a/n: Okay, so in the last paragraph, Azula took over Ba Sing Se using the Dai Li, (cuz she's a frickin brilliant sociopath), went away without noticing Iroh and Zuko were in the city, and returned eight years later. And I have no backstory for how it happened.

ps, with the shipping thing, please do not ship Azula, Aang, Korra, Tai Lee, or Tarrlok with anyone. I already have their life planned out! (sorry about all of your shattered hopes and dreams.)

–

Noatak woke up the following morning, and stretched sleepily against the pelts in his guest tent. He glanced over and saw that his brother and father were still asleep. Carefully, he tiptoed around the tent, trying to not wake them, and slipped into his thick, fur lined parka. Then, he stepped outside, hoping to take a walk before breakfast.

As he exited the tent, he noticed that one of the strangers, a tall, pale, crabby looking boy with a red scarf, was sitting outside rubbing his temples.

Might as well talk to him.

"Hey." greeted Noatak as he approached from behind, "What is your name?"

The kid whipped around at the sound of his voice, eyes full of apprehension, but relaxed a little upon seeing his face.

"Uh, Mako." he replied awkwardly, "Hi?"

This guy has less social aptitude than I do.

"You're looking a bit rough, Mako. Couldn't you sleep?"

"Not really. The sun was shining too much, and I kind of tend to rise with the sun." replied Mako a bit warily.

Where have I hear that phrase? It sounds kind of familiar...

"Oh, really?" he replied, "Usually we do run into problems with the 'midnight sun' when it come to outsiders. Although that other earth kingdom kid doesn't seem to have an issue sleeping with the sun."

"Well, Bolin is pretty adaptable."

"Hhmm." he mumbled noncommittally. "So...are you a bender? What part of the earth Kingdom are you from?"

"Actually, in the future, we have this place called the United Republic of Nations where, uh, people from all nations live together."

"Really." he said with a touch of derision.

"Yeah." replied Mako sharply, "There are people from the Water Tribe in the city. A lot more from the North than the South. But most people are Earth or Fire-"

"Firebenders?"

"Well, it was created after the war ended-"

"Did we win in your world? What happened? Did I help?"

"I'm not sure. You weren't even born this early during my time."

"Then when was I born?" asked Noatak curiously, "Did I still have the same family members?"

"Yeah...and you and your brother were born about twenty years from now."

"Wow. And my parents weren't born later?" replied Noatak, looking slightly disturbed, "That meant my parents were about 60 years old."

"About that...your father was an escaped crime boss. Of a bloodbending gang. And he ran back to the Northern Water Tribe to escape his trial."

"What?" he asked, scandalized, "And what is this 'bloodbending' that I keep hearing of?"

At this point, Mako was practically squirming from discomfort.

What are you all hiding from me?

"Actually. You don't need to answer that now. You can probably do that at the war meeting. You are coming, correct?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'll just let my brother fill you guys in there. I'm not the best speaker."

Obviously.

"That's fine. Who is your brother?"

"Bolin." said Mako like it was obvious, "Short, muscular, looks like the typical earthbender, guy you were just asking about-"

"Him? He doesn't resemble you very much."

"Well, we are different elements, you know-"

"Wait a minute...You're not an earthbender? YOU'RE A FIREBENDER?"

Just then, Tarrlok came out of the tent and strutted over to them.

"Hey Noa!" he said, jogging up and giving him an irritating tug on his wolftail, "Hey newbie! You guys ready for this War meeting? With the arrival of the Avatar, we might actually talk about something interesting this time…...why do you two look like someone just died?"

Noatak simply stalked away to get himself breakfast, leaving his brother to quirk an eyebrow at Mako in confusion.

–

About two hours later, Tarrlok walked into the war tent and took a seat next to the guy he saw talking to his brother earlier.

"So…..." he started, "What's your name again?"

"Mako."

"Well lovely to meet you Mako-ow!" he said as Katara elbowed him in the ribs, much to the amusement of this Mako guy.

"Shush, loudmouth, we're starting now." She said. "Master Pakku, would you share with all of us what the situation in the capital is right now?"

"Currently, the Fire Nation is exploiting of our complete lack of bending. At this point, they're probably just waiting for the tundra to kill us off. They've built stone houses in place of the ice ones we used to have. They are also mining the ores in the cliffs surrounding the city, like iron and coal." he said bitterly, "Right now, they are starting to shift poor, homeless earthbending orphans to the north pole."

"Hmm, do you think we should try to rescue them?"

"No we-"

"You guys should just bring the Moon back!"

At this, every head at the table turned to look at the foreign, stubby nosed earthbender who spoke up. The new kid quailed a little under all of the scrutinizing stares.

"Okay, ya know what?" said Katara slapping the ground as people in the meeting started to chatter amongst each other in suspicious, hushed whispers, "Introductions first." she continued, breaking up the chatter, "Can all of you new people tell us who you are, what element or fighting specialty you know, and how much experience fighting you have? Oh, and feel free to tell us whatever you know about how we defeated the Fire Nation in the past, and how that changed events in the future. Start off..." she said, gesturing to the stranger,

"Bolin." he said as he stood "I'm uh, an earthbender and I've been a pro bender, like a bending sports team, I've battled out the equalists, and I helped fight Vaatu, the dark spirit of the world...which is the opposite of the avatar spirit-"

"WHAT?" exclaimed the whole table in unison.

