AN: Okay so short chapter but that's mainly because there's a load of talking and I just wanted to power through it, especially because the next chapter will be the penultimate instalment. I've had an absolute blast with this and I'm so grateful for all the feedback and traffic (especially because this was an idea I had when I was drunk when I was a friend but ssshh).
The Lost City of the South
Chapter 11 - The Legend of Aang
It was over, the bridge was destroyed, blown up in a spectacular fiery explosion as soon as Zaheer, and the cargo was on the other side and safely away. They were stranded and therefore dying due to Raava, and Korra, being in his ape like hands and Asami still blamed herself; she blamed herself even more as she entered the throne room again at Suyin's behest. She remembered in all of it, Tonraq had a hole in his lower abdomen from the gun. She sprinted to the throne where she had set him up with a fluid bag and a dose of morphine just to keep the pain from overwhelming him; he was peacefully high yet certainly cognitive.
She reached Suyin and placed her limp hand on the matriarch's shoulder. She had done her best but without a hospital or the medical equipment she needed, the King was leaving this world more by each passing second.
"How's he doing?" Asami asked, guilty and concerned however she knew the diagnosis and knew it was only a matter of time now until he was gone just like his daughter; she felt like it was all her fault for leading the wolves to his doors. Suyin looked at Asami with tears in her eyes. She had had patients die on her before, it came with the responsibility of being a medic after a doctor but the King was just getting to her, how she knew how to save him but was completely helpless to do so.
"There's no use Asami. There's internal bleeding in there and he's too far gone" she reported, biting back the tears in her eyes. Asami brought her in for a hug and patted her back. She was trying her best to make her feel less of a complete failure. Suyin saw her family at the doors and ran to join them for more consolation while Asami took a knee before the King.
He tried to move slowly, seeing Asami come near him and he coughed, a small splatter of red coming to his lips. He could hardly edge out the words but he was determined to say what he had to say, he knew he was dying and there was not much time left at all.
"Where's my daughter?" He wheezed before Asami as she took to the floor in a bow, suddenly beaten and overcome by the guilt. Tears began to form in her eyes. How could she tell him? How could she tell the King that because of her, his daughter and the Spirit Raava that was keeping the entire city alive was heading to the surface in the clutches of a madman?
"Sh… She's" the tears were too much. Asami broke down before him, the droplets of salty solution falling to the humid stone floor while Tonraq continued to cough before her. He knew what she was trying to say.
He took a long breath, filling his dying body enough to get the story out; it would be his least act and he needed to get it out now before it was too late. It would be the only way he could help in saving his only daughter.
"She has been chosen," he coughed, taking Asami's attention while she tried wiping her eyes. He took her gentle and young hand in between his wrinkled and aged palms. "Like Avatar Aang before her."
Spirits. The Avatar! Asami couldn't believe it. She could and she couldn't all at once. It all made sense; that's how she could bend all of the elements while the rest of the Southerners could only bend water. Legends older than the city told of the deity the Avatar was. A being chosen by divinity to be able to utilise all four elements at once. He was said to be a god. Asami suddenly knew everything, the whole nine yards; how Korra could bend everything, how she thought of it as nothing, how the man she saw was the previous Avatar and why she had to be one to carry Raava inside her.
"She doesn't know she's the Avatar does she sir?"
Tonraq shook his head, tears coming from his near blind eyes. "I could never tell her, not while our city was on the verge of fading away. She would attempt to reach the surface if she knew the power she could possess" he confessed, a layer of something in his throat as he began to weep to the young archaeologist.
"It was three thousand years ago, at the time of the great flood when Raava least chose the Avatar to sacrifice himself to save the city. It was Avatar Aang, an airbender who was visiting from the temples; the spirit herself always remained here, perhaps that was why the rest of the spirits saw fit to annihilate our great empire.
"In times of great danger, Raava would always call the Avatar to her, to join with her in an effort to protect her. In our time she felt threatened of the world… And threatened of myself" he told her, drawing more fleeting and harsh breaths. He was definitely dying and he knew it more and more as he told the story.
