The list of characters mentioned in this story belong to the various authors that created them. This is a fan-fiction story.

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We wake up in the morning when we hear the knocks on the door again. “Knock! Knock! Knock! . . . .”

I get myself up and walk to the door. “Is it daybreak again?”

“It is, sir.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

The morning proved to be a repeat of yesterday. Once we get done with our breakfast in the inn, we make our way back to Toph’s Metal Bending Academy.

We gather together inside the dojo and face Toph.

“Okay, students, we are going to be doing several things today and tomorrow. Some of you earth benders probably know some of the techniques already. Use it as a chance to get better at it. Today, we’ll do earth armor, earth bombs, magnetization of the limbs and mud bending. Tomorrow, it is remote earth bending, earth shelter, quicksand, earthquakes and fissures. Obviously this is for Richard and his family to get them up to speed on earth bending.”

Toph walks over to a large chest in the dojo. She opens the cover to reveal the contents. We see various colored gems in the chest of green, red, blue and purple gems. “As you can see, I have a variety of jewels here. Fortunately none of them are diamonds. You need to concentrate on the gems and have them encase you and around your body. Also, you need to make a helmet to protect your head. Who wants to be first to try it?”

Penga speaks up, “I’ll try it, Toph.” Penga steps up to the chest. She brings her hand forward and concentrates on a single jewel. She elevates a red jewel into the air. Then she brings up several more gems as well. She moves them to her body. With her mind, she changes the shape of the gem to fit her body. She puts them around her legs. Then she quickly brings up about twenty gems into the air. She quickly changes the shape of the gem to fit her body again. She covers her torso and arms. Then she brings up several more gems for the helmet. She quickly changes the shape again to fit her head.

“Now try and move in that gem armor, Penga.”

Once she takes her first step, she quickly realizes she needs to adjust the gems at the joints. Once she has that accomplished, she jogs around the dojo.

We all clap our hands for the success she had. She has a big smile on her face.

“That’s very good, Penga. The gem armor can easily take blows from metal weapons in a fight. Now take the gems off and revert the gems back to their original shapes.”

Penga takes off the gems and reverts them back to their original shapes. She puts them back into the chest.

“All right, Richard, you’re up next.”

“Yes, Toph.”

I stretch out my arms to the side and open my legs a bit. I look at the jewels. “Hmmm. . . . I think I can do it faster, Penga.”

“Let’s see you try, Richard.”

I concentrate on the gems. Then all of a sudden, most of the gems float up in the air. Then all of the gems get attracted to every part of my body. That even includes the helmet.

“Whoa, you did it very fast, Richard. That’s impressive.”

“That’s the way to do it, students. Now everyone try it that way.”

One by one, each student encases their bodies with the gems. Even Penga did it again to make it faster.

“All right students, now we are going to magnetize our limbs so we can cling to the metal frame of the ceiling here. Again, you have to focus on your bones to magnetize them with your minds.”

“Toph, wouldn’t be a problem if we magnetize the bones in our chest?”

“What do you mean, Dark One?”

“If I magnetize my chest bones, I might find myself I can’t release myself from the ceiling.”

“That’s a very good observation, Dark One. What could be another problem with that?”

“I have one, Toph. If we magnetize our chest bones, wouldn’t our heart become affected somehow?”

“That’s a good point, Richard. Remember, just focus on magnetizing your finger bones,”

We all shout out loud in one voice. “Yes, Toph.”

We reach up with our hands above us. We focus our minds to magnetize our finger bones. Then all of a sudden, we rise up from the ground very fast. Soon our hands are sticking to the metal framework of the ceiling.

“That’s great, students. Now magnetize your knee cap bone to bring up your body. Crawl upside down from there.”

“Yes, Toph.”

We magnetize our knee cap bone. Quickly, it brings our legs up higher. We crawl upside down along the metal frame work of the ceiling tiles.

“That’s great students. Now comes the hard part. How do we get down from there without breaking the bones in your body? Do you have any ideas students?”

