A/N: This chapter was not part of my original plans when I started writing stuff taking place between seasons. Back then I was really expecting Book Two to have started airing by now.
Chapter 14: Version 2.0
Inside an office at City Hall, General Iroh was busy reading and signing many different documents and forms. All of them were involved with running Republic City, though the reason why the city needed so much paperwork eluded him. A new city council couldn't form soon enough for Iroh, so that he could dump the work on them and get out of government. Running a city also made Iroh wish there were more people between him and the Fire Lord in the line of succession, so that he might avoid running an entire nation in the future.
The office door opened and the current chief of police walked inside, and Saikhan carried a whole new stack of papers to Iroh's desk. "More requisition forms for you, sir."
"More?" Iroh complained. When Saikhan set down the papers Iroh grabbed the one on top and read it, frowning at what he read on it. "Why do you need a form for police tea purchases?"
"For ration allotments," Saikhan answered.
Iroh sighed and signed the form anyway, figuring that it was a waste of time to debate the absurdity of paperwork for trivial matters. "Here," Iroh said, handing the form back to Saikhan.
"Thank you sir," Saikhan said, taking the form along with a stack of completed paperwork. Saikhan turned around and walked out of the office, closing the door behind him.
Another sigh and Iroh got started with the new paperwork, wishing for anything else to happen right now. He heard the door open again but didn't bother looking up to see who was entering. "What now?"
"I need your help."
The voice of the former chief of police made Iroh look up, seeing Lin Bei Fong wearing a trench coat instead of her police uniform. "Oh thank Agni," Iroh said, standing up behind the desk. "Please tell me you're here for your old job back."
"No such luck," Lin answered. "There's something going down that I can't handle alone."
"Call the Avengers," Iroh insisted, getting back to signing paperwork.
"I tried," Lin said. She held up one finger for each member as she listed them off. "Mako's recovering from a hangover, Asami's nursing that hangover, Tahno's somewhere with the military, Shran's out of the city, Bolin's in the Earth Kingdom, and Korra's… no one knows where Korra is."
"Point taken," Iroh said. He pushed the paperwork to one side of the desk and gave Lin his full attention. "What's going on?"
"People are going missing," Lin answered. She reached into her coat and took out a thin folder, handing it over to Iroh.
Iroh opened the folder and quickly read through a report inside, seeing a list of several dozen names. "Is there any connection between these people?"
"Only one," Lin answered. "They're all Amon's victims."
"Haven't those people suffered enough?" Iroh said.
"Apparently not," Lin said. "Someone's specifically targeting them, and it has to stop."
A second was all Iroh needed to make a decision. He picked up the phone on the phone on the desk and waited for the other end to pick up. "Operator, put me through to front desk." Iroh waited as the phone line operator connected his call. "Hello, Mishu, reschedule all of my meetings for the next few days, thank you."
"So you're going to help?" Lin asked.
After hanging up the phone Iroh walked around the desk. "Of course I'll help," Iroh said. He walked over to a trunk in the corner and kicked a latch to unlock it, then used his foot to lift open a lid and reveal a disassembled suit of metal armor inside. "I've been looking for an excuse to use this again."
That evening a single, lonely man walked down the streets of the Dragon Flats Burrow, one of the more rundown districts of Republic City. He was a Water Tribe man with short brown hair and a tiny goatee, wearing an old blue suit that was torn and ragged from wearing it on the streets. Reduced to living on the streets after losing his waterbending, this former member of the Triple Threat Triad barely had any of the reputation that once belonged to Shady Shin.
As the sky reddened in the setting sun the streets darkened in the shadows of tall buildings, making the burrow appear rather ominous. Even though it was getting harder to see in the darkening streets, the lamps lining the street still didn't turn on. Shin knew that the lights would only turn on when the sun was fully set, it was the power plant owner's excuse to conserve electricity and save money. That left a few minutes of near complete darkness in the streets, perfect for anyone wanting to make an ambush.
Shin was about to turn at a corner when the streets were at their darkest, and three masked men ambushed him there. Shin grabbed one of them by the arm and swung him into a streetlamp, head slamming against the metal pole. But the other two masked men got behind Shin and grabbed his arms, twisting them behind his back. The one that Shin had struck got back on his feet and took out a black hood, forcing it over Shin's head before punching Shin's gut. All three masked men forced Shin further down the street where a satomobile was waiting, and when they reached it Shin was tied up and shoved into the trunk.
