Team Beifong

Team Beifong was a trio of earthbenders comprising of Toph Beifong's hand-selected inaugural class of metalbending students.

Finding a class
In 101 ASC, Toph Beifong noted that her bracelet would vibrate ever so slightly when she was near people displaying high levels of emotion.

Toph found Ho Tun in a ramen shop, raving over having swallowed half a spider wasp in his soup, incidentally causing Toph's bracelet to shift slightly in response to his overemotional state. Following this, Toph encountered Penga in an Earth Kingdom marketplace, where she inadvertently moved Toph's space bracelet while having a tantrum. In Yu Dao, Toph saw The Dark One out on the streets uttering hateful remarks at the address of every passerby, causing him to shake Toph's bracelet unintentionally.

Toph considered the people who could move her bracelet as potential metalbenders, and recruited them to train in the Beifong Metalbending Academy near Yu Dao.

Training
Following a brief trip with Team Avatar, Toph returned to her academy accompanied by Sokka just in time to find her students about to leave. Coming down on them for assuming they were abandoning their training, the students defended themselves by saying that they were not leaving by choice, but rather had been kicked out by a rivaling school of firebenders, Master Kunyo's Firebending Dojo. Master Kunyo had reclaimed the school in Toph's absence, stating that school had been a firebending academy prior to Toph's possession of the building, but that it had been abandoned because of the Harmony Restoration Movement. However, now that Fire Lord Zuko had withdrawn his support for the plan, Master Kunyo and his disciples were set on reclaiming the building, stating that it was rightfully theirs. Before Toph and Kunyo could commence in a battle over the school and subsequently destroy the building, Sokka intervened and proposed to let the students fight for the rights of the building as opposed to the masters. He proposed a "match to the sit", meaning that whichever team of students got another student to sit down first, won the match and the school.



The duel was to take place three days after that first encounter. Sokka and Toph used this time to train the students, upon which time Sokka dubbed them as "Team Beifong". Despite Toph and Sokka's best efforts, the students were unable to perform metalbending at all. The evening prior to the battle, Team Beifong prepared to dissemble and leave the academy when they accidentally overheard Toph conversing with Sokka. She revealed to Sokka that she had been expecting her students to be something they were not, much like her parents forced her to do the same. She decided to forfeit the right of the school the next day to the firebending academy.

When Master Kunyo and his disciples returned the next day, Toph was about to sit without fighting them, but was halted at the last second by a metal coin to her behind, bent by Ho Tun. Much to her surprise, her teachings of metalbending had clicked with her students overnight. With the ability to metalbend on their side, Team Beifong decisively defended the school and won against the three firebending students, allowing their sifu to maintain possession of the academy.

Members

 * Ho Tun
 * Penga
 * The Dark One

Allies

 * Toph Beifong
 * Sokka

Enemies

 * Kunyo

Trivia

 * Sokka was the one to dub the trio as "Team Beifong" during his visit to Toph's academy.
 * Toph often referred to the members collectively as "lily livers".
 * Team Beifong is the first assembly of metalbenders.