#*; Order of the Red Lotus » AU

[dalekofchaos]

Context for choices 1, 2 and 9

My little au on if Aang never left

For my Zuko/Azula as prodigies. Basically they are both naturally gifted Firebenders. Zuko faces Ozai in combat, but Zuko faces Ozai. As Ozai is about to finish Zuko, Zuko hits Ozai with white flame and then Ozai declares Zuko the victory and he gains his father's respect. Eventually Zuko and Azula are at a sibling rivalry, trying to outdo each other and even trying to kill each other for their father's approval and to win the throne. Ozai puts their ambitions to the test. Whomever captures Ba Sing Sei, Northern Water Tribes and the Avatar first becomes Ozai's successor.

This video better explains it

Asami as Amon

Asami witnessed the brutal murder of her mother, but it wouldn't be by just any benders. It would be the Red Lotus Society.

Zaheer planned to finish the job, but Toph came to the rescue.

the spirits would take pity on Asami and gift her energy bending and Asami would use her father's wealth to master Chi-Blocking and use their wealth to fund and arm the Equalists.

Amon or in this case Asami wins at the end of Book 1. Tarrlok is still captured by Amon, when Korra sees him and they chat, he tells the whole story of Amon as it happened in the show to her and everything. Like it goes in the show. Korra and friends go to confront Amon at the arena where Tenzin and his family are about to lose their bending. But they don’t because she gets there in time. She accuses Amon of being a bender, as per Tarrlok’s story. Amon doesn’t unmask. And he isn’t a bender. Tarrlok lied to get Korra to confront Amon so that he could capture her and he could hopefully save his own skin for the service at least. They fight. Amon takes Korra’s bending in a big demonstrative way. So all the crowd can see what comes to any benders, especially The Avatar who stand against him. Then the reveal happens. Asami is Amon.

Art by nikoniko_808

In order to get her bending back and learn how to give others their bending back (yeah, Korra wouldn’t get it back at the end of Book 1 because consequences? What’re those?), Korra has to go on a quest to learn her bending(her masters would be Toph, Katara, Izumi and Tenzin) in the Spirit World to understand everything. Korra does not cry about loosing her bending because she realized she’s still The Avatar and has to go to The Spirit World to get her bending back, to help everyone get their bending back and stop Asami

Throughout the series, we would meet Kya, Bumi, Izumi, Eska, Desna(Eska and Desna would be Korra’s siblings in this universe, because fuck Unaloq) Opal and Kai. We have the same romance between Bolin and Opal and Jinora and Kai. We would also meet Varrick and Zhu Li, because they are comedy gold. They would all help in the fight against Amon and the Equalists.

In Korra's venture to the Spirit World,

she would still see Wan’s story(because that’s the only thing I liked about Book 2) and I think in her journey in the spirit world she would see Asami’s story, in which her family were victims of the Red Lotus society and Asami learned to take bending away in the spirit world. Not only that, we would find out that Asami would be bonded with Vaatu. Asami is the darker Avatar.

Before she leaves The Spirit World she connects with all her past lives to ask what she should do about Asami. Korra has her Aang moment where she has too has to decide what to do like he did with the fire lord, only this time there's more to it than just stopping the bad guy. It’s about the person she loved. She can restore everyone’s bending by reversing Amon’s convergence, but she can't do that so long as the avatar spirit is split. And as long as Asami is part avatar, she can go into the avatar state. That's still pretty damn dangerous even with only water and blood bending. Korra realizes the only thing she can do to stop Asami? Love her.

After her journey to relearn her bending and journey in the spirit world, Korra travels the world to gain allies. From the Fire Nation, Earth Kingdom, Water Tribes and Air Nomads. Korra unites the world against Amon and the Equalists.

In the final fight, Korra defeats Amon. She exorcises Vaatu from Asami, thus ending the dark Avatar and stopping Amon’s convergence. She reverses what Asami has done and uses it to restore everyone’s bending. So she has to come to the hard part. Amon makes it clear, no matter what, even without the ability to energy bend or without Vaatu, Amon will never stop, Benders will never be safe. Korra shows Asami what she was denied. Korra loves her and forgives her. Asami gives up and accepts whatever punishment.

During Book 3, Asami would work with Korra in stopping and killing the Red Lotus society. However, when Zaheer is stopped. He is left at the mercy of Asami and for everything he’s done and turned her into. Asami kills him.

Book 4 happens. Asami's redemption is rebuilding Republic City and using Future Industries to repair the damage she's done as Amon. Blah blah blah Korra stops Kubira blah blah. Asami earns her redemption and the love of the krew and more importantly Korra. Ends with Korra and Asami venturing in the Spirit World and ends with a kiss.

[wilcze-kudly]

Horrid ramblings related to the tlok rewrite I have in my head. Book 1, Air but with the Red Lotus as primary antagonists.

So my thoughts are that in this AU, the airbending would come from Vaatu (somehow) I like the idea of Raava and Vaatu being these very eldritchy beings that are able to manupulate the world around them. Raava sacrificed this trait in order to merge with the Avatar, but Vaatu is stil lovecraftian and well

With Harmonic Convergence nearing, perhaps Vaatu is able to exude more influence on the world. It would be interesting to see unexplained events happen more frequently as he gains power.

The Red Lotus are on board with freeing Vaatu, as they were in canon, and Vaatu lets airbending back into the world, knowing or maybe just hoping that Zaheer would get airbending and get his jailbird shit together

I think it would be a fun mystery. No one exactly knows why people started airbending all of a sudden ans this is a mystery that we slowly piece together as the show progresses.

Korra hears about airbenders popping up out of nowhere and runs away to Republic City, since she sees this as a perfect opportunity to become the Avatar she was meant to be. At this time the Red Lotus is breaking out and that adds to the tension as we see how woefully unprepared Korra is for this bunch of assassins.

I think it would be interesting to see Korra struggle and fail at airbending while there are randos all over the world getting airbending for free. She can bond with Bumi (who I'm not sure about giving airbending to) lol

I'd have the first few episodes going on in Republic City, but then have Korra and co travel in search of airbenders.

I'm not sure about keeping the pro bending storyline. I know how important it was to the og show, however it would make the storyline incredibly cluttered.

I'd want to highlight the bending brother's connections to the triads too, so I might make them somehow affiliated with the Triple Threats. But then betray them and join Korra in her travels. Because staying in RC after pissing off the triads would essentially be a death sentence.

If the brothers were still in Probending, I'd take inspiration from the storyline of Republic City hustle with the rigged matches. Have the brothers be forced to win/lose depending on how the triad places its bets. Have them be forced to deliberately throw matches cuz the triad invested in the opposing team.

I'm not fully sure how to factor Asami into this, but I had a thought of Hiroshi (who is still an equalist agent but that won't matter until B3) graciously donating resources into the search for airbenders. In order to buy himself into the Avatar's good graces and to have a direct line to the newly emerging airbenders for future evil plans.

Whether Asami is in on her father's plans or not, she acts as captain/pilot of the airship and quickly befriends the rest of the Krew. Gay ensues.

I'd change around the pacing a little, maybe move the Beifong family drama to the later seasons or at least not focus on it as much. But these are minute details I don't really have time to focus on. Maybe introduce Wu earlier. That sorta stuff.

Yeah um. Please don't let this become an actual project. I don't have the strength to write a fic like this. But the concept is tempting. Please tell me your thoughts. I'm super curious about them

[multiipl]

@kidncpped​ said:

Dear Korra ( from Zaheer! )

*; this » Send me “Dear ________” and I’ll write a letter from my character addressed to that person.

Dear Korra,

Our cause would be nothing without you and your noble sacrifice. There is simply nothing greater than a devoted soul helping us realise our ideology. With you being the Avatar, you are the key to our success, but you already know this. 

There is nobody else like you and there won’t ever be again in the future. Then we will have achieved greatness, true balance, with no greater power abusing their position anymore. We will have done it and it is all thanks to you. The world has no need for the Avatar to act as a bridge between two worlds. People and spirits will live together like before, in one world, with a new order.

With your self sacrifice as the last avatar this world has ever seen, the world will change, and it is a much needed change. I welcome the new world we have thanks to you with open arms.

Yours truly, 

Zaheer

[wishingforatypewriter]

What do you think would have happened if Korra hadn't been so badly hurt by Zaheer and was back in action within 2-3 months rather than 3 years?

Hi! Thanks for the ask! This is an au scenario with so many interesting possibilities.

The short answer: Game of Thrones, basically.

The long answer: I think there still would have been a lot of controversy surrounding the future of the Earth Kingdom Empire Republic, but much of it would get played out in the political arena—through alliances and intrigue—rather than through military conflict.

Assuming that the Earth Queen is still assassinated by Zaheer, the earliest parts of the campaign would play out in largely the same way. Kuvira and Baatar still fall out with Suyin and leave Zaofu for Ba Sing Se. However, when Korra joins up with them after a short period of convalescence in the Southern Water Tribe (and with Asami in tow), Su is forced to make a political calculation and retract her talons a bit. The idea that Kuvira betrayed her to pursue an unjustified power grab rings hollow to the public when the avatar herself is out on the front lines with her. In order to preserve her standing among the world leaders, Su sends money and resources to support the humanitarian efforts of the campaign, but her relationship with her son and former protege remains acrimonious.

Although the two have a shared vision of stability, prosperity, and modernization in the Earth Kingdom, Kuvira is willing to go to extremes to make these ideals an immediate reality, while Korra is more inclined to settle for incremental progress in the interest of maintaining peace and balance. Korra is disquieted by how Kuvira's forces dealt with the Dai Li prior to her arrival, but later concedes that there was really no peaceful way to remove the group's stranglehold over the city. Kuvira is irritated by Korra's focus on the environment—feeling that she prioritizes the whims of spirits over the needs of her people—but comes to appreciate the need for balance after witnessing the devastation wrought by angry spirits firsthand.

The avatar and the uniter disagree often, loudly, and at length throughout the campaign—Korra insisting that they must provide support to all municipalities, not just the ones that join their cause, and Kuvira railing against the legal and financial privileges conferred upon royalty and nobility—but somehow maintain a wildly effective working relationship and a strong friendship.

Meanwhile, the technology division—headed by Asami, Baatar, and Varrick—cranks out advances at a rapid pace. The spirit vine project gets underway a year earlier than in canon and is quickly established as a renewable energy source. Due to Asami's meticulous lab protocols—and her refusal to trust Varrick alone with the vines—the lab accident that led to their weaponization never takes place. Thanks to the combined efforts of the engineers, running water, electricity, and high-speed rail reach nearly every corner of the Earth Kingdom.

As the Earth Kingdom seems headed towards a period of calm and prosperity not seen since the Age of Yangchen, unrest threatens to begin anew over the question of who will lead the nation into this future.

After meeting Wu and finding him lacking, Kuvira has reservations about turning the kingdom back over to him—as in canon—and says so publicly in a live interview produced by Varrick's mover studio. The interview sways public opinion, especially among the young, and leads to mass demonstrations in Ba Sing Se, Republic City, and other locales against the restoration of the monarchy.

President Raiko, who has invested considerable time, effort, and UR taxpayer dollars into building a positive relationship with Wu—and picking all of his ministers—calls a meeting of the world leaders, prepared to spend all his political capital on getting the prince on his throne. Meanwhile, Suyin, the King of Omashu, and the leaders of a few other wealthy states make a play to declare independence from the reunified Earth Kingdom (and its higher tax rates for the rich) altogether.

In the meeting of the world leaders, Tonraq backs Kuvira, and Eska and Desna follow suit (if only because Wu annoys them and they'd prefer to see him less often). Raiko, of course, supports Wu and Tenzin agrees (if only for a swift return to normalcy and civility). Korra—who doesn't really get a vote on these things—attends the talks, but refuses to make any public comments on the matter, not wanting to escalate tensions by choosing a side.

The final decision largely comes down to Fire Lord Izumi, whose vote can go either way. In her view, neither option bodes particularly well for the Fire Nation. On the one hand, Kuvira's ascendancy would make the Fire Nation the only hereditary monarchy left in the world, making her rule (and later that of her children and grandchildren) much more vulnerable to calls for reform or revolution. But on the other hand, Wu's leadership would be so weak that he would either throw the largest country in the world back into instability, leading to the resurgence of bad actors like the Red Lotus or shadow governments like Long Feng's Dai Li, or allow it to become a vassal state of the United Republic, in thus turning the latter into the world's sole superpower.

Liking neither option, Izumi calls for a pause in discussion among world leaders and then sets up another meeting. In the presidential suite of the Four Elements, the Fire Lord tells Kuvira that she will support her rule over the Earth Kingdom in its entirety—including Zaofu, Omashu, and other states that wish to break away—but she will only support her as Kuvira the Earth Queen. In essence, Izumi asks her to enter a political marriage with Wu to preserve the image of the monarchy, and promises to deliver not only her backing, but also Tenzin's if she's willing to comply.

Being a shrewd political actor, Kuvira knows what she's being offered—legitimacy, longevity, unfettered power, unchanged borders. The only problem is, she's already engaged.

[anghraine]

I was talking about it on Twitter, but ...

Okay, I once had this concept for a LOK AU that would (basically) rearrange the seasons by villain threat: Zaheer(+Red Lotus) -> Amon(+Equalists) -> Kuvira(+armies) -> Unavaatu. I came up with a bunch of ideas for how to make the smaller pieces hang together. And I still think about it and really enjoy the idea.

But I read somewhere that the original, or at least earlier, conception was that Amon would be the final villain. And I really like that idea for an AU, too! I think in a lot of ways he’s the most terrifying and well-executed of them all, even if there are flaws in the over-arching narrative—and a lot of those flaws could be ameliorated by being developed over a longer span of time. Like:

The non-bender conflict! There are points where it seems a form of oppression that Korra is just not getting, and other points where it seems questionable if it’s even a real thing, and while they could have been clearer, there’s so much packed into B1 that there’s only so much time. But suppose the non-bender thing was built up over three seasons—not constantly, but a thread of tension that kept popping up in odd places and developing until it explodes in B4.

Also, I’m a Noatak-and-Tarrlok stan so I’m biased, but I also think Tarrlok’s ~reveal would be more powerful if we knew him a bit better in a ..... slightly more nuanced way, and it’d make sense for him to show up periodically in the Republic City-oriented arcs as this background irritant who gets some development (the subplot with Korra on the task force that got dropped could show up earlier and actually go somewhere, say). He wouldn’t be a major character until the fourth book, but we’d (think we) have a solid idea of who he is and then WHAM.

This AU would stick to the basic material that is present in LOK rather than completely overhauling it, so the order would basically be the same apart from shifting Amon to last: Vaatu -> Zaheer -> Kuvira -> Amon. That would a) allow the story of the Water Tribe Avatar to actually start out dealing with Water Tribe stuff, b) get the least interesting of the villains out of the way comparatively early, while c) the events of the show would have ramifications on the other seasons from the outset (the spirit stuff in B1 would lead to spirit/airbender stuff in B2 which has profound effects on B3, and we could figure out how that carries into B4). 

Oh, and having a full book after Kuvira’s surrender could give us more time to deal with her—the way it’s wrapped up in canon is pretty abrupt and underwritten (IMO, though I love what’s there). But it wouldn’t have to be so fast if it wasn’t the final episode of the whole show, and her rapid turn-around could go somewhere.

