Huge thanks to my followers, fav-ers and reviewers! You encourage me to keep writing when I should be doing other stuff! I know the story I want to write, but I love sharing it.
Spoiler warning! I said previously that you didn't need to read my other piece to understand this one. I kind of lied. I didn't mean to, but I did. Go read it. Or be content with this spoiler if you haven't figured it out yet: the 'Genjin' is the Avatar's soul mate. He/she has been with the Avatar since the 6th cycle. Over the years the Genjin's soul and the Avatar's have become so entwined that they can't tell where one ends and the other begins. Go read Avatar Spirit if you haven't ;)
Also warning: I think part of this one is pretty horrific. I turned my own stomach writing it. Kind of gory and super dark. No character deaths though. Because I like to stay within the realm of canon. It's why I don't write about or ship zuko/mai or sokka/suki. We don't know their fates yet.
If you like big scene Avatar State element bending, I think you would enjoy this chapter.
Enjoy! Please review!
Spirit Moon- Air- Part 2
He felt his chest tighten the instant she disappeared. It wasn't from the emotion, but from the loss of her spirit. Their souls were so intertwined that he hadn't even noticed that a piece of her energy had stayed with him when she had created the protection in his lungs. He couldn't feel her spirit anywhere. She was gone. Simply gone. His best friend, his soul mate, the woman he had made passionate love to just twelve hours before, had been snuffed out of his plane of existence. The bald monk was left kneeling on the cold dirty concrete floor empty handed. A small puddle had pooled beneath him where his tears were hitting the pavement.
"BRING HER BACK, YOU MONSTER!" he raged into the nothingness of the factory. He slammed his fists into the stone floor, smashing it in shockwaves. Any windows left in the building exploded from the forceful tremors and blast of air. The broken rubble began to levitate around him. Wind and fire swirled as well. But there was no water to join in the all consuming display of raw power. NONE. His heart broke at the loss of this element for so many reasons. He stood heavily as his arrow tattoos began to glow and his vision became clouded with blue light.
It was an interesting phenomenon. His glowing eyes. When he entered the Avatar State, he could see, but he couldn't. If there were spirits present, they would come into the sharpest focus, but the rest of the world dissolved into its elements only. It was like seeing with heat vision, seismic sense, and blood bending all rolled into one. He could see everything, but only through the elements. A person was nothing more than the air in their lungs, heat in their muscles, water in their body, and iron in their blood.
He glared around at his surroundings and growled like a saber-toothed moose-lion on the hunt. He stomped hard into the ground, feeling for vibrations through the thin leather soles of his boots and held his hands out searching for lingering foreign energies. There was nothing. No life. No spirits. All he could feel was the metal rebar crisscrossed tightly through the building. But there was a stairwell off in the distance.
"NOOOOOO! KATARAAA!" his voice echoed in the emptiness, overlaid with the voices of a hundred lifetimes. He then whispered, "I've lost her to an angry spirit. Just like Koh took Ummi."
He felt the shock like a punch to the sternum and sensed the spirit's presence even before Aang clearly saw the previous Avatar through the blue shadows. The spirit memory of Avatar Kuruk burst from Aang's being and stood before the latest incarnation of the Avatar. He was a tall, proud young Water Tribe man, dressed in his polar bear-dog furs. He only appeared about ten years older than Aang. There was always a touch of sadness in his crystal blue eyes.
"No you haven't, Aang," he said gently, placing a comforting hand on the younger man's shoulder, "not yet at least. I can feel she is in limbo- between the mortal world and the Spirit World. The longer she stays there, the more likely her body will waste away. And this time the Genjin will not be reborn."
There was that term, Genjin, again. Aang wished he could remember what it meant. The spirits knew it. His past lives did. Somehow it was important.
"Koh took Ummi from me as a personal punishment for my pride. He is a cruel and vicious spirit," Kuruk continued and scowled bitterly. "This spirit is full of righteous vengeance. He's an Air Spirit and thinks you abandoned him. He's had a hundred years to stew in his anger and pain. He is not rational now. His valley was destroyed and made barren. He wants to inflict the same pain on you as revenge. The Butterfly Spirit sees this as some sort of justice. If you can heal this valley, you may persuade him to forgive you."