Meanwhile, several blocks behind where the ambush happened, Lin was watching from behind a closed newspaper stand. "They took the bait," she whispered to herself.
One of the masked men took the driver's seat and started the engine, and when the others got inside the satomobile drove off. A few blocks behind it Lin got on a motorcycle and started it, but made sure that its headlight stayed off. Lin followed the satomobile while staying several car lengths behind, trying to remain hidden from it in the dark. Not helping that was the streetlamps turning on when they sky was fully black, revealing every vehicle on the streets like they were meant to do.
Following the satomobile took Lin to Republic City's industrial district, passing by several factories that were shut down for the night. The people inside the satomobile either didn't notice the motorcycle behind them or simply didn't care. The satomobile drove behind one factory owned by Cabbage Corp and entered a parking lot, coming to a stop next to several other satomobiles parked there. Lin drove past the factory parking lot instead of stopping right away, making it appear that she was heading somewhere else.
Half a dozen blocks from the factory Lin parked her motorcycle, right next to a warehouse adjacent to a Sato Industries factory. After pocketing the motorcycle's key Lin walked over to a ladder bolted to the warehouse's wall and started climbing, reaching the roof and then standing on it. Lin pulled out a flare and lit it with a spark rock, and she threw the flare in the direction away from the Cabbage Corp factory. At the edge of the roof the flare sent a signal to anyone in the air, but the warehouse itself hid the signal from the people in the parking lot.
Rather than wait for the signal to reach its recipient, Lin climbed back down the ladder and walked the few blocks to the Cabbage Corp factory. There was no time to waste, as the kidnappers had a head start after Lin's small detour. When she reached the factory Lin saw that the satomobile was still in the parking lot, telling her that the kidnappers were still inside the building. Figuring that the entrance the kidnappers used was going to be guarded Lin went to a door on another side, and took a lockpick out of her pocket.
"This used to be so much easier," Lin complained, trying to pick a lock when she used to metalbend her way through locked doors. It took her a few minutes to pick the lock in the door handle, and when she finished the door opened with only a slight creaking sound.
On the other side of the door was a staircase leading upward, and Lin climbed to a higher floor and walked through another door. Past that door was a metal catwalk with railings above a wide factory floor, where Lin could see a dozen assembly lines for Cabbage Corp products. Looking down Lin saw various car parts in different stages of assembly along the lines, an attempt by the company to muscle in on the satomobile market. And in between the assembly lines were the thugs that kidnapped Shady Shin, along with two dozen more thugs and nine more abductees that were kept on their knees with hoods covering their heads.
At one end of the factory was a set of large double doors, which had a pair of thugs standing guard. Knocks on the other side alerted the guards, prompting one of them to address the others guarding the abductees. "Next."
The thugs forced a middle aged man onto his feet, though the man's hands were bound behind his back by metal chains. He was escorted by three of the thugs to the large double doors, where the two guards pushed the man through but did not follow. None of the thugs knew what was about to happen to him or any of the other abductees, just that the guy that wanted them paid them in cash before and after their jobs were done.
Among the other abductees Shady Shin struggled against his restraints, despite being unable to see while the black hood covered his head. "Would someone please tell me what you people want?"
"Only the boss knows why," one thug answered.
There was another knock behind the large double doors. "Next."
The thug that had answered Shin grabbed him and forced Shin onto his feet. "Looks like you get to find out," the thug said.
While the thugs were escorting Shin to the double doors Lin looked up at the ceiling, which had several rows of skylights for cheap illumination during the day. Right now only black sky could be seen through it, as the stars were drowned out by the city's light. "Come on… where are you?" Lin whispered.
As if on cue, a plume of flame shot across the sky, prompting the thugs to look up and guess what caused it. The plume disappeared as the source moved on, but the few seconds of bright light was enough to draw the thugs' attention upward. One thug spotted Lin on the catwalk, and pointed at her for the others to find as well. "Get her!"
"Aw crap," Lin muttered.
Half of the thugs moved away from the abductees and towards several ladders spread along the catwalk, hurrying to climb them and intercept the intruder. Lin rushed to the nearest ladder and arrived just as one thug was about to reach the top, and then she kicked him in the face. The blow knocked the thug off the ladder and bumped off another one, sending both falling to the factory floor. That ladder was quickly abandoned by the thugs still at the bottom, scattering to other ladders where Lin couldn't get to all of them at once.