There are difficulties, of course—a certain amount of the plot rests on Korra having the Avatar State through the non-Amon part of the series, and it’s hard to see the Equalists standing a chance against it ... maybe she struggles to control it or something, which might make sense (there are definitely points in the show where I wondered why she wasn’t using it). And—I mean, there’d be a lot to finagle. But I do really like the concept!

[attackfish]

au + 5 hc - Zaheer's 11

This is a more general heist AU, because I have never actually seen Oceans Eleven, and anyway, the Order of the Red Lotus does not have eleven members.

1. It’s 1903, and Zaheer escapes from prison only to find out that Unalaq, the traitor in his crew that tipped off the police to where they were hiding, took the proceeds from their last big heist and bought himself the throne of a small Mediterranean principality, and built a series of enormous luxury casinos. This principality is not Monaco, but let’s be honest, it is absolutely Monoco. Well. This state of affairs can’t be allowed to continue.

2. Step one is to get his old crew, minus that lying betraying bastard. P'li is in prison in Illinous, Ming Hua’s family had her sent to an insane asylum, and Ghazan is hiding out somewhere only Ming Hua knows the location of. So he breaks P'li out of prison by stealing a police uniform and pretending to be coming to question her. He then walks her out of the holding cell, looking all businesslike, and the two of them steal the warden’s car and drive out like bats out of hell. The two of them sneak into the asylum at night, loop ropes around the bars on Ming Hua’s window, and attach the ropes to the warden’s car. Zaheer drives until the bars are pulled off, then P'li climbs in, throws Ming Hua over her shoulder, climbs back down the ladder, and escapes with her in the warden’s car. While P'li is prying the restraints off Ming Hua’s feet, Ming Hua tells them that Ghazan is living out in the middle of nowhere in a shack in the New Mexico territory. They find him sleeping with a sawed off shotgun in his arms and two pistols under his pillow.

3. They knock over a bank to pay for train and boat tickets and supplies. Then, it’s back east, onto a steamer ship, and out to not-Monoco.

4.Unalaq knows they’re coming. He has to. Their escapes and bank heist is all over the newspapers. So they plan accordingly. They let him catch Ming Hua, easily the most recognizable , breaking into the largest casino. Meanwhile Ghazan is in the basement of Unalaq’s new palace, setting dynamite charges. Unalaq knows them well enough to know Ming Hua is a red herring, so he sends his police to the palace, and they catch Ghazan, just as they’re supposed to.

5.Hidden amongst the police is tall, muscular P'li, who marches them right into a fake police wagon, and drives them to the small national jail, where Zaheer is waiting, next to a tunnel that leads from under the police clerk’s desk into the safe-rooms of all the casinos and the palace. Zaheer has already moved most of it out by the time they arrive. All that’s left is for them to load it all into the fake police wagon, cross the border, and let Ghazan blow the safes open.

[iruka-2013]

Fanfic: Winds of Change, Epilogue - Tough Love (11/11)

Summary: Book 3 AU in which Asami becomes an airbender and goes with Tenzin to the Northern Air Temple, while Kuvira joins Team Avatar. Approx. 70,000 words. (Based on this post by Ikkinthekitsune.)

Previous Chapters:

Prologue: New Airbender                Chapter 1: Thief

Chapter 2: Captain of the Guard     Chapter 3: Traitor

Chapter 4: Level Zero                      Chapter 5: Earthly Tethers

Chapter 6: The Crew                       Chapter 7: Red Lotus, Part 1

Chapter 8: Airbending Master          Chapter 9: Red Lotus, Part 2

Chapter 10: Voidbending                 My fanfiction master post

“You said you wouldn’t risk using the Avatar State to save your own life. But you used it to save mine. You risked the Avatar Cycle for me.”

 “Yeah… I guess I did.”

 Kuvira had been more reticent than usual after the fight at Laghima’s Peak. She and Tonraq had taken turns watching over Korra during the long flight to Republic City. When Korra woke with an ache in her chest and the coppery taste of blood trickling down her throat, she had often found Kuvira sitting by her bedside, arms folded and looking pensive. Only once had she been in the mood to talk.

 “So does that mean that you overvalue my life or that you undervalue your own?”

 Korra didn’t know what it meant—only that it had felt like the right thing to do. Still, Kuvira’s questions needled her during the weeks after the battle, as she underwent endless healing sessions for her broken back and damaged lungs, then struggled to learn how to walk again.

 Kuvira had wanted to stay and help with her long recovery on Air Temple Island. Once, hovering on the edge of consciousness, Korra had heard a whispered argument between Kuvira and Su.

 “Your place is in Zaofu, Kuvira. I need you there.”

“The Avatar needs me too—maybe more than you do.”

 “No. You’re the captain of the Security Force, not the Avatar’s keeper. To be honest, you’ve been arrogating too much authority to yourself lately. Come home with me now, or don’t come at all.”

 That note of discord had lingered disturbingly in her mind, though she couldn’t be sure it hadn’t been a dream.

 (Had she dreamed Asami’s visit? She remembered the details of it so vividly—the new white burn dressings on her friend’s arms, the smell of smoke that clung to her clothes, the odd-looking bandage beneath her eye. But Asami had never come back.)

 To everyone who met the Avatar in the weeks after her return, one thing was obvious: Korra’s body might have taken a horrific beating, but her spirit was as fierce as ever. The healers had their hands full managing her drive to get back on her feet as quickly as possible, and once she had fought her way out of the traction-bar bed and into a wheelchair, even the White Lotus had trouble keeping up with her.

 Air Temple Island was busier than ever before, with a constant trickle of new airbenders arriving. Even with the help of the White Lotus guards and the first cohort trained by Tenzin—the group that had been forged into a community by the ordeal at the Northern Air Temple—Jinora and her siblings had their hands full with housing the newcomers and introducing them to the Air Nomad culture. Bumi and Kya did what they could to help, though they were still recovering from their wounds, and Pema tried to mother them all. Though they seemed able to bear up, Korra could see the toll Tenzin’s injury was taking on his family; the master had woken a few days after the battle and was slowly recovering, but he was in no condition to resume the leadership or training of the Air Nation.

 One person who could have helped bring order to the chaos was missing. Of course, Asami would be busy helping to resettle some of the airbenders at the other three Air Temples to continue their training, or dealing with all the Future Industries business that had built up in her absence. After a few weeks, though, Korra couldn’t help noticing how persistently her questions about Asami’s whereabouts were being deflected by everyone from Jinora and the new airbenders to Mako and Bolin.

 Bolin. He’ll be the weak link.

 She cornered him in a front room on Air Temple Island one morning and grilled him relentlessly, until he cracked and wailed out the one thing Korra had never expected to hear.

 “She’s in prison, okay? She tried to kill Zaheer and Beifong locked her up for attempted murder and it could be for murder if he doesn’t pull through, which they’re still not sure he will, and Mako made me swear on Mom and Dad’s graves not to say anything until you were better, and now he’ll—”

 Korra shook her head in confusion. “Asami’s in prison for trying kill Zaheer? Why isn’t it the other way around?”

 “She did it after they captured him, when he was chained up in the hold of Su’s airship. Chief Beifong says she was acting really crazy—yelling stuff about how he was going to destroy the Air Nation and they had to let her finish him off before it was too late. She did some nasty airbending thing to his lungs, and now he can barely breathe.”

 “She did what?” Korra found herself unconsciously rubbing her chest. “I have to talk to her.”

Reluctantly, Bolin agreed to call the police station and arrange for Korra to visit. Chief Beifong, her lips pursed in displeasure, led her to a secluded cell on an upper floor that had a small observation window set into the wall. “Before I let you talk to her,” the chief said, “I want you to be ready for what you’re going to find.”

The room had the usual plain metal-frame bed, a single chair, and bare off-white cinderblock walls, worn and pitted. But the woman who sat huddled in the corner behind the bed was so changed that Korra had to study her for several seconds before she could believe it was Asami Sato.

 Beneath the ill-fitting prison jumpsuit, her hunched shoulders spoke of weariness and despair. Her dark hair hung lank over her face, exposing just enough to show the gauntness of her features and the purplish-black circles under her eyes. If not for the bandage on her face, she would have looked like a vengeful ghost from some old Fire Nation story.

 “What’s happened to her?” Korra threw her chair’s wheels backward. “I’m going in.”

 Beifong bent a quick tendril of metal around the chair’s spokes, earning a fiery glare from Korra.

 “Not so fast, Avatar. See those marks on the walls? None of those were there when we brought her in.” The chief pointed at one place where part of the stone had been broken away. “That one was left by the last officer who tried to get anywhere near Miss Sato. She’s not in her right mind, and she doesn’t want visitors.”

 “Sounds like she needs a healer, not a prison cell.” Korra bent the cable away.

 Beifong folded her arms. “She did try to murder Zaheer.”

 “So did I,” Korra snapped. “You gonna lock me up next? I said I’m going in there, so get out of my way!”

 The chief regarded her in silence. “All right,” she said finally. “But only for a few minutes. I’ll be watching in case anything goes wrong.”

 Once she was through the door, Korra’s brazenness melted into uncertainty. Asami gave no sign she had heard Korra enter. She continued to stare at nothing even when the Avatar wheeled herself within arm’s length.

 “Hey, Asami,” Korra said quietly. “It’s Korra.”

 Asami turned her head until Korra caught a glimpse of clear emerald green through the dark strands. She didn’t answer.

 “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner, but nobody would tell me where you were. I heard about what happened with Zaheer, but I want your side of the story. Talk to me.”

 Korra held her breath for half a dozen heartbeats. When her friend spoke, her voice was so quiet that Korra had to lean forward to the point of overbalancing to hear.

 “…spider-fly, caught in its own web… All one… ridiculous… bugs aren’t people, Tenzin…” Asami blinked and focused, and her eyes met Korra’s. “Bugs aren’t people… so why can I crush a person like a bug?”

 Suddenly Korra felt cold. “What are you talking about?”

 Asami stirred and stretched her legs out in front of her, resting her hands in her lap. She stared at the ceiling, and Korra could see the words organizing themselves behind her distant eyes. “Every nation has its own forbidden bending art. Like bloodbending. When the Red Lotus attacked I discovered something called voidbending. Killed two of them with it. Without even meaning to, I passed it on to Zaheer.” She closed her eyes. “He got one of Kuvira’s men and tried to kill you too.”

 “You mean that thing he did to my insides…” The reason I coughed up blood for a week after the fight…

 Asami nodded. She seemed more lucid now. “Tenzin said the old airbenders had a terrible punishment for voidbending. Zaheer showed me what it was.”

 She reached up and ripped the bandage from her face, turning her head to give Korra a good look at what lay underneath. Korra had given it little thought, except for wondering distantly why the wound hadn’t finished healing since she’d noticed it on the airship.

 Beneath the bandage, Korra saw not the half-healed cut or abrasion she had imagined, but an elaborate burn mark several inches square, a deeply gouged network of scar tissue forming the character for danger. Her best friend had been branded.

 “He said there was more to it,” Asami whispered into Korra’s dumbstruck silence. “I have no idea what. Airbenders don’t believe in capital punishment, and you can’t exile one, because they’re not supposed to have homes anyway…”

 “I knew,” Korra whispered. “I knew they’d done something… on the radio…”

 “Right. Giving the Avatar a show.” Asami’s smile was bitter. “Effective, wasn’t it?”

 Korra leaned forward and gripped her shoulder tightly. “I’m getting you out of here. You were just giving that bastard what he deserved. If you hadn’t beaten me to it, I’d—”

 Asami pushed her hand away. “You’re missing the point. I am dangerous—like a bloodbender. Like Zaheer. Using one of the forbidden arts changes you. If I go back to the Air Nation I’ll end up like those Red Lotus lunatics, ranting about chaos and the new world order.” She shivered, dropping her eyes and hunching her shoulders. “Tenzin had high hopes for me. He’d be so disappointed. But this is the safest place for me now.”

 Korra felt both her dismay and her temper rising. “Asami, it’s not like you to give up. Remember how enthusiastic you were when you started airbending? Remember the first time you went flying without an airplane?”

 “Stop it,” Asami snapped. “I failed, Korra. I couldn’t make it as a bender. I never understood the principles, I couldn’t master the discipline… Now I’ve put the entire Air Nation in danger, just like Tenzin warned.”

 Asami’s anger flared out, and she sighed, looking desperately tired. She held out her hands to Korra, palms up. “Avatars have taken away people’s bending before. Can’t you figure out how to do it again?”

 Korra saw Daw, his back pressed against Kyoshi Bridge, his hands extended toward her... Make it stop!

 She opened her mouth to repeat the old answer—I’m sorry, I can’t—then shut it again at the expression of misery on Asami’s face.

 For a long moment she was silent, her mind racing.

 “I do know one way,” she said finally. “It’s temporary.”

 Asami looked up, hope sparking in her eyes. “Anything.”

 “If you want, I can try to guide you into the Spirit World. Bending doesn’t work there. Jinora’s been helping me practice so I can go there myself when I need a break from this thing.” She thumped the arm of the wheelchair. “How’s your meditation?”

 Asami’s lips thinned into a determined line. “Good enough. Let’s try it.”

“Okay, but we can’t do it in this place.”

After some persuasion, Beifong agreed to release Asami temporarily, provided Korra accepted certain conditions. One of those was that Detective Mako would go with them to Air Temple Island. Asami would remain in police custody, but at least she would be among friends and out of the jail cell.

 Asami changed back into airbender clothes, but insisted on replacing the bandage over the brand on her face. Pema welcomed her home to the Air Temple with a pot of tea and a batch of meat dumplings (“If you don’t tell Tenzin, I won’t,” she said with a wink), that made Asami perk up for the first time; she had never been a vegetarian before the joining the Air Nation. But when Korra suggested that they look in on the master, Asami went pale and froze up. She wouldn’t go near Tenzin’s room.

 Taking the food and tea and leaving Mako in the dining area, they went to Korra’s room to meditate in privacy. Except for a few handrails and other devices the White Lotus guards had added to help Korra in and out of her chair, the furnishings were much as they had always been—a plain bed, desk, chair, and nightstand table with an underused bookshelf beneath. Asami looked around as if seeing the place for the first time.

 Korra decided to make an attempt at conversation. “Voidbending… dumb name, huh? Doesn’t make sense. Void means nothing, but the stuff in your lungs isn’t nothing—it’s just more air.”

 Right away Korra gave herself a mental kick for her choice of topics. Still, Asami picked up the thread.

 “The void isn’t a thing, it’s a place. An empty place, detached from everything. Cold and dark and lonely.” A breeze that seemed to have her as its source whipped through the room, sucking away any warmth. She hugged herself. “Voidbending is a perfect name.”

 She talked as if she had seen the void, as if she had gone there and returned with a piece of it inside her. For the first time, a tendril of doubt about the wisdom of bringing her here crept into Korra’s mind.

 She pushed it aside and cleared her throat. “Well, shall we get started? Don’t worry, meditating into the Spirit World isn’t as hard as everyone makes it out to be. All you have to do is—”

 “—ignore the fact that I have waking nightmares of Zaheer and the Red Lotus every time I close my eyes,” Asami said, dropping into the chair by Korra’s desk.

 Korra paused. “Yeah,” she said after a moment. “Me too.”