"I can't do this without Katara," Aang replied, defeated. "I can't lose her again."
"You can and you will." Kuruk actually shook him slightly. "You are so much stronger and wiser now. I know you can succeed this time."
The whirlwind sphere around the two Avatars pulsed and collapsed in a blaze of blue spirit light. Aang was left gasping alone on the ground again, fingers dug into the stone beneath him. His robes fluttered softly and the dust settled. The extreme force of the gale he had kicked up had pushed all of the smog out of the factory for now. It would take a while for it to roll back in. It bought him some time.
He unwound his blue belt and went to tie it protectively around his face, preparing for the onslaught of toxic fumes that he knew would return. Something bounced out of the belt and quietly plinked on the floor. Aang's vision tracked to the sound and saw two bright blue beads glinting in the low light. His heart skipped a beat. He gingerly picked them up as if they were the most precious stones on the planet.
In that moment, they were.
He brought them to his lips and closed his eyes as a last tear fell from his long dark lashes. He could hear it echoing through the silent gloom when it hit the pavement.
"I'm getting you back, Katara," he whispered to the beads. He tore a thin strip of material from the end of the blue sash and strung the beads through it. He looped the ends into two slide knots. Aang slid it over his left hand and laid the beads across the veins along the inside of his wrist. He pulled the bracelet tight with his teeth and free hand. The beads pulsed with his heartbeat.
He stood slowly and determinately, raising with his staff in hand and stomped into the ground again. He had to keep searching the factory. Where was that staircase? The new plan was the same as the old plan- find the source of the pollution, clear the valley, then… heal it somehow? Aang just had to do it alone and against the clock.
He came to a stairwell far back in the factory running up to higher stories and down into a basement level. Crumbling concrete with rusty metal pipe handrails. It was nearly pitch black down the subterranean stairs as they trailed farther away from the dim sunlight. The upward ones were only minutely less intimidating. Aang glanced up and down the staircase, a nervous look plainly visible across his face. He was hesitating on which way to go next.
"Which way should we go, Katara?" Aang's voice was low and quivering as he ran his thumb along her beads, caressing them. He gingerly touched the dark peeling railing. "Well, we know the ceiling won't cave in on us if we go downstairs since we were just walking on it for the last half hour." He scowled at the cracked concrete above his head. It looked pretty sketchy. "But we don't know if the floor won't fall out beneath us if we go up…"
"Down it is then, I guess," he continued talking to himself, as if his wife was there. It gave him comfort. "It's so dark."
He palmed a small flame and scanned the walls. There were glass hurricane bulbs protected behind metal cage sconces running along the stairwell. Tubes were strung between each on the outside of the concrete. He followed the line of piping to a wall switch nearby. He reached out inquisitively and flipped the toggle.
There was a strange hiss, but nothing else.
"It was worth a shot," he shrugged and slumped slightly.
He soon noticed an odd odor in the hall and his mind ticked back over ten years in time. It made him think of the mechanist and Sokka. It clicked and he flipped the toggle again. The hissing stopped.
Gas. Natural Gas.
They were gas lamps. Very old, but connected to each other. They probably required a spark when flipped on.
He bent the air out of the stairwell until the odor dissipated.
"Remember when Sokka blew the side of the mountain off the Northern Air Temple, Sweetie? Wouldn't want that happening again." He scratched at his head. "I bet a single spark of lightning would be safer than an open flame. Good thing Iroh taught me lighting bending. Man did that piss Zuko off when I was able to do it and he couldn't. Especially when I modified it in an Air Nomad style," Aang chuckled lightly.
He pulled the blue sash from over his nose and concentrated. He had learned lightening bending with incredible ease. His inner peace and balance saw to that. And then adapted it to be even more controlled through meditation.
He closed his eyes and clapped his hands together, rubbing the palms as if he was cold. He pulled them apart again, very slowly until they were about three inches apart, his fingers curled towards each other like he was gently holding something between his hands. He could feel a slight pressure change in the stairwell as he opened his eyes. There was a gleam of fierce concentration behind his stormy eyes as he calmly exhaled and suddenly he could see bright static sparks dancing back and forth from fingertip to fingertip. He reached his hands towards the switch and cupped his fingers around it as he flipped the toggle. The electricity arched from his fingertips and into the tubes, crackling. The energy hummed through the connectors, igniting the bulbs down the stairwell. Several shattered from the sudden pressure and temperature change after years of disuse, sending shards of glass tinkling to the concrete. They left open flames flickering behind the sconces. He cowered and broke the energy contact with the string of lights, fearful of the combustible gas. No explosion. He let out a sigh of relief.
