The city of Ba Sing Se was large enough to be its own country. Easily visible from space, the multi-walled sprawl extended far beyond any inhabitant’s line of sight. Even standing on top of the highest pinnacle of the central palace, it was impossible to see the edge of the city—even the inner wall was almost out of sight. Virtually every square mile enclosed by the walls was filled with buildings erected directly from the ground, giving most of the city a blocky, earthen feel. When buildings could be erected and taken down in a matter of days—or hours in some cases—it became a simple matter to build more and more of a city.
The city walls were significantly more durable than the average building, composed of condensed rock stacked so high even the most powerful earthbenders would have difficulty making a dent. And if they did, the guards would notice and the interloper wouldn’t last long. However, there were some built-in weaknesses in the walls—the gates were massive sliding monoliths of stone that could be earthbent in and out of their slots.
Still miles away from the outer wall, Twilight had already seen the massive gates open and close several times. They were so much taller than Canterlot Castle that Twilight couldn’t believe anyone could move them. She was one of the most powerful mages in Equestria, and even if she spent all of her effort, she didn’t think her telekinesis could move that large a rock! She was dying to ask Toph about how they did it.
But she couldn’t. Asking wasn’t part of “the plan.”
“What kind of horse is that?”
Oh boy, here we go, Twilight groaned inwardly, trying to ignore the little girl who had walked up to them.
From her position on Twilight’s back, Toph slapped the alicorn’s flank. “This girl is the best bird-unicorn money can buy, kid!” Toph leaned over, careful to keep the sack containing Tippi slung over her shoulder. “Her name’s Twilight and she’s also the prettiest bird-unicorn ever!”
“C-can I pet her?” the girl asked, holding out a shaky hand.
“Go right ahead!”
Twilight snorted her displeasure. I am not some animal, kid! I am Princess Twilight Sparkle of Equestria, and you w— The girl did not receive the message from Twilight’s angry snort and began to stroke her mane. Oh. Oh… that actually feels pretty good…
Toph snickered. “You like that, don’t ya, girl?”
Twilight flapped her wings, slapping Toph in the sides. Oh, how I want to give her a piece of my mind. Let’s see, the moment we get out of the city I’m going to have a huuuuuuge list of complaints. Childish pranks, unnecessary talking, conflict instigation…
“My, what a beautiful creature…” this comment did not come from the girl, but a gaunt, old man with a jet-black beard. “Where did you find her?”
Toph leaned back, somehow managing to look relaxed despite being on a pony with no saddle to lean back in. “Trade secret, bucko. Can’t be letting just anybody know where the best creatures are, y’know?”
“Ah, but surely such a magnificent unicorn-bird…”
“You aren’t gonna get through to me, so stop trying. You should know who I am.”
“I am aware of your… determined reputation, mistress Toph.” He pressed his hands together. “Very well, I will not ask for information. I simply wish to purchase the creature.”
“Not for sale,” Toph said while scratching the back of her ear.
I’m glad we at least agree on something, Twilight thought.
The man frowned. “Are you certain?”
Toph let out a yawn. “Boy, you’re slow. You just mentioned my stubborn reputation. Don’t even know what you know, apparently.”
“I said determined, not stubb—”
“A wishy-washy suck-up too!” Toph broke out into a grin. “Hey, keep going and I might get a ‘sleazy salesman’ bingo!”
“Now let’s not be hasty here…”
“BINGO!” Toph thrust her hands into the air and let out a whoop. She must have done something to the earth under the man’s feet because he was knocked backward as if someone had tripped him. The other people walking around the street chuckled as he fell.
Ponyfeathers, Twilight realized. There were enough people staring at me beforehand, now we basically have an audience…
“C’mon Twilight,” Toph said, patting Twilight on the side of the neck like a normal horse. “Let’s leave this loser.”
Gladly. Twilight broke into a brisk trot, leaving the embarrassed salesman behind. The girl who’d stroked her mane followed them for about a minute before realizing Twilight moved too fast to keep up with. Soon enough, they were only drawing the usual amount of interested stares. I may have been a little paranoid about being noticed, Twilight thought.