 She decided not to mention that last night’s dreams had been worse than usual, ending with Asami’s scream echoing in her head. She had woken yelling and swinging her fists at empty air, trying to punch that gloating smirk off Zaheer’s face.

 She lifted the tea tray into her lap and poured two cups, setting Asami’s on the nightstand. Asami stared out the window at Yue Bay, her lips moving soundlessly while one finger tapped an agitated rhythm on the side of her chair. Something in her friend’s eyes—a faraway, detached expression—triggered Korra’s memories of Zaheer standing over her, preparing to break her with her own staff.

 She’s not in her right mind.

 Korra lowered her eyes and sipped her tea.

 “You might be more comfortable sitting on the bed for this,” she suggested quietly. “Makes it easier to keep up proper meditation posture.”

 “There’s nothing wrong with my posture.”

 “I didn’t say there was,” said Korra, “but you don’t want to wake up on the floor because you started a little off balance.”

 Asami pursed her lips and moved to sit on Korra’s bed, folding her legs the way Tenzin had taught them both. She put her fists together as Korra was doing.

 Korra set down her cup. “Now, I want you to watch your breathing and focus on my voice,” she said, closing her eyes. Hearing her friend’s breath hitch, she opened them again.

 “I just thought of something,” Asami said. “What if he’s there—Zaheer? Doesn’t he spend a lot of time in the Spirit World?”

 “That’s impossible,” said Korra. “He’s in a coma, and you have to be conscious to project your mind into the Spirit World.”

 “Impossible things are Zaheer’s specialty. There may be a lot we don’t know about what he can do.”

 Korra frowned. “I don’t think you’re afraid of Zaheer. What else is wrong? You seem… angry.”

 When Asami glared at the floor and didn’t answer, Korra tried again. “Listen, the past few weeks haven’t been a picnic for any of us. But I’m here to help you, so let’s keep going.”

 Asami looked up, her jaw set. “Who said I needed help? If I’d wanted out of jail, I could’ve paid my own bail fifty times over, or airblasted a hole in the wall.”

 Her elbow knocked over her teacup as she stood up, spilling its contents across the desk. She crossed the room to tower over Korra. “What reason did you have to interfere? What reason do you ever have?”

 Asami’s hands twitched unconsciously into the series of airbending moves Zaheer had done on Laghima’s Peak. Korra’s tendril of doubt had swelled into a great thick Spirit vine. Realization struck her, and she knew what was wrong.

 I have to end this.

 Korra’s fist whipped through the air and connected solidly with Asami’s jaw. Asami tottered for a moment, an expression of cross-eyed surprise on her face, before collapsing to the floor, unconscious.

 Korra breathed heavily. She shook out her throbbing hand.

 Chief Beifong’s second condition for releasing Asami had been for Korra’s ears alone. While Mako completed the necessary paperwork and Asami changed clothes, Beifong had crouched next to Korra’s wheelchair, slipped a pair of police handcuffs into her hand, and murmured, “Consider yourself deputized.”

 Korra had shot her a glare. “I already told you—”

 “Yeah, I know—best friend, absolute trust, yadda yadda.” The chief’s eyes had been serious with a tinge of skepticism. “Humor me, kid. I’ve seen a lot more of her than you have these past few weeks.”

 Maybe Asami should have been given more time to work things out behind bars, on her own. It was too late to reverse that decision, but if the Spirit World journey worked the way Korra hoped it would, Beifong would never have to learn how right she’d been.

 She didn’t have much time. She levered herself out of the wheelchair and onto the floor, landing on her useless legs with a thump and tumbling to the floor. She pushed herself up and took the cuffs from her pocket.

 Her partial paralysis meant that she had to rely solely on upper body strength in order to move, so it took several minutes of hard work to drag Asami’s limp body next to the nightstand. Propping her back against one corner of the table, Korra pulled her friend’s hands behind its heavy wooden leg and cuffed them there.

 She paused to catch her breath. Given time, Asami might be able to shift the table and even gain enough leverage to break it apart, but her awkward position would also cause her pain from the moment she woke up. No getting around that.

 Korra dragged herself back to her chair and hauled herself into its seat. As soon as she was comfortably settled, a flick of her hand sent the spilled tea splashing into Asami’s face.

 Asami gasped, spluttered, and opened her eyes. She tried to move, then stopped, teeth clenched, as the cuffs bit into her wrists and the bruise forming on her jaw made itself felt. Her eyes slid up to meet Korra’s.

 “All right. I might have deserved that,” she said after a moment.

 “Might have?” Korra snorted. “The way you were behaving, knocking you out and handcuffing you were acts of mercy. Did you know you have a glass jaw?”  

 “No. Surprisingly, considering how much time I spend around you, I’ve never been punched in the face before.”

 Korra shrugged. “Something to keep in mind. That, and I’m pretty sure you were trying to voidbend me.”

 Asami breathed deeply and dropped her eyes. “Okay. I’m sorry, and I’m back in control. So you can uncuff me now.” Asami shifted her back against the table leg, trying in vain to find a less uncomfortable position. “Please.”

 “Sorry.” Korra resumed sipping her tea. “I got those cuffs from Beifong, and she has the keys.”  

 Asami groaned. “So much for visiting the Spirit World.”

 “Oh, we’re still visiting the Spirit World. We just need to straighten out a couple of things first.” Korra set her teacup aside, picked up a meat dumpling, and bit off half, talking with her mouth full. “You can’t bring anger issues into the Spirit World. Your emotional state affects your reality there, and I don’t want any trouble with Dark Spirits while we don’t have our bending.”

 “I’m not angry. Besides, I told you I can handle my issues myself if you’ll just leave me alone.”

 “No you can’t, because it’s about me. I’m the one you’re angry with.”

 Asami flinched. “That makes no sense!” she snapped.

 “It makes a ton of sense. You’re angry with me, and you’re beating yourself up for it. Perfect way to give yourself a chakra block.”

 Asami seemed to deflate. “But none of my problems are your fault. You almost died saving me.”

 “Zaheer never would have gotten airbending if I hadn’t opened the Portals and let Harmonic Convergence happen. The Red Lotus came after you to get to me. In a way, all of this is my fault.”

 “No,” Asami whispered. She squeezed her eyes shut and her breath caught in a sob. One tear escaped and slipped down her cheek, disappearing into the bandage. It was followed by others as the floodgates finally opened.

 Korra sat back in her chair, exhaling slowly, and washed down the last of her meat dumplings with a gulp of tea. Having polished off her own plate, she began working on Asami’s.

 After several minutes of quiet weeping, Asami spoke. “It’s not all you. It’s everything. We took down the Red Lotus, but we can’t fix the damage they did—Tenzin crippled, the Northern Air Temple and all its history destroyed, the Air Nation thrown into confusion—and you…”

 “Us. They did a number on both of us, didn’t they?”

 Asami looked up, still sniffling. “How’d you guess what my problem was, when I didn’t know myself?”

 Korra shrugged. “Being angry with yourself for being angry with a friend is your kind of problem—and I mean that in a good way. Besides, I am a pretty wise Avatar. Ready to try again?” She moved one hand, and Asami’s restraints dropped away and clattered against the bookshelf beneath the nightstand.

 Asami nearly toppled onto her face before she recovered her balance. She looked blankly at Korra, who gave her a lopsided grin.

 “I don’t need the keys. Did you forget I’m a metalbender?”

 A red flush crept up Asami’s face. “No jury would convict me if I tried to voidbend you right now,” she muttered, examining the chafed skin on her wrists.

 “I could see you needed some cooldown time. You’re welcome. Now, let’s do this.”

They opened their eyes to a flat, green landscape of tall leaf-trees and colorful butterflowers (flowerflies?) that looked very familiar. If Korra hadn’t been used to the tricks of the Spirit World, she would have shivered at the memory of her disastrous first visit to this place.

 Asami turned in a slow circle, her mouth open in wonder. “I’ve always wanted to see what the Spirit World was like. It’s incredible.”

 She faced the Avatar, and the girls regarded each other in silence—Korra standing on spirit-body legs, Asami’s beautiful face restored to perfection.

 Korra folded her arms and shrugged one shoulder. “Go on and try it. Try to imagine what it would be like to wake up one morning and be a nonbender again—no more airbending, ever.”

 Asami breathed deeply, shifted her feet into an airbending stance, and threw a punch. Nothing happened.

 Mouth hardening, she tried again. She began working through one of Tenzin’s basic practice routines, her speed and agitation increasing as she moved. When she reached the end she stopped, breathing hard, her expression changed to one of grief.

 “I always thought Amon’s victims must have been exaggerating how bad it was to lose their bending—Tahno, Zolt… even you, because you still had your airbending.” She met Korra’s eyes. “It’s not like before I was a bender. Feeling that elemental connection disappear—it’s terrifying, like having part of myself ripped away. It must have been so much worse for you.”

 Korra’s mouth went dry as she thought back to the time after Amon. “I… yeah.”

 “It’s a miracle you didn’t jump off that cliff.” Asami stepped forward and wrapped Korra in a hug. “Thank you.”

 Korra returned the embrace, though she was unsure whether Asami was thanking her for the spirit journey or for not jumping off the cliff. While she waited for Asami to regain her composure, she sensed movement from the nearby dirt and looked down.

 A Spirit meerkat had popped out of a hole by their feet. The creature sniffed at Korra’s boots, then straightened and glared at the girls, paws on hips. “Pfft. Get a room, Avatar.”

 She aimed a kick at its head, and it vanished into its burrow.

 “What was that?” Asami asked, letting go of Korra and peering down at the hole.

 “Just an old friend,” said Korra. “So, about your bending…?”

 Asami sighed. “I understand now. Even if you could make me a non-bender again, it wouldn’t be the same. Tenzin was right. I have to accept my airbending, the good and the bad.”

 “So you’re ready to go back?”

 Asami took a deep breath. “Yes.”

 “Right. Here we go.”

 Returning to one’s body after a Spirit World journey was always more jarring than leaving it. Korra’s head jerked upright as she heard Asami gasp like a fish netted and dragged from the water. She relaxed when she saw her friend’s balance was good, her body in no danger of toppling off the bed.

 Asami steadied her breathing and stood up stiffly. She noticed her empty plate, and a pained expression that had nothing to do with her injuries crossed her face.

 Sighing, she looked at Korra. “I know what I have to do now. I didn’t invent voidbending, but maybe I can stop it from spreading. You won’t like what I have in mind, but I’m going to need your help, Korra.”

 “You’ve got it.” Korra wheeled closer and squeezed her arm. “I’ll support whatever course you decide to take.”

 “That’s good.” Asami stretched out her arms and combed one hand through her luxurious black hair. “For starters, I think it’s time I shaved my head like a real airbender.”

 Korra’s smile froze. She felt an eyebrow twitch. “Uh…”

 “Hey, I’ve got a great idea. Why don’t you show your support by joining me? You can even choose whether we go completely bald or try the ‘Avatar Yangchen tonsure’ look.”

 “Um…” Both of those mental images were about to join Zaheer in Korra’s nightmares.

 She was considering the most tactful way to slap a few conditions on her unconditional promise of support when Asami broke into a grin and punched her arm. “I’m kidding, of course. Payback for handcuffing me to a table and eating my food.”

 Korra’s heart started beating again. “Oh. Thank the… I mean, of course you were kidding. Right. Yeah, I knew that.”

 While Asami gathered up the tea set, Korra tried to be unobtrusive about wiping the sweat from her forehead. 

Before long, Korra wished Asami had stuck with the idea of head-shaving.

 She had removed the bandage and kept it off, and when the two girls and Mako entered the office at Future Industries headquarters that had once been Hiroshi’s, the employees tried in vain not to stare at their boss’s face. Ignoring their disturbed looks, Asami scribbled a phone number on a notepad and handed it to the man she’d left in charge in her absence.

 “Yao, I want you to call this number and ask for Varrick. Tell him I’m about to offer him the deal of a lifetime.”

 As the man hurried off, Mako stared at Asami. “The police have been trying to corner Varrick for months. How do you know how to contact him?”

 Asami was already seated behind her desk, scribbling memos. “He contacted me. On my second day in jail I found a note baked into the manju they served with lunch. It had Varrick’s name, a phone number, and a P.S. that said ‘Eat this note.’”

 “Where is it? Did you keep it?” Mako glanced around the room.

 “I ate it. It was the best thing on the plate. More flavor than the noodles, less chewy than the chicken-pig rolls…”

 Mako grimaced and held up his hands. “Okay, I get it. I’ll talk to Beifong about the food.”

 “You might also want to talk to Beifong about talking to Raiko about getting Varrick a pardon. He is about to be a pillar of Republic City business and industry again, after all.” Mako scowled at that, but said nothing more.

 The flow of people in and out of the office increased over the next hour, and Korra found herself examining the features of every business-suited man or woman who strode through the door, watching for Varrick or Zhu Li in disguise. It wouldn’t surprise her to learn that the two of them had been camping out in a Future Industries broom closet, waiting for this day.

 At one point, Asami’s lawyer walked in with a leatherbound document case and went straight to Mako. “Mr. Mako? Sign here, please.”

 Mako looked nonplussed, but did as instructed. The man bowed and left without another word.

 Mako turned to Asami, “What was that about?”

 “Deed transfer,” Asami said absently. “You’re now the legal owner of the Sato estate. I hear you have some Earth Kingdom relatives who need a place to stay.”

 Mako looked dumbfounded. Korra wondered how Hiroshi would feel—when and if he heard the news—about his daughter giving away the Sato mansion to a family of refugees from the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se. She understood just enough about finance to grasp that Asami was liquidating the entire Sato inheritance with unbelievable speed.  

 “Should we stop her?” she hissed to Mako.

 “How?” Mako hissed back.

 Short of punching her lights out again, Korra wasn’t sure. Talking to her might help.

 She wheeled closer to the paper-covered desk. “Asami, are you sure all this is a good idea? Shouldn’t you at least think about it for a few days?”

 Asami looked up from her writing. “If I want to protect the Air Nation, there’s no time to waste. Besides, are you suggesting I can’t do as I please with my own worldly possessions?”

 “That’s not what I meant. It’s just that you’re making it hard for me to keep a straight face when I tell Beifong you’re still sane. How is this helping the Air Nation?”

 “I’m getting rid of encumbrances. Freeing myself to worry about bigger things.”    

 Encumbrances? Korra exchanged frowns with Mako. To Asami, Future Industries had always been my company, or even all I have left of my family.

 Varrick failed to emerge from the woodwork before Asami finished her work that day. At least, Korra hadn’t seen him emerge, though the next morning every newspaper in the city carried stories about the impending sale of Future Industries to a “soon-to-be-revealed mystery client.” While she was hardly business-savvy, she felt like she should have noticed the business deal of the century being pulled off right under her nose.

 The three of them returned to the police station and checked in with Beifong, who raised an eyebrow over Asami’s business dealings and frowned at Mako’s red-faced revelation about her gift.

 “First of all, congratulations,” Beifong said flatly. “Secondly, due to an obvious conflict of interest, you’re done supervising Miss Sato. She gave you a mansion, detective? And you let her?”

 Mako’s face turned a deeper shade of red. “Chief, I…”

 “The question is,” Korra interrupted, “what happens to her now?” She glanced at Asami, who was staring out Beifong’s office window at a passing lizard-crow. Her eyes had that detached expression again. “I still think it’s messed up that Asami’s the one who’s in trouble when Zaheer’s the real bad guy.”