It worked. A few of the ancient bulbs remained dimly illuminated. It wasn't much, but there was light, and he didn't need to concentrate on palming a torch the whole way. It was just enough for him to see where he would be going without falling and breaking his neck. He saw a few rodents scamper off the stairs, startled by the new light. He didn't think anything had still been alive anywhere.
"That's amazing!" he exclaimed in wonder to himself. "For all the terrible stuff the Fire Nation did, they sure got innovation right." He started down the gloomy stairs with renewed enthusiasm. His shadow twisted and danced in the soft wavering firelight.
It was colder down in the basement of the building. It was similar to the upstairs in that it was completely abandoned and none of the doors were locked. But down here he had to dodge oily pools of standing water whereas the upper level was bone dry. He stooped down and touched the dark water lightly, smiling hopefully, but it was more oil than water. The faint lights stretched on through damp and dank halls. He could hear the staccato drip drip drip of a leaky pipe echoing down the corridors. The place reeked of mildew and old fuel.
He came to a single locked door. It was nothing special. Heavy steal, worn with age and marred with rust along the edges. The bolt on the door was on the outside, like it was keeping something in rather than trying to keep anyone out. Just like everything else, it didn't look like it had been used in years. He slid the lock out of place, slowly turned the knob, and yanked on the door. It stuck and scrapped loudly as he pulled.
The odor of death and decay slammed into him like a brick wall. Stale urine and feces and sweat assaulted his senses and he stammered back, even with the blue sash around his face. It was just as dark in the room as everywhere else. Aang found a switch beside the door on the outside and tried it. This time when the gas was opened, lights around the room illuminated brightly. He shielded his eyes against the sudden contrast.
He glanced around the solid steel room before venturing in. And stepped back in horror. Refuse and waste was scattered about. There were a few chairs and a table. There were rusty colored splatter stains everywhere. On the floor, on the walls, on the table.
That wasn't what terrified Aang. It was the bodies. There were the remains of roughly three dozen people. Men and women. Mostly tattered green and brown rags on the bodies, but a few red ones here and there. It wasn't like the massacre Aang had discovered at the Southern Air Temple, where he found Monk Gyatso's remains surrounded by the Fire Nation soldiers he had annihilated before he was overwhelmed. All of those corpses showed evidence of sudden death.
These mummified remains had wasted away before passing.
They were thin and scraggly, with waxy pale skin and deep sunken eyes. Matted beard and hair had grown long and nearly completely grey. Bodies were mangled and mutilated. There was this body that was a woman... It must have been a woman because Aang could make out the faint outline of a smaller corpse encapsuled in her sunken abdomen. Another was slumped across the table, its hand laid out. It was missing the pinky finger and two others had obviously been broken and never reset correctly as they were twisted at odd angles. There was evidence of festering open sores left to rot on the bodies.
He pulled his hand back from the door when he saw the bloody scrapes on the inside. Fingertips torn in agony trying to get out. They were earthbenders, not metal benders.
There was a clean bone on the ground near his foot. He stooped down to inspect it. There were teethmarks scraped against it, flesh eaten clean. They weren't rodent gnawings.
Aang could barely contain his stomach.
"Oh my Spirits, Katara," he gasped, holding his mouth. "They were just left here. Buried in this metal cave. Why?! Why would anyone do that!"
He knew the answer. During the war, the Fire Nation was ruthless. They had once been buried underground by soldiers and left to die too. But love would lead the way out. Or giant badger moles.
He looked back to the slumped body. It wore muted red. Under its tortured hand was a scrap of light brown cloth. The hand holding it down looked almost to be protecting it. Aang steeled himself against the horror and tentatively walked in, gingerly stepping around the remains.
There were several solitary, mismatched, and raggedly torn off fingers on the table near the corpse's right hand. The rag under the left hand had brown stains scrawled into it. The dying…man… had used the fingers of his dead cell mates to leave a message.
