TDBB: Tuff Wars 2.20
Toph felt the words leave her mouth before her mind had finished forming them, her tongue pushing against her teeth as her jaw opened and the sound came out carrying a weight that outran her intention.
"My name is Toph Beifong, and I am the Greatest Earth Bender alive."
The declaration hung in the air between them and she felt her own breath returning to her, hot and fast, her throat tightening as her hands curled into fists at her sides. The pride in her voice belonged to her, but the impulse to speak had come from somewhere deeper than choice, a pressure behind her eyes that forced her jaw to work despite her will.
She turned her face toward the sound of his breathing and her teeth ground together, the muscles in her neck standing out as she swallowed hard and tasted metal at the back of her throat.
Batman stood where he had been, his heart beating slow and steady, and she felt the shift in his posture as he absorbed what she had given him unasked.
"Where are you from?"
The question hit her and her mouth opened before she could clamp it shut, the words rising up from her chest like bile that overwhelmed her grip.
"Where I'm from is none of your business."
Her fists shook at her sides, the knuckles white, her nails biting into her palms as she poured every ounce of her will into the statement. It was true. It was hers. She clung to it as the serum pulled at the edges of her mind, searching for the other answer, the one that wanted to spill out behind her teeth.
She felt sweat run down her spine and her shoulders drew back, her spine straightening as she fought the pressure building behind her eyes.
"I'm originally from Earth Kingdom, but I was residing in the Foggy Swamp before I was brought here against my will."
The words tore out of her and she gasped, her chest heaving, her hands coming up to press against her temples as if she could physically hold her skull together. Her stomach turned over and her throat burned with the violation of giving him something she had kept buried since her arrival. She had wanted to keep that from him, but the serum had peeled her open and taken it anyway.
"Is that in this world?"
Toph shook her head, the motion sharp and involuntary, her mouth opening before her mind could catch it.
"I don't think so."
The admission left her hollow, her stomach dropping out beneath her ribs, and she felt the heat come up through her feet into her legs, her knees bending, her weight dropping into the earth she had made. She looked toward where his voice had come from and her jaw set so hard she felt her molars creak.
"Okay, you know what? I'm done with this."
Her foot came down and the floor exploded, the dirt she had raised earlier splitting open as the bedrock beneath it cracked along a line that ran directly under his boots. She felt his weight shift as he tried to jump, but she had already pulled the stone out from under him, the ground opening like a mouth that swallowed him whole.
He dropped into the dark below the manor, his cape snapping in the air as he fell, and she heard the impact when he hit the earth beneath the foundation, a heavy thud followed by a grunt.
"You want the truth, Batman?"
Toph turned away before he could rise. She drove her other foot into the dirt and threw her hands outward, the earth tearing itself apart in a jagged line that ran from where she stood toward the outer wall of the manor.
"Our deal is off!"
Stone shattered and wood split as the gap widened, soil pouring into the opening while she ran toward it and leaped, her body dropping into the tunnel of her own making, the darkness closing around her as she hit the ground running.
Behind her, the floor of the manor collapsed into the space she had hollowed out, furniture and earth tumbling down into the gap while she kept moving, her hands carving the walls of the tunnel as she went, shaping the stone to let her pass and then sealing it behind her.
-0-
Batman lay in the dirt at the bottom of the pit she had made, his back singing with a bright line of pain that ran from his shoulder blades down to his tailbone. He had landed with force, his breath knocked loose, and he lay there for a moment with his eyes open in the dark while dust settled around him in a soft rain.
He rolled onto his side and pushed himself up, his hands finding the earthen wall and his knees shaking as he got his feet under him. He bit down on the groan that wanted to come out, his teeth closing on his lower lip until he tasted blood, and he stood there in the mess of his own living room floor with dirt in his boots and pain lancing up his spine every time he shifted his weight.
Footsteps sounded above him, boots hitting the edge of the hole, and he looked up to see two shapes silhouetted against the light from the room above.
"What happened?" Nightwing's voice came down sharp and fast, carrying an edge that spoke of adrenaline and readiness.
Batman spat dirt from his mouth and straightened, his hand pressing against the small of his back where the worst of the pain had settled.
"Couldn't get her to cooperate."
Robin dropped to his knees at the edge of the pit, his shadow cutting across the dirt wall as he looked down into the dark where the tunnel stretched away.
"I knew we should've put her in cuffs when we had the chance."
