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[◭..chapter two..◮]
"Ah," he mumbled, holding a hand to his head. Pain pulsed behind his eyes, his scar burning hot on his face. "Toph?" he tried, his mouth full of cotton, struggling to open his eyes and put his feet under him. He tilted to the side, gasping. Oww. He hoped he had just landed on his foot wrong and that it wasn't broken or twisted...
"Zuko?" the twelve year old returned back at once, sounding much better off than him. "Are you okay?" she asked, closer than before and approaching from his right.
He forced his eyes open, his hands on his knees as he tentatively glanced down at his steel-toed boots. He experimentally rolled his ankle, and when there was only the same smarting pain from before, he gathered himself and stood up. His eyesight swam, but a cold, small hand gripped his arm, forcing him upright again with surprising strength.
"Sit down," Toph directed, leading him back to the shifty ground. Zuko followed her willingly, the dizziness receding back some. He probably just needed some time to adjust from the fall, nothing felt broken and he didn't see any blood on himself or his young companion. The relief crashed into him like a punch, and he exhaled through his nose.
"I'm glad you're okay," he told Toph, cradling his head in his hands.
But... hadn't they fallen off the Temple platform? That should have been a fatal.
Zuko frowned, turning his head and looking over at Toph. Her bun was loose around her face, the hair tangled and frizzy. Foggy-green eyes stared back him, unseeing but perceptive nonetheless.
"The others?" he asked, trying not to hope too hard.
She shook her head.
The dark spirit? he wanted to ask but didn't.
They were on a beach, crystal clear water lapping gently at the shore; he thought he even saw some shimmering fish swim closer before disappearing back into the depths. The air was warm and humid, and a soft breeze swept through their wild, ruffled hair. From behind, the palm trees allowed them some shade, rustling gently... It also smelled a little bad. Like the smoky aftertaste of one of the Fire Nation's guzzling machines exploding.
They were definitely not at the Western Air Temple anymore. Were they back in the Fire Nation, Zuko thought with a pang of alarm, feeling déjà vu for Ember Island's beach resorts. But, no, neither of them were wet—not carried here by a current, then—and they were hours from the nearest island anyway.
"Don't think yourself to death," Toph snarked, punching his shoulder. He rubbed the tender spot, scowling at her. "Look behind you."
Warily, Zuko did so and then his eyes widened, the skin around his scar stretching.
"Told you not to think too hard," she said, smug.
Zuko didn't know how to describe it. He'd never seen a city as tall and shiny as the sprawling towers behind him. They certainly were not in the Fire Nation... or any nation that he knew of, and he'd traveled the world. The architecture of the buildings were blocky and metallic, short and tall rectangles smashed together like the people here were worried about running out of space. To their left, a pier extended out onto the horizon, faded in blue-grey from the distance, and a weird collection of structures rested on top.
"Before you ask," Toph said, putting her palms on top of the sand, "we're not in the Earth Kingdom either."
Had the dark spirit transported them? To where?
He swallowed his questions, looking back to the Avatar's earthbending master. She had been working on a small replica of the city in the sand, with even the little details of the two of them on the beach, sitting in front of an even smaller sandy outline.
So they couldn't be in the Spirit World, then, if they still had their bending.
Zuko looked closer, admiring the detail. He ignored the sting of jealousy.
"Took me forever to learn," Toph told him, somehow reading his silence and rolling a shoulder absentmindedly, "sand is so.. shifty and loose. It was hard to sense it enough to bend. I really only got the hang of it recently."
Her forthright honesty about the initial failure took him by surprise, even though it shouldn't have. He was so used to only talking to Aang — mostly about firebending forms and classified royal secrets — he had forgotten the wealth of information the rest of the Avatar's companions had about their own bending styles and the trial and error it had taken to get them this far.
He wondered if Toph could share her technique. He wouldn't be able to bend sand, obviously, but maybe he could adapt it like Uncle had done with the lightening. Zuko's thoughtful smile dimmed. Uncle. He would have known what to do about the dark spirit. He would have known how to get them back.
"Awfully quiet over there, Sparky."
Zuko shook his head. He said, his voice rough, "Sparky?"
Toph bared her teeth, blowing hair out of her face instead of answering.