“Couldn’t we demagnetize our limbs slowly?”

“That’s a possibility. What could be the problem for Ho Tun?”

“He is a lot heavier and bigger than the rest of us, Toph.”

“Wouldn’t he need his finger bones magnetized stronger than us?”

“That’s right, Penga and Richard. So, everyone does it gradually. You need to know what the threshold strength to keep yourself up there and to lower yourself down to the floor.”

We demagnetize our knee caps. We then find ourselves hanging up there by our hands. We slowly demagnetize our finger bones. We keep our hands pointing to the ceiling. We slowly descend from the ceiling.

“Now keep it there, students. Keep yourself in the air and don’t fall to the ground.”

We keep ourselves suspended in the air with our hands pointing to the ceiling.

“Now I want you to concentrate on the coins and the cables with your minds. You are now to do some movements with your minds. Move the coins and the cables around in this room, students.”

We concentrate on the coins on the tables. We lift them up in the air quickly. We move them around the dojo very quickly. After doing that for fifteen minutes or so, we concentrate on the metal cables. We lift them up in the air. Soon, we have the cables wrapping around the posts that we did yesterday.

“That’s great everyone. You’re learning to expand your minds. Okay, lower yourselves to the floor. It is time for our lunch break. When we come back, we’ll be doing the earth bomb and mud bending.”

We lower ourselves to the floor of the dojo. We exit the dojo and walk down the steps. We follow the walls to the front entrance again. We walk to another noodle cart to have our lunch.

My fairies are in butterfly mode so they can drink the nectar from the flowers. “Brianna, I need to show you the next set of moves for the blue sash.”

“Hmm . . . Okay, Richard.” Brianna feeds Robert first before she has her own lunch.” Once Robert is fed and burped, Robert takes a nap in the carriage.

We get done within the hour. We walk back to the dojo to continue our lessons. We follow Toph to the back side of the dojo.

“All right students, we are going to do some mud bending right now. Richard, please bring in some water from the atmosphere. Put it in that small depression in the ground there.” She points to it.

“Yes, Toph.” I see the depression is about 20 feet in diameter and about 3 feet deep. I stretch out my hands and concentrate on the atmosphere. Soon, a mist appears from the atmosphere. I keep concentrating on it until I have enough water to fill up the basin. I lower the water blob into the depression. “It is now filled up, Toph.”

“That’s great, Richard. All right, now let’s mix in some dirt to create some mud." Toph mixes up some dirt into the water. “Now, we have a combination of water and dirt. Since we are earth benders we have to concentrate on the dirt itself to move the water with it. If you’re a water bender, then you focus on the water to move the dirt as well. Richard can do both at the same time, or even our Avatar. What I want you to do is to move the mud like you are an earth bender. That is to create streams and move it all around. Once that is done, then we’ll try to separate the dirt from the water.”

We focus our minds on the dirt of the mud. We slowly bring up streams of mud and move it all around us. While we are doing that, Toph concentrates on a large metal tub near the tank. She lifts it with her mind and brings it near us. Soon, we find it easier to move the mud in the streams around us. We return the mud to the shallow depression.

“That’s great students. Now this is a big test on concentration. You are going to separate the dirt from the water. I have a metal tub here to put the water into. First of all, you must concentrate on a small portion of mud. It should be about the size of your hand. So, do you have any ideas how to separate the dirt from the water? What would you do, Richard?”

“Well, I would probably make the mud droplets as small as possible, then I can concentrate on the dirt in the droplets to remove it from the water.”

“That’s a very good idea, Richard. All right, Ho Tun, you’re up first. See if you can separate from the dirt from the water.”

“Yes, Toph.” He concentrates on a hand size of mud. He brings it up in the air. He brings it over to the basin. He concentrates on the blob of mud and make the mud droplets as small as possible. He then concentrates on the dirt in the mud droplets. We see him concentrating very hard on it to remove the dirt from the mud. All of a sudden he is holding onto one mud droplet in the air in front of him. The rest fall into the basin. He slowly removes the dirt from the water. The water falls into the basin. He smiles that he is able to do at least one mud droplet. “That took a lot of concentration, Toph. I just couldn’t do the handful. Apparently I need more practice.”