Aang carefully picked it up to read the markings.
I know no one is coming. We stripped the land of most resources years ago, but recently found an incredible store of oil and coal. But we delved too deep. There was an accident and the stores ignited. The best fire benders couldn't put it out. Someone said only the Avatar would be powerful enough to stop it. The fuel veins under the whole valley. We were buried with the secret beneath this factory- to keep it secret from the new Firelord. The Fire Nation loves its secrets. Including using its own citizens as slaves. The earthbenders here are my brothers in death.
There was a date on it from about ten years ago- just days after the fall of Firelord Ozai. Aang folded the stained cloth and slid it into the pouch at his hip and stepped back out of the room.
"Zuko needs to know about this, Katara," he whispered to his absent wife. "These souls need set to rest first. Just like the Southern Air Temple."
This pyre would be easier than the one he had made for Gyatso and the fallen firebenders.
After Katara had calmed him out of his grief stricken Avatar State at the Southern Air Temple, Aang had insisted on laying all of the bodies to rest. Even the Fire Nation soldiers. Sokka had been utterly dumbfounded as Aang carefully laid all of the bodies out before igniting the pyres and saying a few words over them all.
"They're Fire Nation! Let them keep rotting!" Sokka had shouted as the child Aang huffed and puffed, carrying the remains with Katara's help. "They don't deserve any of this respect."
"All life is sacred, Sokka. No one deserves any of this." The boy had said, turning angrily to his surrogate brother. He threw his arm out towards the massacre scene. "But even my enemy deserves respect. War is terrible, no matter what side you're on. Who knows what drove these soldiers to come here and do this. What lies were woven into their psyche to convince them to leave their homes and come here. Was it by choice? Were they forced? Did this man," he pointed to the body at his feet, "leave children at home to fight for what he thought was just? Can you answer that?"
Sokka stopped in his tracks and thought of his father. Hakoda was somewhere out there across the oceans fighting. He had left his children for what he thought was a just cause. Would they ever see him again either? If he died, would his body be treated with respect?
"No. You're right," the young warrior slumped as Aang returned to his task. For a goofy kid, the boy was really wise. Sokka started gathering wood. "Here. Let me help."
"I am so sorry for horrors that you had to endure," he spoke to the remains, his head bowed reverently. "I wish I had been able to help you before. I wish it had never even come to this. May you rest in peace. Retire to the Spirit World in a well deserved nirvana or return again to experience a new lifetime full of joy and peace."
Aang turned the gas lights off in the room. He sighed heavily and pulled a great deal of energy to the center of his body. With a gentle exhale he extended his palms towards the open room, forcing all the energy out. He detonated a tremendous fireball in the room's center. The remains were instantly ignited in the blaze. The intensity of the fire was so strong it only took a few minutes for everything to be reduced to cinders.
He turned and closed the door behind him. He took a wide horse stance and stamped into the ground. An inscription appeared in the stone before the door.
Here rests a collection of the bravest and most innocent members of the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation. May their spirits find peace after their time of darkness.
Aang turned away, wiping a bitter tear from his face and continued searching for the exit point of the undying fire underground that was belching smoke and ash into the sky.
Aang didn't think he could be shaken much more today. The scene in that metal room of death proved him wrong. No wonder The Butterfly was angry. Not only had his valley been set on fire from within, but the humans probably LEAST responsible had been left to horrific deaths to cover up the secret. And if he had known, they could have been saved. Ozai loyalists were still haunting his footsteps a decade later. His head was reeling.
He soon came to the deepest part of the subterranean portion of the factory. The area was completely smoke filled and Aang had to use several air funnels to clear the space so he could see. The giant metal tubing he had seen billowing the smoke from the roof ran straight into the stone ground. It was big enough around that a large man could slide through it into the depths of the earth. It appeared to have been hastily constructed, with uneven bolts and awkwardly angled pipes running from it. Smoke escaped from the joints and old cracks in the metal. He could feel the heat of the underground fire through the soles of his boots. It was deep and faint, but it was there.
Aang pushed a hand into the stone floor and stamped the butt of his glider against the ground and searched with touch and sound. He could feel that the underground was deeply veined with coal stretching throughout the valley. Not just coal, but he could sense the oil that seeped up and into the coal from even deeper. And it was all in a slow burn. The fires were constantly fueled by the deep oil, never extinguishing. It had destroyed everything in the valley from below, boiled all the groundwater out and poisoned the air.
