8 Catching a Blind Loli

"Remind me again." Azula said with bemusement as she shifted in her seat to dodge another flying boulder. "Why are we sitting down here?"

"Because I knew you wouldn't want to sit in nosebleed seats surrounded by filthy, obnoxiously loud idiots." Zuko answered, giving his best impression of his sister.

"Fair enough." She agreed. "Still." She finished with a frown. "You could have at least warned me this is what would be happening."

Zuko smiled.

"Where's the fun in that?" He said, sliding slightly away from her to avoid a rock and making sure the hood stayed low over his face.

No point in dropping their cover until the right moment, after all.

Azula opened her mouth to retort again, but the words were cut off as she moved quickly to dodge another rock that was twice the size of her head.

"And the match is over, ladies and gentlemen!" The announcer, Xin Fu, boomed from his pulpit high above the arena. "The Boulder has knocked the Hippo out of the ring!"

A chorus of cheers rang out at that, and Xin Fu waited with practiced patience for them to fade before moving on.

"And now." He began theatrically. "Let's hear it for Fire… Nation… Man!"

A blast of raucous booing greeted the announcement, and Azula shot her brother a sidelong glance.

"Yes, we seem to be so loved here." She muttered, but Zuko shushed her.

"There's no fire nation to love my dear sister." He replied quietly. "Let's see how popular my empire will become."

"But didn't you just—" Azula started to say, but the roughly discordant voice of Fire Nation Man quickly cut her off.

"Now, please do rise." He said. "For the Fire Nation national anthem!"

"I knew I was forgetting something! I should eventually thank these barbarians for the excellent idea." Zuko said excitedly while pondering about it.

"Fire Lord..." The man crooned, his voice sounding to the pair like a mongoose-lizard in labor, as he dropped to one knee and sang. "My flame burns for thee…!"

"That's not even our national anthem! I mean, our old one." Azula snapped, her voice edging toward venomous.

She leaned forward, making as if to rise, only to be stopped when Zuko put a firm hand on her shoulder and squeezed.

"Now, now, sister." He said, the amusement in his voice unmistakable. "Are you planning to lecture this muscle heads about our ways? My, my, and here I was thinking we didn't shared the same goals."

"For that..." She said, her mouth curved down into an exaggeratedly murderous frown. "I'm feeling benevolent. It's making my ears bleed!"

"You'll survive." Zuko said dismissively as Fire Nation Man was launched out of the ring by The Boulder, earning him Azula's sadistic applause.

"I hope she stops wasting our time and hurries this up." Azula grumbled as a giant badger-mole came out and swept the debris from the ring. "I'm getting tired of waiting for this girl."

"Stay calm." Zuko counseled her. "If you go into this agitated, you risk ceding the victory."

"Are you quoting uncle's platitudes at me?" She snapped. "You of all people?"

"A traitor and a fool he was." The young emperor said quietly. "But I never said he didn't have his wise moments."

The next few rounds went by without much incident: The Boulder casually dispatched of The Gopher, The Gecko and the Wild Man, while throwing in enough overblown stage-posturing to keep the crowd begging for more.

Azula was about to take a nap when the light pouring in from the roof of the cavern dimmed, and Xin Fu said the magic words.

"Now..." He said slowly. "The moment you've all been waiting for... The Boulder versus your champion… The Blind Bandit!"

"There she is." Azula said, her eyes flashing beneath her hood as her voice dripped with anticipation. "It's about time."

The Blind Bandit handed her championship belt off to one of her attendants, while the other one took the cape that was the full extent of her costume.

The lights came back up, and The Boulder took a slightly hesitant step forward.

"The Boulder feels conflicted." He said, "About fighting a young, blind girl."

The girl made a face at that, shooting her opponent a mocking grin. "Sounds to me like you're scared, Boulder." She crowed, and The Boulder frowned.

"The Boulder is over his conflicted feelings." He said sharply. "And now he's ready to bury you... in a rockalanche!"

"Whenever you're ready, The Pebble." The Bandit shot back cockily, laughing.

"Oh, she's just hilarious..." Azula said dryly, offering up a slow-clap at the joke. "I'd like to see that brat quip while I roast her."

Zuko chuckled at his sister's remark. "She's a lot tougher than she looks."

"It's a good thing she doesn't look like much, then." Azula said nonchalantly, rolling her shoulders and head to loosen up her muscles. "It's a shame, though." She finished airily. "I thought this was going to be a nice challenge."

"It's on!" The Boulder said firmly, planting his feet and concentrating.

After a few tense beats of both combatants remaining motionless, The Boulder shouted and lunged forward.

But his leading foot never hit the ground.

The Bandit made a swift motion with her feet, and a trail of rock slid out of the ground at just the right angle to shift the ground that The Boulder was about to step.

