Korra gave a shout as she felt her foot slide underneath her, nearly tripping over branch of undergrowth as she made her way through the rock caverns. She panted with exhaustion with each step, her eyes drawn with traces of both fear and adrenaline. The air itself was thick with dust and rubble, from her frantic pacing on the dusty ground as well as the falling rocks from the stalactites above.
Most of it however, came from the copious amount of Earthen discs that were being hurled at her by a very pissed off Earthbender.
The air shattered as another disc landed behind Korra, who instinctively ducked behind another boulder. The disc nearly sliced through the rock that Korra was hiding behind, splintering chunks of rock and dirt into the air. After narrowly avoiding that barrage, Korra used the time to catch her breath in a sigh of relief.
Okay...maybe running back to Toph wasn't the best idea.
That thought was about all she had time for, as the ground immediately in front of Korra suddenly exploded violently, revealing several earth spikes that emerged in a menacing wave.
As the swath of destruction as it tore its way across the cave floor towards her, she tried to counter with an Earthen wall of her own, but Toph's attack simply shattered it into a thousand pieces, throwing Korra back a good few feet before she skidded unceremoniously to a halt.
"If you think you're getting off easy, you've got another thing coming bub!" Toph chirped, spitting to her side as she summoned two more gigantic discs of Earth from the walls next to her, another flick of the wrist sent these two objects flying straight at the Avatar.
Korra grunted, throwing up another rock barrier and blocking the first Earth disc. As she ran forward, a stomp of her foot summoned another platform of earth beneath her feet, giving her the leverage she needed to jump over Toph's second disc.
"My turn." The Avatar smirked, and while she was in mid air, Korra manipulated one of the boulders beneath her, levitating it so that she stood on it, almost floating, before kicking it off and sending it shooting straight at Toph at a vicious speed.
Toph however, simply smiled, and grounding her stance with one outstretched, she shattered the boulder into two on contact, letting it explode harmlessly into two pieces on the wall behind her.
What happened next didn't need much explaining. Korra found herself caught in that moment when time slowed to a crawl. She had fired her last shot, and was falling back onto the ground, and Toph had that triumphant grin on her face that seemed to sum everything up about the fight.
I've got you.
Toph quickly stuck the ground with a tap of her foot, and Korra felt the wind being knocked out of her as a pillar of Earth shot up beneath her, hitting her hard in the gut and causing her to almost keel over in pain. She gasped as she felt the air being knocked out of her, clutching her gut tightly before rolling onto her side on the ground.
Round one hundred and twenty five was over, with Toph winning again.
General Bei Fong however, simply crossed her arms seriously as she gazed over the bruised and exhausted Avatar.
"That's enough for today Korra. Hit the showers, the real training begins tomorrow."
"Whoop...dee... fricking...dooo." Korra groaned softly as she lay prostrate on the ground.
Toph however, was not putting up with it. "I heard that." She gave her ear an exaggerated tap. "And that's going to cost you three hours of horse stances. Now!"
Knowing better than to say anything more. (Toph would have doubled it otherwise), Korra pulled herself to her feet and assumed the grounded 'rock like' stance that made her legs feel like they were on fire (as if they weren't already). She had thought the warden in the South Pole drew up harsh drills, but in hindsight, compared to Toph, his exercises and drills were like a vacation.
