Whatup, guys?

Took a heck of a lot longer to get this one done than I'd hoped; we're juggling a few projects right now, and some of them, admittedly, have been stealing my creativity. But, Chapter 3 is here at last. Enjoy!

DISCLAIMER: The characters and all related material herein are the property of their creators and/or copyright holders, who may be too numerous to name here. Team Hydro and all affiliated parties do not claim ownership of said characters and/or material. Team Hydro does not seek to infringe upon any trademarks, copyright, or any other existing legal document that may be connected to any of the above.

Vibrations, Part 1: "Things Burnt, Lost & Learnt"

Chapter 3: The Badger Hole

The small, quiet town was strangely still as they meandered through the place, Sokka thought. There were people around, sure, but did this place have no market? Where were the street stalls, and the vendors manning them, braying about their wares? Was this seriously the outskirts of a town with an air-pad? Everything seemed...unusually subdued...

"Geez, who turned off the life around here? Someone up and die or something?"

The voice of his ever-present companion piped up next to him, loud as this town evidently was not. He grimaced a little, and smiled apologetically at two women talking in a doorway, who turned to glare at the short stranger for her rude comment. Trust Toph to voice what they were both thinking in the most inconsiderate way possible...

"Well, I'm not seeing a funeral march," he answered, "and the place doesn't look like it's in-mourning... maybe they just like it quiet around here?"

"What, no kids playing in the streets? What the hell?"

She'd been moody all morning, he reflected, and now she'd found something to grouch at, her irritation was really taking hold. He could only sigh in exasperation, and shrug, ignoring that the gesture would be lost on her. "You're asking the wrong guy, Toph. I just got here."

"Well, no shit. Make up your mind, Sokka – are you Captain Boomerang, or Captain Obvious?"

"Oh, ha-ha. You're hysterical. Let's find a tavern or something, get some answers. The quiet in this place is starting to creep me out..."

They wandered idly for another hour, searching for the local watering-hole, only to come up empty; they passed people in the street, but no-one greeted them. The people here were wary of strangers, it seemed – the reason, whatever it proved to be, was probably a good one. The world was an uncertain place, now the Hundred-Year War was over, and small towns like this one had quickly become safe havens for those who were not entirely welcoming of the new-found peace.

It made a certain kind of sense, he supposed; the war was over, yes, but after the fighting had been going on for so long, both the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation were still home to soldiers who knew nothing else but fighting, and it'd take a long time for those soldiers - grandfathers, fathers, sons, nephews - to adjust to the fact that the rest of the world didn't need to be killed on-sight anymore, and the suppression of those battle-honed instincts sure wasn't going to happen over-night. Most men still felt the need to be armed and vigilant when they travelled from one place to the next, and he knew what that was like - he was one of them.

A sudden absence at his side told him Toph was no-longer strolling next to him, and he turned to find her, stood stock-still, about twenty or so paces behind him, staring hard, in her unique way, at the ground beneath her feet. "What's up, Toph?" he asked, curious and concerned at the same time.

"I'm not sure," she called back, "Either this place is built over some kinda cave system, or... something's... not right-"

Abruptly her head jerked to her left, and her arm snapped up to point in the direction of an alley leading off the main street. "Down there!" She was off before he could stop her, and when he finally caught up, she was doing the standing-still-and-staring thing again... but also not, for there was something in her hands, but she had her back to him, and he couldn't see what. As he approached carefully, he saw that she was...playing with her Space Metal?

"...There you are...!" She muttered with a dark smile, before bending the metal into a shape he hadn't seen before – but it was a weapon of some sort, he could tell; some sort of metal bar she'd threaded her fingers through, and looked to nestle with a dangerous kind of comfort across her knuckles. Then, without so much as a word to him about what it was she'd been doing, she stormed up to the wall at the end of the dead-end alleyway and thumped it thrice, hard, with the bottom of her fist. "Hey! Open up!"

"Password?"

...Wait, what? Sokka thought, now disturbingly-confused. Talking wall? What the hell-

"How the hell should I know? You tell me!" Toph shouted, seemingly to thin air, "What is the damn password?"

"No password, no ent-"

"Don't gimme that bisonshit, pal!" She interrupted sharply and loudly, "I'm in a pretty foul mood out here, and I sure-as-shit ain't standing around for the benefit of my health, so you have five seconds to open this stupid door, or I will!" Several tense seconds ticked by, and no answer came the reply. "Fine, then!" she shouted, "That's the way you wanna play it?"