Aang's staff clattered to the ground as he opened his eyes and fell back on his haunches. He sat heavily on the floor, shaking his head in his hands.
"No, a whole team of firebenders would never be able to put this out. There's too much fuel. They'd never be able to pull all of the energy away from the coal. The coal is earth, and they have no power over that." His head shot back up, an idea sprung to life. "You gotta expand your mind to the possibilities, Bumi. If they had teamed up with earthbenders and actually worked together they may have been able to do it. With teams of really strong ones. Or if they had just told *me* from the beginning... Damn Fire Nation…" he cursed in bitter anger. "But I know what I need to do now."
He felt along the fuel veins again for where they stretched outside of the factory. How hadn't he noticed this earlier when he was looking for… anything?
"Because I didn't know what I was looking for," he said to himself. "I was too enamored with finding the Air Spirit and the honor I would receive from helping him that I was blinded by what I wanted, instead of what the valley needed."
Avatar Aang knew he was far from perfect. He was just as human as everyone else.
"But I'm going to make this right."
He rushed out of the basement as only a trained airbender could move. So fast and light, he was a blur of speed whizzing through the dank passages, past the metal tomb, and up the stairwell. He stumbled as he hit the ground floor but tossed his glider ahead of him. It snapped open, a flash of blue in the grey world.
He lunged, grabbing for the handholds and swung his feet towards the tail and hooked his boots on the mechanist's foot holds. He summoned a thermal to propel him from the ground and he swooped out of a broken window, narrowly avoiding the jagged glass clinging limply to the frames.
"Blue…It had to be blue, didn't it…" Aang sighed as he glanced at the material of the glider, and then the beads against his wrist. "They're Earth Kingdom, why wasn't it green?"
The heavy smog pushed into Aang's lungs as he exerted himself, pushing faster and harder against the clock. He coughed through the pain, willing the air currents to push the glider faster. He tugged on the right handle, causing it to bank sharply. He soared over the vacant and weed-strewn lot. Over the barbed wire fence and into the open wasteland before him. He kicked out with a single foot and sent himself tumbling toward the hard packed dusty land. It was a controlled fall as he twisted and turned, landing heavy and solidly, digging a single hand into the dirt. He dropped his glider and it clattered to the packed dirt.
He was the last air bender, but he was also the Avatar. Right now he needed to be an earth and fire bender. And he was on a mission to reclaim his Genjin. Whatever that meant.
There was the ever burning fire. Five hundred feet below him. Under layers of soil and rock. Waiting for him to snuff it. He was the only individual that could. Someone who could control fire and earth at the same time. It wasn't quite magma, but it was close. He absently thought of Yu Dao and Republic City and wondered if anyone could become a lava bender like an Avatar. A unique person with unique parentage. Fire and earth in their bloodline.
"I'll stop this fire, Butterfly Spirit!" Aang crooned to the empty smog, "But you have to bring back Katara! Bring back the Genjin!"
The air was silent in return, the smog thick as ever. Aang's eyes ticked back and forth against the stinging toxins, but he was left without a response.
"This isn't for me," he whispered, taking a step back from himself. "This isn't even for Katara. I have to let her go. This is for the valley. And this is for the people who unjustly lost their lives here."
Aang swung his arms wide in rotating arcs, as if he was summoning lighting, but ended the motion by planting his illuminated fists to each other. He breathed deeply, digging the toes of his boots into the ground and opened fierce, glowing blue eyes. The air pressure of the area dropped as he reached inward, bypassing anything detached from the earth. He was more than an Air Nomad. He had to be one with the earth as well.
The ground buckled underneath him instantaneously as he punched heavy fists toward it. Flame licked along his exposed arms, boiling any droplets of sweat that had beaded there. He gave the water freely to the other elements. He released any hold of the liquid element at that moment. The valley needed water, but right now it needed control of the other three elements. Water had no chance against a raging fire fueled by the ancient natural resources. Water would not put out this fire. Water had been taken from the valley, so the air spirit of the valley took the Water Genjin from Aang.
