranky, sometimes, but not a monster."
Staring up at her brother incredulously, Katara asked, "Okay, when and how did you - ?"
"He's an old friend," said Sokka, patting the creature on the back of the neck. "I'll explain later." Taking on a more serious tone, he asked, "How are you holding up?"
Katara sighed. "I'm fine. Really. This is - therapeutic. But . . ." She glanced at the chaos uncertainly, watching as Aang, at the top of the golem, fended off an intervening Griffon with a sheet of flame. "I'm not sure it's very useful." She chewed her lip a bit, thinking. "This just isn't the kind of fighting we're used to. We need a new strategy."
Sokka, in that oh-so-Sokka way, held his chin for a moment of pondering, then pointed skyward with an inspired smile. "Or an old one! Don't kill them!" Swinging his arm to point sideways, he continued, "Go to the river and get as much water as you can, and then trap them all in ice as fast as you can! That way we can, y'know -" he waggled his boomerang in little circles - "finish them off at our leisure. Just make sure they're trapped!"
"Huh," Katara mused. "I wonder why I didn't think of that . . ."
Sokka shrugged. "Hey, you got the bending. Somebody had to get the brains."
Katara placed her hands on her hips. "If you find out who it was," she teased, "let me know." Forming up her wave ride again, she added, "Stay safe," and took off for the river.
Ruby let out a protracted "Yaaahhh!" as she sliced a hole in the relatively thin flesh of one of the Goliath's immense ears. The thing's anguished gurgles through its half-trunk momentarily deafened her as Aang drew her back again.
Beneath Weiss, Blake was moved in, and just like Yang before her, she was launched off the rocky arm at the Grimm. By producing a shadow clone, she freed herself from the stone projectile, and Ruby noticed that the clone was made of fire only a second before it exploded on contact with the Goliath's face. Flames and pebbles pummeled the fractured skull mask as Blake threw her weapon around one of the monster's tusks and used the long black ribbon to swing safely to the ground.
A groan then came from somewhere above, and Ruby looked up to see Appa dueling a Nevermore about his size. The Nevermore beat its wings and shot a flurry of feathers at the bison, who bellowed in pain.
"APPA!"
All attention went to Aang, who heaved his right arm back, and as he did so the elements swirling around him increased their speed, coming to resemble an angry swarm of rapier wasps. Then he threw his hand toward the Nevermore, and the four elements shot upward, spiraling together to form a huge, drilling blast of raw natural power. The beam engulfed the bird completely, and after it passed, all that remained were a few burning feathers being pulled along in its wake.
Aang was left with only air and fire encircling him; he balled his fists, pulled down his arms, and and let out his most ferocious roar yet, shaking not only the entire golem but the ground underneath it, and in short order new samples of earth and water were rising toward him.
Ruby felt a pair of smaller tremors jolt the golem, and she looked down to find that this was Toph banging on the rock like an old lady complaining about noisy neighbors.
"Don't lose your head, Twinkletoes!"
"Aang," Ruby shouted, "I'll help him! I'll help Appa! Get me up there, okay?!"
The Avatar stared at her with those unnerving white eyes, and Ruby, for a moment, was afraid that his angry expression was directed at her, until she realized that he had been wearing it for as long as he had been glowing, and she started to consider the emotional toll that the fight must have been taking on him. This train of thought crashed into a truck as the earth arm pulled her down, gathered its weight, and then rocketed her skyward. At the end of the punch, the stone around her crumbled and that beneath her boots extruded, and she was flying.
She prepared to use her Semblance to correct her path, but Appa seemed to get the idea and swooped in to catch her. Landing on his saddle at the peak of her arc, she made hardly an impact.
Ruby folded up Crescent Rose and crawled onto Appa's head, pulling out a few Nevermore feathers in the process.
"Um, hi, Appa!" she said, digging her hand under the darker fur of the arrow symbol to stroke his scalp.
Appa made a series of calm grumbling noises, listing slowly over the two mammoth combatants while the golem delivered a volley of rocky punches to the Goliath.
