#19

TDBB: Tuff Wars 2.19

Toph woke inside a shell of her own making, her breath coming back to her in shallow pulls. Sweat had pooled in the hollow of her throat, and she was hot, her hair plastered to her forehead, her mouth dry.

Her first conscious thought was that she had buried herself alive in a coffin of riveted steel that she no longer wanted.

She reached for the metal with her mind and found it sluggish, her sense sliding through the alloy like a hand through cold molasses. The poison had done its work while she slept, slowing her blood and her thoughts and the connection she carried to the earth through her feet, which hung suspended above a floor she could not feel.

She ground her teeth and pulled harder, forcing her will into the metal until it groaned and peeled back, the shell splitting along seams she had shaped in haste, and she spilled out onto the cabin floor with a sound that was half-gasp and half-cough.

The air hit her face and she sucked it in, her lungs burning, her vision swimming with shapes she could not name. The plane's consoles blurred into streaks of grey and green light that made her stomach turn. She closed her eyes because the seeing was worse than the blindness, the unfamiliar input crowding her mind with information she had never learned to read.

She felt for the wall and found it, her fingers bending the metal of the panel until she could use it to haul herself upright, her legs trembling beneath her, her weight settling onto a left foot that screamed when she put pressure on it.

She reached down and felt the swelling through her fingers, the flesh hot and tight. She pressed her thumb against the wound and the pain lanced up her calf, sharp enough to make her hiss, sharp enough to clear some of the fog from her head.

Toph staggered toward the door and bent it open, the metal folding like paper under her hands, and she stepped out into air that smelled of green and rot.

The field stretched around her, grass that had been lawn before the vines came, now violated by tendrils that crawled across the ground in thick ropes that reached up the sides of every structure she could feel through her feet.

The manor sat ahead of her, a mansion of wood and stone, and the vines had found it too, wrapping the walls, pressing against the windows, threading through the gaps in the roof.

She felt the organization of the grounds through her soles, the planned geometry of hedges and paths now overwritten by root systems that moved with intention, and she understood that Ivy's garden had swallowed everything.

A presence cut through the vines, moving toward her with a gait that spoke of age held in check by discipline, and Toph steadied herself against the plane's hull, her fists rising, her weight dropping into a stance that her legs could barely hold.

She felt the swollen foot pulse with each heartbeat, the poison still working, and she knew she could not fight, knew it in her bones and her gut and the tremor in her thighs, but she set her jaw and waited because Toph Beifong did not step back from anything.

She shifted her weight and the foot betrayed her, the ankle folding, her shoulder striking the plane's metal skin with a clang that echoed across the field. She caught herself, her palms flat against the hull, and she heard the voice call out below her.

"Careful, Miss Bandit. You'll fall off."

She was already falling, her balance gone, her body tilting over the edge of the plane's wing toward the vines that had begun to grow up its struts, reaching for the metal with tendrils that left wet marks where they touched.

She hit them hard, the impact driving the air from her lungs, and she felt the vines compress and spring back, their fibers wrapping around her arms and legs with a grip that was almost curious, almost tasting her.

She snarled and pushed off, her hands finding the earth beneath the green, and she threw herself sideways, rolling free of the tendrils and coming up on her knees with her fists raised toward the shape that approached.

A hand reached for her elbow and she knocked it away with a grunt that tore her throat, hauling herself upright on legs that shook, her weight settling onto the bad foot and the pain flashing white behind her eyes. She held the stance, swaying, her breath coming hard through her nose.

"Who are you?" Her voice came out rough, scraped by the metal shell and the poison and the sleep she had not chosen. "Where am I? What happened to the Bat and his friends?"

The man took a breath she could hear, a slow inhalation that spoke of patience measured in decades. "My name is Alfred Pennyworth, but you can call me Alfred. You're currently in the care of Master Wayne, a dear friend of Batman, the person you call the Bat, I presume."

Toph said nothing. She felt him standing an arm's length away.

