castleinthemist | 02

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02 - open

Toph knew she found the courtyard through various senses. She could smell the fresh air, hear the birds, and feel the warm sunlight and cool breeze. The hard stone from the castle faded into softer walkway stone as she moved out into the yard. When her feet touched the grass, she smiled to herself. No longer was the resonance of vibration from the earth surging out and back at her with all its strength. Instead, it met resistance and the grass muffled her senses as it tickled her feet, creating a sort of static for her until it gave way under her soles to let foot meet soil and allow the reverberations communicate to her nearly half a second later than solid ground.

It was a strange sensation, but she welcomed it. It calmed her, and she continued to smile while she moved to what she thought was a nice spot.

She breathed calmly and evenly as she took her stance. One move, another, and then a third, and a perfectly shaped chaise rose up from the ground. She felt proud of herself as she moved to it and lay down, body lying comfortably against the contour of the grass-covered reclining seat.

Once decidedly comfortable, Toph pulled a flask from her belt and took a drink from it. Nice, cool water. She'd stolen the idea from another castle inhabitant and had made one out of a chunk of metal ripped from her bed frame. He used his for naughty juice; she used hers for water.

Toph felt a little guilty. Most of the castle was trying to figure out how to get out of there. She, though, wasn't putting so much effort into it. Sure, she wanted to leave, but what could she do? She'd promised a new friend that she wouldn't go far without eyes to help her spot the monsters she couldn't detect. While she wanted to do her part of the exploring and searching for a way home, she didn't want to be useless in a fight against a flying shadow with claws.

There were very few times that Toph would admit her blindness to be a hindrance. A skirmish against the monsters that moved without contact or sound was one of those very few times.

"I'll just wait for a friend," she told no one before closing her eyes and laying her head back against her arm.

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A thick wall shot up between the younger Duo and the monster attacking him. It curved around to protect him, but had an opening big enough for the other two to join him.

"I think it's time we rethought our stay and play strategy," she told them with a slightly shaky voice as she dropped her armor. Clearly these things had the upper hand.

He swatted the the shadow monster before the wall rose from the ground, and when Toph jumped into the circle he followed suit to join her. Regroup? Yeah, they needed that. It was going about as well as it was before the last time he faced these things. And damn, that slug to the face was probably gonna bruise, wasn't it?

He made it inside the circle and stopped, bending over to lean his hands on his knees to catch his breath.

It just takes way too much effort to beat those things back!"

"Last time..." Duo huffed now that he was free of the damned shadow, his wrists bruised from where it had tried to grab and drag him away.

"Last time I knocked 'em off a high place... don't got that advantage here. Might need to run..."

That caused a smirk to come over Toph's face.

"A high place, huh?"

It didn't take much effort for her to drop the barrier. She continued her movements and the ground beneath them parted in a perfect circle around them. Another motion, and they were soaring up as a pillar lifted them up and away from the shadows.

The pillar was big enough for them to have some fighting room. It wasn't a lot, but surely a pair of talented pilots could pull it off, right? That was IF any of the shadows decided to follow them, or just give up and save their energies for the next batch of explorers.

"That better?"

"I agree. Running is goo-" Oof! Okay. The ground was moving under his feet, and he hadn't braced for it. Dammit Toph!

The ground shot up beneath them and he caught his balance just in the nick of time, looking down towards the shadows below.

"They can fly, Toph! What's this gonna do? We gotta get down to the platform we came from."

"Yeaaaah this might not be the best thought out plan..." the younger one said as he looked down at the shadows. So far they were still disoriented from the suddenly rising platform and apparently hadn't caught on to where their prey had gone, but it wouldn't take long before they figured it out.

"Any chance you can get this thing movin'?"

Toph turned towards the older, pointing to the edge of the pillar.

"We have the higher ground. Our enemy can only come from one direction, and when they're within range to strike at us, they're also at the perfect level for us to hit their weak points without them being above our heads. Don't you know an advantage when you see it?"

She thought that was plain as day, but perhaps she'd just been hanging around Sokka too long.

At the other's question, she hesitated. Her shoulders hurt bad, and while most of the Bending was done through pure energy, there was still a level of physical pulling involved that strained her injured muscles.

But hey, these two had taken a good socking and hadn't complained yet. Why should she?

"I can move it. But where? If these things have any intelligence at all, they'll be trying to block our way out."

He stood up and looked down at them, listening to Toph and trying to think. Think of something. Hmmn. He bit the inside of his lip as he formed the scenario in his mind, looking back to Toph. It was a gambit.

He took his club and etched into the ground.

"There's one of them right below this angle. Bend a rock at the top and drop it onto it." If falling from a height was enough to take it down, then maybe using gravity a blow like that would knock it out!

It took a few seconds for Duo to catch on to what his double was getting at, but when he got it, it was like a light going on in his head.

"Hey! Yeah! Give it a shot, it's better than nothin'!"

A sharp gasp escaped the girl when he began drawing in the ground. That's how Sokka often showed her small drawings as best he could. It was how Iroh had taught her to write her name. She could see what he was writing perfectly, and clenched her fists before nodding.

She moved to the edge and slammed her foot into the pillar. A boulder shot out from the side and took out a shadow. While she felt it connect with the main target, she felt it brush against another. She acted accordingly and impaled it on a sharp spike of rock. Two down, and how many had been taken out before?

