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When Toph wakes up that morning, she realizes two things:
One: she can’t see. Well, she can’t see at all normally, but her feet can’t sense a thing either.
Two: her feet aren’t touching the ground. Both of them are resting on a rock.
She can normally sense something, even without her feet on the ground. After all, vibrations are everywhere. But right now? Toph can’t sense a thing except for the grass brushing up against her back and the light spring breeze.
She places her feet on the ground. Nothing. Everything is just empty. She can’t sense the trees she knows are there, she can’t sense the bugs she knows are crawling around in the grass, she can’t sense anything.
Now, Toph knows she isn’t infallible. She may be the greatest earthbender, but she has her weaknesses. Earthbending has just never been one of them. It has always been a constant in her life. She knows her way around the rocks, mud, and dirt. Even before she learned earthbending, she had been attuned to them. Even when she couldn’t see, couldn’t sense her surroundings, they have always been there beneath her feet.
She feels like she’s five, before she met the badgermoles when she had yet to learn to see. Oddly enough, Toph doesn’t mind it. It’s relaxing in a way, not having to feel every little ant around her. She wonders if it's permanent.
Unlikely. The only one that can take away someone’s bending is Twinkle Toes, and he wouldn’t dare. The reason might be that she’s sick or something. Yeah, that’s probably it.
She’ll be back to normal in no time.
Her bending isn’t back by the next day. It isn’t back by three days later. Toph’s beginning to think that it’s going to last. The past few days have been strange, not being able to navigate the town like she normally does. Toph has it handled though. All she needs to do is grab a stick every morning and wave it around in front of her. Simple. When she walked into her metalbending academy on the first day without her bending, her students freaked out. Toph finds it hilarious.
It’s kind of tedious, what with having to hold a giant stick in her hands all the time, but it’s not a big deal. The shopkeepers have been whispering nonstop about her current situation, and the kinder ones offer her a walking stick. Toph refuses their offers, thinking that she’ll be back to normal in a couple of days, but now? She’s really hating the roughness of her impromptu cane. So she accepts one of the shopkeepers’ offers and switches her rough stick for a polished one.
By now, Toph realizes that her bending isn’t coming back. It’s sort of disappointing to no longer be able to say that she’s the greatest earthbender of all time, but hey, she can now enter into the category for the greatest nonbender of all time.
For that, she’ll need a weapon. Preferably something big and scary.
She hears the clanging of a blacksmith nearby. Perfect. Toph makes her way over to the shop, sweeping the ground in front of her with her new stick. She can tell she’s close when the noise becomes near deafening and the air begins to smell of iron.
The noise may be loud, but Toph is louder. “Hey!” she shouts. The noise stops.
“I’d never thought that I’d see the one and only Toph Beifong at my shop. What can I get ya?” the blacksmith responds. His voice is all manly man and as gruff as a platypus bear. She hears the clunk of the blacksmith putting down his hammer.
“I need a weapon.”
“Oh yeah?” The voice is sort of patronizing, and there is no doubt in her mind that the blacksmith knows all about her situation from the town gossip.
Toph asks, more demands, “What do you have?”
“Well, I’ve got a few swords that you might like. I also have some spears in stock,” the blacksmith answers lazily.
“That’s it?”
“I have a flail and an ax, but—”
Toph cuts him off. “Give me the ax,” Toph demands. She hits his stand with her stick for emphasis.
The blacksmith pauses for a moment before he responds. “I highly recommend that you order a sword instead. The ax might be too heavy for someone of your...stature.” Toph wishes that she has her earthbending just so she can see the guy’s nerve-wracked face.
Toph snorts. “Nothing’s too heavy for me, so get that through your thick skull! Now give me the ax.” She hits the stand with her stick again, now hard enough to shake the table. When there’s no response, she hits it again, harder this time. She’ll wait here for the rest of day if she has too, but it won’t come to that.
She can hear the blacksmith’s trembling, the metal tools around his belt clinking against each other, and she revels in the fact that the entire square can probably hear it too. Serves him right.
One minute later, Toph walks away with a Toph-sized ax.
Toph names her ax Metal-Monster. Contrary to the blacksmith, Metal-Monster is not, in fact, too heavy for her. She is, or was, an earthbender, and earthbending is all about being as strong as a boulder and as sturdy as a mountain.
Just because the ax isn’t too heavy for her, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t still very, very heavy.
Toph lifts up the ax and gives it a little practice swing. The move is uncontrolled, the momentum causing her to swing along with the ax-head. Metal-Monster ends up stuck in the ground, sending a splatter of mud into the air and into her face. Toph pulls the ax out from the ground and tries it again. It still gets stuck in the ground, but Toph feels a bit more balanced this time around. She repeats the motion again and again.
It doesn’t take that long to learn how to maneuver Metal-Monster, but Toph isn’t aiming for just being satisfactory. She’s aiming for perfection. She will be the greatest ax-wielder the world has ever seen, dumb blacksmiths be damned.
So she trains. She trains for hours every day, pushing herself to her limits. She practices her stances and practices swinging Metal-Monster in a way that is both strong and precise. She finds new methods for being aware of her surroundings. She learns to feel for her opponent’s footsteps, to pay attention to the slight winds of a fast weapon. She learns to memorize every crag and cranny, every little pebble of her surroundings. She carves a little spot in her stick to hide a dagger and repeats the motion of taking it out until she has gotten it just right. By the end of every day, she’s covered in sweat and grime and always a bit stronger than the day before.
She’s still teaching the lily livers to metalbend. Just because she can’t bend anymore, doesn’t mean that she isn’t the only person in the entire world who knows how. If her students piss her off, then all it takes is a hint of Metal-Monster’s edge and they get right back to training as hard as they can. Toph personally makes sure that they’ve reached and passed their limits by the end of each day’s training, because if she’s spending hours each day swinging around an ax her size, then they better be working their absolute hardest to bend a few measly sheets of metal.
Two months later, Toph can confidently say that she has mastered Metal-Monster. She may not wield the ax as masterfully as she wielded the earth, but Toph knows that the gap is narrowing by the day. Heck, she reckons that she can still easily kick The Boulder’s butt. Maybe not Twinkle Toes, but she’ll give him a darn good fight.
Who knows? Maybe the Avatar will be scared of her precious Metal-Monster. The thing’s an absolute monster, as per its name, and she will make sure that everybody knows it. Even the Foggy Swamp will know about Toph and her ax.
Toph is going to come out on top, and everybody is going to know that no matter what, she isn’t going to be stopped. If she loses her bending, then she’s going to pick up an ax. If she loses her ax, then she’s going to grab a sword. If she loses her sword, then she’s going in with her fists raised. If she somehow loses every single one of her limbs, then she’s going to go charging in on an ostrich horse.
Toph is going to tackle any obstacle head on, and everybody better watch out.
With that in mind, Toph swings Metal-Monster over her shoulder and heads to the nearest Earth Rumble. She’s going to win it, and she’s going to savor it.