Further down the catwalk on Lin's left one thug climbed onto the top, where he then ran towards Lin while brandishing a crowbar in both hands. When the thug swung the crowbar Lin ducked underneath it, and then she grabbed and twisted the thugs arm to make him drop the crowbar. Before it could hit the catwalk Lin grabbed the crowbar and swung it up into the thug's jaw, hearing something crack while the thug stumbled back from the blow. A kick knocked the thug back even further, right into another one that had just climbed onto the catwalk.
More thugs approached from the other end of the catwalk, moving in single file between the railings. Lin threw the crowbar with all the force her arm could muster, hitting the lead thug in the face and knocking him back into the thug behind him. The next thug had to carefully step over the fallen one to avoid tripping, but that delay was enough for Lin to rush in and punch him in the face. A second body fell on top of the first and obstructed the catwalk, making the thugs behind hesitate instead of trampling over the fallen.
On the factory floor one thug climbed into an incomplete car, one that had yet to receive a set of doors and windows. But it had an engine and wheels assembled onto a car frame, enough to start the vehicle and ram it into the catwalk's support struts beneath Lin. Crashing the incomplete car broke the struts and made the catwalk buckle and gradually collapse, metal screeching as it pulled apart while falling. The thugs still on the catwalk held onto the railings for dear life, while the unconscious ones fell off to their demise.
At first Lin held onto the railings as well, until her part of the catwalk was about to fall onto a stack of car doors. Before the falling catwalk hit the stack Lin jumped off, missing the stack and reaching open floor next to it. She rolled when she hit the floor, surviving the fall with only a few bruises on her arms and legs. But then Lin found herself surrounded by thugs that had stayed on the factory floor, a dozen of them cutting off every possible escape route.
"Nowhere to run miss," one thug said.
"Wasn't trying to," Lin said. She looked up at the dark skylights, just in time to see some of them shatter.
Bursting through the skylights was the arrival of General Iroh in his suit of armor, flying on pillars of flame from his hands and feet. He aimed them at the floor to slow his descent, and stopped firebending altogether when he was still two stories high. Iroh dropped down the rest of the way and landed next to Lin, allowing everyone to see the armor he wore. It was much bulkier than the last time he used it in battle, making him appear to be a larger person while hiding weapons underneath the metal.
"Sorry I'm late," Iroh apologized to Lin. "I'm still getting the hang of flight."
"At least you showed up," Lin said.
Most of the thugs around them were speechless at the sudden entrance, except for one. "Iron Man!"
"Wrong," Iroh said. He raised his hands and aimed them at two of the thugs. "But you can call me… War Machine!"
Iroh punctuated the introduction with twin fireblasts from his hands, amplified by chi enhancers into large waves of fire that struck down two thugs. Then he swung his arms in a circle to start bending lightning, but stopped at the first step and bent a tiny charge through his palms. The chi enhancers amplified the tiny charge into full sized bolts of lightning, firing them from his palms and hitting two more thugs. The remaining thugs dove for cover behind incomplete cars and piles of spare parts, obtaining some protection from fire and lightning.
While Iroh kept the thugs attention on him Lin slipped away from the battle, hurrying to the abductees still on their knees with hands tied behind their backs. She pulled out a small knife as she approached the closest abductee, cutting through the bonds on a teenage girl. Once the girl was free Lin offered the knife she held, while her other hand drew another knife. "Help me with the others," Lin ordered.
The teenager nodded and accepted the offered knife, immediately getting to work cutting the bonds on another abductee. Within moments they had the remaining seven abductees free and on their feet, each pulling off the hoods covering their heads. The teenager pointed toward the double doors at the end of the factory, which were now unprotected as the guards were assisting in the fight against War Machine. "They took some of us in there."
"I'll deal with that," Lin assured the girl. "You all need to get out of here."
"No need to tell us twice," one abductee said, right before bolting for the nearest exit with the others.
Once all of the freed abductees were out of the factory Lin turned her attention back on the fight, seeing Iroh closing in on one thug and punching with an armored fist. A dozen feet away a pair of thugs lifted up a spare car door and hurled it at Iroh, leaving him with only a moment to react. Iroh reached behind his back and grabbed hold of a pair of handles sticking out of the armor, pulling on them to draw a pair of curved swords that had been hidden in the armor. He slashed both swords just before the thrown car door could hit him, slicing it into three pieces and knocking all of them away.