Still confused, Sokka barely had time to react before Toph proceeded to tear into the stone wall standing in front of them, punching it with just that one hand and the Space Metal wrapped around her knuckles. In a single strike she burst through it, and the rock tumbled around her ears; that shocked him somewhat, that she'd done so much damage with only a single hit. Normally it took her two or three well-placed whacks before she could crack stone like that... It dawned on him though, as he wondered about that, that the wall was also not a wall, but a doorway to a hidden tunnel – a doorway that only Earthbenders could open, or in the case of the doorman on the other side, keep closed should someone try to force their way inside.

The doorman hadn't counted, of course, on having to keep that door closed in the face of the World's Greatest Earthbender, and Sokka could only sympathise when he heard the poor soul groaning pitifully under the rubble that remained of the post he'd been dutifully guarding. Toph was something of an irresistible force when it came to her Earthbending, particularly when she was irritated, and Sokka was somewhat sorry for the doorman in that he and his door had by no means been an immovable object. Creeping up to the crumbling wall for a look, he saw the tunnel was dark, and led down; there was a stairway here going down into the earth, and he couldn't see the bottom.

"Halt!" Came a gruff voice at the top of those dark stairs, "Who goes there? Who dares come into The Badger Hole uninvited?"

Toph seemed to stop in her tracks at the sound of the voice, as though she'd heard it before, and was now confused as to why she was hearing it here, of all places; it sounded familiar to Sokka, too... but he just couldn't place it. Her head cocked slightly to one side, eyebrow raised in suspicious surprise, she asked,

"Boulder?"

"...Bandit?"

-x-x-x-x-

Sokka perched himself carefully on the edge of a stool at the bar, nursing a small cup of watered-down fire whisky, and kept one eye on The Badger Hole's various, small few other patrons as Toph and The Boulder played catch-up on the table just off to his right. There were a good few tables, all empty now, during the day, dotted around the floor of the cave – cavern – that served as the basis of the Earthbender bar that was The Badger Hole, which as he understood it, was actually an old Earth Kingdom Military base that had been abandoned not long before Katara and his fine self had discovered Aang in the iceberg.

Some genius commander had decided to have the base underground, to make it harder for Firebenders to find, and it wasn't just one cavern, but several, all interlinked by adjoining tunnels, some of which had been sealed off when the place had been re-purposed, due to danger of cave-in or – worse-yet – being full of natural gas. He'd passed on to Boulder that trick he'd thought up with the Mechanist, of tossing in some rotten eggs to keep tabs on potential leaks, and Boulder had promised to pass the idea on the Hole's owner for consideration.

Speaking of the ex-Earth Rumbler turned soldier, from what he'd caught of his story so far, he and The Big Bad Hippo had turned over yet another new leaf since being pardoned and released from the Boiling Rock by Zuko. He, Hippo, and several of the Gaoling Earth Rumble gang had gone mercenary following their finding an Earth Kingdom Military career to be less-than-satisfactory. Their talents had not be given the respect they duly deserved, and they'd encountered rounded disapproval of their disregard for overbearing rules and regulations, and the zealous ways in which those were enforced; now, he and Hippo were currently under employment here at this fine establishment in the middle of nowhere, as what the barkeeper had tenderly referred to as 'bouncers'; basically, they happened to be the most bad-ass Earthbenders the bar had been able to find, and were each provided accommodation and paid a tidy sum to make sure the bar's other patrons, also Earthbenders, didn't get too out of hand when they had a little too much to drink.

Toph thought this was a decent arrangement, but privately Sokka disagreed; considering their reputations as Earth Rumblers, he thought this was something of a spiteful twist of fate for the two of them, and not to mention a dreadful waste of their not-inconsiderable bending talents. But Boulder didn't seem to mind that he'd gotten stuck with nannying a bunch of rowdy drunks day-in, day-out; in-fact, he professed that he and Hippo enjoyed the honest work, and he even thought it left him better-off.

His country, Boulder reasoned, hadn't exactly done him any favours when he was imprisoned following the failed invasion effort, after all, or even made any effort to see him home safely after he and everyone else had been released and officially-pardoned. In all the fuss following the Liberation of Ba Sing Se, the small group of elite Earthbenders who'd volunteered for the invasion force had basically been forgotten by their countrymen, and had found themselves abandoned to whatever fate the new Fire Lord deigned to bestow upon them.

As it turned out, the Foggy Swamp Tribe had been good enough to offer them a ride home, earning themselves the eternal respect of the Earth Rumble crew; Boulder and Hippo had even stayed with the tribe for a while, and had become particularly-good friends of Huu, who they both made a point to visit and stay awhile with whenever the bar could spare either one of them. Heck, Hippo was down there right now, and Huu even kept a pet catgator for him, which Toph found both utterly hysterical and very, very appropriate.

