"This is where she lives." Chiyuri said as we all peered over the wall of a rich person's backyard.
"Why are we sneaking in if you're friends?" I asked.
Chiyuri gave me a mischievous smile. "Her parents don't exactly know about her earth bending. So they don't know about me. Don't worry, this is how I would go see her all the time."
So all six of us jumped over the wall as one and darted behind some bushes for cover. But that didn't last long as the earth underneath us threw us into the air, landing us hard in some conveniently placed bushed. Except Sokka.
"What are you doing here twinkle toes?" Toph, the blind bandit said, standing over Aang.
"How'd you know it was me?" Aang asked.
Sokka scowled. "Don't answer to "Twinkle toes" it's not manly!"
"Don't worry Toph, they're with me." Chiyuri said, stepping forward. Her cloak from yesterday was gone and she wore earth nation colors.
"Chiyuri?" Toph said, spinning around to somehow face Chiyuri perfectly.
"I'm back!" Chiyuri said with a sort of jokingly false enthusiasm.
"What are you doing back in town?" Toph asked, punching her in the arm. Chiyuri took the hit without flinching and delivered a lighter one of her own. "I though you ran off to master all the elements."
"And I did." Chiyuri responded. "Well, I'm still working on air bending, since it wasn't exactly easy to find a teacher."
"And one of your friends here is an airbender?"
"Three of them, apparently. Aang, the avatar, Kila, Aang's sister, and Jia. Katara and Sokka are water benders." Chiyuri paused. "Toph, Kila and Jia have powers like my brother."
"Alright, it's clear we need to talk." Toph stood still for a second, as if listening for people. "Come on, our cave's still hidden."
We followed Toph and Chiyuri though the large backyard until Toph used her bending to open up a cave entrance in a hill at the edge of the property.
"Well, yeah, it's easy to keep something hidden if only you can make it appear." Sokka said sarcastically.
"We used to hang out in here all the time." Chiyuri said. "Back when Toph was teaching me earth bending. I'm still nowhere as good as her, but she taught me more then a few tricks." She paused to light some torches on the wall with her fire bending. "Nice match yesterday, by the way."
"You came?" Toph asked. "I didn't recognize you."
"Air bending habits." Chiyuri said dismissively. "They make your footsteps lighter, as you no doubt noticed in Aang and Kila."
"Hold up." I said, entering the conversation. "I hate to interrupt the reunion and everything, but we've got a lot of ground to cover."
"Kila's right." Aang said. "See, I need to learn earthbending by the end of the summer and a crazy king told me to find someone who listens to the earth and I had a vision in a magic swamp-"
I put a hand over his mouth. "You too." I told him. I turned to Toph. "First, explain blind earth bending."
"When I was little, I ran away from home." Toph began. "I ran into a cave where I met some badger moles. They were blind too, so we got along well. They use earth bending by sensing movement through the earth, and taught me to do the same. It's a bit different from what they'd teach you in a 1st class school, but it's better. I can sense the vibrations in the earth to see."
"Cool." Aang said.
"Alright, now second point." I said. "We need to learn earth bending, and Chiyuri needs to master air bending. She agreed to travel with us if you would as well."
Toph sighed. "See, my parents don't know about the earth bending. They think I'm blind and helpless. I can't exactly travel the world. Can't you guys stay in town? I'll teach you, but my no one can find out about it."
"Unfortunately, that won't work out." Katara said. "We have to keep moving or risk being discovered."
"And that's the problem." Chiyuri added. "You can't leave, they can't stay. What do we do?"
"How bad is it with your parents?" I asked. "Are you just reluctant to tell them about your bending, or is telling them completely out of the questions?"
"Both, I guess." Toph said with a sigh. "I'd rather keep it a secret form them, and I'm sure they'd overreact."
"Most likely." Chiyuri said with a bitter laugh. "I never met them personally, but one time they saw me in town and described me to Toph, saying I was a 'dangerous' person."
"Yeah, I get a lot of crap for the hair as well." I said.
"So not only do you have freaky death powers, but your hair is white as well?" Toph asked.
"Pretty much." I shook a thought of Kzazul out of my head. "Light hair is a mark of death."
"Cheerful." Toph sighed. "I don't suppose you could bring her brother back for her?"
I bit my lip and shook my head, then remembered she couldn't see me and said, "No. Sorry. I can't exactly control my powers. I can only bring back people who still have something major to offer the world. I actually did try." I glanced apologetically at Chiyuri. "Last night, I tried. It seems that whatever your brother was meant to do was already accomplished. Do you have any idea what that might be?"