 Beifong gave her a hard look. “Zaheer died this morning, Korra.”

 Asami turned with a look of shock. Korra reined in her first impulse, which was to respond, Good!

 “What are you going to do now?” she asked. “Charge her with murder?”

 Beifong sighed. “If we wanted to charge her, we would have done it sooner. There are political factors in play.”

 “Like what?”

 “Like your poll numbers, Avatar. They’ve gone through the roof since you left to rebuild the Air Nation. People remember how hard Aang worked to build Air Temple Island as a center of airbender culture, and they love an underdog—or a nation of them. Putting a new airbender who is also a citizen of Republic City and a friend of yours on trial for what most people would see as a justified revenge killing…” She shook her head. “Let’s just say Raiko has been looking for any excuse to delay moving the case forward. At least as long as his poll numbers keep dropping.”

 “What’s your jurisdiction over this so-called crime, anyway? Didn’t it happen on Su’s airship?” With a pang she realized that Kuvira, like everyone else, had kept the knowledge of Asami’s actions from her.

 “You’re right. Kuvira could have asked to have Miss Sato extradited to Zaofu, but Su has enough on her plate without adding a criminal trial. Because the Air Nation barely exists as a legal entity, no one is really equipped to deal with the trial of a new airbender.”

 “Korra is,” said Asami.

 “She’s right,” said Mako after a moment. Beifong glared at him, but he pressed on. “Think about it. Who kept Zaheer locked up for all those years? The Order of the White Lotus. Because they exist to serve the Avatar, they can use the Avatar’s prestige to deal with governments and criminals from anywhere in the world.”

 Asami stared at her hands. “We’re setting a precedent for an entire new nation. Only the Avatar has the moral authority to hand down judgement in a case this serious.”

 Beifong looked ready to protest, but Korra held up a hand to stop her. “You’re saying you want me to put you on trial?” she asked. “No jury?”

 “An airbender jury? They’d just declare me innocent and let me go.”

 Korra exhaled. “Call me stupid, Asami, but I’m not seeing the downside to that.”

 “I heard Kai talk about my fighting skills after the battle, and he seemed to like the idea of voidbending. If the other airbenders feel the same way, they’ll try to set me up as a leader alongside Jinora and Tenzin. Beifong knows what I’m talking about.” She waved a hand at the police chief, who folded her arms but didn’t deny Asami’s words.

 “I can’t let that happen. We have to make them understand that a forbidden art is a terrible thing.” Asami looked her in the eye. “I don’t need a trial, Korra. Just a sentencing.”

 “A sentencing to what, exactly?”

 “I’ve asked Jinora to research some ancient airbender customs. Maybe she’ll come up with something we can adapt.”

 “Okay, okay.” Korra could feel the beginnings of a headache as she rubbed her hands over her face. “Before I do anything, I want you to do something for me. Talk to Tenzin about this.”

 For the first time, the determination in Asami’s expression gave way to fear. 

All the way back to Air Temple Island, Asami fought to keep her nervousness about facing Tenzin in check. She knew he was anxious to talk to her, but his health was still in a delicate state, his strength easily exhausted. It didn’t help that Beifong had insisted on coming with them.

 They entered Tenzin’s room to find another visitor already there, taking a teapot from a tray held by a White Lotus guard. The visitor’s face was unmistakable; she was meeting one of her childhood heroes, the man who had redeemed the honor of the Fire Nation.

 “Fire Lord Zuko,” she whispered.

 “Retired Fire Lord,” he said, rising and bowing deeply. “You must be Asami Sato, first of the new airbenders. Tenzin has told me a great deal about you.”

 A needle of ice pierced Asami’s heart. What would Tenzin have told him?

 She looked at her master, who seemed to have aged twenty years since they had fought together at the Northern Air Temple. He sat at the small table near the foot of his bed, resting one arm next to his own teacup, his eyes unfocused and his face still showing faintly the marks of the fight.

 He met her eyes and smiled weakly. “Asami.”

 Asami hesitated, then clasped her hands and bowed to him. “Master Tenzin.”

 Tenzin’s smile faded. He sighed, waving her, Mako and Beifong into seats on the bed and around the table. The little room had gotten very crowded.

 “I know why you’re here. Jinora filled me in on what happened to the Air Temple… and to you. For trying to defend our home and the Air Nation, you were tortured and almost killed. I’m so sorry, Asami.”

 Asami clamped down on the urge to brush her fingers over her scar; that gesture was already developing into a nervous habit. “It doesn’t matter. The future is more important. I—”

 “It sure is,” Korra interrupted. “Which is why I think you’ve let too much of Zaheer’s nonsense about chaos get stuck in your head. You’re the last person I’d peg as a danger to the Air Nation, Asami. They need you. Besides, if air is the element of freedom, shouldn’t you a little more determined to hang onto it?”

 Asami met her eyes. “You had a good reason for giving up yours, and my reason is the same. I can’t stand by and see the Air Nation destroyed.”

 “Even if the Air Nation is in danger of turning down the wrong path, there has to be some way to fix this without punishing you just for helping to save my life.”

 Asami pounded her fist on the arm of her chair. “You’re still not getting it. Why I did it doesn’t matter—it still went against every airbender principle. Imagine what Kai and the others will think if they see there are no consequences for my using a forbidden art! Actually, you don’t need to imagine, because they’re already thinking it!” She looked at Beifong. “Tell them about the petition.”

 Beifong folded her arms, looking unhappy. “Last week some of the airbenders sent Raiko a petition to have Miss Sato pardoned on the grounds that her knowledge of voidbending is vital to the survival of the Air Nation. Given his reluctance to put her on trial at all, he’s actually considering it.”

 “You see? Voidbending is powerful, but it’s not the kind of power the Air Nation needs. It would destroy us as quickly as our enemies.” Asami sighed and tried another tack. “Korra, think of a time when you were tempted to kill with your bending in a way you knew you’d regret later. How would you be different if you’d actually done it?”

 Korra sat back in her wheelchair, frowning. “That night in Tarrlok’s office… If he hadn’t gotten me with bloodbending first, I’d have burned him to death.” She looked at Asami with new understanding. “Nobody stopped you in time. Zaheer was probably egging you on. Is that what you want me to do—stop you?”

 “Before I end up finishing Zaheer’s job for him,” Asami said quietly. “Any of it.” She laced her fingers together tightly in her lap, remembering how Zaheer’s last act had been to pass on to her the secret of destroying the Avatar. Any airbender could free this world.

 During the long moment of silence, she could see the dawning realization in Korra’s eyes. The flash of insight clearly made her feel sick.

 Asami looked away and closed her eyes. “Air is the deadliest element. I have to achieve better control if I’m going to use it responsibly, and to do that I need your help. You can see I’m trying to do what’s right, can’t you?”

 They were both surprised to hear a chuckle from Lord Zuko that grew into a deep, full-throated laugh. Even Tenzin looked startled by the sound.

 The former Fire Lord spoke to Korra. “It’s maddening, isn’t it, when they attack you with airbender morality as if it were a sledgehammer and you were a railroad spike to be driven? And you, Miss Sato…” He turned to Asami, shaking his head in wonder. “Is it true what Tenzin tells me—that you believe you’re a failed bender and your airbending a cosmic fluke? Why, if I closed my eyes I’d think I was listening to my old friend Aang himself!”

 He wiped at his face with one sleeve before going on. “I’m sorry to have startled you. It’s been such a long time. Let me say this: Airbender laws, customs, stories, and skills—these may be learned, through years of effort, from the ancient texts or a good master. But an airbender’s conscience… that is much more difficult to come by. Without that, no new Air Nation will stand for long. You have it in spades, Miss Sato, and for that reason alone your Avatar would be wise to listen to you.”

 He raised an eyebrow at Korra. “And for what it’s worth, Avatar Korra, I think your friend is right about one other thing. With undiscovered airbenders scattered across the Four Nations, you are vastly underestimating the danger of loosing voidbending on an unsuspecting world. If Miss Sato is willing to give up her freedom to contain that danger, I advise you not to throw the chance away.”

 “The ancient airbenders talked about the principles of pacifism,” Tenzin said thoughtfully, “but they knew that something more important was at stake. It’s about… well…” He paused.

 “It’s about what using that power does to you inside,” Asami whispered.

 Lord Zuko’s gaze was far away as he sipped his tea. “I know what you mean. You’re trying to make the turn I was forced to make many years ago. Who are you,” he whispered, “and what do you want?”

 “The Air Nation will have to make some changes,” said Tenzin. “I had hoped to inculcate pacifism in the same gradual, gentle way my father taught it to me, but I think it’s obvious that we need to make our principles clearer. From now on, new airbenders who wish to join us will be required to swear an oath of nonviolence.” He raised one eyebrow at Asami. “Would you care to be the first?”

 Asami ventured a half-smile in reply. 

 I don’t need a trial. Just a sentencing.

A sentencing to what?

 Korra gave Asami a long, searching look. She knew of only one person in the world who was prepared to attempt the confinement of a dangerous airbender criminal.

 She turned to Howl, who stood in one corner of the small room. “What was Ataneq’s plan for dealing with Zaheer if he’d recovered?”

 The guard unconsciously stood up straighter, tucking the empty tea tray under one arm. “There’s a cave beneath the mountains east of the city, Avatar. The Grand Lotus had workers preparing a chamber deep underground and installing a secure elevator to reach it. Since Zaheer had learned to fly, we’d have had to keep him chained up constantly.”

 Asami was listening, and her face had gone ashen. Korra shook her head. “Underground is no good. What about the place where you kept him before—the one he escaped from?”

 “Mount Tu-Min? It’s still there—and still functional, unlike some of the other Red Lotus prisons.”

 “Have you seen it? What’s it like?”

 “I’ve pulled a few shifts there over the years.” Howl scratched his cheek, remembering. “It’s a pointy one-room building made of metal, sitting on top of a rocky pillar—small, isolated, and high up. Very bare inside, but there are some nice ancient airbender carvings on the floor.”

 “Airbender carvings?”

 Howl shrugged. “That’s what Grand Lotus Ataneq thinks. He guesses the structure was built centuries ago as an Air Nomad meditation retreat. Until the Order discovered it and added the extendable bridge and the earthbending door, only an airbender could have used it.”

 Korra glanced back at Asami, who actually looked… well, interested.

 She nodded to Howl. “Tell Ataneq to get it ready to be lived in, and to throw out the rulebook on Zaheer. This time I’m writing the directions myself.

 “And get the other guards together. We’re having a sentencing.”

Sometime around sunset two days later, Asami woke with a terrified start and a gasp of stale air.

 For weeks, her sleep had been filled with nightmares distilled from her darkest memories of the battle with the Red Lotus and its aftermath—Ghazan’s bloody grin as he darted forward to grab her, P’Li’s third-eye tattoo blazing in the lurid glow of a branding iron, Zaheer’s insanely reasonable voice trying to seduce her with the prospect of chaos and human destruction. She could only remember her home Temple as she had last seen it—ruined, desecrated, and finally destroyed by the invaders.

 Swallowed by the void.

 Part of her still couldn’t believe that she had survived the ordeal, that she was safe.

 Right, she thought ruefully, raising her head from the table, in the process rattling the chain that led from her cuffed hands down to her manacled feet. Safe.

 The ironic thing was that Asami did feel safer now—in White Lotus custody, on her way to Mount Tu-Min Prison—than at almost any time since Ghazan had burst into the Temple sanctuary. While the limited air supply she got through the firebender muzzle made her feel lightheaded, it wasn’t too bad as long as she stayed still. Staying still was encouraged by her right foot being locked to the leg of her metal chair, which was bolted to the deck of the airship.

 Yes, she was a prisoner, but she knew that the female White Lotus captain who had been standing at attention behind her chair for the past two hours was not going to threaten, beat, or torture her. The guards were keeping her restrained, as they would any convict being transported (or at least any firebender, though the trip was being considered a dry run for airbenders who might try to freeze off their handcuffs with the Breath of Ice). But none of the White Lotus could have forgotten how their boss, the Avatar, had threatened in extremely colorful language to roast their livers on sticks over a Glacier Spirits Festival bonfire if they let anything worse than being chained up happen to Asami while she was in their charge.

 If anything, the guards were being a little too solicitous toward her. Now the captain stepped around her chair and leaned down with a concerned expression. “Miss Sato, are you all right? Is there anything I can get you? A pillow, some warm lychee juice… It’s almost oh-six-hundred—I could fudge your meal schedule by a few minutes and give you an early break from the muzzle.”

 Asami shook her head. “Just another nightmare. I’m fine, and I don’t want you fudging anything for me.”

 “As you wish.” Frowning, the captain resumed her post.

 In a way, Asami was glad to be away from the legal tangle and media circus that had attended her sentencing for the new crime of voidbending. She knew that Kai and a few of the others had expected, after her release from the Republic City Jail, that she would actually start passing on her voidbending skills. The look of shock on Kai’s face when she’d instead been brought before the assembled Air Nation in shackles, then sentenced by the Avatar to an indefinite stint in the same prison that had once held Zaheer, was seared into her memory.

 Shocking, yes. But they have to understand.

 Even Korra had finally understood, though she hadn’t liked Asami’s solution. 

Before they had faced the Air Nation, she’d grumbled at the guards who were chaining up her best friend until Asami had said, “You know this isn’t their fault. Who are you really angry at?”

 “You,” Korra had snapped, “for badgermoling me into going along with this.”

 Asami had given her a humorless smile. “Well, at least you can admit it.”

 “Lord Zuko was right. Airbender conscience is a huge pain in the butt.” Then Korra had sighed, the anger melting out of her expression and leaving only the hurt. “It’s just… you have to get better. And you have to come back.”

 “Yeah. I will.”

Now the Avatar and the others were left with the job of turning one small group of airbenders into the core of a nation that could establish its own laws and restrictions on its own forbidden bending arts, set its own requirements for new members, and decide the course of its own future.

 As Howl had said, Mount Tu-Min Prison consisted of a single cell of gray metal atop a narrow stone butte. It was not quite dark when the airship arrived at the landing pad on the opposite side of a deep gorge. As the moving bridge carried the four of them across, high-altitude winds lashed the guards’ capes and rattled Asami’s chains.

 The guards guided her off the bridge and opened the heavy stone door and barred entryway to an octagonal chamber. The room had several narrow slits to serve as windows and a low wooden bed on one side, made up with a single blanket tucked over a mattress.

 Once they were inside, the captain unfastened Asami’s muzzle, then took out a key and unlocked her chains. Slinging them over her shoulder, she returned the key to its belt pouch and walked past Asami and out of the cell. Asami stepped forward, into the center of the eight-sided trigram carved into the floor.

 She hadn’t known what feelings to expect upon seeing this place for herself. The White Lotus had removed all trace of Zaheer, and she was left with a sense that this sanctuary was much, much older than its former occupant. For the first time, she felt an inkling of what Jinora was always saying about some places having a stronger connection to the ancient airbenders than others.

 The bars clanged shut behind her, though the outer door remained open. The two guards took up positions on either side of the entryway, while the captain stepped back onto the bridge and began the long journey back to the White Lotus airbase.

 Crossing to the bed, Asami dragged the mattress and blanket onto the floor and lay down on the bare wood. The exhaustion and sleeplessness of the past few days hit her all at once, and in a few moments she slept.