"Yeah . . ." Ruby continued softly. "It's okay . . . You're just like a big, flying, six-legged Zwei, aren'tcha?"
With something of a wail that did no justice to her singing ability, Weiss whooshed by in an upward trajectory. Moments later, she descended a stairway of glyphs and joined Ruby on Appa's head.
"Good," said Ruby, "you're here. I have a plan!"
Weiss rolled her eyes. "Of course you do."
An eruption of light and noise from below drew the pair's attention, and investigation revealed that Aang had unleashed his four-element beam on the Goliath. In an apotheosis of stubbornness, the thing's bony mask held, but gradually the cracks in its surface began to spread.
Fully disarmed of the world-hopping team of monster-slaying girls, the six-person combo move was officially a bust, and Toph bent the chest hole closed in front of her and then shot out of the golem's back just as Aang blasted the elephant with - well, as best she could tell, everything. All four elements together; the same attack that had taken out the giant spirit General Old Iron, and would surely have done the same to Ozai had Aang not stopped himself in time. Upon reuniting with the ground, which responded to her feet much more in the manner of a trampoline than solid earth, she did a seismic double take when she felt the Goliath to be whole rather than holey. How strong was the darn thing?
After a while Toph realized that this was not the only peculiar thing happening around her. Many Grimm were still moving, but many it seemed had also been restrained - not dead, though; they were still struggling against whatever was arresting them. Not earth; she could see that. Spotting an unusual pattern of vibration, she persuaded the ground to carry her toward it, and eventually she understood.
Katara was riding one of those water tornado things, using it to lift herself over the heads of most of the Grimm and then swing down and freeze them in ice. Oddly, she seemed to be specifically avoiding dealing lethal blows . . . Elsewhere, in contrast, Yang and Blake were doing what they did best, which was to say actually slaughtering the beasts.
"Oh," Toph said to herself, "I get it." She stretched out her arms, rolled her neck, and went to work, seeking out monsters and imprisoning them in stone. It proved indeed an easier way of dealing with the tougher ones than trying to finish them off before more got in the way.
Elsewhere still, Toph could make out Sokka doing what he did best: something utterly ludicrous.
. . . Was that the same saber-tooth moose lion as that one time . . . ?
As Aang's spiral beam pushed against the Goliath like a glacier carving a fjord, Appa rumbled through the air, descending to the now-inert golem's waist level. Weiss, standing in the saddle, whipped her sword overhead and released a streak of lightning that severed a wing from a small Nevermore, causing the Grimm to plunge out of sight. Weiss then spun Myrtenaster's chamber and took her stance, holding the weapon forward. In front of her, on Appa's head, Ruby lay stretched out on her stomach, arms and legs spread wide.
"Ready?" Ruby asked, looking back at her.
Weiss responded only by conjuring a glyph several inches out in front of Appa's face. From the glyph sprouted a cone of ice, which grew until its diameter at the base was equal to that of Appa's sizeable head. As the bison drifted on the breeze, the ice spike maintained its same distance and angle from him such that it may as well have been attached.
Ruby turned to look forward, though now she could not see much past the icicle.
"Alright," she muttered, "let's see if this works . . ."
Ruby closed her eyes, snuggled her nose into Appa's fur, and dug both hands down to his skin. Feeling for his heartbeat, she concentrated, trying to synchronize her own with it.
Slowly, scrupulously, she focused her Aura.
"Hurry up!" came Weiss's complaint. "I can't hold this forever!"
Ruby took a deep breath - admittedly, Appa was not particularly fragrant - and activated her Semblance.
Appa's pupils dilated, and he growled. Then, with a great slap of his tail, he surged forward quickly enough to create a sonic boom that temporarily blotted out the peal of Aang's monstrous beam. Fluttering and swirling behind the sky bison was conjured a trail of rose petals, but instead of red, each was bright white with a gray-brown arrow on one side.
Weiss had knelt and grabbed hold of the front of the saddle with her right hand, and her left trembled around her rapier as the tearing winds assailed her. Squinting, she gauged their distance from the leathery black wall that was the side of the Goliath's torso. "Rushing to meet them" was the most accurate description.