"I've got to thank gramps for these," Iroh muttered, putting the swords away in the back of his armor. With his armored hands he beckoned for the thugs to come at him, as well as raising his voice for a taunt. "Come on, I'll take all of you!"
Seeing that Iroh had the fight under control Lin headed straight for the double doors, as there were still Shin and the earlier abductees brought through the doors before the fight. Lin had no idea what was waiting behind those doors, just that she had to stop whatever was going on there. She barged her way through the doors and entered a storage room on the other side, which had dozens of crates stacked in the four corners.
In the middle of the room was Shin on his knees, his black hood removed but his hands were still bound behind his back. In front of Shin was a person that Lin did not recognize, as he wore red armor, a purple cape, and a red helmet that only left his face exposed. The stranger had his left hand on Shin's shoulder to hold him down, while his right hand had fingers pressed against Shin's forehead. There was a very dull humming sound coming from where the stranger's fingers met Shin's head, almost as if the source was underneath the flesh.
Lin halted at the sight she barged into, finding it eerily similar to the night she lost her bending. Horrifying was the thought of another person having the ability to take away bending, but perplexing was that the technique was being used on a person that already had his bending taken away. It appeared that Shin was having a small seizure this time around, his limps twitching violently and threatening to break themselves while bound behind his back.
When the stranger was finished he pulled his hand away, letting Shin fall onto his side. He nudged Shin with his foot, getting a weak groan from a now unconscious man. "Closer, but still not right…" he muttered.
Only then did Lin notice other abductees in the room, thirteen of them lying against the walls. None of them were conscious, most were dribbling from their mouths, and a few were clearly dead. It was like something out of her dad's old war stories, witnessing experiments gone awry on unwilling test subjects. It almost made her feel guilty for using Shin as bait to find the guy responsible, if he hadn't been a known criminal before losing his bending.
The man with the red helmet turned his attention to Lin, staring at her face for a few seconds. "I know you," he said. One hand slowly rose upward, as if grasping for a name. "Yes, I remember now. You're Lin Bei Fong."
"And you are?" Lin demanded.
"You don't remember who I am?" He paused and slightly turned to the left, pulling his hand to his chest. "No, I suppose you wouldn't. It was a long time ago."
Lin dearly wished that she could see something to identify the man under the helmet, as his face was not enough to tell who he was. "Enlighten me," Lin requested. "Who are you?"
"These days I am known as Magnus," he introduced himself.
"Well then, Magnus, you're under arrest," Lin declared.
"I think not," Magnus said. He waved one hand and in response there was a humming sound, followed by a metal chain lifting itself off the floor and hurling towards Lin.
Lin dodged the moving chain and saw it slam into a wall, wishing that she still had her metalbending to throw it right back at Magnus. But she also recognized the sound that had accompanied the attack, remembering it from the day she lost her bending. "It was you," she said. "The Equalists got me because of you!"
"Yes, and Amon took your bending," Magnus admitted. He spread both arms apart, summoning everything in the room made of metal that wasn't bolted down. Tools, barrels, car parts, nails and bolts, all that metal started floating around Magnus in harmonic circles. "Now I get the rest of you."
A spare fuel tank was hurled out of Magnus's metal arsenal, aimed straight for Lin's chest. She jumped out of the way but then saw an axel heading for her, ducking underneath it to dodge. As she avoided more metal Lin was silently glad that she had left her police uniform at home, as the metal in it would have left her at Magnus's mercy. Another leap let Lin dodge a hurled car door, but put her back against a wall and limiting her movements.
Suddenly pieces of the wall broke apart as metal rebar twisted free, warping into cables that snared Lin's wrists and ankles. "I should have seen that coming," Lin said, looking down at her predicament.
With a wave of his hand Magnus dismissed the metal he still controlled, letting it all crash onto the floor. He started taking slow steps towards Lin, raising one hand to Lin's eye level. "Let's see if you'll live through-"
A burst of flame breaking down the doors interrupted Magnus, followed by heavy footsteps approaching from the other side. Walking through the open entrance was Iroh, finished dealing with all of the thugs on the factory floor. A glance was all Iroh needed to see that Lin was in trouble, prompting him to raise and aim his armored hands at Magnus.