 For the first time in weeks, there were no dreams.

Prissy, beautiful, elegant rich girl.

 Maybe a little less beautiful now, at least on the outside. The rest had always been skin-deep, or not true at all.

 “I have an idea,” Korra said to Jinora, who was working with Opal—an airbender under each arm—to lift Korra from her wheelchair into her bed for the night. “The healers say it might take a year or more. But when I get back on my feet, would you two come with me to the Spirit Oasis at the North Pole?

 “I’ve got a friend who could use a little Spirit water action.”  

[THE END]

A/N: It’s taken two and half years, but I’ve finally fulfilled my vision for this story and hit every point in the post that was its origin. (Without which I never would have started--so thanks, Ikkin! ^_^) 

In line with my chronologically-messed-up writing style, the later scenes in this chapter and the previous one are some of the oldest in the story. The final scene itself is completely new and a bit impulsive, but given the “canon” ending of Book 3, I decided it was not inappropriate to end with a teaser for what could be coming, when and if I write it (although the interlude stories are becoming so developed in my mind that it would be a shame not to...). 

Again, I want to thank everyone who kept me going with likes and reblogs and feedback of all kinds. (If you’re as interested in “writing process” stuff as I am, check out my Fanfic responses tag for some of that.)

[kidncpped]

↪ REPOST!! DO NOT REBLOG!!

━━ FULL NAME: Korra ━━ GENDER & SEXUALITY: Female, Bisexual ━━ ETHNICITY & SPECIES:  Water Tribe, Human ━━ BIRTHPLACE & BIRTHDATE: Southern Water Tribe, April 5th 153 AG

━ GUILTY PLEASURES: fire flakes, water tribe noodles

━ PHOBIAS: fear of abandonment, fear of failure, fear of not being good enough, fear of dying

━ WHAT THEY WOULD BE FAMOUS / INFAMOUS FOR: being the Avatar, being kidnapped by the Red Lotus at age 4, the nickname thus given to her: “The Lost Avatar,” almost dying in the Avatar State, keeping the spirit portals open to the Spirit World

━ WHAT HAVE THEY / WOULD THEY HAVE GOTTEN ARRESTED FOR: being a member of the The Red Lotus, a notorious group of criminals committed to murdering royal bloodlines, & murder, stealing, fraud

━ CHARACTER(S) YOU SHIP THEM WITH: whoever she likes

━ CHARACTER(S) MOST LIKELY TO MURDER THEM: The Red Lotus

━ FAVORITE BOOK GENRE: non-fiction, action/adventure, romance

━ LEAST FAVORITE BOOK CLICHE: protagonists that are ~edgy~ and *~different~* think they are better than everyone else because of it

━ TALENTS AND / OR POWERS: bending ( combustion bending + lava bending + blue fire )

━ WHY SOMEONE MIGHT LOVE THEM: her intense loyalty for those she loves and trusts ––she would do anything to protect her friends and family. she has spirituality passed down of ancient airbenders thanks to zaheer’s teachings. she has a fiery personality and strong convictions; she tries to do what she thinks is not only right but necessary. she ultimately wants to do what is best for the world and to fulfill her role as the Avatar.

━ WHY SOMEONE MIGHT HATE THEM: she is a murderer, she pushes those closest to her away. she doesn’t trust herself or anyone else ( until given a legitimate reason to trust them ). she gets defensive of the Red Lotus, despite their kidnapping her and manipulating her throughout her life. she isn’t humble about the skills she possesses; she knows she is powerful and makes sure others know it too. she is over-confident and snarky.

━ HOW THEY CHANGE: she leaves the Red Lotus ( verse dependent ) because the idea of natural order that constitutes a major part of the RL beliefs would be detrimental to the world and she abandons them. she learns to live alone, and she learns what it feels like to be vulnerable. she realizes that the world is a very big place and she has seen very little of it, despite having traveled EVERYWHERE while living on the run. she had still been severely sheltered, hidden away from the world out of sheer manipulation. she accepts her role as the avatar and tries her best to mend the relationships she had broken or lost, including leaders of the four nations, her parents, katara, and master tenzin. 

━ WHY YOU LOVE THEM: I created this AU. I got to develop her story the way I saw fit. I think she acts in a very human manner of wanting acceptance from the Red Lotus and never fully achieving it. she is constantly trying to prove herself and her loyalty to them, and ultimately she is never good enough because they never view her as a full member of the Red Lotus; they only keep her around to end the Avatar Cycle during Harmonic Convergence. even in my verse where she runs away, she still is seeking acceptance and connections from people. she is alone in most of my verses, even when she is with the Red Lotus, and I think that has made her build up an “I-don’t-care” type of exterior –– a wall so she doesn’t have to be vulnerable and doesn’t have to feel how bad she’s hurting. she’s severely emotional, but doesn’t let anyone see that side of her. she’s been through trauma, and because of that, she doesn’t really trust people if they try to get close to her and often pushes people away, creating the cycle of isolation that she’s desperate to escape. Basically I love her angst.

Tagged by:  @thegreatunxter​

Tagging: @chaied​ @manaborn​ @aaazula​ @bengalisms​ @allhumans​ –– multi-muse blogs, feel free to pick a muse of your choice!

[wilcze-kudly]

I read about your "Avatar Bolin AU" and I got curious. And what would the end of season 3 and the whole season 4 be like? (+2 season, if you want, although Bolin would really not trust Unalaq-) Is Bolin still poisoned? Who is working for Kuvira now? By the way, I really liked your idea and the idea of ​​"Someone is the Avatar, and Korra is not"

Huh that's actually very interesting. I think B3 would still go similarly, though I'm also 50/50 if Zaheer could even carry Bolin's beefy boy ass like he did with Korra.

I feel like our short king would struggle lmao

Though if we really wanna divert from canon, I can see Bolin being more receptive to Zaheer's rethoric due to having seen what the Earth Queen's rule has done to his own family and also because of his own upbringing disillusioning him towards governments and law enforcement, since republic city officilas apparently did fuck all about the many orphans.

It could provide some interesting drama between Bolin and Mako who probably might make a bond with Lin. Not sure if Mako would become a detective in this AU, probably feeling a lot of need to protect his brother.

Also the conversation between Zaheer and Bolin would be so funny.

Zaheer: we want to help the common people by removing leaders from power

Bolin: ok. Yay ❤️

Zaheer:*whispering to P'Li* what do I do now

I would also like to still see Bolin and Ghazan have that weird bantery mentor/student thing and maybe even expand on it.

LET THEM BE HOMIES LET GHAZAN BE BOLIN'S COOL WEIRD CRIMINAL UNCLE IT'S ALL I ASK

So I could see the Red Lotus storyline going completely differently depending on how much the Red Lotus would change their approach to Bolin. Since I'm not even sure they got arrested in this AU bcs in canon they were captured during their attempt at kidnapping Korra. So they might be mildly saner in this AU lol, or at least be more understanding of Bolin since it's not like he ever "had a chance" to join them.

It would also be an interesting look into them and how dedicated they are to their ideology. Since they wanted to kill the Avatar in order to stop the Avatar Cycle but Bolin being an Avatar more open to their ideas might cause them to think more about this. Maybe they'd even be divided with, for example, Zaheer trying to continue the mission of poisoning Bo, while maybe Ghazan would feel more conflicted and perhaps even consider other options.

So perhaps Bolin still gets poisoned but this time Ghazan (and maybe Ming-Hua, depending on who she sides with) would try and help him.

I imagine Bolin would still need a lot of time, just like Korra, to recover and he would be in the South Pole a lot. I imagine Mako would be with him, as his brother. So would Korra, whom I imagine as Katara's apprentice in this AU. I would love to imagine some Katara and Bolin interactions bcs I think that they're actual pretty similar in many aspects.

Katara and Bolin paralleling each other

Discussion of Mako and Sokka's similarities vs Bolin and Katara's similarities.

Long ass post on these two pairs of siblings

I think Bolin would be more willing to accept other people's help than Korra, so he could recover emotionally more quickly, bit I think he'd still be very wary and more insecure in himself. Maybe he'd really fall wayyy to deep into his coping mechanism and rely on people directing him even more than usual and the plot of B4 is him finally becoming more independent.

I actually find Asami working with Kuvira very interesting. I don't think she'd work directly under Kuvira, but she could be sort of a business partner, supplying weapons and mechas to the Earth Empire. And then having a crisis when those weapons are eventually used against Repuvlic City because she should rethink being a war profiteer tbh.

I also think it would be interesting to see Bolin interact with Kuvira in an AU where she hasn't been manipulating him for years. Since he has a more personal connection to the Earth Kingdom than Korra. Also, since I want Wei to be Bolin's romantic interest in this AU (bcs I'm me), I think this would provide an interesting extra layer of drama lol. Let Wei radicalise Bolin against Kuvira it's the right thing to do.

I honestly really like this AU bcs Bolin would be a fascinating Avatar due to his past.

And I love Korra as the avatar but girlie deserves a break lol.

[multiipl]

*; @kidncpped​ » didn’t ask for it, but is still getting a High School Musical Lyric starter!

─── ❝ Keep an eye on defense. ❞

[iruka-2013]

Fanfic: Winds of Change - Voidbending (10/11)

Summary: Book 3 AU in which Asami becomes an airbender and goes with Tenzin to the Northern Air Temple, while Kuvira joins Team Avatar. Approx. 60,000 words so far. (Based on this post by Ikkinthekitsune.)

Previous Chapters:

Prologue: New Airbender     Chapter 1: Thief

Chapter 2: Captain of the Guard     Chapter 3: Traitor

Chapter 4: Level Zero     Chapter 5: Earthly Tethers

Chapter 6: The Crew     Chapter 7: Red Lotus, Part 1

Chapter 8: Airbending Master    Chapter 9: Red Lotus, Part 2

My fanfiction master post

Asami’s world had narrowed to the column at her back, the chains binding her to it, the agony of her wounds, and the rage swelling inside her.

Her throat was raw from screaming. Frigid night air filled the darkened tower room and washed over her skin. Something warm and stinging dripped across the fresh brand on her face.

 Any chance of restoring the Air Nation as it had developed after Harmonic Convergence had died with Tenzin. Asami no longer cared how it was about to change, or whether she would survive another day. Making the Red Lotus pay was the only thing that mattered now. If they dared to loose her again, she would rip them apart.

 After using her to bait the trap for Korra, Zaheer had left her under the guard of the two Red Lotus henchmen who had helped brand her. They hadn’t gagged her again; they were enjoying the sound of her pain. When they grew bored with listening to her groans, they took turns at the window with binoculars, trying to see the cliff-face below.

 “How’s it coming?” one of the men muttered.

 “Too dark to see, and the angle’s bad anyway. They’ll be through with him by morning. If there’s a rag or a bone left, Zaheer wants it brought to the Lotus Cave. Might help break the Avatar.”

 A dry laugh. “Zaheer can go down there and get it. You’d have to be an airbender to reach that cliff.”

 Lotus Cave… Red Lotus.  

 She remembered the cavern she had found with Kai and Jinora. So that was where they had established their hideout, and where they would take Korra.

 After the guards fell silent, Asami became aware of another, fainter sound. Past the ringing in her ears, the voices of Zaheer and the others seemed to echo through the stones of the wall.

 She closed her eyes and forced herself to focus on the Mechanist’s network of passageways. There was a hollow space behind this wall; the noise she heard came from the room above, where the remaining masters of the Red Lotus were talking. She strained her ears, struggling against her body’s desire to shut out the noise and slip back into unconsciousness.

 “…fitting revenge for Ghazan and Ming-Hua,” P’Li was saying. “They destroy our friends, we destroy theirs, and the Air Temple as well. That is, if you’re sure we can make this work.”

 “Jing-Gui seems certain. If we reroute the gas feeds to the upper levels and concentrate them in a small area, then then leave Sato there for the Avatar’s friends to find and try to firebend loose…”

 “And if they don’t use firebending?”

 “We can make sure firebending is the only way to free her. Eun Hwan says he can see to that.”

 “And the poison?”

 “Ready. For weeks he’s been testing it on every creature he can trap. Once Korra uses the Avatar State, a few seconds of voidbending should be enough to break the Cycle for good. We’ll succeed where Unalaq failed. Are the chains ready?”

 Something heavy and metallic rattled against the floor above. “We may have a cave full of airbender irons going to waste,” said the combustionbender, “but we’ll get plenty of use out of these.”

 Their words percolated slowly through her mind, forming a picture of the Red Lotus’ plan.

 Unalaq. Korra’s uncle had tried to destroy the Avatar by breaking the Cycle. Zaheer showed no desire to become an Avatar—dark or otherwise—but aside from that his plan appeared to be similar. The Red Lotus would never let Asami go; they would trick Korra into surrendering, drag her in chains to their hideout in the ancient airbender cave, and murder her in some way that would end the Avatar Cycle forever.

 The next part wasn’t hard to guess. With Korra and Tenzin gone, their home Temple destroyed, and no one to protect them, the new airbenders would become fugitives to be hunted down and killed or forced to join Zaheer. The leaders of the Four Nations would be next on Zaheer’s hit list, followed by anyone else who got in his way. Asami didn’t doubt that restoring true freedom would turn into a plot to force Zaheer’s own warped idea of order on the world.

 I have to find a way to warn Korra.

 That was when she realized the voices from inside the wall had stopped.

 The door behind her opened. “We’re moving the hostage now,” said the combustionbender’s voice. “Zaheer’s orders.”

 P’Li loomed over her. In her hands was a wooden mask with fangs dripping blood, a grotesque mockery of a human face. Asami caught her breath, her fantasies of revenge evaporating beneath the cold hatred of the woman’s stare.

 “I know your kind, Sato,” she hissed as she crouched down. “You’re a weapons dealer, pretending to be innocent while profiting from human misery. A warlord masquerading as a decent human being.” P’Li reached toward Asami’s face and brushed one manicured fingernail over her blistered skin, making her throat seize up with pain. “It was a pleasure ruining that beautiful mask of yours. 

 “Such a warlord murdered my parents when I was a girl and tried to make me into his personal assassin. Zaheer freed me, and together we’ll free the world from scum like you and the Avatar.”

 Asami felt her fury rising again. Past the soreness of her throat she whispered, “You may manage to get rid of me, but you don’t know Korra. She’ll survive tomorrow, but if you fight her, you won’t.”

 “So our spider-rat is a fortuneteller.” P’Li held up the mask next to Asami’s face. “I don’t have to know Korra to know it’s time the Avatar was put down for good. Holding that much power for that long would corrupt anyone.”

 Asami managed a scornful laugh. “Right. Look what airbending has done to Zaheer—unless he was already crazier than a rabid wolfbat.”

 P’Li’s fist lashed out; its impact against her head mingled in Asami’s ears with the woman’s curse.

 Her head seemed to be splitting in two. She never felt P’Li’s backhand blow, nor the others that followed it as she spiraled back into the dark pit. Her last thought was that the expression on the woman’s face had been worth the pain.            

 Something was bothering Jinora, something beyond the stress of her family and nation being threatened with extinction. Spirits, “threatened with extinction” had been the normal state of the Air Nation for the better part of two centuries. At least Captain Kuvira’s hunch had proven correct, and her father and the others were still alive.