Careful not to dispel the ice cone, Weiss called forth a second glyph.
This one was black instead of white, and made no efforts to lock onto Appa's movements. It manifested just in front of the icicle, and when Appa passed through it, his speed was amplified even further, forcing Weiss to duck her head and close her eyes against the sting of the relative gale.
It was at this point that Ruby, hands still clutching Appa's head, heaved her weight to one side, compelling the bison to go into a full-body spin.
Where Aang's beam had failed, this new drill succeeded: in a mere instant, it seemed, the twirling blur that was Appa shot out of the other side of the gigantic Grimm, throwing chunks of its pseudo-flesh in every direction and leaving an Appa-sized hole punched cleanly through its massive form.
Aang ceased his attack, and water and stone tumbled to the ground at the same time that the elephant's legs gave out beneath it.
Foofoocuddlypoops let out an angry low as his antlers clashed with a Death Stalker's claw. The other claw made to swipe in, and Sokka was nearly thrown off the moose lion's back as the animal reared up to save his front legs, which he then brought down on top of the second claw, pinning it to the ground. With a heavy buck of his head, Foofoocuddlypoops used the leverage of this position to flip the scorpion over onto its back, where it writhed ineffectually, legs kicking and tail flailing.
Sokka pushed himself to his feet on his mount's back, took a running jump forward, and plunged his club down into the weaker black armor of the Grimm's underbelly. The Death Stalker struggled more frantically; Sokka glanced back at Foofoocuddlypoops, who raised his snout and then thrust his two enormous fangs into the underside of the scorpion's head. The many limbs around Sokka went slack.
Standing up again, Sokka said, "Okay, that one was at least fifty-fifty. I mean, I could've finished it off by myself."
Foofoocuddlypoops stared at him patiently.
Sokka half-groaned, half-sighed. "Fine. One more for you."
They were then interrupted by what felt like an earthquake, and both turned their heads to see that the hulking Goliath had finally been defeated, and had now been forced to make the proper introduction to the ground that it had thus far rudely avoided.
After the allotted boggling time, Sokka pointed his club sideways at the elephantine corpse and said to Foofoocuddlypoops, "How many points you think that's worth?"
The luminescence of the Avatar State faded from Aang's body, and the ball of wind around him died down as well, allowing him to sink slowly onto what remained of the golem. The slain Goliath lay before the Avatar, putrid black smoke pouring out of the hole in its midsection. Aang stared at it for several moments before observing the rest of the battlefield spread out below him.
His attentions having been on the Goliath for so long, Aang noticed for the first time that Katara and Toph had taken to trapping the other Grimm in ice and rock, focusing on immobilizing them quickly instead of fighting the whole fight. Zuko was directing his soldiers to distract the free monsters while Blake and Yang took out the confined ones, and Sokka was still partnering with Foofoocuddlypoops (whom Aang was as surprised to see there as anybody, but he could never forget a name like that). All of this had certainly sped up their progress, but there were still a great number of Grimm remaining . . .
Feeling the golem vibrate a little, Aang looked down to see Grimm gathering at its feet and attempting to scale them. The Beowolves got the best grip with their dexterous claws. A hundred red eyes stared straight up at him from all around, their intentions clear.
Aang closed his own eyes. Using what Toph had taught him, he concentrated on the earth beneath his feet. Through the vibrations of the battle, he felt not only the beasts climbing toward him, but all those trapped and all still unrestrained. He would never be as good at this as Toph, considering that it was her primary method of interacting with the world, but being the Avatar gave him certain advantages.
His tattoos briefly pulsed white again. Then, opening his eyes, Aang leaped straight up into the air, a wisp of windblown dust momentarily trailing beneath him. At the height of his ascent, he gathered his arms, and, with a shout, threw them apart, using the air to push himself downward and aiming a kick at the stone below.
The Beowolves were about halfway up the golem when Aang collided with it. As he bored through the giant earthen figure, it shattered from the top down, sending rocky debris flying every which way. The climbing Grimm were buried under tons of rubble, but that was not all: every last piece of the golem that had taken to the sky followed a precise trajectory in order to land on top of one of the beasts that had been subdued by jackets of ice and earth. Some were crushed by massive boulders, others impaled by stone spikes. Not even a single pebble touched any one of the humans nor their animal aides.