He crumpled with a howl of pain, and all it took was one smooth step forward and a second chop from The Blind Bandit for a trio of pillars to spring out of the ground and launch The Boulder clean out of the ring.

"As I was saying." Zuko broke smugly into his sister's shocked silence. "She's a lot tougher than she looks. Though I've got to admit I didn't expect that she and The Boulder would be constantly fighting each other this early, and with the same fight choreography." He ended his line of thought and stared into nothing. "Wow, that's just lazy writing."

Azula was about to ask what he was talking about when she heard someone announcing loudly at the ring.

"Your winner!" Xin Fu said, jumping down off of his pulpit. "And still champion! The Blind Bandit!" After the crowd's applause died down, Xin Fu held up a green sack filled with coins in one hand.

"To make things a little more interesting..." He boomed. "I'm offering up this sack of gold pieces to anyone who can defeat The Blind Bandit!"

Silence settled over the arena, and Xin Fu let it go for just as long as he needed it to.

"What?" He asked into the crowd. "No one dares to face her?"

"I will."

A stifled gasp went through the crowd as Zuko stood up and lowered his hood, the sigil on his hair-band's ornament and his unconcealed amber eyes making him instantly recognizable.

"You said I would be the one to face her!" Azula said to him.

Zuko simply looked back with his carefree expression and said. "I've changed my mind, I can't afford watching her teach you a lesson."

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is quite a surprise!" Xin Fu exclaimed, covering his own shock masterfully. "Prince Zuko himself, not only having joined us here tonight, but offering to demonstrate his prodigious martial skill! We are unworthy of such a gift, your highness."

"Yes, you are." Zuko said calmly. "And I go by the title of emperor now."

The air in the stadium turned suddenly leaden, but Zuko seemed completely unconcerned about the countless pairs of daggers being stared in his direction.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, emperor." Xin Fu continued. "But as this is an Earthbending tournament, I'm afraid Benders of other elements are forbidden from entering."

Zuko laughed, his eyes narrowing in joy.

He hadn't come this far to be denied a fight on the basis of a miserable technicality.

"Funny you mention, I can bend earth better than any one here." He said imperiously. "Pay attention to what the ruler of the Blaze Empire can do."

Zuko stomped his right foot forwards, suddenly the bench beneath him went through a stark change of nature as Azula jumped to the side.

The once dry and sturdy steps of stone in front of him, began to melt down into molten rock, its scarlet glow immediately scaring everyone watching it, including Azula.

Xin Fu's practiced calm faltered, and a bead of sweat formed on his forehead.

"Emperor—"

"Hold it." The Bandit said firmly, raising her arm and pointing at the announcer. "This show off teen sounds really confident at his capabilities. I say give him a shot."

"Show off?" Zuko echoed amusedly, shrugging off his cloak and propelling himself onto the ring's surface by surfing a trail of molten rock, and as a result burning his shoes completely. "I'm going to enjoy taking you down a few pegs, Ms. Bei Fong."

"How did you know that I'm not a peasant?" Toph asked sharply, her sightless eyes narrowing in kind. "Who are you again?"

Zuko's expression flickered with excitement at the little girl's confusion, and he smiled viciously.

"I've heard your family's phenomenally wealthy." He teased. "But your father is so ashamed of you that he hides your existence from the world."

"Shut up!" Toph spat back, not smirking anymore as she slipped into a fighting stance. "Enough jabbering; let's do this, your highness or whatever."

"Let's." Zuko said, his smile widening as he stepped forward and punched downwards as a flood of lava began to spread through the arena's ground.

Toph raised her hand quickly and a wall of rock sprung up to barrage the magma's movement, Xin Fu launching himself back up out of danger as the crowd tensed.

Toph's barrier caught fire immediately as the wave slammed into it, but the Earthbender wasted no time and launched projectiles in arc trajectory to hit her opponent from afar.

But the emperor was already expecting such a quick response, walking forwards through the burning floor and casually dodging the large sized pebbles.

But Toph had been counting on that as well, and was waiting for the emperor to lower his guard from the ground.

The Earthbender shifted her stance as soon as Zuko made another step, kicking forward almost lazily and sending a rift snaking through the ground.

She was attempting to shackle his feet and to immediately finish him off before he had a chance to act.

Unfortunately, to her shocking surprise, her control over the earth was immediately cut off as soon as it made contact with his weird technique.

It also considerably hindered her seismic sense to the point she was having a hard time with pinpointing his exact location.

Zuko made a swift motion with his arms, and glowing tendrils of lava shot out into her direction.

With her initial wall almost melted completely, he faced no problem at targeting her.

Toph created multiple earth columns, attempting to intercept her opponent's attacks before they could reach her.