“You did fine, Ho Tun. Yes, it takes a great amount of concentration to separate the dirt from the water. All right, everyone try it. Hopefully, within the hour it will be easier and easier.”

“Yes, Toph.”

We each have a hand and mind in lifting the mud out of the small basin. Some start off with mud droplets. There were a few who were able to bring up a handful size of mud. Slowly, we expand our minds to separate the dirt from the water. We even went back to the basin to bring out any dirt that is in there. Brianna even tries it as well. For her, she concentrates on the water, it takes her about fifteen minutes to separate the water from the dirt. The dirt falls back to the depression.

As for myself, once I bring up a hand size of mud, I spread the mud droplets to create a mist. I then easily separate the dirt from the water at the same time. Soon, the tub is just water by itself.

“That’s very good, students. Did it get easier and easier?”

“Yes, it did, Toph.”

“Yes, we just have to keep practicing that.”

“That’s right. All right; the last earth move for today is the earth bomb.”

Some students smile.

“This is where we’ll take a large amount of dirt from the ground and heave it up in the air. Make the amount of dirt an arm length in diameter. Then we bring it down very fast to impact the ground. It should create a crater that is at least five times as big as the earth you are bringing down. Once, that is done, then we’ll concentrate on lifting ourselves on a mound of dirt and doing it from the air. While we are falling down, we’ll bring up some pieces of dirt so we can land safely on the ground.”

“Yes, Toph.”

Everyone spreads apart in the outdoor area. I concentrate a large amount of dirt. It is about two feet in diameter. I lift it up high in the sky. I concentrate on it to bring it down fast. It impacts ground, “BLLLLAAMMM!!!” It creates a crater about ten feet in diameter.

Soon everyone else does an earth bomb, “BLLLAAAMMM!!” “BLLLAAAMMM!!” “BLLLAAAMMM!!” “BLLLAAAMMM!!” “BLLLAAAMMM!!” “BLLLAAAMMM!!” The dirt kicks in a circular pattern as well. We do it about ten times until we are comfortable with it.

“That’s great students, now do it from the air. I suggest you bring up another blob of dirt for your earth bomb. You won’t have much time once you are falling down.”

We concentrate on the ground underneath us. I create a circular mound of dirt underneath me. I lift myself up high into the air with the dirt. I also bring up another blob of dirt with me as well.

I also see everyone else doing it as well. Then we find ourselves falling down because of the weight. We quickly concentrate on the blob of dirt we brought up with us. We send it to the ground very fast. It impacts the ground with violence. “BLLLAAAMMM!” “BLLLAAAMMM!!” “BLLLAAAMMM!!” “BLLLAAAMMM!!” “BLLLAAAMMM!!” “BLLLAAAMMM!!” “BLLLAAAMMM!!”

We then find ourselves falling down to the ground. We quickly bring up foot size blobs of dirt with our feet. It meets our feet to slow us down. Soon, we step safely back onto the ground.

“That’s great, students. Now let’s do some martial arts.”

I walk over to Brianna. I start showing her the next set of moves for the blue sash. This is a different set of moves when defending one self from two attackers. Even my fairies appreciate the opportunity in learning the moves as well. When the hour is up, it is time to rest and get ready for tomorrow.

When we get back to our rooms, we have another hot bath to get ourselves really clean. Once we are clean, we take another trip to the steam rooms to relax the muscles. Everyone is nice and relaxed. We do another dinner in the inn. Our fairies are having their evening meal in the room. Once we are done, we go back to our room to pick up our fairies, we do another stroll down the streets to watch the sunset. We see the cloud colors change. Then we see a few stars come out for the night sky. We retire back to our rooms and get ready for bed.

We have another great night of sleep. Tomorrow is the last full day with Toph.