Alfred looked at her, or she felt the displacement of air that meant he had turned his head, and he spoke again. "Seeing that you've awoken and out of your confines, I must lead you to them."

"I can find them myself." Toph turned from him, her bare feet finding the grass beneath the vines, her sense pushing outward through the root mat to find the shape of the manor, the metal in its bones, the path that would take her away from this man and his offered hand. "Or even better, leave."

Alfred sighed, a sound like wind through dry leaves. "The Wayne Manor, as the rest of Gotham, is contaminated by poisonous vines." He paused, and she felt him shift his weight, choosing his words with care. "Though I do not doubt you're capable, I suggest you follow me to safer grounds."

Toph was not listening. She was already moving, her hands sweeping in arcs that tore the vines from her path, the earth rising in small waves that carried her forward while the green recoiled and regrew behind her.

She was weak, the poison moving in her blood with a slowness that dragged at her thoughts, but she bent and walked and bent again, each step a negotiation between her will and her failing body.

Alfred followed, his footsteps quiet on the grass, and she felt him behind her without needing to turn, the butler's presence a steady hum against the chaos of the garden. He did not argue, did not call out warnings, and she understood that he had judged her and found her predictable, which should have angered her but only made her tired.

The back entrance of the manor rose before her, vines coiling around the frame, pressing against the wood with a pressure that made the structure groan. Toph hesitated, her hand raised, because wood was a blind spot, its grain and growth unreadable to her seismic sense, and she hated blind spots with a ferocity that had not dimmed across her long life.

She felt for the metal she knew would be there, the hinges and the nails and the structural supports that held the frame together, and she found them, thin and scattered, enough to build a picture from but not enough to trust.

She looked around her, her head turning slowly, feeling the vines everywhere, the garden's pulse through the soil, the knowledge that any direction she chose would lead her through the same green, the same hunger. The manor was wood and weakness, but it was also shelter, and the metal inside it sang to her with a voice she could follow.

Alfred moved past her, his steps unhurried, and he pulled at the door, the vines resisting, the wood complaining, until he had opened a gap wide enough for her to pass. "This way, Miss Bandit. Batman will be with you shortly."

Toph dragged herself through, her shoulder brushing the frame, her foot catching on the threshold, and she growled low in her chest, the sound of an animal backed into a corner. "Stop calling me that."

Alfred swallowed. He said nothing, only stepped back and let her pass into the space beyond.

The room opened around her, wooden floorboards beneath her feet, walls that breathed with the age of the house, furniture arranged in patterns she could feel through the vibration of her steps. She hated it, the uncertainty of wood, the way it masked the earth beneath it, and she reached down with her mind and found the soil under the foundation, the bedrock far below, and she pulled.

The floor exploded upward, boards tearing free from their nails, the earth rising in a wave that covered the space with dirt and stone, overturning tables and chairs, sending books and vases and the detritus of a life she did not know crashing against the walls. She stood in the center of it, her feet finally on ground she could read, her sense expanding through the soil to map the room in a clarity that made her head ache with relief.

Vines pressed against the exterior walls, seeking entry, and she felt them through the earth, their roots testing the foundation, but she ignored them because her nose had caught something else, a smell that cut through the green and the rot and the dust of the explosion, and she followed it.

The table lay on its side, its contents spilled across the dirt she had made, and she found the meat first, a chunk of roasted flesh still warm from whatever fire had cooked it, and she closed her fingers around it and brought it to her mouth without ceremony. The fat hit her tongue and she groaned, a sound she would have been ashamed of if anyone else had made it, and she tore into the meat with teeth that remembered hunger, with a jaw that worked the muscle until it softened and swallowed.

She found more in the wreckage, bread that had been crushed but was still edible, salty cheese, fruit that had rolled into corners and bruised against the walls. She ate them all, sitting in the dirt with her legs folded under her, her fingers greasy, her mouth full, the poison in her blood momentarily forgotten in the face of a need older and more urgent.