"Let her go!" Iroh demanded.
"A man in a metal suit," Magnus observed, finding that all too easy an opponent. He held his hand towards Iroh, towards the armor that started to hum. "You have no idea who you're dealing with."
Magnetic fields lifted Iroh off the floor, hurling him straight up into the ceiling. Then he was dragged across the ceiling into a wall, and then slid down the wall upside down into the floor. From there Iroh was thrown across the room, screaming as he slammed into a stack of crates. Iroh stood up and thrust his hands at Magnus to firebend, but his arms were yanked apart and his flames were shot into opposite walls. When the flames were burned out Iroh found himself immobilized in his armor, stuck in a position where his limbs were spread out and he was levitated a few inches off the floor.
"Okay, I'm impressed," Iroh admitted, stuck staring at Magnus. "You have some very good metalbending."
"It's far more than that," Magnus said, holding one hand towards Iroh to control the metal armor. "My power has risen beyond bending, maximized into a mastery of magnetism."
"Good to know," Iroh said.
"And I want to know who's under that helmet," Magnus said. With his other hand he reached towards Iroh's head and slowly spread his fingers apart, focusing his magnetism on Iroh's helmet at prying it apart, sending the pieces to every corner of the room. "General Iroh of the United Forces."
"A pleasure to make your acquaintance," Iroh said.
"You'd have a better chance at fighting me without that armor," Magnus said. He slightly closed his fingers, making the armor squeeze tighter until Iroh screamed in pain.
"Stop!" Lin demanded, still bound to the wall.
Magnus relaxed his magnetic grip and turned back towards Lin, reaching towards her and magnetically pulling on the metal rebar that held her. The rebar came free from the wall and carried Lin towards Magnus, stopping when she was next to him. "Now, where were we?" He asked, reaching towards Lin's forehead.
When the fingers touched her forehead Lin felt intense pain, far more than when Amon took her bending away. It seemed like her very thoughts were being scrambled, unable to think or feel anything but the pain inflicted on her brain. Incoherent impulses from her mind triggered a seizure throughout her entire body, making her limbs jerk randomly with only the metal bonds holding her still. When the pain stopped Lin instantly lost consciousness, her body going completely limp and held up by the metal bonds.
"LIN!" Iroh yelled, struggling against his magnetized armor but failing to move.
"Hmm…" Magnus muttered, observing the result of his latest test. Unlike most of his earlier test subjects Lin was still alive, but it remained to be seen if his experiment was successful. Few in Republic City knew that the human brain used electrical impulses to control the body, and that electricity could be manipulated by magnetism.
"What have you done to her?!" Iroh demanded, watching Magnus release his magnetic grip on Lin's bonds and let her drop to the floor.
"If it worked, she'll thank me," Magnus answered. He focused his attention on Iroh, now that he was only person left to deal with. "As for you, well, I have no use for a bender."
As Magnus clenched his fingers Iroh's armor began to squeeze again, threatening to crush him in it. Desperate for a way out, Iroh took in as deep a breath as he could manage. Iroh blew out a plume of fire straight at Magnus, forcing Magnus to magnetically summon a car door to use as a shield. While Magnus blocked the flames the effort made him release his grip on Iroh's armor, dropping to the floor with his mobility restored.
The instant Iroh stopped breathing fire he started the arm motions for bending lightning, trying to do it as quickly as possible. When the flames were extinguished Magnus saw what Iroh was doing, and he resumed his magnetic grip on the armor just as Iroh was about to shoot lightning. Iroh's arms were spread apart again, where they could only shoot at the walls. Instead Iroh kept the lightning internalized, hoping that it wouldn't fry his organs in the meantime.
"This is gonna hurt!" Iroh yelled, focusing the lightning into his chest.
The generator in the armor's chest began to glow brighter, overloading with electricity from another source. Lightning escaped through Iroh's chest into the generator, which made a shower of sparks fly before the lightning fired through the generator. A bolt of lightning shot straight at Magnus, hitting his improvised shield and slamming it into him. From there the lightning pushed Magnus across the room, all while electricity arced from Magnus into everything around him. The attack slammed Magnus into a wall and broke through it, revealing outdoor pavement on the other side.
