#27
AI-assisted content.
TDBB: Golem Toph 3.27
The van died without an ounce of dignity. One moment the engine was throwing a rattling tantrum, the next it coughed up a final, pathetic cloud of black smoke and gave up the ghost. The wheels ground to a halt on the shoulder of a desolate highway, swallowed by woods so dense the ancient trees leaned over the asphalt like a gothic ribcage.
Ivy pushed the passenger door open and practically spilled out. Her legs were shaky; she’d spent hours forcefully channeling the Green through wires and hoses that had no business running on plant food. Ignoring the others, she stumbled toward the tree line, sank her spine against a massive oak, and pressed her palms flat into the dirt.
The Green here felt cleaner -- or at least untainted by Gotham’s toxic grime -- but that subterranean interference from the Parliament was still pulsing in the deep crust, trying to chop her connection into static. She shut her eyes, took a ragged breath, and forced her consciousness downward into the root web.
Inside the dead van, Harley Quinn was staring daggers at Toph. Her hands gripped her oversized mallet, her wrists still buzzing from the residual adrenaline of Ivy’s brainwashing. The warm, compliant fog had finally evaporated from her mind, leaving behind a hyper-vivid clarity she absolutely detested. And right now, that clarity was locked onto the blind girl casually hopping out of the back and sitting in the dirt.
Harley’s throat tightened. Toph’s sightless, milk-white eyes reminded her of the creepy old fairy tales her grandmother used to tell -- stories about blind witches who lived in gingerbread houses and ate lost children.
'Nope. Nu-uh. Time to bounce,' Harley decided.
Moving with the silent grace of an acrobat, she slipped out of the cabin, keeping her boots to the soft grass. She held the mallet behind her back, its massive iron head rising above her blonde pigtails like a bizarre, heavy halo. She took three steps. Four. The dark, welcoming freedom of the woods was right there. She almost breathed a sigh of relief.
Then the ground beneath her gave a sudden, fluid slide.
Harley’s foot shot backward. She stumbled, her heart hammering against her ribs. She tried to leap forward, but the earth shifted again, deliberately pulling her back like a muddy conveyor belt. Before she could run, the dirt rose in a mini-tidal wave, swept her completely off her feet, and dumped her unceremoniously right next to the van’s rusted rear tire.
She scrambled onto her knees, clutching her mallet like a shield, and looked up. Toph was standing directly over her, arms crossed, her blind eyes tracking Harley’s face with terrifying, impossible precision.
"Going somewhere, circus?" Toph asked, a smug grin tugging her mouth.
Harley let out a sharp, panicked squeak and shoved the mallet between them to block those spooky eyes. "I was—I was just gonna—!" Her mind raced, her mouth scrambling for a distraction. "I was gonna show you a new move! Yeah! The spinning hammer routine! You liked the spinning thing, right?!"
To prove it, Harley vaulted backward, launching into a frantic series of gestures that were equal parts martial arts and high-flying circus routine -- twisting her torso, kicking her legs, and windmilling her arms in mid-air. "See? See? Cartwheel into a layout backflip! Look at me go!"
Toph didn’t budge, but her shoulders relaxed. She sank back onto her heels, her grin widening. "Show me. Do the flip over the van."
Harley froze mid-pose, one leg extended and arms straight up. "What?"
"You heard me, clown. Flip."
The sheer performer’s instinct overrode Harley’s terror. A manic grin cracked across her face as she took a running start, planted her boot on the rusted bumper, and launched herself into the sky. Her hands caught the roof rack, swinging her body in a flawless, aerodynamic arc that landed her on the far side of the vehicle with a loud, metallic CLANG.
"Ha-ha!" Harley cheered, popping up with a theatrical bow.
But Toph was already moving around the chassis, her hands hovering above the metal. "Again," the earthbender demanded, her voice full of feral eagerness. "And don't skimp on the height this time!"
Harley ran at the bumper again, but this time, Toph stomped her foot.
As Harley’s boot struck the frame, the van exploded into motion beneath her. The chassis compressed with a screech of tortured steel. The axles extended downward like thick, metallic legs finding purchase in the gravel. Harley felt the metal bucking and changing mid-leap; she grabbed the roof rack as the hood folded back, the engine block rose into a heavy chest, and the headlights tilted upward like waking eyes.
Harley stuck the landing on the gravel and whirled around. Her jaw dropped.
The van was gone. Standing in its place was a towering, crude titan of rust and scrap metal. It had four thick, brutal legs made of suspension coils and axles, a massive torso forged from the radiator, and swinging arms made of door panels and fender strips that creaked like ancient hinges.
Toph stood beside the mechanical beast, slapping its metal thigh. "Now that's a stage," she laughed. "Do it again!"
Harley didn't need to be told twice. She bolted toward the scrap-metal golem, caught its swinging fender-strip hand, and used the momentum to flip herself up and over, landing squarely on the engine-block shoulder. The metal shifted beneath her as Toph’s will manipulated the frame, throwing Harley into the air only to catch her with the opposite arm. It was wild, erratic, and utterly exhilarating.
