Hey, look, I'm updating. Less than a week this time. This chapter was also pretty short, though. It's actually the second shortest chapter thus far, at just under 2200 words (about 7 pages). I'm finding that mission-based chapters are significantly longer than the rest of my chapters (5,000-10,000 words vs 2,000-3,000 words), which means that after this chapter I will have two more short chapters that I can (probably) publish quickly, and then three long chapters that will also take longer to publish.

I want to formally address my OC Min's huge OP-ness, because I think it is really becoming an issue. This chapter actually helps a little with that and also aggravates it more. I have a tendency of making my characters super powerful, but also with potent character flaws that can have serious adverse effects on them. This chapter shows just how well Min fits into that trend, because it emphasizes both how dangerous Min's abilities can be to herself and just how amazingly powerful they really are. In the future, I will try to tone down Min's power-levels in combat. That doesn't mean I'm nerfing her, though, but that in the majority of the combat situations that Min finds herself from here on out she won't utilize her full strength because she now knows just how dangerous that can be for her. A select few high level encounters may still require her to exert herself fully.

Also, I want to let you guys know in advance that I will be changing my pen name soon, from WoTee129 to BlackInfinityEE129. That will happen sometime around when I publish the next chapter, so probably/hopefully about a week. Fun fact, "BlackInfinityEE" is an amalgamation of parts of each of the titles of the three biggest literary works that I will (eventually) write and publish. "129" is my numerical signature.

tl;dr- I'm nerfing Min but not really, and soon searching WoTee129 won't yield any results.

Blackness surrounded me. I stood in a void, devoid of all shapes and all colors save for an impenetrable darkness. Perhaps this should have alarmed me, but it didn't. I merely stood as I was, serene and at peace with my foreboding environment. I felt that I was waiting for something, that I must wait a little more for… something? Someone? Yes, I was waiting for someone. They would be here soon.

I did not move, nor did I get the sense that my surroundings moved, but suddenly in front of me where they hadn't been before, eight strangely dressed youths materialized. Conner, M'gann, Artemis, Wally, Robin (I still didn't know his real name), Zatanna, Raquel… and Kaldur, standing at the front of them all, staring directly at me, all of them staring directly at me. I smiled, and started to walk towards them. I tried to walk towards them. I tried to move my feet at all but they wouldn't move, they just wouldn't respond. I stretched out my hand towards the Team, towards my friends, but they were too far away. The Team also stood there, not one of them moving towards me, but suddenly they were waving. They stood there and just waved, eight hands moving side to side robotically. I waved back, a huge smile breaking across my face, but they weren't smiling back. None of them were smiling, or frowning, or producing any sort of emotional expression whatsoever. All eight stared at me with blank faces and blank eyes that seemed to stare through me as much as at me. Kaldur stared through me, his eyes unfeeling and unrecognizing, his hand deadpanning across his body without so much as a flicker of emotion behind it.

And then I realized, they weren't waving hello. The Team was waving goodbye. They were saying goodbye, and they weren't particularly sad to see me go, or happy for that matter. They just didn't care. Kaldur didn't care. "No!" I tried to cry, but my mouth was as unresponsive as my legs. All I could do was continue to wave stupidly, and the Team continued to wave with an increasingly bored air. I felt a tear role down my cheek as they began to dwindle into the distance. No, it was I who was moving now, away from them, my friends who no longer thought of me so, I was moving away from them and they just stood there waving. Tears flowed freely down my face. I focused on Aqualad's face as a long as I could, tried to memorize every detail of his image for as long as could, but soon he had disappeared. I strained my eyes, squinted through my tears, but he was gone.

They were gone.

000000000

I awoke with a start, feeling as though I had just been having a particularly strong dream, the kind of dream that you feel you should remember but that slips away from you too rapidly for you to grab hold of. Indeed, details were already fading from my mind. I remembered… waving?... feet? It didn't make any sense, but soon it was gone entirely, leaving me only with a vague sense of unease. And sadness.

Why was I-

"You have to stop doing this to yourself."

I looked to the source of the calm, soothing voice and found Kaldur sitting beside my bed. For some reason, relief surged within me when I saw him there, but I could not comprehend why.

"Stop doing-" I couldn't finish the question. My voice was so weak that it was barely audible. I tried to clear my throat, to give my voice more strength, but I found I had no strength to give. My entire body was a limp sack of flesh. I was so weak that I couldn't even lift my arms to wipe the sticky sleep out of my eyes.

"How… long?" I managed to croak.

"Do not try to speak," Kaldur said gently. He got up from his chair besides my bed, bringing out a needle and pushing it into a clear, plastic tube. I followed the path of the tube with my eyes to my hand and found it to be secured there with white medical tape. "You need more rest."

"No…" I whispered. "No more… sleep…"

Blackness overtook me once more.

0000000000

I awoke for a second time to find Kaldur still at my bedside. He looked up at me as I groaned softly. Everything hurt.

"You have to stop doing this to yourself."

"Ughhh…" I replied, more in response to my body aching than his words. "You said that already." My voice was hoarse, and my throat felt as though steel wool had been shoved down it, but I could at least form words.

"Here, drink this," Kaldur said, holding a straw to my lips. I drank eagerly, but he took it away again after only a few sips, producing another groan from me. "This time was the worst."

"What… what do you mean?" I asked hazily.

"You are killing yourself Min," he replied sharply, all hints of soothing gone from his voice. For that matter, he didn't sound all that calm either. "You very nearly did kill yourself this time. This time was the worst by far, worse than in the cell, than in the Antarctic, worse than when you go off by yourself. You have to stop doing this to yourself, because one day you really will kill yourself."

He was right, of course. I couldn't deny anything that he had said, but he still didn't understand.