The Avatar punched toward the ground before slicing his hands open like knives cutting into a gourd, splitting the surface beneath him with his immense energy. With great scoops of his hands he began to dig with his earthbending, sliding the layers of rock and soil away and into great mounds. It wasn't like a common worker struggling with a shovel, the earth just cleaved and shifted beneath him like a child sliding a hill of sand. Deeper and deeper into the earth he searched for the track of burning fuel.
When he finally released the pressurized accelerant after so much altered earth, it escaped with a fierce blast, lapping energetically at the comparatively fresh air suddenly feeding it. Aang jumped back from the sudden flare, then doubled back, determined to control it. The Avatar's open palms clenched and became fists, converting the solid earth energy into flowing fire energy. Only he, in this heightened state could not only bend all four elements, but control them in tandem.
Aang could control each element in its own turn, but only the Avatar could wield them at once. Aang could punch through a stone wall followed by a whirlwind attack, but only as the Avatar, could he meld through that same wall with his gale during the same instant. Mastering each element separately was an incredible feat, but it was the culmination of the unification of each that made him a fully realized Avatar. The ability to not only command each element, but do so concurrently.
The elements began swirling about Aang with a will of their own. Stone and fire encircled him as he sent his own chi, his own energy into the depth of the inferno. Involuntarily a protective sphere of air formed around him. There was still no water for him to draw from. The only water there was in his own body. He could feel the pulse of his blood in his own veins. The blue beads against his wrist jumped contently with the liquid pulsing along with his heartbeat. It was like he could feel Katara's soul in the fluid of his blood encouraging him on.
Concentration. So much concentration. Aang closed his glowing eyes tightly and held his outstretched hands over the giant flaming chasm he had created. Sweat ran along his brow. He was on the verge of dehydration. He had to focus on the fire burning the coal, and the coal being consumed at the same time. He had to see both sides of the same coin simultaneously. He reached into the inferno with his mind and energy, peeling the elements apart that had been interwoven and feeding each other for decades.
One fist clenched, focusing on the oil-soaked coal and pulling it while the other hand was open palmed, sensing the fire and drawing its energy away. Aang sucked the air from the area and blew a gale force wind over the ever-burning pyre, creating a vacuum, choking the flames.
Aang could feel the power ripping though his body almost as powerfully as lighting as he redirected all of the energy of the immeasurable subterranean fire skyward and dissipated it into the atmosphere. The heat crackled along his body leaving scorch marks and blisters across his skin. There was so much of it, stretching for countless miles. It had more firepower than even Firelord Ozai had possessed under Sozin's comet. Even the Avatar could barely contain the power. With a final whirlwind of cold airbending, Aang sent a mighty airstream into the cavities and forced an immense amount of air through the spiderwebbed veins of fire. It was the concentrated effort of all three elements, digging deep into the heart of the fire, pulling its energy to the surface and releasing it through the vessel of the Avatar, that he was able to finally put the horror to rest.
The stone swirling protectively around him dropped to the ground and the flames licking his skin extinguished, his senses returning to normal. He was burnt and battered, teetering towards absolute exhaustion. All was silent. Aang thought the valley was silent before, but now it truly was. He hadn't even realized how loud the inferno had been because he didn't understand what it was. It wasn't a sound that could be heard, but felt in the soul. The earth beneath his boots whispered its tranquility to the Avatar and became still. The sun was nearly set in the distance, streaming the smog with an array of beautiful, but unnatural colors. Aang cocked his head to the side at the sight and sighed.
"I'm not finished," he said to the smoke filled sky, voice echoing with that of a hundred lifetimes. "The disease has been immobilized, but the infection still needs eradicated before healing can begin."
His tattoos flared along his chi lines again and his air sphere sprung back to life. It revolved stronger as he concentrated all of his Avatar energy into just that element. He felt weightless as he was lifted from the ground, toes of his boots dangling. Aang flung his arms wide, pushing the ball outward as he ascended into the polluted clouds. This would take as much strength as separating the fire from the coal had. All of the air of the valley needed cleared. He pushed shockwave after shockwave of wind out from his center. With twists of his hands he created a series of tornadoes capturing the smoke and expelling it high above the tops of the mountains that ringed the valley. With every bending move, the Avatar could feel his energy and stamina waning. His tattoos were starting to flicker and he was losing grip of the Avatar State. And the valley wasn't clear of its contamination yet.