Aang was left standing in a large crater, surrounded by rocks from underneath which the black particles of dissolving Grimm leaked up into the air. Were the image taken out of context, most would be forced to assume that Aang had just emerged from some kind of meteor.
The airbender's legs wobbled, and his vision swam. Exhaustion claimed him, and as he tipped over sideways, he lacked even the energy to brace against the ground with his hands before he passed out.
Weiss surveyed the battlefield from above on Appa's back, thoroughly impressed. There was still some mopping up to do, but Aang had very nearly ended the entire skirmish in a single move. She vaguely recalled, when Aang was in Remnant, him saying something about his "blocked chakra" (not "chocolate," as Ruby insisted), which had apparently prevented him from using this Avatar State power, without which he had seemed rather frail, what with the lack of an Aura. But now she understood how he could be the protector of a whole world.
"Did you see that?!" gushed Ruby, hopping into the saddle beside her.
"No, Ruby," Weiss scoffed. "I didn't see that."
"How could you miss it?!"
In Weiss's mind this deserved only acerbic silence as a response. After a few seconds, Ruby finally narrowed one eye and said, "Wait . . . are you being hungry again?"
At this Weiss's mind threw up its hands and stormed off, and so she did the only thing that she could come up with in its absence and performed a single backflip, exiting the saddle and arching into a headfirst fall toward the ground.
If there was one thing that every student at Beacon got out of their education, it was a landing strategy.
Although . . . Given the time pressure, maybe this was her chance . . .
Holding out her rapier and focusing her Aura, Weiss created a glyph in front of her - white, but with a different pattern than usual. Like the one that had given Appa the icicle helmet, it kept its pace with her as she fell, though it did rotate at a varying frequency.
Come on, come on, she thought, Nevermore or something . . . As long as it's big enough to ride . . .
Slowly, what appeared to be an armored hand, composed of white light, reached out of the glyph up to its wrist, flexing its fingers. Weiss was so surprised at the sight of it that she lost her concentration; the hand sunk back in, and the glyph vanished.
Grumbling at herself, Weiss produced a black glyph below her, which severely reduced the velocity of her descent when she passed through it. As she prepared to land, however, something caught her eye.
A Griffon was diving toward Toph from behind, its front claws outstretched. It was terribly close already, and quite a large one - no guarantee that an attack from Weiss would stop it. At least, that was what she told herself; not so much deeper down, she knew very well that she wanted to get back at Toph for interrupting her with that earth catapult earlier.
Another black glyph sent Weiss plummeting at an even faster speed than before, and then a third was angled sideways toward the earthbender. Gracefully, Weiss shot in just below the Griffon, and yet another black glyph slowed her enough to avoid grievous injury as she slammed into Toph from the back, pushing her out of the way of the Grimm's attack.
The part that Weiss had not expected was the portal that opened up in front of them. First appearing as a medium blue spark, it quickly grew into an oval frame composed of undulating strips of energy not unlike flames except for the unnatural boldness of their color. Inside the ring of energy, an entirely different landscape was visible as though through a window, featuring buildings resembling those of Remnant. It appeared so suddenly and so close that Weiss had no time to attempt to redirect them with more glyphs. Toph and Weiss fell through the portal, and the Griffon followed.
At least, half of it did. Swiftly and inexplicably as it had come, the portal closed back up, unfortunately for the Griffon doing so right down the middle of its torso. The rear end rapidly transformed into smoke as it fell, leaving no trace behind.
Katara lifted herself high into the air on a column of water, trying to make out Aang's shape in the middle of the crater that the golem had become. Coaxing the water into the air before her and then freezing it into a flat surface, she let gravity do the work of carrying her forward, and slid toward Aang.
The Grimm population had been severely reduced, and she ignored any that jumped her way. Reaching the end of the slide, she melted it again and pulled it toward her, surfing as quickly as she could. As of yet no Grimm seemed to be moving toward Aang, but he also seemed to have collapsed . . .