Once they arrived at a street with only a few people out and about, Toph whispered in Twilight’s ear. “That loser? There’s lots of people like him. If they knew you could talk, in a city this big…”
Twilight nodded wordlessly. There is a reason we’re doing this, after all. She glanced at the ever-approaching, but ever-distant city walls. I wonder if I could fly fast enough to get over that without people noticing… Toph said it wouldn’t work, but…
She shook her head. As childish as Toph was, she had been a reliable source of information so far, and for all her obnoxious tendencies, she had gotten them out of that encounter quickly. In a way, Toph was a lot like Rainbow Dash: brash and hasty, but determined and loyal. Then again, Twilight had only known her for all of two hours, so she couldn’t really say much. She didn’t really know either of her companions.
But she was sure they would become good friends sooner or later.
Time passed. No more salesmen came to bother them, but there was always a kid or two—even some older than Toph—who wanted to see the “unicorn-bird” up close. At first, this had annoyed Twilight to no end, but she eventually learned to anticipate the ear scritches. Ear scritches were the best.
As they traveled, Twilight took the time to examine the humans of Ba Sing Se. In her previous adventures, she had encountered humans before, so she had assumed these would be the same as the ones she’d already met. This was not the case—for one, all the humans had much more muted colors for their hair and skin than she was used to. Furthermore, most had defined muscles presumably from a more active lifestyle, and, strangest of all, smiling wasn’t their default expression. It wasn’t that these people were sad, or unhappy, it’s just that when they were walking to and fro their faces were… flat. Was it a cultural difference? Or was this just the default for humans?
Twilight had so much more to learn. She couldn’t wait to leave the city and ask the many questions she’d accumulated.
By the time they reached the gates, Twilight had categorized one-hundred and seventy-three specific questions to ask Toph once they were on the road. She hadn’t gotten to alphabetizing them, though, so she was just going to have to ask them in whatever order they had come to her.
Her fixation on the list prevented her from noticing something was up.
“Hmm…” Toph said. “I don’t sense the guards at the gate.”
Twilight looked up at her in confusion.
“There’s always guards there. They need to open the gates. I can open them myself, but most people can’t.” Once they could clearly see the bottom of the gate, Toph got off Twilight, stamping her feet into the dusty road. “Hmm… there’s almost no people here. There’s always people at the gates.”
Twilight looked around, finding no one. “Ar—”
“Shhh,” Toph hissed, jostling her sack a little too roughly, prompting a wince from Tippi. “Let’s try to run. Three. Two. One…” Toph broke out into a run, shooting a little burst of rock under her feet to propel herself forward. Twilight galloped after her, pressing her wings to her side to minimize drag.
The area around the gate was just an extension of the dirt road, forming a semicircle in front of the gargantuan earthen slabs. The moment they were at the gates, Toph pressed both her hands together and erected a curved wall of earth around the two of them. “People are coming!” She set Tippi’s sack on the ground.
Twilight prepared a fireball and directed it upward—the only way an enemy could approach given Toph’s new wall.
“No, don’t do anything. I’ll handle it.”
“Yo—”
“Shhh!”
Twilight let out a whinny and dispelled the fireball, taking a defensive position behind Toph.
Instead of opening the gates, Toph pulled several boulders out of the ground and set them in front of her. She filled every space that wasn’t holding her and Twilight with them. The moment she was done, Twilight spied their first enemy—a woman in black and red robes had just climbed on top of the wall and pointed a finger at Toph. There was a split second where nothing happened, but then a spark manifested at the tip of the attacker’s fingernail. With a rush of heat, the spark became a fireball and sailed through the air: an instant projectile attack.
Toph countered with ease—lifting the boulder into the air with one hand to absorb the fireball. With her other arm, she punched forward, sending the boulder flying into the woman and knocking her off the wall.
And Toph didn’t stop there.
Pushing both her hands behind her, she opened a hole in the wall where another woman was waiting. The shocked firebender tried to unleash a fiery retaliation, but she only summoned the beginning embers of fire by the time Toph threw a boulder at her and knocked her down. As this was happening, a man attempted to climb up the opposite edge of the wall, but Toph threw the boulder so it would hit him just as he arrived at the top of the outcropping.
With a coy smirk, Toph opened up two holes in her earthen wall at different angles, punching two boulders through at two other attackers simultaneously. These two managed to get off some fiery bolts as they were attacked, but all Toph had to do was stomp and an earthen shield erupted from the ground to absorb the flames.
Toph was wiping the floor with them. Twilight knew exactly why—the attackers were relying on their eyesight, and none of them could see Toph. But Toph was not limited by such silly things. She knew where every last attacker was and exactly when to throw the boulders to take them out.
