She seems to explode.
One second she is crumpled on the ground, and the next she is hovering in the air in a current of wind and rocks and fire. Her eyes glow like the full moon as she rises higher and higher, until she is nearly out of his reach. But he knows that if he lifts his hand, his fingers will brush the very tips of hers, and he will be able to pull her back.
But Bolin doesn't. He lets her soar, spin around to face the enemy, her lips pursed tight in her anger. "How dare you," she says, her voice echoing with the power of a million past lives, "defy your Avatar? You, who in comparison are so tiny and fleeting—how dare you!"
The man before her cowers on his hands and knees, although his teeth are gritted with the determination that cowards often get when they refuse to admit their demise is imminent. Bolin watches the Equalist lackey as he sputters, says, "The time of the Avatar—of all benders—is over! Amon will make sure—"
Korra swings an arm through the air, sends a torrent of flames at the man. He yelps as the ground is scorched at his feet and scrambles to stand. With another sweep of her hand, Korra encases the man in earth, entombing him up to his neck.
"How dare you!" she says, her voices amplifying, splintering the ground and tearing up the telephone posts that line the streets. Bolin has to raise his arms over his head to protect himself from the debris that twirls around them, has to squint through the dust that clouds his vision and makes everything appear like a dream.
But this is not a dream. Bolin can feel the whipping of the wind, like a twister about to pluck him off the ground and throw him halfway across the city. He can feel the rough edges of rocks scraping against his skin. He can feel the immensity of Korra's power causing him a pain that is only second to hearing of his parents' deaths.
This is not the girl he knows.
The man is whimpering now, thrashing within the coffin, his face red and sweaty, his eyes bulging. He is above begging for mercy, it seems, but he is not above fear as the rock slowly spreads up his thick neck, over his jawbone. He had only been sent to trigger Korra into the Avatar state so the people of Republic City could see the uncontainable strength of the Avatar, could further turn their backs and blind eyes on benders and what Amon is doing to them. And he had succeeded. Bolin wonders if the man believes risking his life this way is worth it now.
"This is the true wrath of the Avatar," says Korra, continually ascending into the sky. Bolin sees the genuine malice in her face this time, hears the unforgiving danger that reverberates through the air. And he knows now is when he needs to draw the line. Scare the enemy? That was fine. But to crush him to death? Bolin wouldn't be able to face Korra if he allowed her to do that.
Bolin looks to his brother, who has stood his ground beside him. Mako's eyes shine in understanding, and keeping one arm over his face to beat off the debris, Mako extends his other arm to his brother. Bolin grabs him around the elbow, a gesture Mako reciprocates, and they are cinched together, holding each other in place as Bolin raises a platform of earth beneath them to lift them up to Korra.
She hovers level with the tallest building in downtown. Once they break through the bubble of air that swirls in a maelstrom around Korra, the wind is like buzzing in their ears before it hitches and becomes like silence, so dead and disconcerting that Bolin tightens his grip on Mako.
They stare at Korra a moment. From behind, she appears like her usual self: confident, radiant, ready for anything. But Bolin knows as soon as she turns around, she will be beaming with the wrong kind of power.
Bolin reaches for her first. As soon as his fingers brush her wrist, her head whirls toward him, her expression mutilated by anger and vengeance, the whole of her eyes beaming with electric blue light. She bares her teeth at him, a wild thing, but Bolin doesn't recoil, doesn't falter in the slightest. Only looks at her pleadingly, weaves his fingers in hers.
He wants his friend back. Wants to hear her laugh and tease them, cheer at their wins and grumble at their losses. Wants her to pout sheepishly as she admits her mistakes, because while she has always had something of a temper, she knows humility and to take the fault when she is in the wrong.
"Korra," Mako says, following his brother's example and taking Korra's free hand. His voice echoes around them, soft and comforting, reminding Bolin of how Mako would lull him to sleep when they were young and the night seemed particularly dark or he had had a bad dream. "Korra," Mako says again. "Come back to us."
Mako tugs on her arm; she dips, falling a few inches from flight much to their surprise. Then, together, they reel her down, setting her feet on the platform where she stands, still tense with all the power of her past lives.
Bolin takes a gamble. He wraps an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his chest, ducking her head under his chin. Mako leans in, hugging the both of them, his head resting against his brother's. And Bolin feels that the three of them in that moment, clinging onto one another, become a singularity in every sense of the word.
For a second, nothing happens. For a second, it seems their words and actions have no effect. The winds continue to snap at the hems of their shirts, bristling their hair, and the debris continues to cake them in a layer of dirt. But then the winds begin to wane, and the lights behind Korra's eyes dim. Her body relaxes, her hair falling around her face in rivulets and tickling Bolin's jaw.
After what had felt like years, Bolin can see the unadulterated beams of sunlight again. Through the muck that stains his skin, he feels a soft breeze, natural and safe. Below him, on the streets of downtown Republic City, he sees shops that have been trashed, telephone wires sprawled across the ground. They stretch over the cracks in the streets, black veins like scars. Past all the people poking their heads out of the buildings to see if they are safe, he sees a single man running away, mission accomplished.
He thinks he hears her sniffle and turns away from the sight in the streets to find Korra crumbling to her knees. The bending brothers kneel beside her without letting her go as she buries her face in Bolin's arm. She remains clutching onto their hands as she brings them up to her face, presses their entwined hands against her cheeks.
"Mako. Bolin," she says, voice muffled and small, so unlike minutes before that Bolin's relief releases a wave of fatigue over him. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. What have I done?"
"It wasn't your fault," Bolin says, smoothing down her hair. "They'll see. They'll understand. It'll be okay. Everything will be okay."
Mako flashes him a look of warning over Korra's head, but Bolin already knows everything he's said is a lie. By this time tomorrow, word will already have spread throughout Republic City—The Avatar is uncontrollably strong. She destroyed half of downtown. This is the true strength of benders. This is why they are a threat. Why they need to be eliminated.—and Amon's plan will have succeeded. By this time tomorrow, Korra will be in more danger than ever.
But they will withstand Amon's forces. They will rise again, despite how far they have fallen. And they will do it together.