Uncle wasn't here, but... the Avatar might be. Hopefully. If it really was a dark spirit that had attacked them at the Air Temple, the Spirit Bridge incarnate would be their best shot at getting back. Sozin's Comet wasn't going to wait for anybody.
Zuko put some space between the city's outline in the sand.
"Come here," he told Toph, who turned to him curiously. When he asked her to turn around, Toph listened without hesitation, and the blatant show of trust warmed him more than the balmy summer sun. He smiled down at the top of her head. "What kind of hairstyle do you want?"
"Something simple," she told him, and then, quieter and surprised, "thanks." He braided a crown around her head, just the way Zuko had seen in a re-telling of Love Amongst the Dragons, just the way his mom had shown him. The loose strands were tucked behind her ear, and he used her hairclip to pin it together.
Azula had never liked his braids, but she had never told him to stop either.
"We'll find Aang, and the rest of them," he said, not sure who he was trying to reassure more. The world—their world?—was counting on them.
Zuko looked back to the sand-drafted blueprint of the unknown, a nervous pit in his stomach. Agni, where were they?
"We rejoining civilization?" Toph asked, stretching her hands over head. The bones cracked. Her smile was a force of nature. "Alright!"
He didn't have time for moping. Zuko nodded resolutely, then belatedly remembered to murmur an affirmative. He collected his dual blades and looked out over the water. Faintly, against puffy clouds, he thought he saw another looming tower, weirdly standalone, surrounded on all sides by the water. He turned away, facing the grey, condensed city.
It wasn't important. Right now, they needed to focus on finding the others and getting home.
The diverse strangers walking to and from either directions didn't stop to stare, thankfully, but the wide-eyed, confused looks still followed them as they cut through the foot traffic.
"We're standing out too much," he told Toph through the corner of his mouth, a tense hand finding her shoulder.
"I was hoping for aliens," she answered instead, "Or monsters." All she could see with her feet were normal people, most of them with all two arms and all two legs still attached. Boring.
"We need to change our clothes." There wasn't anything he could do about the scar.
Toph didn't bother asking about how they were going to pay for it. This wasn't her first rodeo, and she had no qualms about breaking some rules. "Find something nice for me."
They walked further into the crowd, and Toph jostled to the side, hearing a rushed apology at her back. In front of her, Zuko expertly flowed around the people. She frowned thoughtfully, tracking his footsteps. The firebender moved like Twinkle Toes, fluttery and light on his feet.
"Toph?" Zuko called, and she felt him hurry back to her. "Stay close to me," he said, and though she would normally dislike the patronizing tone, she knew he was just as worried as she was about them being out here on their own.
"Sorry," she said, moving closer.
He sighed, the anger leaving him at once. "It's not... I'm just... please just try to stay close, okay?"
"You got it, Sparky."
Soon enough, they found themselves at the edge of a wooden boardwalk, the shapes that were distant and confusing earlier now looking like tall structures built for amusement and entertainment, if the happy squealing was anything to go by. Toph grounded her toes into the dirt, scoping out the way they had come, and Zuko looked on as children rushed past them, dressed like everyone else here in a mismatch of colored designs that almost made him desperate to return to the orderly separation of reds, blues, oranges, and greens from back home.
"Oof—" Toph grunted, shunted against the firebender, "—hey!"
"Watch it," a looming man rumbled back at her, his muscles tight against the sleeveless black shirt.
In the back of Zuko's mind, he was relieved that at least there wasn't a language barrier to overcome here.
Toph scowled, sardonically waving a hand in front of her face. "Hellooo, I'm blind!"
Zuko frantically pulled her behind him, smiling nervously. Toph was an incredible fighter, but they didn't know enough about this weird rainbow-coded city to use bending out in the open, and that man was huge.
"She's blind," he repeated, eyeing him warily. They could always run, if it came to a fight. The giant grunted, trying to peer around Zuko to confirm the statement with his own eyes. He didn't let him, standing in front of Toph again, mirroring the other's moves. "So we'll just be on our way."
"We can take him!" he heard Toph hiss with quiet confidence. She stepped up next to him, punching a fist into her open palm, a smile playing at her lips.
"What's the hold up, y'all?" someone else said in a somewhat southwestern Earth Kingdom accent, and then a crowd of teenagers were surrounding the two of them. Zuko's fingers twitched, but he resisted the urge to pull out his swords. Not yet.