Chiyuri glanced at Toph, who was silent a moment, then nodded at her. So Chiyuri sighed and said, "My parents couldn't exactly always be around to protect us. But he was. He was always there for me, and he promised our parents he'd look out for me. He was supposed to protect me until I could fend for myself."
"So the last time he brought you back, you gained the last of the elements. You were powerful enough to protect yourself." Jia said.
"I guess." Chiyuri said, looking away from us all.
Sensing the tension in the air, I changed the subject. "Back to the matter at hand, what do you propose we do about the current situation?"
Aang raised his hand excitedly. "Oh, oh, I say some of us pretend to be evil and pretend to attack Toph's parents, and then Toph can reveal her bending to protect them, then I come up and say I'm the avatar and I need a teacher and-"
"As cool as that sounds, It's not very well thought out." Chiyuri said. "Toph's earth bending teacher joins them for dinner nearly every night and there are a ton of guards around who can fight very well. You guys could be destroyed well before Toph even tried to help. Plus it's a bit too much to process, finding their daughter is a master earth bender and then immediately hearing that she wants to leave them and travel the world? That could cause a panic attack, or lead to them doing something rash."
"Chiyuri's right. Sorry Twinkle Toes, but let's keep thinking." Toph told Aang.
"Kila has a spirit friend." Chiyuri blurted out. "She could ask him to give your parents a vision. Spirits are good at that."
Everyone turned to me. I bit my lip, and carefully said, "That's not a good idea. I mean, it is in theory. But in action, it wouldn't work. See, the spirit world isn't exactly peaceful right now, and he's really busy."
"It wouldn't be difficult." Chiyuri argued. "Just ask him at least."
"It's not that simple. First, I'd need to get to the spirit world-"
"But you can do that, right? Or Aang could, he's the Avatar, and you did say you had Avatar powers."
"Well, yeah, but-"
"Then I don't see the problem."
"No, you don't." I said angrily. "You don't because you don't know about all the crap I have to deal with. You don't know how hard it is to reach the spirit world normally, even when you were forcefully disconnected from it. You don't know about all the crap I've caused the spirit world. You don't know how Kzazul has other more important things to worry about then aiding my every problem."
I turned and stormed through the cave's tunnel, lighting my hand with the little fire bending I knew to show me the way. I could hear voices behind me, but I pushed on until I came to an opening, showing me a valley and more hills.
With a sigh I extinguished my small flame and sat down to the side of the entrance. I was glad and lucky there was an exit, because I had no idea where I was going.
I knew it wasn't fair to snap at Chiyuri for the same reasons I was angry. She didn't know. But I still should have thought more about her side of things.
After a few minutes, Chiyuri showed up at the entrance behind me. "Hey." She said. "Sorry about that. Aang told us about the spirit war and the threat over your life. I didn't know. Sorry."
"Aang." I gave a small laugh. "He can't keep his mouth shut, you know? Don't worry about it. I shouldn't have snapped at you. I've just had so much crap in my life recently, but I still should have been nicer."
"Heh, no problem. So Toph decided the best course of action would be to tell her parents about her bending tonight over dinner, which we're all invited to to support her. She wants to travel with you guys, so I guess that means we both join the group."
"That soon, huh?" I turned my gaze to the sky. I always loved the sky. Maybe it was an air bender thing.
"She thinks she'll chicken out if she wait longer." Chiyuri shook her head. "If it were anyone else, I'd believe that, but Toph won't chicken out of anything. She's too hotheaded. I guess I am too, now that I think about it."
"Yeah, so, um, do either of you have a problem with flying?" I asked her.
"You mean with the bison, right? Well, I don't think so, but what about Yui?"
"Your eel hound." I paused to think. "She's not too big. She could fit on one of the bison. Or she could follow on foot when we travel over land."
"Do you travel over sea often?"
"Not so much since the north pole. But it's always a possibility."
"Noted. Don't worry, we took a boat when we traveled their ourselves so I could learn water bending."
"I guess we should head back, huh? Put a better-structured plan together?"
She laughed. "Yeah, with your brother and Toph planning by themselves it could turn into a disaster."
I took the hand she offered to help me to my feet. I caught the glimmer in her eyes and knew we could grow to be good friends.
* * *
"You guys should get out of my yard or the whole plan will bomb." Toph said as we reached the wall over which we entered.
"Alright. See you later Toph." Chiyuri said, exchanging punches with Toph again.
"See yo-" Toph said, but then jumped into a fighting stance. "Someone's coming!"
The rest of us didn't have time to react before we were all trapped by the intruders. Toph, Chiyuri and Aang were thrown into metal cages, and Katara, Sokka, Jia and I were encased in earth.