 The adults were busy; once they’d heard the escapees’ story, there had been little time for talk, and Jinora had fallen out of the planning loop. She paced the corridors of the airship from Zaofu, watching the preparations for the upcoming battle—the training deck where the metalbenders were checking their equipment, the cargo bays that had been turned into makeshift bison stables, the war room with the topographic map where Korra, the Beifong sisters, and Captain Kuvira had spent much of the night finalizing battle plans.

 Hearing her own name, she paused in the doorway of the map room.

 “—what Jinora told us,” Kuvira was saying, “Bumi and Kai are here…” She pointed to the position of the ancient airbender cave on the map. “… but the Red Lotus will have their forces concentrated over—”

 Jinora started as though she’d been bitten by a spider-snake. “The what?” she squeaked out.

 The adults turned and frowned at her in puzzlement. “The Red Lotus,” said Korra. “Zaheer’s gang. He told me its name when I talked to him in the Spirit World.”

 Suddenly Jinora couldn’t get enough air in her lungs. “The Red Lotus is Zaheer’s gang?” she gasped. She remembered the red-painted lotus tile in Asami’s hand and the mammoth wall painting, too new and too strange to have been made by airbender hands.

 Why didn’t I realize it before? I have to tell Kai!

 Korra stepped toward her. “Jinora, what’s wrong?”

 Without answering, Jinora dropped to the floor in a meditation posture.

 Kai kept his eyes on the sky, half-expecting an attack from above, as they neared the shelter of the ancient airbender cave. Beside him waddled Lefty, bearing the unconscious Tenzin and Kya slung across his back, while Bumi brought up the rear. With two people injured and only one small bison, they had tramped through canyons for hours to complete a journey that would have taken a few minutes by air.

 Once they were inside the mouth of the cave, he breathed a sigh of relief. Two realizations struck him at once: Their group had no flashlights to carry into the tunnels, and walking blindly into the darkness would make the airbenders’ natural discomfort at being underground that much worse.

 Bumi was reaching the same conclusion, patting down the pockets of his tunic and finding only a bison whistle. “Any port in a storm… but I wish I had my lighter.” Bum-Ju chirred and brightened his Spirit light by a few degrees, earning a smile from Bumi. “Thanks, little buddy.”

 Kai reached out to steady Tenzin on Lefty’s back. “There are glowy green crystals inside, toward the rear of the cave. If we want light, that’s where we need to go.”

 At least they could slow down once inside. Lefty grumbled deep in his throat at being led into the claustrophobic darkness. Kai hoped he could remember the way to the crystal cavern as he moved in front of the waddling baby bison.

 The caves were silent, but Kai couldn’t shake the eerie feeling of being watched. They reached the place where the corridors branched, and he spotted a dim green glow beyond the end of the connecting tunnel.

 He was about to call out to Bumi when earth rumbled up ahead and the glow disappeared.

 Bumi groaned. “A rockslide!”

 “No, but close enough,” said a new voice. “Zaheer will be pleased to hear that some of his hostages have wandered back.”

 A flashlight switched on, held in the hands of a mustached and bearded man who shone it into Kai’s face. Spinning around, he saw that their way back was blocked by two more men—both wearing the same dark red uniforms and shoulder-length headdresses as the first, carrying chains in their hands. The airbenders were cornered in a cramped section of tunnel, with little room to fight.

 “Surrender, airbenders,” growled the earthbender with the flashlight.

 Bumi’s casual demeanor never wavered. “I thought I smelled something rotten down here. Bum-Ju!”

 Bum-Ju blazed to life directly in the faces of the two men blocking their exit, who stumbled backward. The next moment, Bumi was on them with a flurry of airbending punches.

 The bison whistle was already between the older man’s lips, and though Kai couldn’t hear it, Lefty could. Bellowing, the bison whipped around—a tight fit in the narrow tunnel—and smacked his tail into the legs of the earthbender blocking Kai’s path.

 Before the man could recover his balance, Kai blasted him off his feet. The cave went dark again as the flashlight fell from the earthbender’s hands and rolled away.

 Kai had to guess what happened next from the movement of the air. Balancing Kya and Tenzin on his back, Lefty launched himself into a shallow airbending arc that ended with his big paws splayed across the earthbender’s chest. The man wheezed and gasped as Kai recovered the flashlight and stood over him.

 “You surrender, and I’ll call him off. Deal?”

 The earthbender had lost his red headdress, and the dark hair beneath stuck out in all diretions. Going purple in the face, he nodded. Kai tugged on the scruff of Lefty’s neck and whispered in the bison’s ear, coaxing him to ease one paw off the prisoner’s chest.

 “I haven’t had a workout like that since Meelo was in charge of the obstacle course,” Bumi grinned, massaging his knuckles. At his feet lay the other two invaders, their hands and feet already locked in the shackles they had brought for the airbenders. He jerked his thumb at the earthbender. “Now, what can we use to secure this prisoner?”

 Kai pulled the orange sash from around his waist. “How about this?”

 Bumi contributed his own sash and some knotwork he claimed to have learned from airship pirates in the Eastern Ocean to bind the earthbender’s hands and feet, then slung the man onto Lefty’s back next to Tenzin. The bison grunted, but bore the load patiently.

 “This isn’t over,” the earthbender gasped, his face now purple with rage. “Zaheer and the others will be here soon, and he’ll put you airbending spider-rats in chains where you belong. You can’t take down all of us!”

 Bumi nodded. “Good point. Your boss is coming, so we’d better make sure he gets a suitable welcome. Bum-Ju, scout ahead and find out of there are any more bad guys waiting for us.”

 He retrieved the earthbender’s cloth headdress from the floor and stuffed most of it into the man’s mouth, silencing any more threats. The prisoner nearly choked in surprise when a glowing human form materialized in front of his face.

 Jinora looked just as surprised to see him and the two prisoners on the floor. “Oh. Am I late?”

 “Right on time,” said Kai, patting Lefty’s head. “You can tell Korra we found the place where Zaheer’s gang was hiding—”

 “—and secured it!” Bumi finished.

 “They’re called the Red Lotus,” said Jinora. “Korra says she talked to Zaheer in the Spirit World. When she hears we stumbled onto their hideout—”

 Kai remembered the painting in the chamber at the end of the tunnel. “We’ll keep going. There may be more of them. Tell the others to hurry.”

 Nodding, Jinora faded away again. Farther down the corridor the airbenders found a room that was knee-deep in chains—evidence that Zaheer had expected many more hostages than he had. There they left their three prisoners, gagged and cocooned in metal links, and took the earthbender’s flashlight to complete their exploration.

 The large chamber with the Red Lotus painting had gained a piece of furniture since Kai had last seen it. Now it contained a pedestal supporting a basin filled with some kind of shimmering metallic liquid. Kai shivered as he watched the flashlight ripple over its strangely solid-looking surface.

 “Wonder what that stuff is?” Bumi put out one finger to touch the molten metal, but Kai stopped him.

 “Don’t. I think it’s dangerous.”

 “Must be, if Zaheer put it there. Whoops!” Bumi knocked the basin with his elbow, toppling it off the pedestal and over the ledge. “How clumsy of me!”

 Kai looked down to see the stone bowl in broken to pieces by the sharp crystals and the liquid metal splattered across the cavern floor. The sight made him grin. 

 It took an hour’s work with wind-blades and the sharp luminescent crystals to booby-trap the cave’s entrance, ensuring that passage into the cavern would be more trouble than it was worth for the Red Lotus. For the rest of the night they hid near the mouth of the cave, taking turns resting and watching over Kya and Tenzin while they waited for their friends to arrive.

 It was Mako and Bolin who led a trio of Zaofu metalbenders on bison-back to meet them, a few hours after dawn. Mako sent two of Kuvira’s Security Force men to extract and interrogate the three Red Lotus prisoners. Then the explanations began.

 The ruined Northern Air Temple was clearly visible through the mist at the base of Laghima’s Peak. The sun had almost completed its agonizing climb to the zenith, and the Metal Clan was making final preparations.

 Mako hugged Korra fiercely, wished everyone luck, and left with Kai and the airship for the Air Temple. The ship’s non-combat crew, as well as the airbenders and their bison herd, had orders to stay hidden in the trees at the base of Laghima’s Peak.

 Kuvira had decided that was also the safest place to care for Tenzin, Bumi and Kya. If everything went well, they would be back aboard the ship soon enough; if not, they could be evacuated on bison-back with the rest of the Air Nation.

 Kuvira finished tuning the handheld radio and held it out to Korra. “We have to assume Aiwei informed them about your metalbending ability. In that case, they’ll have been careful to make the chains out of something unbendable.”

 “Figures,” Korra muttered, fidgeting with the strap of the leather case that hung by her side. She took the handset and tucked it inside without meeting Kuvira’s eyes.

 “Korra.” Kuvira put a hand on her shoulder, prompting Korra to look up. “I promised I’d get you and everyone else out of this alive, and I always keep my promises. Our forces are moving into position now, and our strategy is foolproof. Just concentrate on your part of the plan… and trust me.”

 “I do,” said Korra, straightening her back. “You’ve been a good friend, Kuvira.”

 That sounded suspiciously like a farewell, but before Kuvira could say more, Chief Tonraq stepped forward and wrapped his arms around his daughter. With a huff of frustration, Kuvira turned away.

 Korra forced herself to smile as she backed out of the embrace. “I love you too, Dad. Don’t worry—I’ll be fine.”

 Her father would keep out of sight during the initial attack. Once Kuvira and Security Force had engaged the Red Lotus, Tonraq would crest Laghima’s Peak at a different point and take Zaheer from behind, cutting off his escape to his airship.

 When he had followed Kuvira’s men up the side of the mountain, Korra took a few moments to steel herself for the coming confrontation. Kuvira and Su seemed to see this operation less as a hazard to Korra’s life than as a sting operation to take down the Red Lotus once and for all.

 Korra wished she could share their confidence. Dread—not just for herself, but for Asami, Kuvira, Tenzin, and the future of the Air Nation—had settled like a ball of ice into the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t shake the feeling that they were badly underestimating Zaheer.

 She snapped open her glider and launched herself through the sheltering pines toward the bare, rocky summit.

 As agreed, Zaheer and P’Li and were waiting.

 “I want you with me when I go after Asami,” Mako had told him. “You know the Temple; you can help me guide the airship to Zaheer’s rendezvous point.”

 To Kai, his meaning was clear: You’re pretty much the only airbender who hasn’t been beaten, tortured, or traumatized into utter uselessness by Zaheer.

 Tenzin, Bumi, and Kya had been treated in the airship’s infirmary, then moved to a makeshift hospital at the base of Laghima’s Peak where the airbenders were waiting out the fight. Hours after their rescue, Tenzin showed no signs of regaining consciousness. Not all of the other airbenders were happy about being excluded from the fight, but Kuvira had insisted that her metalbenders could handle the Red Lotus without the help of noncombatants.

 Within five minutes of meeting the captain from Zaofu, Kai had realized the futility of saying aloud what he was thinking: Zaheer invaded my home. I am a combatant! He would have to settle for going with Mako to retrieve Asami while Korra and Kuvira faced Zaheer.

 Now Kai tried to force down his nervousness as an aerial view of broken towers and the debris-filled courtyard filled his mind with memories of the brutal fight for the Air Temple. The damage was even worse than it had been before his escape; the effects of the explosion he and Bumi had heard from the canyon floor were laid before him in horrifying detail. There was a crumbling hole in the mountainside where the Temple’s lower levels had been.

 Mako guided the airship to the landing Zaheer had designated, then held his handset ready as they descended the gangplank. As they crossed the courtyard, Kai searched the broken walls and piles of debris for the watchers Zaheer had said he would leave. He saw no one.

 Slowly they walked up the steps to the small, shadowy room that had been the bathhouse. Kai felt sick at the thought of what they might find there. If the Red Lotus had beaten Tenzin almost to death for daring to stand in their way, what would they have done to the woman who had killed one of their friends and ruined their plan to take the Air Nation hostage?

 The noonday sun threw a half-circle of light onto the floor of the bathhouse, which only deepened the shadows surrounding the figure kneeling at the center. Asami was held upright by chains stretching from the manacles on her wrists to a pair of stone pillars on opposite sides of the room. Her hair was singed and her airbender tunic darkened with blood and soot. She appeared to be unconscious, but Kai couldn’t be sure, because her face was hidden behind a grotesque construction of wood with wide yellow eyes, red and white stripes, and fangs dripping red paint.

 A Fire Festival mask? Where did Zaheer get one of those?

 Mako sprinted forward and fell to his knees before Asami, gently removing the mask and brushing aside the veil of her hair. Kai glimpsed her bruised face, blackened eyes, bleeding nose, and a raw, red burn mark gouged into one cheek. A strip of cloth was wound tightly around her head, covering the lower part of her face and bandaging her mouth shut like a wound.

 Kai sniffed the air, then wrinkled his nose at the powerful stench in the air. What was that smell?

 “Asami?” Mako breathed.

 Korra used her staff to steady herself on the hike up the steep slope to the flat area where the Red Lotus airship was tethered.

 She crested the ridge to see Zaheer, a scowl on his face, talking into his radio handset. She saw that his ship was a rickety Ba Sing Se model with a fading Cabbage Corp logo on its underbelly.

 Asami would’ve laughed.

 Korra closed her eyes. That scream…

 She reached the top and stood facing the two criminals who had pursued her across the world. Zaheer examined her with narrow eyes, but P’Li’s face wore a triumphant smile. She had the chains in her hands.

 Holding Zaheer’s gaze, Korra raised her radio. “Mako, is she there? How does she look?”

 “She’s here,” came the reply. “She’s alive,” he added after a moment.

 “Throw down your staff and surrender,” Zaheer ordered.

 Moving slowly, Korra lifted the radio’s shoulder strap over her head and dropped it to the ground at her feet, then did the same with her staff, kicking it away. She raised her hands as P’Li approached.

 Kai watched Asami breathe in sharply through her nose and force her eyes open a little; they were nearly swollen shut. Her chains twisted a little as she pulled against them, but her arms were stretched painfully tight. Terror shone in her good eye as she raised her head and looked straight at Kai, struggling to make herself heard through the gag.

 Mako gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Keep still. I’ll have you free in a second.”

 The firebender raised two fingers to the chain above Asami’s clenched fist. Kai’s gaze fixed on the place where the water heater had once connected, which now held nothing but the gaping mouth of a broken pipe. Understanding jolted through him.

 “No!” He seized Mako’s hand in both of his, almost knocking the older man to the ground. “No fire!”

 “Kai, what’s wrong with you?” Mako shoved him away. “She’s hurt. We have to get her out of here.”

 “It’s a trap!” Kai leaped at him again, grabbing both of Mako’s wrists. “Smell that? It’s gas—the kind that destroyed the lower levels. She’s trying to warn us. If you firebend in here, you’ll blow us off the mountain.”

 “I…” Mako hesitated, sniffing the air. Frowning, he looked at Asami, who nodded wearily.

 After his encounter with the bison rustlers, Kai had vowed never to be without his lock-picks again. He fished one out of his pocket and searched the manacle on Asami’s left wrist for a keyhole. “I’ll handle these chains. You work on the gag.”

 The seconds ticked by. Kai bit his lip, finding no entry for his lockpick. Mako worked to free Asami’s mouth, but the Red Lotus had gone to a lot of trouble to make that task difficult.