A pink-haired girl the same height as Toph gave them a sharp lookover, uncrossing her arms to hold her hands loosely in front of her chest. "Are we going to have a problem here?"
"No, no problem," Zuko said.
"Depends," Toph overrode.
"On what?" a brown-skinned boy asked, his most notable feature the single eyeball on his green helmet. The pinprick pupil creepily tracked the way Toph jutted up her chin and stepped forward. A thin boy in a dark costume, like a simpler version of a wolf-bat, stood silently next to him.
He was losing control of the situation much too quickly. Who were these people, and how were they dressed even worse than everyone else here?
"Toph," Zuko warned, shifting to the balls of his feet.
"On where'd you get that," she asked, steel in her voice, "Where's Aang?"
Zuko's eyes widened, and took a closer look at the others. He looked beyond their unusual colors and weird outfits. Then, he realized: a small child he had previously overlooked was holding the Avatar's wooden staff to the ground, goggles on his forehead and a mean look in eyes. Toph must have sensed the similar vibration.
"Who's Aang?" the triplets in red asked. The girl took a dangerous step closer, moving like a cat-owl on the prowl.
"You want this?" the small child asked in a high-pitched whine, studying the divots on the side more closely. He held it up, clumsily spinning it around. "Well, too bad. Finders keepers, losers weepers."
"Looks like you're out of luck," the girl added darkly, and a pink burst of color sparked when she snapped her fingers. Toph gasped, grabbing Zuko's belt and pulling them backwards onto the boardwalk, just as the weird electric torchlights on both sides of them exploded, glass raining over the spot they had just been.
"Now can we beat them up?" Toph asked. Zuko unsheathed his swords in a graceful flash. If they had Aang...
Another ribbon of sharpened pink arcs broke the wood beneath their feet, and the two separated quickly.
Zuko leapt onto an empty picnic table, dodging the big man's giant fists as they came down, splintering the table. The people at the amusement park seemed to notice the fight, and crowds rushed to leave in droves. Another fist crashed the second picnic table he had jumped to, and Zuko grunted as he evaded it, his good eye widening as the wolf-bat teen appeared next to him on his bad side. He slashed his swords down, but the boy disappeared in a swirl of black. Yelping, he lost his balance, falling forward from the unexpected lack of resistance.
"You kinda suck," the tiny child told him snootily, Aang's staff waved tauntingly in his face. Zuko snarled, pulling himself back up and racing after the flying boy with the fire torches on his back.
"What'd you do with Aang?" he heard Toph shout back at the other three (no- four? six? nine? was the boy in red multiplying?) teenagers. The earth at the edge of the pier grumbled, but that was it— there was luckily no showy earthbending just yet, so Zuko trusted that she could handle herself and focused on himself not getting squashed.
"Who?" the girl laughed, spinning through the air like Ty Lee. She stumbled her landing, her smug look turning to one of surprise as she glanced down at the rocky ground. Toph smirked, her hands held loosely in front of her.
"We didn't do nothin' to anybody," the quadruplets chorused, one of the boys helping the girl up. "Well," they amended after a thoughtful pause, "not anybody named Aang, at least."
"Oookay," Toph said, turning her head in the other direction as another twin (?) circled her. They weren't lying, but... "How'd you get his staff, then?"
The light-footed girl answered for them. "Our beneficiary," she paused dramatically and then continued, the word weighted ominously, "Slade."
Was that supposed to mean something to her? Toph cocked her head, and a small pebble went flying, hitting one of the boys dead center in the forehead.
"See-More!" the girl yelled angrily.
She heard a crack, and hoped with unbridled glee that she'd broken something important.
"Ouch," the boy said, and from his body language, was probably giving her the stink eye. "I thought you were supposed to be blind."
Toph grinned with her teeth. "I am."
Zuko ran past an abandoned stall selling ice cream, then jumped over the counter of a wide-angled game stall, the stuffed toys nailed against the wall jostling from the motion.
"Come out wherever you are," the brat jeered as he floated above them, fire at his back, but somehow not firebending. "Oh, what's this do? —Ah! Ohhh, cool, wings!"