"Do you know what happens when the Avatar dies?" I asked him quietly. I knew he didn't know the answer, but I still had to ask.

He blinked. "No…" he replied slowly, warily.

"She is reborn as a child of the next element in the cycle. Fire, Air, Water, Earth. The next Avatar will be an Airbender."

"Min-" he began to say sharply, but I cut him off.

"My life doesn't matter. Only my role matters. The Avatar keeps balance in the world. If I need to die in order to fulfill that role, then so be it. The Avatar will be reborn again."

"I can understand that, Min," Kaldur said softly, but with an undertone that neared panic. "Everyone here can understand that, but you cannot just through away your life, and especially not here. This is not your world. If you die here, you will not be keeping balance in your world, you will be abandoning your world. Who knows if the Avatar would be reborn again if she dies in another dimension? And furthermore," he said, his voice rising in volume as well as heat, "you cannot throw down your life for every small time villain you come across. Sometimes it is just not worth it."

"You said he nearly destroyed the world once," I said almost sullenly. He was right, though, about everything. I hadn't even considered that this other… what had he called it? Dimension? might actually interfere with Avatar cycle should I die in it. Could it be possible? I had no idea. I still had no idea how any of this was possible, so it could potentially have far reaching implications that I hadn't even considered. What's more, my world needed me. Not some baby Airbender, me, Avatar Min, because a civil war was brewing that could disrupt thousands of years of balance and it needed a fully realized, fully rational Avatar to hold it at bay. I shuddered to think what would happen if I couldn't return in time, or if I died before I resolved that conflict.

So yes, Kaldur was right. I knew that I had to be more careful, that I had to take better care of myself. I knew it, but I also knew that were I to again be in such a situation as I was just in, that no matter how careful I told myself to tread I may very well end up making the same choices and actions. That was just who I was: an ultra-rational person who under extreme stress became so focused on her current objective that she ignored all risks and consequences.

Trying to divert the conversation, I asked, "So what happened to Red Volcano anyway?" I was sure I had beaten it, but my memory was foggy on the details, as it was after I overexerted myself too far. I remembered a blinding light and a searing heat unlike anything I had ever experienced before, and I was sure that I was the one who was creating it. So I had Firebended the hottest Fire I could at it… to melt it? What had given me that idea? Oh, yeah. Lava. Right.

In an exceedingly rare show of humor, Kaldur chuckled softly. "To say that Red Volcano has been rendered inoperable would be understatement. He was made of a titanium alloy reinforced by nanites—that is microscopic machines—and the specialists at Star Labs who analyzed his remains estimated that his melting point was around 1,800°C, nearly twice the temperature of the lava that melted him the first time. Min, that is nearly a third of the surface temperature of the sun. And the fire that he was exposed to was at least 200° hotter than that. Star Labs wants to know who did it."

I laughed too, then immediately groaned as the ache in my sides redoubled. Still, I couldn't help but feel impressed with myself. I had never pushed myself that far, but now I knew that I could create temperatures that were over a third of the surface temperature of the sun! Their sun, at least. Not to mention that I could withstand such temperatures. Did that mean that lava would feel like dip in a hot bath to me? Somehow I didn't think that it would work like that. I was pretty sure that something involved in submerging in molten rock would kill me.

"Tell them that it was the Avatar," I said, half joking, but Kaldur's face immediately became impassive once more. No, it was worse than merely expressionless, his face became like stone: cold and hard. "Is that your hero identity?" he asked softly.

I shrugged. "If you that's what you want to call it. But not just "Avatar" like your names. "The Avatar" is a title, not a name." I watched Kaldur carefully. Something was amiss with him, but I didn't know what it could be. He was too… stiff. Something bubbled up in my memory, a phrase that I found myself too often saying: I hope Kaldur won't be too disappointed in me.

"What is it?" I asked warily, after a few seconds of silence between us.

"Do you remember what I asked of you before the mission?" His voice was absolutely flat.

"No…" I replied slowly.

"I instructed you to remain out of sight of any cameras or recording devices. And now your face has been displayed on the nightly news every day for the past week."

"What?" I asked. That long? "How?"

"You went off mission," he said coldly. "The hostages were the priority, but you engaged the enemy without backup and brought yourself directly in front of the press. You endangered the lives of civilians and your own life."

"That's not fair-"

"I am suspending you from the Team, perhaps indefinitely."

"What?!" I cried, trying to sit up and straining my already aching muscles. Kaldur was on his feet in an instant, his hand gentle on my shoulder even as he stared sternly down at me. "That's not fair and you know it! I had no choice in engaging Red Volcano. He was hurting Superboy! And if I had stayed in that cramped little hallway, Red Volcano would have killed me! As for the Fire, well, it seemed like I had no choice at the time. I don't think as clearly when I'm under that much stress." I gritted my teeth. That last bit wouldn't help my case.

"I stand by my decision," Kaldur said quietly.

I couldn't believe it. Kaldur didn't think I was worthy of the Team. He didn't want me on his Team. Suddenly I was fighting back tears. The thought of him not wanting me with him, even if it was just on missions, hurt me more deeply than I would have expected. I didn't even know why I was so hurt, but something very close to panic was gnawing at the pit of my stomach.

"I think you should leave," I said softly, just barely keeping my voice from quivering. Immediately I wanted to take the words back, to beg him to stay, to let me back on the Team, anything to keep him from leaving me. But I didn't say anything else. I sat there, staring straight in front of me, fighting to keep from bursting into tears. I didn't look at Kaldur as his hand disappeared from my shoulder and he left without another word. I managed to keep my face straight until the door swung closed behind him. Then small, soft sobs broke forth from my broken heart.