 Asami twisted her arm away from Kai’s searching eyes, and he shot her a glare. “I’m trying, okay? I can’t find the lock on this thing.”

 At the word lock she shook her head emphatically. Kai blinked. There was no lock.

 Mako finally succeeded in loosening the cloth enough to let her speak. “Their metalbender made those chains,” she said, forcing the words out between gasps. “You’ll have to bend them off—try the wind sword.”

 Her eyes fixed on something in the shadows. Kai followed her gaze, then ran over to search the pile of debris, picking out a piece of wood the length of a sword hilt that would work to focus his concentration.

 While he blew icy breath on the chain above the manacle, Asami looked at Mako. “Have to warn Korra. Mako—your radio.”

 Kai stepped back and swung the sword hilt down as though it were attached to a real blade, straining to bend the air above it into a razor-thin stream. The invisible blade struck the chain and exploded outward, shattering the frigid metal.

 Mako caught Asami in his arms as one of the chains went slack. She clutched at him to steady herself, then took the radio from his hand.  

 Korra looked away from P’Li’s smirk as the combustionbender tightened the manacles around her wrists, then crouched down to chain her ankles. The heavy links dragged her arms toward the ground, and she tensed her muscles to counter their weight.

 “They’re platinum,” the woman hissed in her ear. “You won’t be bending your way out of this.”

 Zaheer’s hand fell on Korra’s shoulder. She shot him a glare.

 “We finally have you,” he breathed, his black eyes shining. His fingers tightened. “Into the airship, Avatar.”

 “Korra!”

 The familiar voice sounded hoarse. Chains clanking, Korra turned and looked down at her abandoned radio. “Asami?”

 P’Li went still, one hand gripping Korra’s arm. Out of the corner of her eye, Korra spotted the look that passed between her and Zaheer.

 “Korra, they know how to break the Avatar Cycle—destroy the Avatar forever. Don’t let—”  

 She heard no more; Zaheer had grabbed her staff and whipped up a gust of wind that hurled the radio twenty feet through the air, over the edge of the cliff. Their gazes locked again.

 “So that’s your plan,” Korra breathed.

 Zaheer’s eyes narrowed. “Knowing won’t help you. It’s already too late.”

 Korra answered by aiming a double fire kick at his face.

 “Kuvira, go!” Mako yelled through the handset. “Get Korra out of there!”

 Shouting to her men to follow, Kuvira channeled all her pent-up tension into hauling herself up the side of Laghima’s Peak. Lin and Su Beifong reached the top ahead of her. Kuvira’s first sight of the plateau was the combustion blast that greeted them.

 Leaving the Beifong sisters to keep the combustionbender occupied, Kuvira scanned the clifftop for Korra. The Avatar was locked in a bending battle with Zaheer—as much as she could be, with her hands and feet chained.

 Kuvira pounded toward them, with Shan and Hong Li behind her. Zaheer saw them coming.

 He swung Korra’s staff over his head, creating a barely visible distortion in the air. Instinct warned her to leap to one side as the ripple sped toward her. When it struck the ground it sliced a slab of rock in two, showering her armor with stone debris.

 Kuvira stared at the gouge in the rock. He couldn’t do that when we fought at Zaofu!

 Korra slammed her palms into the ground, sending a wave of earthbending through the rock under Zaheer’s feet and making him stumble. Kuvira seized her chance to fire a barrage of metal shards at his exposed side, but he recovered his balance, spun toward her, and knocked them away with another scythe of air. 

 The wind blades kept coming. Korra remembered Tenzin’s lesson, that first day on Asami’s airship—how Jinora had made air cut stone, and Tenzin had warned that it could slice through flesh just as easily. Like a Dark Spirit absorbing the powers of those it defeated, Zaheer had twisted Tenzin’s technique into something nightmarish.

 Kuvira and her men hesitated for a second too long, and Zaheer whirled and slashed the air again. An invisible force struck the nearest metalbender—Hong Li, a young man no older than Korra—and ripped a gash in his armor from shoulder to hip. He fell with a strangled cry as the wound began gushing blood.

 Shan dropped to his knees, trying to shield the younger man with his own body. Zaheer, his face twisted with hate, dropped the staff and executed a new movement—a sweep of his arms, followed by clenched fists. Korra felt a powerful burst of chi vibrate through the air and into the wounded man.

 Hong Li gave a strangled cry, clutched at his chest, and died choking on his own blood.

 Shan stared, stunned, as the life flickered out of his comrade’s eyes. With an inarticulate howl, Kuvira charged Zaheer.

 Korra’s heart stopped. She knew Kuvira intended to defeat Zaheer or die trying, but this was suicide. Their plan was coming apart, and Kuvira needed more help than Korra could give her while bound hand and foot.

 Trust me, Kuvira had pleaded. Could Kuvira trust the Avatar to do what needed to be done?

 Raising the chain between her wrists—preparing to rip it apart like dry grass—Korra closed her eyes and reached out for Raava.

 When she opened them again, they were glowing.

 Zaheer was watching. In that instant, he struck.

 Kuvira pounded toward Zaheer. He was facing Korra when she saw him perform the same combination of movements that had killed Hong Li.

 If I died in the Avatar State… no more Avatar.

 Somehow, Zaheer knew.

 Korra, her eyes still glowing, dropped to her knees, fighting for breath. Desperately, Kuvira flung a handful of metal projectiles at Zaheer.

 She missed, but only because something else hit him first. A mass of gray and white fur swung out of the sky and swatted the Red Lotus leader a dozen feet through the air, to land in an awkward roll at the far edge of Laghima’s Peak.

 “Need a little air power, Kuvira?”

 Kuvira looked up to see Jinora, perched on Oogi’s saddle. Behind her was arrayed a small fleet of airbenders on their own mounts—Ikki and Meelo, Otaku, Opal…

 Kuvira found herself too out of breath to speak. She could only answer Jinora with a double thumbs-up.

 The girl cupped her hands around her mouth again. “What do you need us to do?”

 Shan struggled to his feet and pointed at Zaheer’s airship. “Capture that ship and cut off their escape!”

 Good idea, thought Kuvira. Strategically vital, but not too dangerous. It was to have been part of Tonraq’s job.  

 Jinora waved the bison into formation around the giant airship. The airbenders sliced its tethers and began guiding it away from the peak and out of Zaheer’s reach.

 Still gasping for breath, Kuvira searched the clifftop for the Red Lotus leader. He was on his feet facing Korra, who had broken the chain between her wrists. That freed her only partially; the broken link was off-center, so that her right hand was still chained to her feet.

 Kuvira would rather she fight with one hand bound than risk the Avatar State again with Zaheer ready to strike her down in an instant.

 And he won’t try that killing move on her until she does—not if he wants to break the Avatar Cycle for good. Stalemate.

 The stalemate ended as Tonraq flung himself up and over the lip of Laghima’s Peak with ice-bladed fists flying, forcing the airbender to turn and confront him. That exposed Zaheer’s back to attacks from both Korra and Kuvira.

 A combustion blast ripped the ground beneath Kuvira’s feet into rocky splinters. Her armor saved her from multiple broken bones as her body catapulted sideways into a stone ledge, then crashed to the ground. The Beifong sisters had failed to keep the combustionbender occupied.

 The towering woman had blasted the peak clear of Security Force metalbenders and pinned Su and Lin behind a cluster of boulders, freeing her to give her leader some help. As Kuvira watched, Lin Beifong leaped from cover and renewed the attack, shouting something the captain couldn’t hear.

 When the woman faced Lin and began charging her combustion powers again, Su struck from behind and encased her head in metal. A moment later, it was all over except the smoking.

 Kai finished breaking the second chain, then ducked beneath Asami’s arm to help Mako support her.

 Asami smiled and hugged him around the shoulders as they helped her limp toward the airship. “Nice work, Kai. Knew you could do it.”

 Kai’s chest puffed out with pride. “Yeah—I was pretty great, wasn’t I?”

 “Of course, you could’ve airbent the gas away…”

 “Oh. Right.”

 “…but Mako’s firebending would still have been too dangerous. Another gas explosion would finish us and the Air Temple.”

 “That’s still the plan, Sato,” said a voice from in front of them.

 Two Red Lotus guards stood at the top of the gangplank that led to Mako’s airship. The one in front held twin fires in his hands, while his companion grasped a bow nocked with a flaming arrow. As they watched, he pulled the string back to his ear, taking aim.

 “We’ll take your ship,” the front man grinned. “You can have the Air Temple—or what’s left of it.”

 The archer loosed his arrow at the broken gas line.

 Asami had been leaning on the boys as if she had no energy left. Now she shoved them aside and launched herself into the path of the arrow. As if this were one of Tenzin’s blindfold exercises, she sensed its position and struck it from the air in midflight.

 She stumbled on landing, but she wasn’t finished yet. Nor was the archer, who was already aiming a second fire arrow. The other Red Lotus laid down covering fire, and Mako rushed to Asami’s side to shield her with his firebending.

 Kai watched in amazement as she blocked the second arrow, and the third, and the fourth. Her airbending was an impenetrable wall as she and Mako fought their way toward the airship side by side.

 Zaheer stared, horrified, at the combustionbender’s charred remains. Though her chest ached, Korra’s heart leaped.

 Only one of them left. We can win this fight.

 Her enemy turned with a fierce new determination in his eyes. When his furious gaze fixed not on her but on Tonraq, Korra knew with horrible certainty how he meant to avenge his comrade’s death.  

 “Dad, look out!” The shout came out too weak; she couldn’t get enough air in her lungs. When she tried to move, the ankle chain entangled her feet and brought her crashing down awkwardly on her right forearm. The bones of her wrist snapped beneath her weight, and she collapsed onto her side, gasping in shock.

 Tonraq threw an ice-covered punch at Zaheer, but the airbender dodged and countered with a wind blade bigger than any Korra had seen before. The ledge beneath her father broke from the rest of the mountain and slid into the canyon below, taking him with it.

 Pain and horror fueled Korra’s scream.

 “Dad!”

 Kuvira moved instinctively. The Avatar would never forgive her if she let Tonraq die.

 As their eyes met for a split second, Kuvira tried to send her friend a silent message. I’ll come back for you. I won’t let Zaheer win.

 She launched herself over the cliff-edge in a graceful somersault, firing one cable into the cliff face below the Water Tribe chief. Tonraq plummeted past the handhold, but Kuvira’s quick retraction of the cable dragged her downward to meet the cliff face below him, and she flung out a second cable that wrapped around his wrist and jerked him to a stop.

 The world flip-flopped and Kuvira’s armored feet ground hideously against the stone mountainside. Her arms gripped the cables—one stretched up, the other down—and her muscles screamed as the big man’s weight dragged her down several feet before her cables and raw strength overcame the momentum of his fall.

 Panting, she braced her feet against a protruding boulder and tightened her grip on the lower cable as Tonraq began to climb toward her. Though the cable rigs at her hips bore the brunt of his weight, they would have been ripped from her armor if she hadn’t been pouring metalbending chi into holding them steady.

 “We have to go back!” Tonraq bellowed over the howling wind. “We have to help her!”

 Korra’s wrist was on fire; paralyzing agony spread up her arm. She couldn’t breathe. As Zaheer picked up her airbending staff and strode toward her with madness and murder in his eyes, her body—injured, exhausted, and weighed down with half its weight in platinum chains—refused to work.

 Dizzy and disoriented, favoring her broken wrist, Korra fought her way to her knees. Zaheer darted forward and smashed the staff down on her back, knocking her flat on her face.

 Then he did it a second time… and a third… and a fourth.  

 Sometime after she lost count, Korra passed out.

 The Red Lotus tried a different tactic. Their orders were to destroy the Air Temple and the Avatar’s friends. If they couldn’t trigger an explosion from the ground, they would do it from the air.

 Setting aside his bow, the archer pulled the gangplank up from the ground and aboard the ship with metalbending. The firebender sliced through the tethering lines, and the ship began to rise.

 Asami wouldn’t let them go without a fight. Building up speed, she leaped into the widening gap between the flagstones and the ship’s gondola.

 Without a glider, the leap was impossible. Kai flung himself forward and fired a burst of wind from his hands to boost her onto the ship, and she landed safely on the edge of the doorway. Safely, at least, until the two Red Lotus guards got their hands on her.

 Airbenders could be dangerous too. Kai watched, transfixed, as Asami executed two quick airbending motions he had never seen before, ones that Tenzin had never taught them. The metalbending archer gave a gargling scream and collapsed with blood flowing from his mouth.

 She turned on the firebender, lowering one shoulder and bracing her feet as if she intended to throw him bodily off the ship. 

 The man bolted, using firebending to launch himself over Mako and Kai’s heads. He landed, white-faced and running for the bathhouse, blasting fire from his fists. Asami howled in fury and punched the air with wind blades that ripped into the stone around him.

 The fifth blade struck him down from behind, slicing him nearly in two. As he died, his final gout of firebending reached the gas built up in the confined space.   

For a second, everything around Kai seemed to freeze. Asami, tattered and bloodied, stood tall and straight in the door of the airship, bestriding the body of the first man she had killed. The savage look in her eye terrified him, but it thrilled him as well. He had never seen airbending like hers.

 Beneath their feet, the mountain rumbled.

 Kuvira’s body screamed with the effort of supporting a man twice her size. She looked down at the holster that held her radio. If Tonraq could reach it, then call the others for help…

 The holster was empty. Kuvira cursed under her breath.

 “Can your cables reach the top?” Tonraq called. Having lost his water skins, the big waterbender was doing his best to spare Kuvira his weight by bracing his boots against the stone beneath him. He clung to her cable with one hand and her armored foot with the other.

 Kuvira craned her neck, gauging how far they’d fallen. “I think so.”

“Leave me,” he shouted, searching the cliff face for handholds. “I can get up by myself.”

 It was a brave offer, but Kuvira disagreed. Without his water skins, he’d never make it to the top alone.

 The faraway echo of a female voice reached her.

 “It’s over, Zaheer!”

 Kuvira strained her ears. Su.

 “Release the Avatar!” Lin shouted.

 They’ve got him cornered, she realized, directly over our heads.

 “This is your last warning!”

 When Zaheer’s body—with the Avatar slung over his shoulder—plummeted over the edge of the cliff, Kuvira thought for a horrible moment that he had decided to end his own life and Korra’s rather than surrender.

 Impossibly, the rogue airbender’s fall arrested itself halfway between her position and the top of Laghima’s Peak. He righted himself in midair and hovered in place, glaring up at the Beifong sisters who peered incredulously over the edge.

 He’s… flying!

 Adjusting his unmoving burden, Zaheer turned his back on his pursuers and flew away from the mountaintop with Korra’s manacled arms trailing down his back.

 “No!” Kuvira growled.

 She had one foot free. She kicked it backward, dragging a ledge of stone from the cliff below—thick, but barely wide enough for her and Tonraq to stand side by side—then yanked her upper cable free of the cliff.

 Translating the momentum of her fall into a metalbending motion, she flung her right-side cable with all her strength at the retreating figures. She sensed the metal wrapping around Zaheer’s leg. Tonraq quickly grabbed hold of her as she pushed off the mountainside and began, slowly, the reel the cable in.

 “Don’t let go!” the waterbender bellowed as he began to climb over her. Kuvira clenched her teeth as she felt the big man’s fingers dig for handholds on the neck of her armor, his Water Tribe furs scratch her face, his booted foot knock her helmet askew.