And speaking of Toph... Sokka was beginning to think she'd had more than enough Fire Whisky for one day - for one week. She was packing them away like the drink was going out of fashion, which it certainly wasn't, and if he wasn't mistaken... which he also wasn't... their dear barkeeper had stopped watering down her drinks. Toph's cheeks were tinting themselves rosy as he watched, and she was starting to slump a little bit in her seat.

This did not bode well.

"Scuse me! Hey, barkeep!" He called over his shoulder to the thin man, who stood at the opposite end of the long bar polishing a cup, and didn't look remotely interested in paying him a lick of attention, until he raised his own cup, indicating to the man that he wanted another. Duly, the man put down his polished cup and scuttled over, only to be disappointed when Sokka placed the palm of his hand firmly over the top of his cup, and said quietly,

"When, exactly, did I tell you to stop watering down my friend's drink? At what point in time did either myself, or The Boulder there, say you should do that?"

The man squirmed, paling a little at the accusation, and at the sight of both Toph and Boulder turning their heads to see what the fuss was about. "Th-the lady said she wanted something a little...little stronger. I'm just... just doin' my job, sir."

Sokka frowned. Clearly the man was hoping he'd had a little too much of the sauce himself, and that he was an amicable drunk. Alas, while he had an intense aversion to disappointing people's expectations of himself, he was not drunk, and he sure-as-shit wasn't feeling remotely amicable at this precise moment. Without another word he reached over his shoulder for his boomerang, and swung the blade sharply down toward the surface of the bar-top, in the way one might swing a butcher's cleaver; the cutting edge sunk deeply into the sandstone, and stuck there. The barkeeper's face turned a little more grey.

"I don't recall the lady saying that," Sokka hissed, his features darkening a little more at the small man's silent admission of guilt, "For that matter I don't recall the lady even so much as approaching the bar. You a bender, barkeep?" Sokka asked, to which the man shook his head slightly, eyes still riveted firmly to the insanely-sharp metal throwing blade currently embedded in his bar-top. "Well, that's good then," Sokka chimed, an ill-coloured note in his voice, causing the man to look up at him at last.

"I-if sir wouldn't mind clarifying... why is that good, exactly?"

Sokka placed both hands on the bar, splaying his fingers widely to either side of his boomerang, and in a swift movement yanked the blade out and sheathed it, before leaning sharply toward the man in a manner that could be considered vaguely-threatening, if one was so-inclined to think that way – which, the man found with a worried glance, his resident bouncer didn't seem to think was the case at all. Sokka clicked his fingers, and the barkeeper's attention returned to where it should be. "It's good because if you don't care to apologise to the young lady, who's thirteen and not old enough to get drunk, it'll be a very-remotely fair fight when you and I take this rather serious matter outsi-."

Without warning, behind him Toph jumped up and wrenched her seat from the floor, and hurled it in the direction of the stairs with an angry yell; a man who'd been sitting there quietly ducked down as the chair sailed over his head, then leaped for cover – and the stairs. Toph stamped her foot, and the ground there shook and broke; the stairway leading back to the street cracked, crumbled and fell apart. No-one was going anywhere until she felt like letting them.

"...Toph?" Sokka had the barkeeper by the scruff now, and was becoming increasingly concerned by the turn of events...she'd been acting weird for a day or two, and he wasn't all that sure she'd been sleeping enough... He knew from experience that the less sleep she got, the more aggressive she got... This whole mess was just a snowball's toss from getting nasty and yet nastier.

"This asshole's been givin' us the stink-eye since we got here," Toph growled darkly, pointing at the odd fellow backing desperately into a corner; his face was wrapped in a scarf - Sokka didn't much like what that implied. "And to top it all off," Toph continued, "our dear barkeeper's heart is makin' more noise than a lunatic goin' nuts on a thunder-drum. They know each-other, and they're up to something. I wanna know what, and if I have to bust some heads to get answers, you can bet your ass I will."

Promptly Sokka dragged the bartender over the bar top, scattering cups and their contents every-which way; "Have a seat, pal," he muttered darkly, shoving the skinny man into a chair, "We'll get to you in a minute. Boulder, keep an eye on our friend here while I see if I can't get some sense outta Toph." As Sokka turned away to find out what all the fuss was in-aid of, Boulder put a large and calloused hand on the smaller man's shoulder, and began to wonder exactly what his young friends had stepped into this time.

Sokka trotted the short distance to join his scowling companion, who was currently stomping meaningfully toward their uninvited guest, and stepped next to her carefully as she stopped a few paces short of Mr One-Man-and-His-Corner. Before he could pitch an enquiry, Toph growled, "Why are you following us?"