When his attack was over Iroh fell onto his knees, breathing heavily while clutching at his chest. The generator for the armor was barely flickering with light, just barely functional after being overloaded. Iroh's heart was beating so hard that he thought he might be having a heart attack, but that fear slowly subsided as his heartbeat calmed. Looking forward Iroh saw that Magnus had been blasted outside the factory into the parking lot, where Magnus was on the pavement and twitching with electrical shocks.
"Yup, that hurt," Iroh muttered, slowly getting back on his feet. He started walking towards Lin, each step a painful one. When he reached her Iroh bent down and picked up Lin, grunting as he lifted the larger and limp woman. Then he turned around and walked through the doorway, stepping over the remains of the doors he's broken down earlier to reach the main factory. He kept walking until he was in the middle of the factory floor, right below the broken skylight.
Iroh kicked off the floor and firebended with his feet, taking flight and ascending through the skylight into the night sky. The intensity of Iroh's flames wavered between normal and enhanced, as the armor's chi enhancers weren't getting enough power from the damaged generator. Each time his firebending weakened Iroh fell out of the sky, and after each short fall his firebending strengthened and let him rise back upward. Iroh knew that he didn't have long before the generator would completely fail, and he had to get Lin to safety before the enhancers lose power and they would plummet to their doom.
Fortunately Iroh knew exactly where to go, and it wasn't far from the factory. A few dozen blocks away Iroh began his descent, struggling with his unstable firebending. Iroh was heading straight for a hospital, and when he reached the hospital's parking lot he was flying twenty feet above the ground. There sparks burst out of the generator and it went dark, completely burnt out and cutting off the armor's power. Iroh's bending weakened to normal and he fell towards the pavement, unable to sustain flight any longer.
Just before hitting the pavement Iroh twisted himself around, landing on his back with Lin on top of him. The armor absorbed most of the force from the impact, while Iroh's momentum made them slide across the parking lot. They slid all the way to the hospital's entrance, barging through the doors into a brightly lit lobby, coming to a stop at the front desk. There Iroh lost consciousness, his vision going black just as medical staff arrived to help him and Lin.
"She's coming to."
A woman's voice was the first thing Lin noticed, coming from above and to her right. Lin's eyes slowly opened and she saw a brightly lit hospital room, and that she was lying down in a bed. She turned her head towards the voice and saw a nurse standing there, giving instructions to an assistant who then left the room to carry them out. Lin tried to get up and on her feet, but sheer exhaustion prevented her from moving more than a few inches.
"Where am I?" Lin asked.
"Kanna's General Hospital," the nurse answered.
That answer put Lin at ease, knowing that the best physicians in Republic City were at hand. "Where's Iroh?" Lin asked.
As if on cue a door opened and Iroh stepped through, using a walking stick in one hand while the other was held close to his chest. Iroh was wearing his normal United Forces uniform, which couldn't hide the presence of thick bandages underneath his shirt. "Hey. How are you feeling?"
Lin tried to get up again, but could barely sit upright before pain stopped her. "I feel like someone was beating a badgermole with my head."
"Whatever that guy did, it knocked you out for a week," Iroh said.
"A week!" Lin yelled, surprised that anything could keep her down that long. And then her belly started to rumble. "Great, now I'll have to eat hospital food."
"Just don't ask how they kept you fed while unconscious that long," Iroh suggested.
The door opened again and another person entered, wearing the standard white coat of a professional doctor. He had light skin, green eyes, short black hair, and a goatee. He was holding a clipboard with several pages of notes on it, but he set it down on a table before walking up to Lin's bed. "If you don't mind Lin, I'd like to ask a few questions."
"I have one," Lin said. "Who are you?"
"I'm Doctor Boshi," he answered. "And I'm a specialist from Ba Sing Se."
"Alright, ask away," Lin said, laying her head down on the bed's pillow.
"Iroh tells me that your assailant used a technique that looked similar to the one that Amon used to take bending away," Boshi said. "Did it feel the same?"
"It was more painful," Lin answered. She paused for a few seconds, and then added more. "Now that I think about it, it seemed like a cruder version."
"I see," Boshi said. He picked up his clipboard and scribbled a few notes on a page. "Did you see the assailant use it on anyone else?"
"Yeah, Magnus used it on Shin," Lin answered. A stray thought crossed her mind. "Did anyone go back for him?"