Asami was no longer crying, but holding on to Tonraq's withered hands endearingly, making sure he was comfortable. "So you mean, Raava controls the Avatar? The Legend always said that the two were a team" Asami countered, confused and betrayed by history. It was a telltale sign that the age was so different down in the city.
Tonraq drew in another husky breath. "Raava thrives off of the emotion of all of those around her. Feelings of darkness only neuters and disrupts her. That's why the spirits destroyed the South; because of me. I didn't fully understand Raava as a being." He held off, shame and self loathing coming to surround the old man as he began to weep again. "In my arrogance, I intended to use Raava as a weapon against our brothers in the North, against my brother Unalaq."
She could really see it in the expression of his face; Tonraq was truly ashamed of his actions. Not only had they cost the lives of so many he couldn't know thousands of years ago, but now it was costing him the least of his family.
"That's why you hid it under the city after the calamity," Asami figured out. "You wanted to prevent anyone else from abusing her" she deduced, clutching at his hand as he wheezed.
He took another precious breath, keeping the tears at bay and himself composed. "And to ensure that Korra never suffered as Aang suffered… Or my beloved wife Senna." He looked pained, heartbroken at the mention of his wife's name and then Asami remembered Korra recalling the tale. She had been left outside the city as Avatar Aang saved the rest; both Korra and Tonraq had to watch as she died with those who didn't make it.
Now Asami was wondering something else. What actually happened the Avatar Aang after he saved the South and after Raava was finished with him. The way Korra and everyone else was talking about the man with the arrow tattoos made her think he just died, maybe there was more to it.
"What happened the Aang sir?" She was suddenly worried, her breaths beginning to tremble. She dared to think about what was going to happen to Korra. It had only been a day and yet she knew her life would never be the same again without the southern beauty. "What's going to happen to Korra?" She asked him, shuffling a little on her knees and trying not to cry with tightening her grip on his skeletal hands; they were growing very cold.
"If she remains bonded to Raava for long enough she will be forever lost to her, just as Aang was." The words were so definite and final, and as Asami thought about it, it was sounding more for sure with her in the hands of Zaheer and on her way to the surface to ruin the world. Tonraq moved his hands from Asami's and took the string of the crystal around his neck, sealing his fate by handing it to the woman kneeling before him.
He gave her the crystal, both of them looking closely into the swirl of the luminous water inside it. "The love of my daughter, is the only thing I have left. My burden would have fallen to her," he coughed and wheezed, feeling the cold chill wash over him like a cruel wave. He placed the crystal into her smooth palms and closed her fingers over it with his hand. "But now it falls to you Asami Sato.
"Rescue and return Raava. Save the South," he took his final breath. "Save my daughter."
Asami looked into his eyes as they closed for the final time and he exhaled the life out of himself. The King was dead.
The guards bowed before him as Asami wiped her tears from her eyes and looked into the water of the crystal. She had an idea but she was wary; doubting if it could even be done. She had to do something, anything to stop Zaheer and now, she had the least wish of the King on her shoulders. She was not going to sit around and wait to die, even if it meant charging to her death.
Alright Sato, make your damn choice.
Suyin was back up collecting her bag and tools, her tears cried already now she was looking at how Asami was thinking. She knew exactly what the young woman was thinking and she was already on board but she could see the conflict in her eyes passed her dirty glasses.
"So what's it gonna be Sato?"
Asami popped back into reality from her state of limbo to see Suyin's lime green eyes looking at her compassionately. She didn't want to do it, she didn't want Suyin or Opal or anyone else to go with her either. She hummed in retort, looking absent still as the doctor stood over her with the bag in her hand.
She smiled, gesturing to the door and the throne as the guards saw to their King. "I followed you in. I'll follow you out" Suyin stated, simply and plump with her mothering smile. "It's your decision sweetie." Why does she have to be so nice?
The strings snapped, she wanted to rip her head off because of how nice she was being even though Asami was feeling so terribly about herself. She picked up the Account from the floor and tucked the crystal into her slacks pocket briefly to wipe her filthy glasses on her equally filthy tank top, raggedy and stretched from all the stress; she had been wearing it for the best part of four days now and it was beginning to stink a little.