-0-

Batman stepped into the living room and found her sitting on the earth she had made, her mouth smeared with oil, her fingers working the swollen flesh of her foot where she had squeezed something from the wound, her body loose with the satisfaction of a meal she had not earned.

He felt his jaw tighten and he held the reaction because Alfred had already seen enough for one day and because Toph would read any weakness in his voice and use it.

"I see you've made yourself at home."

Toph looked up, though her eyes did not focus, and she belched, a sound that carried across the dirt-filled room. "I was about to come visit you in your little secret cave."

"No need for that."

"Worried I might wreck it?"

Batman moved into the room, his boots sinking slightly into the earth she had raised, and he stopped at the edge of her seated space, looking down at her with the calculation he brought to every problem. "My sources have given me information on the Parliament you asked about."

Toph's hand paused halfway to her mouth, a piece of bread forgotten in her fingers. "Already?" She laughed, a short sound that sprayed crumbs. "Man, I underestimated you." She looked at the bread, then at the space where his voice came from, and she wondered how long she had been inside the metal shell, how many hours or days had passed while the poison worked and her body fought and failed. "I was so hungry."

She swallowed the bread and turned to face him fully, her legs folding under her, her weight shifting onto the good foot. "So where can I find them?"

"Not so fast." Batman's voice dropped into the register he used for commands, the tone that expected obedience. "You still have a mission to complete."

"Uh." Toph reached for the last of the cheese, her fingers finding it by smell. "Yes. Ivy."

"She's completely wrecked Gotham." Batman's boots shifted in the dirt, a small movement she felt through the earth. "At this rate, there's little to salvage in terms of infrastructure, but the people in Gotham still matter."

Toph sighed, the air leaving her chest in a long stream that smelled of meat and bread and the cheese she had eaten too fast. "You still want Ivy defeated, right?"

"Yes." The word came out reluctant, dragged from him.

Toph cracked her knuckles and rose on one foot, her arms loose at her sides, the bad foot hovering above the dirt. "Might as well be done with it now."

"Your feet are how you see the world." Batman's voice came closer, his steps measured, and she felt him stop at the edge of her reach. "You're a liability when you're blind."

"Stop pretending to worry about me."

She placed the bad foot down and felt the pain shoot up her leg, her jaw clenching, her teeth grinding together, but she did not falter, did not shift her weight back, stood on the foot that wanted to collapse and dared him to comment.

"I'm not."

Something left his hand and she caught it without thinking, her fingers closing around glass, the shape of a bottle, liquid sloshing inside. She held it up, though she could not see it, and she felt his eyes on her, reading her face, searching for the hesitation he would not find.

"But I want nothing more than to see you leave and never come back." Batman's cape moved, the air displacement telling her he had turned, presenting his profile, a gesture of dismissal that was also an invitation. "That should clear the remaining poison in your body. Drink up."

Toph held the bottle in both hands, her thumbs finding the cap, and she paused. She smelled it, something sharp and chemical underneath a sweetness that masked it. She thought of trust and the lack of it, and she twisted the cap and drank.

The liquid burned down her throat and hit her stomach like a fist, spreading through her chest in a wave of heat that made her gasp, her back arching, her hands closing into fists at her sides. Energy followed, rushing through her arms and legs, a tingling that started in her fingers and moved toward her heart, and she took a breath so deep it felt like the first clean air she had drawn since Gotham.

She exhaled and the contents of her mouth sprayed across the space between them, carried by the force of her cough, and she felt the wet impact against his chest, his shoulder, the cowl that covered his face. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and tested the bad foot against the dirt, pressing down, feeling the pain flare and settle, no better than before.

"Your weird potion didn't do anything."

"It'll take some time to heal the wound." Batman's voice came from the same position, unmoved by the spray, his control absolute. "But the truth serum takes effect almost immediately."

His cape moved again and she felt him turn fully toward her, his weight settling, his presence filling the space he occupied.

He asked the first question.

"Now, tell me. Who are you really?"

Another day to remind you not to trust the Bat. Read ahead in pa.treon.com/mimiclord