"I don't know if I can do it, Katara!" he cried to his lost wife, tears that he didn't know he could still produce spilling down his cheeks.
"Yes you can, Avatar." Katara's voice was inside his soul. He could feel it inside his own heart, flowing through his own blood. It wasn't quite her voice, but echoed with other voices. It reminded him of his own Avatar's voice. He could feel his pulse thumbing in his wrist against Katara's beads. Glancing at them, they glowed in his vision unexpectedly. "I have always believed in you."
He could feel her energy vibrating inside of him, giving him new strength and courage. He screamed into the darkening sky, a sound full of rage and desperation, and pushed out even harder. Aang could feel muscles throughout his body tearing from the exertion. His heart and lungs pounding against the lack of oxygen. There was the hint of the waning half moon glinting though the thinning smog. The air *was* clearing. He could see the edges of the valley's mountainous walls many miles off in each direction. The scorch lines left in the earth from the underground burning streams of fuel were becoming evident from his vantage point. They flowed out in every direction like a river of death breaking into countless tributaries.
With the last ounce of strength he had left, Aang threw himself to the mercy of the whirlwinds he had created, willing the last of the smog out of the valley to disperse across the rest of the atmosphere. He would never be rid of the pollution, but it could be diluted across the globe now, instead of trapped. The world at large would be able to take care of it now.
The Avatar rode the dwindling air currents smoothly to the earth and collapsed beneath his newly returned weight. He could feel the abuse that he had put on his body. The intense bending had taken its toll on him. Everything hurt so badly. He didn't know if he could stand. He was starting to lose consciousness. He fell completely prostrate to the ground. With what little strength he had left he brought the beads on the inside of his wrist to his lips.
"I did it, Genjin," he whispered to them. "I healed the valley."
"No you didn't, Avatar." The cruel raspy voice was inside his head.
Aang's heavy eyes shot open as he strained to focus. He was terrified in a way he had never truly been before. He couldn't even sit up. He couldn't defend himself if he had tried. The hairy, spindly, creaking legs of the Butterfly clicked on the hard ground nearby. The rage had diminished, but Aang could still feel the spirit's malice. He lowered his bulbous head down toward Aang's, the long proboscis curling in and out. He could see his own shattered and distorted image reflected in the huge multifaceted eye. He shuddered when he felt the shortened antennae that Katara had sliced off twitching as is touched the tip of his arrow.
Suddenly he could see Katara. She was held in stasis, disconnected from the world. From the Mortal World, from the Spirit World. She was floating in the void of the space between. The universe was laid out beyond her into infinity. It was the void he remembered walking though when he finally unlocked the mysteries of the Avatar Spirit. The everything and the nothing at once. She was so perfect and beautiful and ethereal. He could sense her life force strong and pulsing. Whole.
The Butterfly's antenna broke contact with Aang's forehead and the vision disappeared.
"Give her back, please, I'm begging you." Aang had no more tears left to cry, his voice was a hoarse whisper.
"No," The Butterfly hissed. "Although I am impressed with the work you have done and pleased with the souls you laid to rest, my valley is still barren. You saw that your precious Genjin is unharmed. I will see to it that she will stay perfect as she is right now, forever if need be. I will keep her until my valley is healed how I see fit. Not when you see fit."
The Air Spirit's four black and red wings beat slowly, pushing his articulated body into the clear star dotted heavens.
It would have been a wondrously beautiful sight, but to Aang, there was no more beauty in the world. He reached into his robe and pulled out the bison whistle. With his last ounce of strength he blew into it long and hard before he lost his grip on reality and surrendered to his exhaustion and despair.
Not yet. He can't have her back… yet… I thought about finishing the 'Air' section of their Spirit Moon journey, but I feel like this is a good spot to end this chapter and hopefully leave my readers wanting and waiting for more.
I want to have them deal with several spirits and human-created disasters through this journey. The burning valley is actually a real thing in Centralia, Pennsylvania, USA. Underground mines were accidentally ignited in 1962. The entire town is gone, burnt away and filled with toxic gases. And it's still burning to this day...
Thanks for reading! My reviewers keep me writing. I love you folks! What do you like, what don't you like, what are you hoping for?