"Easy Toph, we don't know this guy's fol-"

"Quiet, Sokka. You don't know the half of it," she snarled over her shoulder at his attempts to calm her, before taking another threatening step toward the stranger cowering in the corner. "Talk, dammit, before I put another hole in your ass." She summoned a fist-sized stone as she spoke, crushing it in on itself and compacting it to the size of a pebble, before flinging it at the wall behind the poor soul; a pebble-sized and very deep hole appeared in the rock-face a few inches left of his chest, punctuating her threat. "Why are you following us?" The man began to visibly shake, a reaction that was quite understandable; an angry Toph tended to have that effect on people. Sokka stared at that hole in awe for a second; that pebble had to have been denser than steel, the way she'd compacted it so tightly... He was used to her tearing rocks apart with her bare hands, but last time he'd checked, what she'd just done was the kind of thing only Aang could do, and that was while he was in the Avatar State... so since when had Toph been able to do that?

Three more fist-sized rocks floated up from the rubble of the stairs at her command, crushed in on themselves, and began to spin in circles about her upturned palm, her fingers clenched tightly in a claw. She could fire those pebbles with a twitch of a finger, Sokka reasoned, and yes, they would indeed put another hole in the man's backside, or wherever else they might happen to strike. Nasty, he thought, and getting nastier, if he doesn't start talking soon-

"Talk, if I were you, pal..." Toph said lowly, dangerously, "'Cus I can do this all day long..."

"Tammet! Tammet sent me!" The man shouted desperately, "Please, I'm just doing what I'm tol—ahh!"

Another pebble-sized hole appeared in the wall, between his arm and his right side – his second warning. Toph shouted again. "Who's Tammet? What's he want with us?"

"M-mercenaries! Head-hunters! He-he's the boss, they paid me to follow you, I don't know why-"

"Bisonshit! You're lying!" Another pebble disappeared into the wall, this time near the man's head.

"Stop!" The bartender shouted from behind them, "He's just a messenger, he's telling the truth!" Sokka turned to look at him, saw the panic in the man's face; either he was afraid enough for his friend that he was prepared to spill the beans, or was afraid his chum here was going to say something that'd get them both into more trouble than either of their lives was worth.

"Whadda y'mean?" Sokka demanded, "What kind of messenger?"

"He runs the Messenger Hawk service here in town! We got a message a week ago, two travellers headed for the Burnt Coast! He paid us to keep you here when you arrived! That's all we know, I swear!"

"Someone told them we were coming..." Toph muttered darkly, turning back to Messenger-Man. "Who told you? Who sent that message?"

"I don't know, it wasn't signed, Tammet's messages are never signed! All I know is the bird came out of Ba Sing Se, the middle ring! That's all, I swear!"

"If you lie to me one more time, I'm gonna put this pebble through your throat-"

"Toph-!"

"-Tell me!"

Messenger-Man stared at her, eyes big as oranges, and she could smell the fear pouring off him; pungent, acrid, so thick her stomach started doing flip-flops, and she forced down the urge to throw up. But while a good, healthy measure of that fear was for her...the best part of it wasn't. "He's coming," the poor man muttered, the terror evident now in his wavering voice, "Tammet's on his way here. He's due in three days."

-x-x-x-x-

They crashed in the small, silent town for the next three days. Sokka's first instinct had been to get them both on the first airship heading in the vague direction of the coast that they could board, and do so as fast as humanly possible; Toph, though, had never put much stock in the idea of running and hiding. So instead, she insisted that they wait, and see what might happen. Boulder arranged for them to be put up in a guest house near the air-pad, one that Sokka had inspected and deemed suitable for their needs: a stone structure so Toph could see in all directions at all times, a variety of escape routes leading to the general area around the air-pad, and most-importantly, a well-stocked pantry.

Their host seemed pleasant enough, an elderly and well-spoken woman with greying hair and bright, sparkling jade eyes, whose name Sokka couldn't quite get his tongue around - so he called her Tao, the first syllable of her name, which she didn't seem to mind. Tao was amicable; she laughed at his bad jokes, listened intently to their war-stories, and rolled her eyes amusedly whenever Toph cussed venomously in her frustration at having to sit around waiting for something, anything to happen. The old woman seemed frail in appearance, but proved fit and able for her age; she reminded Sokka of his Gran-Gran, and it was a welcome comparison. She complimented his cooking skills once or twice, and after tasting Toph's favourite seasoning, she immediately wanted to buy the recipe from him; not wanting to take what little money she had, he accepted no more than a single copper piece, and she thanked him generously.