 Another flat mountaintop loomed ahead. Intending to get rid of his unwanted passengers, Zaheer abruptly dropped through the air.

 The cable was retracting, but not fast enough to avoid the collision. Feeling Tonraq brace one foot against her shoulder, Kuvira focused her entire consciousness on the few inches of metal in contact with Zaheer’s ankle, willing it not to come loose—

 —and struck the column of rock with a shattering crash that crumpled her armor and clouded her vision with black spots. Metal scraped over sandstone, but her grip on the point of contact held firm as Zaheer dragged them both across the cliff face.

 Incredibly, once the initial shock was past, Tonraq continued to climb. Kuvira felt her consciousness slipping, but she poured all her remaining chi into retracting the cable and shortening the distance between the chief and his daughter.

 She felt his weight disappear from the cable as he reached the top of the cliff. Then the weight came back—for Tonraq had braced his feet against a rock and was dragging Zaheer out of the sky hand over hand, betting Korra’s life on the strength of Kuvira’s grip.

 “Hang on, Captain,” he yelled over his shoulder.

 Grimly, Kuvira did. Pushing away from the rock with all her strength, then letting the cable drag her body perpendicular to the cliff face, she walked up and over the edge, hauling backward despite the strain on her muscles and the crack of her joints. Zaheer fought them both like an elephant koi on a fishing line, darting back and forth across a narrowing band of sky until, with an animal roar, Tonraq yanked him crashing to the ground.

 A cloud of dust settled around the two unmoving figures. Kuvira stumbled toward them. Her left arm was on fire. When Zaheer stirred first, she reached down into the earth one-handed and bent a cone of rock around his body to pin him in place. Clutching her shoulder, she turned her attention to the unconscious Avatar.

 Tonraq was already on his knees, reaching to gather Korra into his arms. “Stop!” Kuvira ordered, and the command in her voice froze him in place.

 “Something’s wrong.” Kuvira knelt on her friend’s other side. Korra’s body lay twisted in a disturbing way that Kuvira remembered all too well from her time in the Earth Queen’s army. “Her spine may be injured. We could compound it if we try to move her before a healer gets here.”

 Korra’s eyelids flickered, then cracked open. She smiled faintly.

 “Dad. Kuvira. You’re okay.” Her breathing was shallow; she tried to inhale deeply, but something inside her seemed to catch and she coughed instead, a deep, wet sound rolling up from inside her chest. 

 Kuvira mentally catalogued the Avatar’s injuries, counting many more than when they had left her alone on the cliff with Zaheer. Tonraq wiped away a trickle of blood from the corner of Korra’s mouth and rested a careful hand on her cheek. “You’re going to be all right, sweetie. Don’t try to move until Su and the others get here.”

 “Chaos always wins in the end,” said a hoarse voice. They looked at Zaheer, whose bruised face wore a smile.

 The rogue airbender spat blood onto the ground. “You have nothing to celebrate. Look to your friends and your precious Air Temple.”

 Tonraq’s face hardened. He rose, closed the distance between them in two steps, and slammed his fist into Zaheer’s face. The airbender slumped unconscious in his stone bonds, streaming blood from his nose.

 Korra frowned at Kuvira. “Did they get Asami out? Where’s your radio?”

 “Back on the mountaintop. Don’t worry—I’m sure she’s safe.”

 That was when the air behind them was rent by an explosion that echoed through the ground. Kuvira struggled to her feet and turned to see the mountain that held the Northern Air Temple dissolve into a cloud of fire, smoke and rock dust.

 Korra saw it too. “No—” she gasped.

 Kuvira remembered that Zaheer had a radio, and punched a hole in the airbender’s stone restraints to get it. The handset was still there, in an inside pocket of the airbender’s robe. Kuvira’s fingers shook as the tuned it to the Metal Clan’s frequency and hit the push-to-talk key. “Mako, come in!”

 “We’re here, Captain. We made it out, just barely.”

 Korra looked faint with relief. Kuvira fought to keep her own voice steady. “What is Miss Sato’s condition? Is she injured, or unconscious?”

 “She’s driving. Don’t worry, all three of us are here. Zaheer set a trap for us—ordered his men to take our ship and blow up the Temple with us inside. They got it half right.” He paused. “But I guess you already know that.”

 The debris from the fiery explosion was spreading, darkening the entire northern sky. Kuvira could feel the reverberations through the soles of her boots. “It is hard to miss.”

 “What about you? Is the fight over? Did you get Zaheer? Was anyone hurt?”

 “We stopped Zaheer from escaping with Korra, but she was seriously injured. Zaheer is in custody. The combustionbender is dead… and so is Hong Li.”

 There was silence on the other end. “I’m sorry, Kuvira,” said Mako.

 Tears stung Kuvira’s eyes, but she didn’t let her voice waver. “It was an honorable death in the line of duty. Zaofu will never forget him.”

 They signed off, and Kuvira put Zaheer’s radio in her own holster. She felt a touch on her shoulder, and turned to find Tonraq holding out his hand. “Captain, I want to thank you. You saved Korra’s life. Tell me what I can do to repay you.”

 Kuvira shook his hand. “There is one thing. Would you mind popping my shoulder back in?”

 Though Tonraq’s eyes widened, he didn’t hesitate. Grunting, he shoved the heel of his hand against her left shoulder, and she felt the dislocated joint grind its way painfully into its proper position.

 Kuvira swayed a little as the Water Tribe chieftain stepped back.

 “Better?” he asked.

 “Yes, thank you,” Kuvira said with a crisp nod.

 She turned away, took one faltering step, and passed out at Tonraq’s feet.

 The airship from Zaofu was austere but top-of-the-line, including a fully stocked infirmary. When Mako had burned off her manacles, Asami searched out an ice pack for her blackened eyes, a sink with towels to clean the blood from her face, and a bandage to cover the brand on her left cheek. Mako and Kai had said nothing about that; they probably assumed the healers could fix it.

 When that was done, she ousted Mako from the driver’s seat and set her mind to deciphering the unfamiliar controls. At least that let her think of something other than the corpse of Eun Hwan, the Red Lotus metalbender, down in the hold.

 They stopped at Laghima’s Peak (one of the most sacred places in the Air Nation, Tenzin had once told her) to pick up the rest of the Air Nation and the Metal Clan, and to do what they could to help clean up the debris of battle—broken armor, dead and wounded metalbenders, bits of P’Li. The buzzard wasps would do the rest.

 Finally they arrived at the high plateau where Zaheer had been dragged from the sky. A dozen Zaofu healers and metalbenders pounded down the airship’s ramp. More slowly, Asami followed them.  

 Before the soldiers and healers surrounded them, she caught a brief glimpse of Korra, Tonraq, and the metalbender who sat beside them, cradling her head in her hands. The Avatar lay unconscious on the rocky ground, her father’s hand resting on her forehead. Her ankles were chained together, with a connecting chain to her right wrist and a broken one trailing from her left.

 Zaheer had demanded that Korra surrender herself to be slaughtered in exchange for all the world’s airbenders. She had done it for one.

 Bewildered and exhausted, Asami sank down with her back against the ramp and let the tears come.

 Mako, Bolin, and Lin Beifong all urged her to lie down and sleep.

 “I’ve been sleeping too much lately,” Asami told them. She didn’t mention that closing her eyes brought her nightmares even when she was awake.

 When the Zaofu healers had done something for her nastiest bruises and dressed the worst of her burns (though she wouldn’t let them touch the bandage), Kai, Mako and Bolin dragged her with them to the airship’s mess hall, where a Metal Clan victory-and-thank-the-Spirits-we-survived party was in progress. The fact that the ship’s stores consisted mainly of preserved meat meant that there were no other airbenders in attendance, which was fine with Asami.

 She stared unseeing at her plate of fried noodles, her mind running in circles. Many had been hurt in the fighting, but the greatest casualty was the new Air Nation.

 The Temple is gone, and Tenzin might as well be. What happens to us now?

 She could feel the answer working its way up from the depths of her mind, and it frightened her. Maybe Zaheer was right—once change had begun, nothing could stop it.

 “Hey, Asami,” said Kai from across the table. She frowned at his expression, which was equal parts shy and awestruck. “You were amazing during that fight. I mean, Bumi and I captured three of those Red Lotus goons in the caves, but you took down four all by yourself! And that choking-them-on-their-own-blood thing—you have to teach me that. Everyone should learn it. It’s, like, the ultimate airbending technique!”

 “Asami, you okay?” Bolin asked around a mouthful of noodles.

 “Fine,” said Asami through her teeth.

 Mako gestured to her hand. “You just broke your chopsticks.”

 She blinked at the splintered bamboo poking out of her clenched fist, then slammed the pieces down on the table and stood up, pushing her chair back. “They must have extras. I’ll go find some.”

 Asami strode out the door, leaving her food untouched and her three friends exchanging confused looks. For a long time she wandered the corridors, trying to rub warmth into her arms. Cold winds followed her through the corridors, and Tenzin’s self-warming techniques weren’t working.

 She stopped in the blood-red sunset light from a porthole on one of the lower decks, thinking of a long-ago sunset on Laghima’s Peak and the best friend she hadn’t spoken to since.

 Korra. I have to talk to her.

 When she found herself standing outside the Avatar’s cabin, she carefully eased the handle downward and pushed the door open. The room inside was spare but comfortable, softly illuminated by a bedside reading lamp. Ignoring the stranger asleep in the chair beside the bed—one of Suyin’s people, no doubt—Asami stared at Korra.

 The Avatar’s injuries were much worse than Asami’s. Her broken back had been stabilized by a complex-looking rig of bars, straps and cables that held her to the bed. Her hair was down and disheveled, and much of her body was covered with bandages, some with blood oozing through. The color of her skin looked disturbingly wrong, ranging from bruised purple to ashen gray.

 Some involuntary noise must have escaped Asami’s lips, because Korra stirred slightly. Her eyes opened a fraction, and a furrow appeared between them, the closest thing she could manage to a frown. When she saw who her visitor was, the frown changed to a faint version of her lopsided smile.

 “’Sami,” she murmured. “Spirits, you look terrible.”

 Asami stepped closer and tried for a smile that wound up being mostly grimace. “Not as terrible as you.”

 “They didn’t get me in the face. Heal that myself if Kya can’t. Promised Meelo I’d fix whatever they did to hurt you.” So much speaking seemed to exhaust her. She tried to breathe, and her body convulsed with a cough. Where her head turned against the pillow, flecks of red appeared on the white fabric. 

Zaheer...

 Tears stung Asami’s eyes. She gave up trying to speak and knelt by the bed, reaching one arm across Korra’s shoulders and hugging her as tightly as her own injuries would permit.

 Korra’s left hand came up in slow motion to rest on the new white burn dressing that swathed Asami’s forearm.

 “Rough couple of days, huh?” the Avatar breathed, so quietly that Asami would have missed the words if her face hadn’t been buried in Korra’s shoulder.

 “Yeah,” Asami whispered. “It sure was.”

 She thought of Tenzin, clinging to life in the infirmary, and her breath hitched again.

 “Korra…” she began.

“What are you doing in here?”

 The stern voice startled her so badly that Asami jumped to her feet and spun around, hastily rubbing at her eyes.

 The woman who had been sleeping in the chair was standing as well, her fists clenched and her back ramrod-straight, with an expression of calm authority that told Asami she’d guessed right about this person being one of Su’s soldiers.

 “I just came to see Korra,” Asami said, hating both the quaver and the knee-jerk defensiveness in her voice. “She’s my friend, and I was worried about her.”

 “The Avatar needs rest Miss Sato,” said the woman, drawing her heavy black eyebrows together disapprovingly. “If you insist on disturbing her, I’ll be forced to—”

 “Kuvira,” said Korra, her voice sounding strained. “’S’okay. It’s just Asami.”

 Instantly the security woman was at Korra’s bedside, all but shouldering Asami out of the way. “Korra, don’t tax your strength. This is my fault for falling asleep on duty”—the admission clearly pained her—“but I promise that will never happen again.”

 The woman named Kuvira gave Asami a glare that would have done any firebender proud. “Out. Now,” she hissed.

 “Never mind,” said Asami over Kuvira’s shoulder. “I’ll visit you when you’re feeling better, okay?”

 Asami squared her shoulders and stalked out the door Kuvira held open for her. Outside she stopped, her fists clenched. Whether she was angrier with the security woman or with herself, she didn’t know.

 She isn’t the one making me angry. It’s him—the man who broke Tenzin, almost murdered Korra and me, destroyed an entire way of life…

The man who thinks he holds the key to the Air Nation’s future.

 She knew where she was going.

 There was a metalbender guard at the door, but when the woman saw Asami’s airbender garb she let her in without question. Suyin wanted the airbenders to be able to face their tormentor and see him stripped of power.

 Even after everything he had done, it turned Asami’s stomach to see Zaheer hanging by his arms from the chains attached to the walls of his steel cell, looking as bruised and battered as Korra. The rogue airbender raised his scarred head. “I’ve been expecting you. Bereft of one master, you come seeking another.”

 “No,” said Asami. “I just wanted to see for myself that you can’t hurt anyone else I love. You were wrong about the Air Nation, and about me.”

 “You’re fooling yourself, Sato.” Zaheer smiled a patronizing, bloody smile. “My master was Xai Bau, founder of the Red Lotus, who discovered how to break the Avatar Cycle. You showed me the secret of voidbending, so I’ll tell you something you don’t know: The way to break the Avatar Cycle is to kill her in the Avatar State. Then no more Avatar, ever.”

 That sounded horribly plausible. It would certainly explain why Korra had been so careful with the Avatar State since Harmonic Convergence.

 “By choosing the right moment, any airbender could free the world by destroying the Avatar. I almost got her myself. Deep down, you recognize the truth. Chaos is the natural order of the world, and air is the element of chaos.” Zaheer laughed breathlessly. “I wasn’t wrong. The forbidden art will spread, and you’ll bring such change to this world that no one will be able to stop it.”

Korra, coughing blood... Yasuko, at the mercy of firebending demons...

 Rage sparked in Asami’s chest, pushing aside her pain and nausea and infusing her with energy. She clenched her fists and felt the chi burn through her veins, straining for release. How had she ever lived without bending?

 Behind the bars, Zaheer sneered. “I know you want to use the power the universe has given you. Why resist? You were made an airbender for a reason!”

 The shadowy prison turned red. The air inside the monster’s body beckoned irresistibly.

 She grasped that air, sharpened it into blades inside him.

 “Stop right there!”

 Something hard and cold wrapped around her wrists and dragged her backward, slamming her against the wall, metal on metal. Asami howled and fought, but she was trapped.

 The metalbender guard’s furious face emerged from the darkness. Asami watched, dazed, as she brought a radio to her lips. Behind her, Zaheer hung limp in his chains.

 “Lieutenant Shan, get down here. There’s been an attack on the prisoner.”

[To be continued...]

A/N: This chapter completes the main plot arc, but the Epilogue is nearly as long--it’s at 9,000 words and counting. I may not have as much time as I anticipated on Monday to polish and post it, and although it would be a shame to starting missing deadlines now... well, getting three chapters out of four posted on time isn’t bad, right? -_-;; (If I have to push anything all the way past my Wednesday deadline, it will be the remaining three Top 40 posts.)