An Earthbender in Chicago [Active, Open]

[layerofdirt]

Characters: Toph Bei Fong, OPEN
Time: Late Morning
Location: The Shiny Lima Bean statue and the immediate area
Content: Toph arrives to Chicago.
Format: Prose
Warnings: She's a cranky earthbender. Hard hats required.

Comments

[notnamedash]

Red had set up a few targets. By a few he had set up nearly two dozen of them. Saur was standing next to him, Red pet the creature on the head and smiled, "You can hit them all, and in order. Come on." Yes, Red numbered the targets too. Red started forward with Saur running next to him. Red didn't have to run too hard because Saur was kind of slow at running around.

Saur launched leaf after leaf into the air hitting one target after another cutting the wooden stands in two at different angles. However the sound of a voice caused Red to call off the large creature from his training. "Huh?" Red looked back toward the statue he arrived at, ran past his jacket snatching it up, "Come on Saur, I think someone arrived like us."

Red got to the metal bean first, followed by Saur a few paces behind him, "Hi!"

[layerofdirt]

Toph felt the person and his...pet thing coming her way before they had gotten close enough to speak with her. She stayed put and waited for them to get to her.

"Hi." She didn't sound too excited. But then, it was to be expected from someone as hungry and lost as she was. "So, maybe you can tell me where I am and how to get back to Ember Island, right?"

Toph had never felt this guy's pet before, or anything like it, and it really confused her. What kind of animal had a flower growing out of it's back? However, the earthbender was far too confused with her current situation to pay much attention to it.

[notnamedash]

"Right... well," Red started, scratching his head, "I don't really know where that is but I'm pretty sure you can't get back there right now."

Red looked at her a moment, something seemed off. She wasn't making eye conta- oh! Oh... Well, she seemed pretty confident so maybe she had something to do without use of her eyes. "We're all trying to find a way home but so far we're stuck here. I'm Red." The blind thing made her not reacting to Saur make some sense. Red casually motioned to Saur to try to be quiet as he walked over with his friend's pokeball.

No point scaring the girl.

[layerofdirt]

Toph frowned. This wasn't the greatest time to be stuck somewhere, especially with Sozen's Comet only days away. Well, she wouldn't get anywhere by yelling at this kid and his pet.

She sighed. "Well, do you know anywhere to get some food? I'm starved!" She then pointed down to the...thing. "What's up with your pet? I've never heard of a flower-dog before, and that's definitely what it feels like.

[notnamedash]

"Wait you can- oh, feel." Now Red was confused, not really at what she was doing but how she was doing it. Sure a few ground types didn't use their eyes all that much. They lived in the ground, not a lot of light there. However this girl was human. "You're using some sort of ground manipulation to see?" He looked around for a Pokemon, but given she couldn't recognize Saur it was probably some other sort of way to manipulate the ground.

"That's Saur, he's one of my Pokemon." Red paused a moment, "I'll explain what they are after we find you something to eat." He leaned down and rubbed a patch of skin behind Saur's ear before returning the large creature to his pokeball. Then the ball was attached to Red's belt. "What do you wanna eat, there are plenty of interesting foods they eat here."

[layerofdirt]

"I'm an earthbender. I can see by feeling vibrations in the ground." Well, at least this guy used his head. She had just met him, but she could tell she might come to like him.

"A Pokemon?" The boy said he'd explain later, and Toph didn't object. Right now, food was far more important than any explanation. Well, that is until she suddenly felt this 'Saur' thing vanish. "Where'd it go?!" Toph could feel that the kids had multiple balls on his person, and she felt the one in his hand go from empty to full, but...no way. That couldn't happen. How could a thing the size of a small carriage fit into one of those tiny things? "What, can you teleport things away or somethin'?"

[notnamedash]

"Ah, that makes sense," Red didn't know what Earthbender meant, but if it was anything like a Ground type Pokemon this was within the realm of possibilities.

"Oh, no, Saur is a bit big. He doesn't fit through doorways so I have a way to keep him pocket sized," Red reflexively grinned, "handy, right?" Red started toward the buildings. Waving the girl to follow him, "What's your name? Also don't worry about paying. The guys working each of the shops here don't check for money, they assume you've paid. Lucky huh?"

[layerofdirt]

"But how? He disappeared!"

Toph followed the boy, as she wanted to know if he was the one that teleported her here, and because he said he knew where food was.

"Look, I could feel that flower-saur a moment ago, and you made it vanish! Don't tell me you crammed it in to one of those little balls you carry."

[notnamedash]

"It's very technical," Red didn't have a clue about the science behind Pokeballs. They worked and he could fix the release mechanism, that's what counted. Red walked over and held out Saur's pokeball. "I'm not sure if you can see through the shell of the Pokeball, but he's in there. Safe and sound."