And so they waited, in the presence of an excellent host and Boulder's good company, for three days and three nights. Every day, as he had been doing since they'd left Ba Sing Se, Sokka was up before first light, eyes glued to the air-pad and the coming-and-going of the airships, five in and and five out every day, each destined for different parts of the Earth Kingdom. Toph was never more than a few minutes behind him in waking. She refused to explain to him why she'd been so insistent that Messenger-Man had been following them; they never saw another hair of the fellow. She also skirted nervously around his questions pertaining to her new skills; all he managed to extract from her was a promise that she would explain everything once they reached their ultimate destination.

The third day drew to a close, and the pair of them watched the air-pad deep into the night, to guard against an airship landing under cover of darkness and this 'Tammet' trying to take them by surprise. They slept in shifts, each watching for an hour while the other rested. They waited, and waited.

Dawn broke, the fourth day came and went. They'd waited in vain.

That afternoon, Toph's last fine thread of patience finally snapped, and she did something extraordinary, and frightening: in her frustration, she went back to The Badger Hole, alone, and tore the place apart with her bare hands. She ripped great holes in the floor, and smashed the walls to rubble, screaming and howling like some demented spirit on a rampage. She made no threats, never said a word. Finally, she sank her fingers into a rock pillar holding the roof up and tore it down, bringing half the ceiling down with it. The bartender cowered behind what remained of his bar, clutching a crumpled scroll in his hands, and managed to mutter three words before passing out in terror.

"Tammet's not coming."

Toph left then, satisfied with being told what she already knew - but not before relieving him of that scroll, and bringing the rest of the ceiling down. And that was the end of The Badger Hole.

An hour later, the two of them were ready to leave, and Boulder to leave with them. The scroll contained a simple message, telling the barman and his messenger friend that they'd failed in their allotted task, and would answer for their failure accordingly; exactly what punishment they'd face the scroll didn't detail, and Sokka only saw that as yet more reason to get out of town. Tao worried for them, and was sorry to see them go; Sokka told her they'd be alright, and that she was welcome to stay with them, should she ever find herself in Ba Sing Se. Toph promised her a pot of Iroh's finest Jasmine Tea, and, unbeknownst to Sokka and Bolder, left the woman a gift of two gold coins – such wonderful hospitality, she reasoned, should not go unrewarded.

-x-x-x-x-

The airship left Toph feeling daunted, even if she wouldn't admit it. She didn't know where they were flying to, other than that they were headed for the coast – and nor did she care. The last time she'd been on one of these things, she and Sokka had almost fallen to their deaths. She felt her apprehension was understandable, and privately, Sokka agreed. Boulder had been on airships before, but only of this newer, civilian kind; he'd never been on a military airship before, and so he couldn't know how being in the air on a metal balloon would never be the same for either of his two young friends as it was for him.

They flew through the night. Sokka slept fitfully; Toph could only cling to him in their small, single-bed cabin, too terrified to sleep herself. She spent the night swearing to herself that she would never speak of the fear she felt in her heart at being back on an airship – not if she could help it, at least. She couldn't know it was a promise that, like her fear of airships, would return to haunt her thereafter, in the weeks and months to come.

The next morning they landed at a coastal town on the outskirts of a mangrove forest in the early, misty hours. The air-pad was more or less right on the docks, and not far from it there lay a short earthen jetty, where a small skiff canoe floated, its pilots chatting idly near by. One of them held a long, narrow pole against his shoulder, and both wore long loin cloths. As they disembarked from the airship, Toph had never been so happy to have her feet back on solid ground again, even if it was cold and a little muddy. Sokka, still sleepy, thought he recognised the place somewhat, from their travels the year before; maybe Appa had flown over here...?

Boulder was merely happy to have returned at last to that place where he and Hippo would always have a home waiting for them. One of the skiff pilots spotted him, and waved; the Earthbender returned the gesture with a bark of hearty laughter. "Friends," he said, turning to Sokka and Toph with a wide, proud grin and outstretched arms, as though embracing the very sight of the forest before him, "The forest and the good people here will make us safe from Tammet and his men. The Boulder is most proud to welcome you to his cherished home from home. Welcome to Foggy Swamp."

Author's Notes:

And that's another chapter wrapped. So, Foggy Swamp, eh? This next one will be fun, methinks... :P Also, The Boulder's back! We love Boulder, he's awesome. And Tammet... who told him Toph and Sokka were on their travels? Why'd he change his mind about riding into town? Yeah... we're not done with that, not by a long country mile. Keep them eyes peeled, people. )

Oh well, onto the next chapter!

Peace out, guys!