"Oh really my decision? Well, I think we've seen how effective my decisions have been," she began with a certain brand of self hating bile in her tones. "Let's recap;
"I lead a band of plundering vandals to the greatest archaeological find of all time, thus enabling the kidnap and/or murder of the royal family and not to mention personally delivering the most powerful power and weapon source known to man into the hands of mercenary nutcase who's probably going to sell it to the Fire Lord!" Asami yelled at her, her glasses trying to escape from her face as she grimaced and made her mouth almost three times larger than normal, her face so animated in her self directed anger. She glared at Suyin intensely. "Have I left anything out?!"
She cocked her head to the side, thinking for a split second without laughing at how over exaggerated Asami was making herself. "Well you did set the camp on fire and dropped us down that big hole."
"Thank you!" Asami sighed, exhaling absolutely everything from her bones and starting to walk out the throne room. "Thank you very much" she breathed, somewhat defeated but beginning to relent.
Su shot her a compassionate glance with her matriarchal smile and an apologetic hand on Asami's flat shoulder. "Of course, in my experience, when you hit rock bottom, the only way left to go is up" she told her before walking ahead to join her mother and daughter.
Asami had made her decision.
"Who told you that Suyin?" She asked, forcing the doctor to look back with eyes of care.
Suyin smiled and looked up, knowing what Asami was about to do and she was with her the entire way, like a soldier with her commander into battle. "A fellow by the name of Hiroshi Sato."
Asmai stormed off through the large doors and into the courtyard, knowing exactly where she would need to go; the place in the clearing where Korra took her yesterday near the large tree with the walls covered in the overgrowth. It was the only plan she had and it was reckless and idiotic, surely to result in her sacrificing herself for nothing, but it was the only thing she could do to even remotely change things. She was going to take a vehicle, one of the flying machines, into the volcano and steal back Korra before it was too late; how she would separate her from Raava was something that hadn't crossed her mind yet.
Opal was walking with her, concerned at how angered and yet determined Asami was with both her fists clenched the tightest she had ever formed a fist. She looked like a true friend, fully back from her cloud of selfishness that had controlled her before. P'Li and Bolin were back too, model teammates and comrades now, a true team.
"What are you going to do?" Opal asked her as the group reached the courtyard, a crowd of Southern men and woman gathering around because word was already spreading about the King and what he had instructed Asami to do.
Her teeth were mildly gritted and she was tense all over. "I'm going after Zaheer" she stated, reaching one of the fish themed hovercraft and wiping the overgrowth from the control panel. "And I'm not saying it's the smart thing to do, but it is the right thing to do" she told Opal who was about to make her stay.
She inserted the crystal into the slot and saw the crowd of southerners and the rest of the group observe as she made the flying fish spring to life. She got into the cockpit of the tuna styled fish and hovered over the crowd.
"Half-turn right, quarter-turn back and keep your hands on the control panel" she dictated to the crowd and they all leaped into action, everyone finding a vehicle and operating them into life with the team all commandeering their own. P'Li took a lumpy and study fish while Opal piled into another tuna styled with her mother. Bumi had his shotgun out and hoisted Mrs Beifong onto one with him, her withered hands holding a camera although Asami had no idea how she could what she would be snapping.
"Saddle up partners, someone get me some jerky and ammo" he called to one of the southerners.
Bolin was straddling a larger fish and getting the same brand of giddy as he was upon entering the city yesterday. "I'm so excited" she heard him breathe again.
She raised her fist as her legion of attack fish hovered into the air gathering in attack formation like a fighter squadron. This was going to be tough and people were probably going to die; possibly her included. She had to though. To save the South and above all to save Princess Korra.
"Alright! This is it. We're going to rescue the Princess. We're going to save the South, or we're going to die trying, now let's do it!" She roared into the sky before pulling forward on the controls and leading the charge of fish away from the city and across the lava moat towards the volcano, and towards Zaheer.
The lackeys pulled the trigger on the massive canon in the base of the volcano, launching a huge blast of flame upwards and into the rafters of the mountain. The top was blown away and revealed a spotlight onto the madman with the massive gun, standing over his operation with the biggest grin on his face. He held out his hands and breathed in a healthy breath of victory.
"I love it when I win."