In any case, none of us had time for romantic turmoil or any other sort of relationship drama right now—the Avatar certainly wasn't going to catch himself. And no, I absolutely wasn't trying to shove a difficult subject aside by switching my attention to something more familiar.
After all, given a choice between a creepy bald kid and a gorgeous brunette with a very promising figure, any normal man would obviously be more interested in the brunette, but... there was one little word I couldn't ignore: duty! Sigh...
There was no point in simply sitting around the city. The agents had received their instructions, our people were keeping watch and sending reports, but we still had no more news about the flying brat. So I ultimately made the strategic decision to split up.
Toph and I, accompanied by a small support detachment, would pay a visit to the badgermoles. We couldn't afford to dismiss the original "bearers of earthbending" as a factor, after all. If everything went well, young Lady Beifong might be able to persuade her teachers to at least refrain from helping Aang, or perhaps even assist us in catching him. And we needed to make sure that the bastard hadn't already visited them anyway. Besides, I trusted Toph enough to demonstrate my own earthbending to her, and once we were there, I could try asking the beav—sorry, badgers for a master class.
The rest of the group, led by Azula and covered by Blast, who would be playing the role of the Fire Herald, would continue working the "human" angle. Fortunately, between them, that team was perfectly capable of discreet reconnaissance, blackmail, intimidation, and even seduction (Ty Lee was very good at batting her eyelashes!).
If either group learned anything, they would race back to the other at full speed and reunite our forces for the strike. Messenger hawks were an option, but only for Toph's and my group—the bird could still make it back to the city, but the other way around... Not only would no one have our exact coordinates, but we'd most likely be somewhere underground.
Well, for lack of any alternatives, it was better than nothing.
"Whew, just a little farther and we'll be there," the little blind girl declared authoritatively.
"How can you tell? I can't see anything," Suki asked in surprise.
"You're looking in the wrong place. And the wrong way." A mischievous smirk crept across the girl's face. "You've got to look with your feet! And here they are..."
About thirty feet away, a small mound of earth rose from the ground, rapidly spreading apart to reveal a pair of enormous moles. Very, very enormous moles. Easily ten feet at the shoulder. What caught my attention far more than their sheer size, however, were their paws.
Very, very large paws, armed with claws comparable in length to weapons like katars. The shape was rather similar, too. Their whiskered muzzles, the black beads of their blind yet remarkably intelligent eyes, their light-brown fur that somehow remained perfectly clean despite all that digging, and the other details of their mole anatomy were considerably less interesting.
"Hey, guys!" Toph waved cheerfully at the creatures.
"Sniff-sniff." A badgermole appeared in front of us with a speed I would never have expected from such a massive beast. Though judging by the way it moved... I couldn't be certain, but it vaguely resembled "earth swimming"... I think... sort of.
And while I was still processing the sudden appearance of our burrowers, said burrowers... "Liiick!" ...happily started nuzzling the poor girl and enthusiastically licking her in greeting.
"Ptooey! Not this again!" The victim of all that badgermole affection began struggling to fend them off. "Ugh, wet!"
"Hee-hee. I hope that means they're happy to see you and not just casually taste-testing you?" Ju asked.
"Very funny." A wet and disheveled Beifong pouted, then stamped her foot against the ground a couple of times, sending out some complicated pattern of vibrations, and...
"Sniff-sniff! Liiick!" The beav—damn it, what was wrong with me? The moles moved on to the rest of us.
"Aaah! Toph, what's happening? Uuugh, make them stop!" Dandan tried to escape the mega-rodents' enthusiasm, but the balance of power was clearly not in her favor.
"Relax, I just told them you're my friends. So the guys decided to come over and meet you. But since neither they nor I belong to the sighted club, their way of getting acquainted is... Well, you get the idea."
"Ptooey!" Suki finally managed to fight off the friendly mole. "Couldn't you have warned us?"
"Sure!" The girl bared her teeth in a grin. "But then it wouldn't have been any fun! Look, follow Chan's example!"
As for me? I simply endured it. Some things just had to be accepted for what they were. Toph's mischievous streak, the wisdom of dragons, the Avatar's idiocy... Very Friendly Badgermoles fit perfectly well on the list of things you simply had to resign yourself to.
About ten minutes later, the exuberant greetings finally came to an end, and it was time to get down to business. Hmm. To the extent that the phrase could even be applied to walking around in circles, performing strange manipulations with earthbending, and tapping on the aforementioned earth.
"Well?" Once the girl had finished and recovered somewhat from her "dancing," I began the interrogation.
"Okay... come on, let's step away for a bit... We'll be right back!" And Toph practically dragged me away from the camp, under the puzzled gazes of our companions. Well, to be fair, none of us were exactly strangers to each other's occasional bizarre antics. Still, it wasn't particularly polite...
Though who was I kidding? The Blind Bandit and good manners weren't exactly the most compatible things in the world.
(End of Chapter)
🙌Bonus chapter for 200 power stones!
🔥The next bonus chapter will be for 200 power stones.