"Hey, what's the meaning of this!" Toph shouted.
"Don't worry, girl, we took care of the guards for you." Said one of the earth benders from earth rumble six.
"You guys! What are you doing here?" Toph demanded.
"I believe you cheated us out of a bit of money earlier today." He sneered.
"What?"
Kila, you have to do something.
Aang's voice in my head drowned out the conversation.
What can I do?
You can earth bend!
Not really. I can hardly lift a rock.
You have to try. You're the only one that can.
It was true. In the metal boxes, Chiyuri and Toph both were powerless, and water, fire and air weren't much use against solid rock walls.
"Don't worry, we'll tell your parents where you are so they can pay the ransom."
I took a deep breath and focused on the rock, not intensely, but like I would for air or water. Then, without thinking, I put myself in a stance like I saw Toph's and brought my hand down, guiding the rock.
To everyone's great surprise, it worked. I jumped out and onto Toph's metal cage.
"Yeah, go Kila!" Sokka cheered.
"Kila, stay off the ground, it's their home court!" Toph warned.
Heading her advice, I wished I had brought my staff along. I had left it back at the campsite to increase the stealth needed to sneak in.
"Get her!" One of the benders yelled.
I jumped into the air to dodge the bolder thrown at me, landing briefly on the ground to grab Aang's fallen staff, and lept away, narrowly avoiding being trapped again in earth. With the staff I pushed all but the largest away before bringing it down hard on his head, causing him to stagger.
"Kila!" Katara used her bending to pass me to water from her canteen.
Using the water I began to launch attack, combining air and water into my attacks while continuously dodging and keeping to the air as much as possible.
"What's going on here?" The manor's guards seemed to have returned from whatever happened to them and were only just taking notice of the many trespassers. "Toph, are you alright?"
"Go get help!" Toph yelled. "Kila can't keep this up forever!"
"I appreciate your faith in me!" I said sarcastically as the guards ran off.
"Don't get cocky, brat!" The leader of the benders yelled at me, launching another attack, and I couldn't dodge in time, the attack having hit me in the right shoulder, dislocating it.
"Kila!" Aang yelled in concern.
I yelled in pain and fell to the ground where they didn't bother trapping me.
"We can get you all out of here before those guards return, I think." The bender sneered.
"Not quite." I said, trying to ignore the pain shooting through my shoulder as I stood up shakily.
"Know when you're beat, kid." A different bender yelled.
"Not one of my strong suites." I picked up Aang's staff with my left hand and readied it into a fighting stance.
Another rock was thrown at me, which I dodged, and I threw the staff like a javelin, which stuck into lock of Toph's cage. Dodging three more rocks, I bent the water still with my left hand and slammed it hard into the end of the staff, causing the force of it to break the lock, springing Toph.
"Finally!" She yelled, jumping from the cage and easily taking down the earth benders with little help from me.
"Toph! What is going on!" Yelled a voice from behind us.
We all turned to face the people who seemed to be Toph's parents escorted by the guards we told to get help. It seemed they had seen the end of the fight and saw Toph's amazing ability.
"Ops." Toph sighed. "Well, there goes telling you peacefully. Mom, Dad, I'm an earth bender."
A/N
Haha, yeah! A bit different from the show, right?
That took a bit longer then I expected. To write, I mean.
So guess what? Swim practice for my school starts again on Monday. Great. Just what I needed. But hey, I'm still going to keep writing, of course. It just stupid that right when I get a ton of inspiration, my schedule completely fills up. Not to mention the ever approaching end to the summer.
So Atla12 also asked Kila:
"Do you still like Kuzon?"
Kila: Well, yeah. It's true we haven't seen him in a while, he's been traveling who knows where. But yes, I do.
Toph: Who's Kuzon?
Sokka: Kila's boyfriend. He's a fire-water bender who died a hundred years ago, but Kila brought back subconsciously. He also was a prince of the fire nation.
Toph: Death powers are crazy.
I hope that answers your question. Remember anyone can ask any question anytime. And thank you so much, Atla12 for sticking with my story as long as you have.
Jeez, I always feel like I'm writing a whole separate book down here. It's crazy how much I have to say after every chapter. I still don't really have a very unique way of signing off too. Like how you see some authors have something they say at the end of every chapter as their own personal signature type thing. I always thought that was cool but never got one of my own.
"Personal signature type thing". Why do you guys even read these, half the time it's filled with crap like this XD.
Welp. Sometimes it's too fun to make fun of myself. Sorry.
(Insert "personal signature type thing" here)