The forest echoed with Harley's hysterical laughter and Toph's boisterous cackling as they spun through a chaotic choreography of metal and momentum.
-0-
Deep in the woods, Ivy kept her hands buried in the soil, her eyes squeezed shut as she fought for a clean connection. It was better than Gotham -- the heavy, suffocating weight of concrete was gone -- but the Parliament’s tectonic interference was still there, a jagged line of static chopping her focus into useless pieces.
Every time she tried to center the Green within herself, the frequency shattered. She didn't give up. She pushed deeper, her fingers curling into the dirt trying to force her own mind to act as an anchor. It was entirely unproductive. The energy was hovering just out of reach, humming restlessly under her skin, refusing to settle.
Frustrated and drained, Ivy pulled her hands from the dirt and marched back toward the clearing. She stopped at the tree line, blinking at the bizarre sight before her. The van was gone. In its place stood a towering, crude titan of rust and scrap metal, its massive torso forged from the radiator and its limbs cobbled together from axles and door panels.
Harley was swinging wildly from a raised steel hand, her face split in a look of pure, unbothered joy, while Toph stood at the base, shifting the earth beneath the mech’s feet to make it stagger forward like a giant puppet.
Ivy stared, a sudden, weary amusement tugging at the corner of her mouth. Toph’s raw craftsmanship was undeniably impressive, and Harley was treating the terrifying scrap-pile like a literal playground.
Standing there, watching the restless green energy hum uncomfortably in her own palms, a flash of insight struck her. She couldn’t concentrate or center the Green into her own body right now -- the static inside her head was too loud. But if she couldn't hold it internally... why not anchor it to something external?
Ivy stepped forward, her eyes locking onto the hollow chest cavity of the metal beast. "Toph, stop sliding the dirt for a second."
Before Toph could ask why, Ivy raised her hands and unleashed the erratic, bottled-up energy from her chest. A brilliant, blinding surge of emerald green light erupted from her palms, streaking across the clearing. The energy poured into the hollow core, instantly weaving through the engine gears like thick muscle fibers and wrapping around the pistons like glowing tendons.
The headlights flared with a sudden, terrifying emerald fire.
The golem shuddered violently, let out a mechanical roar, and immediately began to move entirely on its own. It lunged forward, chasing a screaming Harley.
This wasn't a circus routine anymore. Harley panicked for real, her eyes bugging out as she scrambled backward across the gravel.
"YAAAAH! It's alive!" She swung her mallet frantically, smashing it against the fender arms, but the iron head just dented the scrap metal without slowing it down. The fact that this glowing monster was forged from her own beloved getaway van made it ten times more horrifying.
Toph scrambled back, her hands flying wide as her feet registered the heavy, autonomous vibrations rattling through the bedrock. "It's... it's moving by itself!" she yelled, her face splitting into a feral, completely hyped grin. "No strings attached! This is awesome!"
Ivy let out a genuine chuckle, the stress of her failed meditation vanishing as she flexed her fingers. With a sharp flick of her wrist, she anchored the green vines, forcing the golem to halt mid-stride. The fender hand reached down, scooped up a hyperventilating Harley, and carried her back to them, dropping her unceremoniously at Ivy’s feet.
"We're using it," Ivy announced, gesturing toward the dense wilderness ahead. "My meditation was a bust, but I felt a pull deeper in the woods. This thing can get us through the rough terrain."
Toph wasn't even listening to her. She was already staring at the golem in absolute wonder, her seismic sense mapping the way the metal plates shifted over the living vine-muscles. Testing a theory, Toph closed her eyes and projected her will into the mech -- not bending the metal, but commanding the entity itself.
'Move,' she thought.
The golem smoothly raised its massive right hand.
'Stomp.'
The metal leg lifted and crashed down, fracturing a boulder beneath its foot. Toph's jaw dropped, her voice barely a whisper of pure awe. "It's moving without being bent... I'm barely touching the iron, and it's just *doing* it." She threw her head back, laughing hysterically. "This is the coolest thing I've ever done!"
Five minutes later, they were moving off-road, but the vibe on top of the golem was completely split. Harley was currently strapped to the right shoulder, tightly bound by a seat of thick, braided vines that kept her glued to the frame. Her body was paralyzed in a state of mild shock, her face a mask of profound, ghostly regret as the metal-and-plant monstrosity -- forged from her own beloved getaway vehicle -- crashed through branches and stomped relentlessly over fallen logs.
Between Mr. J blowing up her favorite factory, being kidnapped by her best friend and a feral earthbender, and now being violently jostled like a ragdoll on a mechanical weed-monster, Harley could confidently say this was absolutely, one hundred percent, not her best experience as part of this trio. She just wanted a normal road trip with snacks and drive-bys.
Toph, meanwhile, was riding the back of the mech's neck like a gargoyle, hooting and hollering every time they crushed a boulder, while Ivy walked ahead to lead them. The dense canopy quickly closed over the group, the thick wilderness swallowing the glowing emerald headlights of the golem as they marched deeper into the uncharted, ancient heart of the forest.
Thanks for reading. I also have advance chapters if you want to read ahead.