She urged the water on. She knew she had nothing to worry about, but she worried anyway. The world had changed for her in that village.
At last, she washed into the hole in the ground, and as she let the water fall around her feet and begin to fill it, Aang floated slightly above the dirt. He stirred a little, and she bent down and gently held him up. He blinked many times, eventually keeping his eyes open and looking into hers.
Smiling with relief, Katara said, "We have to stop meeting like this."
Weakly, he smiled back.
In the corner of her eye, Katara saw a Beowolf appear at the edge of the crater. Propping Aang up with one arm, Katara opened her other palm and extracted a small whip of water from the pool.
As the tournament's spectators fled toward the edge of the platform where small airships with their four lazily-flapping wings were parked, some of its combatants held off the black monsters with their logic-defying multiple-function weapons. Mai and Ty Lee found themselves somewhere in the middle.
Mai slipped a pair of concealed daggers into one hand, but a screaming citizen shoved past her, hampering her aim. Collecting herself again, she unleashed two consecutive waves of shuriken at a bear-thing, but though the miniature blades buried themselves into its back, it merely turned toward her as though tapped politely on the shoulder. This did at least serve as enough of a distraction for Ty Lee to flip in and deliver several precise strikes between its bone-like coverings.
The creature's arms went limp, and it stared at one and then the other dumbly. But a moment later, it swung them back up with an angry roar, and appeared to regain full functionality of both, which it took advantage of to attempt to split the single Ty sister into all seven.
As Ty Lee curled easily through its attacks, Mai shouted to her over the general racket, "I'm not doing much good here! Hurry up and find their pressure points!"
"That's not the problem!" she shot back, maneuvering herself onto the Grimm's shoulders. "It's - it's like - it's like they don't have any chi to block!"
"So we're both useless," Mai huffed.
Ty Lee launched into a flying somersault to avoid some overhead swipes. Landing gracefully next to Mai, she said, "Well, at least we can dodge."
A tall, brown-haired boy wearing gray armor charged past them and drove a mace-thing into the bear's stomach.
"Dodge into the ship!" he yelled back at them.
Mai cycled through a few snippy comebacks in her head, but before she could choose one, Ty Lee grabbed her by the wrist and they ended up heeding his advice. As they approached the aircraft, some guy with a ridiculous green mohawk waved them in.
Sokka fled at top sprint, on his tail a slithering King Taijitu. The chase ran parallel to the point where open field transitioned into dense foliage, but Sokka made no move to acquire cover. Instead, he slung his boomerang back at the snake, which swerved slightly toward the bushes in order to dodge.
This was when Foofoocuddlypoops burst from those same bushes and charged the serpentine Grimm with his antlers held down. The ambush left the snake with gashes along one side of its head and confused enough that its retaliatory bite struck only dirt.
Sokka's boomerang whirred back toward him, and just as he caught it, what appeared to be another boomerang attached to a long black ribbon flew past him. As the Taijitu pulled its fangs - comparable to those of Foofoocuddlypoops - from the earth, Blake's weapon wrapped around one, and a tug on the ribbon set off the gun trigger, the force of the shot snapping the long tooth in half.
The snake spat in rage, and over the top of its wounded black head, its rear white one loomed, baring its own fangs. The white head readied a strike - and then several holes blew open throughout it. When the destroyed white half-body flopped down on top of the black half, Sokka saw Yang standing and grinning behind it, her gauntlets lightly smoking.
Foofoocuddlypoops jumped into the coils and landed hard with all four paws atop the black head. With a decisive swipe of his horns, he dealt the final blow, and the Taijitu began to smoke.
While Sokka, Blake, and Yang caught their breath, Appa landed lightly nearby, and Ruby hopped off of his head and made a rather less graceful landing, getting one foot caught in the reigns and hopping about on the other whilst she disentangled herself.
"That was the last one!" she announced cheerily, stumbling back into a stable standing position. "I was checking from up there. No more Grimm!"
"Are you sure?" came Katara's voice as she rode in on an ice slide, supporting Aang under one arm.