"How... how many of these things are there?"

She sounded more annoyed than scared.

Duo looked over the side, grinning and uttering a mutter of approval under breath. "Got em!" Okay. Next. Next. No wing? No wing they could take care of. Except this one wasn't gonna stick around. Duo drew a semi circle this time.

"Rocks. All around this area. He's quick." How many? Seemed like an endless stream of them. But only three of them in this fight.

"Three that I can see," Duo answered Toph, saving any victory cheers for when they were finally in the clear.

"Keep goin', Toph. We're almost outta this mess."

The words of encouragement helped a little, but the promise of a close end helped even more. She grit her teeth and pushed past the pain in her shoulders to continue the assault.

"Three more. Okay," she huffed, taking aim at Duo's direction and dropping a barrage of boulders. Whatever was down there and wherever it was, she hoped she hit it because she wasn't entirely sure how long she could continue.

That agitated her more than anything. When had the Blind Bandit ever gotten tired? She knew the castle was sucking the energy out of her, but she didn't know it was this bad.

Only in the sarcophagi though! They were safe here. Duo himself was feeling rundown because he could barely stomach that pasty white slop they were being fed. He watched the boulders fall. One down. Another down.

"Where'd that other one go?" Duo asked as he peered down over the edge, then looked back down to his double. He backed around to the other side to check on the other side. He paused when he looked over the side carefully.

Then the black claw whipped out around his ankle and yanked hard, sending him to fall on his side to be dragged off the side of the plat form.

"Shitshitshit!" Grab him guys! Grab him!

"FUCK!"

Duo swore loudly and spun around, grabbing his double by his arms, trying to yank him back to the platform. Unfortunately the shadow was not eager to give up his one possible prey, and it quickly became a tug of war between them.

"LET! GO! YOU! BASTARD!"

Toph's meager weight added to the tussle wouldn't help much, but she tried anyway, sliding in to grab an arm and pull.

In fact, if it wasn't for her digging her feet into the pillar, she probably would have been hauled off with Duo.

This was turning out to be a rather bad day, she decided.

"Augh!" Dammit! Claws. Digging into his legs! Think. This isn't working! Think!

"Aaah. Dammit! Toph! Bend something to catch me!" If you can't beat them? Fall on top of them.

He looked up to his double, his eyes hard. He'll be fine.

He wanted to be let go? That was insane! Completely insane!

But... he had to trust his double, and there was no way he was going to get out of this with his limbs intact if they kept pulling on him like this.

"... you'd better survive this, man..." he said quietly to the other, letting go. Talk about a leap of faith...

Toph wasn't too sure about that. He'd fall! He'd break! He'd die! Bend something to catch him?! Like what?! She was scared and for the first time that day, it showed in her face. Eyes wide, heart pumping, hands shaking... though actually from fear or shock, she wasn't totally sure. Nor did she care.

She started to argue with the man until the younger spoke. She took in a sharp breath and sighed. She released Duo's arm, instantly turning her attention to whatever was closest at the time.

Something from the ground would have too much force and would cause damage to him. That's if it caught up with him at a distance that wouldn't break every bone in his body, or rupture some soft tissue somewhere. All she could think to do was create a jutting platform out of the pillar.

She didn't know where Duo was the instant she let him go, nor where he would be when he fell, so she gave it ten feet. It might hurt, but he'd be okay.

It was a leap of faith. It was one he was willing to take for the good of the team and the fact he knew he'd at worst be roughed up, even if he did fall the two stories. That's assuming he landed correctly. And that made all the difference.

So when he was let go by the two he let himself fall, kicking the shadow behind him. At the very least he'd have something to fall on top of!

He had mere seconds to maneuver himself so the shadow was directly beneath him before he smacked right down into the platform that was thrown out just as he arrived.

Sad thing was that the shadow didn't offer as much cushioning as he'd hoped for. No broken bones, but he was effectively stunned. On the bright side, the plan worked.

"Heeeeeeeey!" Duo called out as he leaned over the edge, looking down at where his double had landed. He... looked okay, if not horribly winded and a little stunned. That had been... pretty damn intense, and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't shaking a little.

"You okay, man? Say something!"

The Earth Bender held her breath and her stance until she could feel Duo's heartbeat telling her that he was alive. Likely in a good deal of pain, but not incredibly injured. She breathed a sigh of relief, but didn't break her stance.

"Sliding. Hold on," she warned as she moved through another stance until the ground beneath her and the younger sloped into a not-quite-steep ramp down to the platform where the older lay.

"Duo?" she asked, worried.

Not incredibly injured, no. Just banged up a bit, bruised and battered. Yow. He slowly pushed himself up to sit and grunted, leaning an arm over his bent knee.

"I'm okay!" He said with a hollow and haggard voice. Okay being subjective. Yeah. He was just fine. Probably needed some help up. Guess they weren't going after the tracks after all.

Duo slid down the slope, catching himself in front of his double where be bent to help him to his feet without a second thought.

"That was insane... heh..." he said with a nervous, hesitant note to his voice. His heart was still racing, but the adrenaline rush would come crashing down soon enough.

So none of them were really in much of a position to carry on much longer or farther.

Toph let out a groan and fell back to sit down for a moment.

"... should we go back?" She wondered if either of them could do with a nap as much as she could.

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