Twilight realized she really didn’t have to do anything at all. Toph had already won.
Lowering the wall, Toph revealed eight total enemies, all knocked out or dazed from her attacks. “Drat, not enough for a strike.” With a shrug, Toph turned to the gates and forced them open with her earthbending. Unlike the boulders, which had moved easily to Toph’s will, the gates took half a minute to slide from their closed positions. Toph’s feet sunk deeper and deeper into the ground as she moved them, and sweat began to drip from her forehead as she exerted herself.
I do not want to meet the people who open and close this thing all day for their job, Twilight thought.
Toph stopped when the gates were open enough to let them through. Exhausted, she climbed onto Twilight’s back. For once, Twilight didn’t complain. She picked up Tippi’s sack in her mouth and trotted out of Ba Sing Se into the desert beyond.
~~~
They hadn’t seen another human being for what seemed like forever on the desert trail, so Twilight decided it was finally safe to talk. “We’re good, right?”
Toph snorted. “I was wondering how long you were going to stay quiet! You were fine five minutes out of Ba Sing Se, there’s nobody that can hold us out here. Even if they do hear you, what are they gonna do? We can fly away now.”
“And you just let me stay silent!?”
“Yep! A whole hour, wow! You really are easy to mess wi—”
Twilight bucked back, kicking her hind legs and throwing Toph into the air. The earthbender landed on her rear, kicking up a fair amount of desert dust from the impact. “...Ouch.”
“Yeah. Ouch.” Twilight rolled her eyes. She took Tippi’s sack back from Toph and opened it up. “You can come out now.”
Tippi fluttered out. “Thanks… Can we never put me in a sack again…?”
“I’ll do everything in my power to keep it from happening. You have my word, Tippi.”
“Psh,” Toph jumped up, using her bending to clear all the sand from her clothes. “Putting the butterfly in a sack is a classic trick! C’mon, it’s effective!”
“From now on we’ll just let everyone assume she’s a spirit and deal with the attention. Or find some other way to hide her. No more sacks.” Twilight glared at her with a slight eye twitch.
“Fine, fine…” Toph stretched her arms to the sun.
“By the way…” Twilight scratched her chin. “I’ve been meaning to ask, who were those people?”
Toph shrugged as if they were inconsequential. “Fire Nation ‘redeemers’, I think. See, I was part of the reason their Fire Lord was deposed and they stopped trying to conquer the world, so there’s always gonna be a few who think I need to be taken out.”
“It had nothing to do with us?”
“Probably not, you did just get here,” Toph pointed out. “I don’t think anyone here has any idea about your Pure Heart nonsense or that end-of-all-worlds thing. I bet most people haven’t even noticed the thing in the sky!” She held out a hand, pointing away from the vortex.
“...I think you got turned around,” Twilight observed.
“I choose to believe it’s in that direction.” Toph huffed. “What I don’t know is where we’re going.”
“Southwest…” Tippi said, fluttering further along the road. “The Pure Heart is still a long ways off. We have quite a journey ahead of us.”
“Then let’s get on it! Moooove!” Toph clapped her hands together, the motion triggering her bending and sending a minor shockwave through the ground in front of them.
“While we’re moving, do you think you could teach me more about how you bend earth?” Twilight asked. “Clearly, there’s an art to it I’m not aware of.”
“Nope.”
Twilight wasn’t sure she heard her. “Did… you just say ‘nope?’ ”
“She did,” Tippi confirmed.
Twilight cocked her head. “Why not?”
“Don’t feel like it,” Toph said, scratching her side nonchalantly. “I’m here for an adventurous quest, not to be a teacher.”
Twilight frowned. “Can’t we do both at the same time…?”
“Too many questions, not enough adventure.” Toph took point, a clearly forced smile plastered on her face. “Onward!”
“O...kay,” Twilight said, a frown coming to her face. “Tippi, how long do you think it’ll take us to get there?”
“It is at least a few day’s journey,” Tippi said. “I recommend we settle in… for a while...”
With a curt nod, Twilight set out after Toph along the lengthy, desert road. As the wind blew in her mane, Twilight soon forgot her concerns about her friends, her current companion, and the danger threatening the worlds. Here she was, walking across a completely alien world, possibly the first of ponykind ever to visit this place! Who knew what kind of things they would find?
She started humming to herself and walked onward with a spring in her step.
Onward, to new horizons…