"The cops did," Iroh answered. "The abductees we freed called them in and they recovered Shin, along with some other victims that we were too late to save."
"Most of them were dead before help arrived," Boshi added. He flipped through the pages on his clipboard, checking some earlier notes. "Their families were notified, and have agreed to donate the bodies for medical research."
"What kind of research?" Lin asked.
"The kind that could lead to restoration of bending through surgery," Boshi answered. He saw surprise on Lin and Iroh's faces, and he held up one hand to say he wasn't finished. "Don't get your hopes up yet. We've only finished the first three autopsies."
Iroh sat down in a chair, taking in the news. "Well, it's a start."
"Enough to point us in the right direction," Boshi said. He removed one page from his clipboard and handed it to Iroh, showing him an illustration of a human brain. There was a small black circle on the front of the brain, and next to the circle 'chakra?' was scribbled. "All three autopsies so far have shown damaged brain tissue here."
"Let me see," Lin asked. She held out one hand and Iroh put the page in it, allowing Lin to see the illustration. "So that's how Amon took bending away. He bent the very brains of benders."
"That's actually kind of clever," Boshi said, taking back the page and putting it back on the clipboard. "And if damaging that part of the brain takes away bending, in theory repairing it should restore bending."
"Then what are you waiting for?" Lin asked. "Get the best healers on this."
"It's harder than it sounds to repair a brain, even with waterbending," Boshi said. "Not only is it an unexplored field of medicine, but one wrong move by a healer could kill the patient."
That reminded Lin of the bodies she saw in that factory. "Oh," she muttered, understanding the danger of tampering with vital organs.
"One question remains," Boshi said. "You're the only one that's survived and regained consciousness. Do you have any idea why?"
"I'm not sure," Lin admitted. She rubbed her head, trying to think about what Magnus did to her and the others. "But I think Magnus was trying to perfect his version of Amon's technique."
"Maybe he's trying to reverse it," Iroh suggested. "That would explain why he arranged kidnappings of Amon's victims."
Lin reached towards a metal lamp in the room and clenched her hand into a fist, but the metal didn't respond to the bending motion. "Well if he was, it didn't work."
"You're still recovering," Boshi assured. "After a few days of rest I'd like to run a few tests, just in case your condition changes."
"Fine," Lin said. "Please, just don't do anything too strange doctor."
"Strange is kind of hard to avoid these days," Boshi said.
"Tell me about it," Iroh complained. "I really don't want to see what comes after a guy that bends magnetism."
"Whatever happened to him anyway?" Lin asked.
Iroh shrugged. "I shot him through a wall with lightning, but the cops didn't find his corpse."
On the other side of the city Pema was tending her garden on Air Temple Island, enjoying the early morning peace and quiet when all four of her children were still asleep. It would not last long, not before the hectic day of a mother began. Pema considered herself fortunate that she could even have such days, especially after surviving imprisonment by the Equalists without a scratch on her.
While watering some flowers Pema noticed something in the corner of her eye, a shadow passing over the roof of her home. "What the?" she muttered, looking for what made the shadow. When she couldn't find it Pema shrugged and went back to watering the flowers. "It was probably nothing."
High above the island, floating in a magnetic field, was Magnus. His hands were twitching uncontrollably, still recovering from Iroh's lightning attack. Anyone else would have been killed by it, but the power at his command allowed Magnus to divert most of the electricity along magnetic field lines. Some electricity had still hit and harmed Magnus, causing enough internal damage to make him decide to lay low and recover for a while. The only thing keeping him from fading into anonymity already was this stop over Air Temple Island, checking in on someone he'd left there a long time ago.
"Stay safe Pema," Magnus said, even though she could not hear him. He remembered ensuring that none of the Equalists harmed her or her newborn child, through force when necessary. And Magnus was certain that his experiments would ensure her safety, once he'd perfected a reversal of Amon's technique.
The power to take away bending had gripped the city in fear. The power to give away bending could control the city through will. Whoever possessed that power could reshape the world, and Magnus knew that it had to be him. Only through control could Magnus guarantee the safety of those he cared for, as well as the next generation of people like himself. Though they were very few in number right now, those with power beyond bending would one day populate the Earth.
After one last look at the island below, Magnus turned and drifted towards the rising sun. "Someday, this world will belong to mutants."