The boy pushed off without waiting, his boots striking the dirt floor with a sound that echoed down the passage Toph had left behind. He was already moving before the dust settled, running into the dark with his staff held out before him.
"Wait--"
Batman's voice cracked across the space, but Robin had vanished into the tunnel, the sound of his footsteps fading fast. Batman looked up at Nightwing, who stood at the edge with his hands on his hips and his head turned toward the dark opening.
"Bring him back before he gets hurt," Batman said, his voice low and rough, the words scraping out of a throat full of dust. "The healing component of the serum will start taking effect soon. He won't survive an angry version of her."
Nightwing nodded and dropped into the pit, his boots striking the dirt and his body rolling into a crouch that carried him straight into the tunnel after the boy.
Batman stood alone in the dark beneath his own house and listened to the sound of their footsteps fading into the earth.
-0-
Toph ran through the dark with her hands brushing the walls, her feet reading the stone as it passed beneath her soles, the vibration telling her everything she needed to know about the density and direction of the tunnel she had made.
She heard them behind her, two sets of footsteps running hard through the passage, their boots striking the dirt with a rhythm that spoke of youth and training and the hunger to prove themselves. She kept her pace.
She reached out with her mind and felt the bedrock around her, the network of older tunnels that ran through Gotham's bones like veins, and she carved new openings as she ran, splitting the earth into side passages that led nowhere, dead ends that would swallow the followers if they took the wrong turn.
She stopped long enough to slam her palm against the wall of the main tunnel and the stone responded, rising up in a solid barrier that sealed the passage behind her with a wall dense enough to stop anything short of a bomb.
She felt the impact as the first pursuer hit the other side, a dull thud followed by a shout that carried through the rock, and she turned away, the rest of the noise fading behind her.
The pain in her ankle had dulled to a low throb that she could run through, her body warming as she moved, the poison in her blood seeming to burn off with the effort. She left the question of whether that was possible behind her and kept digging, her hands pulling the stone aside, her feet finding the paths that connected to the older network she had mapped during her time beneath the city.
She knew these tunnels. She had walked them until they lived in her body, every turn and drop and hollow stored in the memory of her soles, and she followed the route that would carry her toward the edge of Gotham, the place where the city stopped and the earth could breathe again.
She needed nothing from a man in a cape who lied and drugged and called it necessity. The earth was older than him and it would show her the way.
-0-
Poison Ivy moved through the ruins of the financial district on a bridge of living green that carried her above the streets, her bare feet pressing against vines that hardened under her weight and then softened again as she passed.
Her eyes had gone the color of new leaves, a green that glowed in the shadows of the broken towers, and her hair flew around her face in a red tangle that caught the wind and snapped like banner cloth.
The city beneath her had become a garden of destruction, her children climbing the walls of every structure that still stood, wrapping steel and stone in grips that cracked foundations and brought the heights tumbling down into the streets below.
She heard the screams through the root network, felt the fear of the people trapped in the hollows she had grown, and she fed on it, the screams reaching her only as pressure behind her eyes, the flavor burned away by the heat in her chest swallowing everything else.
Her hands shook as she moved and her teeth ground together, the muscles in her face gone slack from exhaustion. She moved through the green with her eyes open and her hands trailing against the tendrils, reading the information that flowed back to her from every corner of the city, every vine and root that had claimed a street or a building or a throat.
The search through every root and tendril had turned up empty.
Toph was in the earth somewhere, hiding in the dark as was her habit, returning to the soil to escape the consequences of what she had built. Ivy knew her. She knew Toph's habits, the need for open space and quiet ground, the pull of swamps and forgotten places where the world stopped screaming.
Toph would try to leave the city by going down, by crawling through the dirt until she found an edge where she could surface and run.
Ivy had already placed her children at every border.
The vines waited in the soil beyond the last streets, buried deep, dormant until the moment they sensed the vibration of bare feet moving through the earth toward escape. They would rise when Toph came close, and they would hold her, and Ivy would finally have the conversation they had left unfinished in the stone cone.
She rode the wave higher, the vines lifting her above the broken skyline. It should have been beautiful. It should have been the moment she had dreamed of since the chemicals had changed her, since she had become something that the world feared and needed in equal measure.
But the rage refused to let her rest, and the green reached further, listening for the one heartbeat she wanted most, the one that had betrayed her, the one that would pay.
Busy day at work. Haven't had the time to write, but I've still got 1 early access chapter in pa.treon and some fans eager for more. I've got the energy so I'll write as much as I can before going to sleep. Thanks for reading.
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