But again, Zuko's bending style proved itself too unpredictable, as the tendrils passed by her defenses as if they were made of water.

Which obviously wasn't the case, remembering the same result happening to her initial wall of defense.

In a split second, before Zuko's attacks hit their targets, Toph quickly shook the ground back and forth and created a dust cloud that covered at least half of the arena.

Zuko smirked at his opponent's move, and turned to look behind him, where his lava hasn't covered the floor yet.

As expected, Toph emerged from the ground and made quick consecutive bending motions, launching multiple rock bullets in his direction.

The smaller rocks shot through the air with more than enough velocity to shatter bone on impact.

Observing the incoming attacks, Zuko just slid a few meters aside in a small wave of magma, dodging only a few rocks that came close enough to actually hit him.

"So you really are blind! And here I was thinking it was part of your character." He teased her.

Toph gritted her teeth and thought. 'My defenses are useless against this guy, it's like I'm giving him more ammo.'

Determined not to stay on the defensive anymore, the nine years old Earthbender shook the ground again, this time causing a massive cloud to cover the entire arena.

Amidst the cloud of dust, Zuko simply chuckled. "Struck a nerve did I? Now let's be reasonable my dear, did you really have to get me dirty to this extent?"

He dusted his clothes, completely aware it was a futile effort, before crouching a little and then swiftly raising his arms with his palms facing upwards.

This time, pillars of molten rock were propelled from the burning ground like geysers of boiling water.

The whole underground arena was affected by its heat and glow.

As for the dust cloud, it began to show moving shadows inside it.

"Found you." Zuko said, raising his arms high above his head before bringing them quickly back down, timing the drop with a hard stomp from his leading foot.

The combined motion was enough to bring another four huge pillars of stemming rock rising out of the ground.

They all circled around Toph, who was standing above over an improvised rock bridge while levitating a hill sized boulder at the central point.

She tried to finish him at that moment, but Zuko was faster than her.

Clenching his fists, the young emperor caused the spiraling pillars to converge together with an unnatural speed, trapping Toph's giant boulder between them and also enveloping the little girl's figure just after the heat from the glowing stone to immediately vanish everywhere, stifling the scream of pain and anger that seeped out from between the breaks in the stone prison.

Zuko relaxed his stance and lighted his white flames in both hands for a brief moment, which was enough to drop the stadium's temperature.

The cloud of dust began to fall to the ground, seeing that the small particles were frozen together into larger pieces.

At that moment, everyone else finally saw the result of the out of proportion duel.

The crowd was silent, with Azula clapping alone.

"What a fight, ladies and gentlemen!" Xin Fu announced as the claps continued, jumping back down from his pulpit. "Give it up, for the... uh... Kid Emperor!"

The crowd began to applaud out of fear, but the sound quickly died away as the spectators began to notice that Zuko had jet-propulsed himself before landing besides his small opponent.

The young emperor stood still for a moment, checking out to make sure his opponent was still alive.

Satisfied that Toph's breathing was regular, if a bit ragged, and her pulse was steady, Zuko relaxed his stance the rest of the way and grinned.

The crowd was deathly silent, allowing for Zuko's words to echo easily around the arena despite him barely raising his voice.

"Are you all right?" He asked the trapped Toph.

A crack began to form in the sturdy prison stone.

As it slowly descended until it reached the ground, pieces of rock began to fall off.

Getting a little impatient, Zuko began to rip some pieces with his bare hands and aided her to free herself.

Eventually, the thick layer of stone fell off and a very tired girl was finally exposed to fresh air.

Her condition was far from fine, but it could've been much worse if he had taken another second to solidify his attack.

Her pale skin was slightly reddish.

Her clothes and hair had seen better days.

But the visible toll their recent combat extracted from her was her energy.

As soon as she was set free, she almost fell to the ground like a rag doll if not for Zuko's arm catching her.

Tired eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"You've won this time, show off." She exclaimed. "Next time you won't be so lucky!" She told him almost sleeping.

He couldn't help but to laugh at her antics.

While caring Toph with one arm, Zuko went and took the purse of winnings from a mute Xin Fu. "Come on, Azula." He continued, motioning to her with a shake of his head as he shifted the blind loli over his shoulder. "We've got what we came for."

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(11/10/2020)

*Apologies for my long absence. College is really taking a toll over my free time, and some minor health issues made things even harder for me. But rest assured, I'm not dropping my stories.

Hope this chapter is of your liking. Anything you wish to ask, feel free to do so.

Thanks as always for your attention and please be safe.

Any problems with my writing, just point them out and I will correct them as soon as possible.

** If the characters are becoming too much out of character, I will attempt to frame them more accurately next time! 😅

*** FBI Open Up! 😬