Red sighed, "I don't have any Psychic Pokemon, so I can't teleport anything anywhere. Now, you said you were hungry. So we can talk once we find you some food. That good? When we stop I'll let Saur and my other Pokemon out and try to explain things." With that he put Saur's pokeball away and moved back toward the buildings.

[layerofdirt]

Everything this kid said was above Toph's head. She poked it with her finger while he held out the ball, but it didn't feel like there was something so big stuffed into something so tiny. "Just don't try to stuff me in one of those, or we've got trouble."

"Pokewhat" What was this kid talking about? Is that was the name of his pet was? And he had more than one? Toph's stomach growled loudly. Even though she was still very confused about what this kid was talking about, food sounded much better than an explanation. "Yeah. Food first."

[notnamedash]

"Can't do that, and I wouldn't even if I could," Red offered and left it off at that, hoping the quick trip to food would be short, and once they had stuff to eat it'll go smoother.

Red bought a nice large pizza with a few veggies and no meat on it and brought it out to the table, outside. Let his trio of cohorts out, and gave Toph a slice on a plate, then grabbed a slice for himself. Sitting down letting Pika, Saur, and Poli relax outside the pizza place on the sidewalk. "So... what do you want first, explaining my friends, where we are, or what we're eating?" Red stretched a little before starting on his slice. Pizza was new to him, but it was tasty.

[layerofdirt]

Toph made a strange look when she smelled the 'pizza.' It wasn't a bad smell, more like a strange, unfamiliar smell. She felt that the boy just used his hands to eat it, and she did the same.

What Toph didn't expect was the three creature appearing from nowhere, all of which started to eat the pizza too. Before she could get a bite, she jumped, and dropped her meal. Thankfully, it landed on the plate. "Hey, warn me before you let those pets out!" It was as if Aang had multiplied somwhow, and gained a ton of weight.

After chastising the boy, she picked up the greasy piece of bread and cheese and took a large bite out of it. The flavor was strange, but...good. She nodded her head in satisfaction, and with her mouth still partially full, asked what she deemed to be an important question.

"So, what's your name anyway? I'm Toph."

[notnamedash]

"Sorry, but I'm used to everyone freaking out about them," Red scratched Pika, "This one on my shoulder is Pika. The one eating by himself is Poli. And you met Saur already. I'm Red." Red held up Pika's slice, a few fingers on the front as well as his other hand on the crust. Pika did a quick flip and cut the piece in two. Red didn't miss a beat handing the smaller part without any crust to Pika to chew on. It was too big for Pika to maneuver on his own. Red took the other part of the slice to work on for himself. Saur just snagged a full slice to chew on. Poli... Red wasn't sure how Poli ate anymore, and he usually moved off for some solidarity when he ate, after it became Poliwrath it always liked to not be seen eating. Red wasn't sure why... but he let it go

I'm assuming Pika is a Pikachu?

[layerofdirt]

Toph ate her pizza as she listened. What he said didn't make much sense to her, but he explained where his pets came from and such, and she wasn't much interested in the rest anyway.

"Yeah, just one. What kind of name is 'Red?' Did your mom like the color or something?" Toph had com across strange things before, mostly because of Aang and the fact that he was the Avatar, but this was the dumbest name she had come across.

"We don't have those kinds of things where I come from. I mean, we've got animals like platypus-bears and flying bat-lemurs, but nothing like those things." She waved her arms towards Red and his Pokemon.

Absolutely!

[notnamedash]

"What kinda name is Toph," Red didn't think too much about his name, might be cause of his red eyes, might be his mom liked the color. He thought it was a local thing, with Green, and Blue, and Yellow. He never really considered why, and it didn't matter right now... right now he just wanted to throw the same question back at Toph for asking it.

"Most people I've met don't have animals like these guys, way of things I guess. We don't have Earthbenders where I'm from," Red ate some more pizza. To be fair the animals she listed sounded very interesting but that could wait till later. "Moving on. You're in a city called Chicago. If you've never heard of it you're in the same boat as me. There's a fog barrier around the town we can't escape through. Even if we could who knows what's outside of it. All in all this place sucks."

Red is so tactful about bad news.

Re: Absolutely!

[layerofdirt]

Toph frowned as she chewed her food, though she didn't follow through on the argument. He did say he was from a different world. Maybe people there were just named after colors there.

But it was still ridiculous.

Anyway, Toph brushed the comment aside, instead focusing on what Red said about this 'Chicago' place. "A fog barrier? Pffffffft. Fog doesn't bother me." As long as the ground was still beneath her feet, Toph could get around quite easily. "You're right about this place sucking though. It's almost as bad as Ba Sing Se."