As silent as the night, Zuko climbed up the side of a stall selling porcelain oni masks, sunken holes for eyes and half-copper, half-black designs on sale for 50% off. He crouched at the top, gold eyes bright like a pygmy puma.
The kid was floating on twin flames that weren't dying out, looking at the staff like he wanted to dissect it. Zuko tested his weight on the roof and then did a running leap off the top, neatly grabbing hold of the staff and using his momentum to bring them both back to the ground.
"Who are you?" he asked, crouching down and gripping the airbender staff tightly, refusing to lose the only connection to Aang they'd found today. He spun it closed, and the wings disappeared.
"I think that's our line," the big one growled, stopping next to the small one.
"Yeah," the pipsqueak added, with outrage, "You guys ruined our night out. I was gonna steal some toys tonight!"
"And I was going to ride the Ferris wheel," the other one added, which seemed slightly less criminal until he said, "And then maybe rob a jewelry store later. If I'm feeling up for it, of course."
He considered them intently, taking in their odd abilities and weird mannerisms.
"...Zuko," he finally answered, with narrowed eyes as he waited for any form of recognition. Son of Ursa, banished prince of the Fire Nation. The Avatar's firebending teacher.
"Like Tony Zucco, the mobster in Gotham?" the big one asked, and the little one scoffed. Their red-eyed wolf-bat companion walked up to them, quiet as a shadow, and stared back at Zuko with a neutral look. Neither offered their own names.
"So what do you want with that? Its tech is pretty old fashioned, y'know?"
Zuko eased out of his battle stance, looking at the staff in his hands and then back up at the three strangers with their unnatural powers and not a single element bent to their will, from any of the elements. He didn't answer, turning to walk back to the pier, hoping Toph was okay and everything was still standing.
He heard the rest fall into step behind him.
After Zuko regrouped with Toph, she gave him a quick punch to the arm, taking the airbender staff from him wordlessly.
"And my name's Jinx," the girl in black finished introducing, wiggling her fingers in a greeting that came far too late to feel welcoming. Zuko grumpily folded his arms across his chest, and Toph smirked, having way too much fun with this. "Sorry we don't know where your friend is," she continued, smiling insincerely.
Behind her, the red-clad teenager who could clone himself (!) was nodding, "We were just having som' fun," he defended.
"All is forgiven," Zuko lied through his teeth. "So you can go now. Bye."
Jinx smiled a sabertoothed grin, Mammoth and Gizmo on either side of her. "But maybe we can help you find him." She gave them a long look, up and down, lingering on his scar before shifting her pink-eyed attention on Toph, "To make up for playing with us. You're obviously not from around here."
"Geez, what gave us away?" Toph asked wryly.
"The weird clothes, I think," two Billys answered her politely, if not ironically.
"The way you stupidly didn't run screaming as soon as you saw us," Gizmo added, less politely.
"We don't need your help," Zuko said, frowning at the group's leader and not liking the shifty look in her eyes. "We're fine."
Jinx shrugged smoothly. "If you say so."
Surprised by how easy that was, Zuko found himself saying, "Oh, okay, great. Well, bye then."
"Be careful," the boy with a now-cracked eyeball on his forehead said, "the streets aren't safe at night."
Even though they had arrived on this strange world during daylight, the sun had long since set, and darkness was all around them. Zuko glanced over at Toph, and she subtly nodded her head. He was telling the truth.
"We have a place you can crash for a couple days," Mammoth offered.
Or Toph and Zuko could take turns keeping watch... But Jinx knew something she wasn't telling them, he knew. They had Aang's staff... and though they didn't seem to know Aang, the fact they had his staff meant it was also the only clue they had to finding its owner.
He looked over to Toph, trying to read her neutral expression. She turned, as if she knew eyes were on her, and she bumped his arm with a gentle fist. "I'm with you, Sparky."
Zuko looked back at the teenagers. "...Fine."
He hoped he wouldn't regret it.
./◭..◮/.
Author's Note: As always, please read and review. Also, thank you to those who reviewed/faved/alerted. I appreciate it. Also, thank you for clearing up the stuff with XL Terrestrial (?) (Sp?).
UPDATE: this was re-written 1/3/23. Toph finally gets her life-changing field trip with Zuko, and it's actually before Sokka and Katara's this time lmao.