Ruby nodded vigorously. "We looked everywhere, right, Appa? Besides, they were all attracted to, um -" she fumbled for a moment, clearly not wanting to talk about the village in detail - "y'know, uh, the negative emotions, so they would all, uh, come here."
Foofoocuddlypoops, eyeing Appa warily, sauntered back over to Sokka, who patted him on the shoulder. Yang, taking notice of this, pointed at the creature and asked, "So, what's the deal with this thing?"
Sokka smirked and performed a wide gesture at the animal with both hands. "All those not acquainted, meet Foofoocuddlypoops the saber-tooth moose lion."
"Foofoo-what?" Yang snorted, devolving into laughter.
Sokka reddened slightly and said, with dignity, "It seemed more appropriate when he was little."
At this point Foofoocuddlypoops turned his head toward the brush and made a sort of low-pitched honking note with a purr behind it. There was a moment of pause, then a rustling in the nearest shrub, and finally a second, equally large moose lion appeared, peering out at the group cautiously. And at its feet, no less than seven corgi-sized cubs, with only stubby protrusions of bone for fangs and antlers, poked their heads out one by one.
Ruby positively squeed. "Little baby saber-teeth meese lions omigosh they're so cute I want one I want oooooooone!"
Sokka's eyes and mouth opened wide, and the former began to water. Throwing out his arms with a huge smile, he cried, "I'm an uncle!"
The litter of cubs all bounded out of the bush excitedly - and ran right past Sokka. Blake had just enough time to construct a horrified expression before they dogpiled on top of her, knocking her flat on her back.
"Help . . ." she croaked, holding one hand up out of the pile as though she were sinking into a pool of lava.
"Ohhhh," said Yang knowingly, and then, as though it explained anything, "saber-tooth moose lions. Which are cats."
Blake mumbled something that may have included the word "profiling" as the cubs fought to lick and snuggle her face. Meanwhile, Sokka's arms had drooped and his bottom lip had thrust into maximum pout, but Foofoocuddlypoops nudged the back of his head with his snout, and he turned and started petting the adult animal on the neck, slowly relocating his smile. The other adult slowly walked over and stood next to them, and the two moose lions nuzzled one another.
As Blake managed to sit up, causing the cubs to spill down to her waist, Yang looked to Ruby and asked, "Hey, where's Weiss?"
"Oh," Ruby said, "she and Toph fell through another portal."
"What?!" said everyone else at once.
Ruby looked from face to face, taking a defensive step back toward Appa. "Uh, should I've said that sooner?"
Zuko stared up at the zeppelin - or what remained of it. The metal skeleton of the balloon still retained its basic shape, but most of the exterior armor lay scattered on the ground around it, and the gondola had fared even worse, the metal all but ripped to shreds.
"They attacked it as savagely as they did us," lamented General Mak, shaking his head. "I apologize, Fire Lord, I wasn't -"
Zuko held up a hand to silence him, then asked, "Are all of your men alive?"
"Yes, My Lord. Some are badly injured, but none require more urgent care than we can provide with the salvaged supplies."
Looking him in the eye, Zuko said, "Then you have nothing to apologize for."
Mak performed the Fire Nation bow and turned to leave. As he did, however, a messenger hawk swooped in and landed on Zuko's shoulder, and Mak held his position as Zuko took the letter from the bird and opened it.
The hawk, adorned with a black ribbon, departed immediately. Zuko's grip on the parchment slowly tightened as he read, and when full minutes passed with no further reaction from the Fire Lord, Mak grew concerned.
"What is it, Lord Zuko?"
Zuko lowered the paper. His nose was scrunched up in fury, and a tear was working its way down the topography of his scar.
"They're at the palace."
Wuh-oh... that ain't good. Especially since I've already killed off some characters... Would I be cruel enough to take Zuko's mom away so soon after they've been reunited? And what will become of Toph and Weiss? Will Cardin do anything else in this story, or are his fifteen words of fame up? Will the Cabbage Merchant and the Dust shop guy ever share that special kiss? Find out next time on Dragon Ball Z!