"Well, we lost that battle because the evil spirity thing bonded with the avatar's uncle who created like an anti-avatar and killed the good avatar spir-"

"So the Avatar cycle was destroyed?" asked Yakone, abruptly cutting off Bolin's flustered rambling.

"Yes. I'm Korra, the last Avatar of my world." said Korra, with a wary glance at everyone.

Immediately, question started to pour out of the crowd.

"Can you bend for us?"

"How do we know you're not lying?"

"How far in the future are you from?"

"What happens to me?"

"What happened to the fire nation in your time?"

"Why are you so young?"

"HOLD ON!" cried Katara, silencing the battery of questions. "But there was an airbending avatar born before you, right?" she asked, turning to Korra.

"Yes, that would be Aang."

"Whose-"

"Hi! I'm-"

"Don't blow yourself in the air this time."

"Heheh, sorry about that. Why are you all looking at me like that? Did Appa sneeze on me?"

"Well, no one has seen an airbender in a hundred years." said an old lady next to Pakku, "We thought they were extinct until my granddaughter and grandson found you."

"Extinct?"

"Aang, this is my grandmother."

"Call meh Gran Gran."

"Wait a sec, what do mean extinct? No matter what happened, they could just fly away!"

"When Fire Lord Sozin started the war, he used the power of a comet to-"

"Okay, back up. I have friends all over the world, even in the Fire Nation. I've never seen any war."

"How long were you in that iceberg Aang?"

"I dunno, a few days, maybe?"

"I think it was more like a hundred years!"

"What? That's impossible. Do I look like a hundred-twelve year old man to you?"

"Think about it. The war is a century old. You don't know about it because, somehow, you were in there that whole time. It's the only explanation."

"Uh, we could've told you all of that." said Korra, "It seems like our two worlds have a lot in common up until this point."

"No," said Mako, "Up until some point in the past."

Then he turned to Korra, "Remember how Unalaq blew up the tree of time? What if destroying it somehow changed the world in the past?"

"What is the Tree of Time?"

"Just some old tree in the spirit world that's been here since the beginning of time and has trapped the dark spirit of the world for like ten thousand years." replied Bolin nonchalantly, "But that's irrelevant!"

"How is a giant spirit tree that completely changed the future irrelevant to-"

"Perhaps it would be prudent to discover the events which caused the timelines to diverge." said of of the twins, immediately silencing the crowd.

"Okay, good idea." said Mako, "I know the biggest differences in our timelines so far is that Aang wasn't found until recently, Noatak and Tarrlok were born about forty years earlier, and the moon spirit was never brought back to life."

"How were we born forty years in the future!" cried Tarrlok, "That would mean that our father was over sixty!"

"Well, he got an appearance altering surgery after escaping his trial-"

"What exactly," interrupted Yakone with a steely scowl, "Was I on trial for?"

"Eerrrm, you were kind of a crime boss that created a bloodbending triad that went around looting the Republic City?" replied Bolin nervously, "Although you're obviously not a criminal in this world, right? And you probably can't bloodbend because there's no moon..."

"Bloodbending!?" exclaimed Pakku, "Could you do this...this travesty upon Tui and La while you were my student?"

Yakone had the decency to look a little repentant. "Sorry."

"You also passed the ability to bloodbend to your children."

"WHAT!?" shouted Tarrlok, "Controlling another living person's body fluids? That's kinda...revolting!"

"Father," asked Noatak cooly, "Was that what you were doing the day of the attack.

"Yes."

"Were you ever going to tell us?"

"Nope. The skill sucks."

"But father, if we could bring back the moon, don't you think we should use that rare skill to defeat the Fire Nation? It would be justified to take away some of their power so the nations can stand on more equal-"

"Ho no; NO talk of equality from you! In our universe, it caused you to turn into a radical leader of an anti-bending group called the "Equalists" and you used bloodbending and chi-blocking to take away other people's bending completely. And none of your followers knew who you really were because you always wore a mask. And you thought bending was the root of all evil. Because it causes an uneven distribution of power."

"Well, it does once you think about it."

"Bro, we are trying to appease them. C'mon, you have to show a bit more tact."

"It's funny you talk about 'appeasing' people, because you turned out to be a corrupt, bootlicking politician who didn't know that your brother was the leader of the equalists, and you ended up bloodbending and kidnapping the avatar in an obsessive power grab. Oh, then then you lost you bending and commited a double suicide to rid the world of bloodbending."

"Aah...sorry?"

"But none of that is related to the problem of the Fire Nation!" protested Katara, "Didn't you say The United Republic was created after the war?"

"Yes."

"Then how did the war end? I'm sure it was in your history books! And what is different about the world now?"

"Wait," said Bolin suddenly to Yakone, "How did you meet your wife? Did you see any spirity stuff?"

"How was that more relevant to the conversation than talking about our future lives?" muttered Tarrlok.

"Well," said Yakone, "It is quite an amusing story. I accidentally fell into my wife's family's sea prune stand and she got angry and wanted money for the prunes I crushed. I offered to compensate by taking her out for dinner and then we got married. That's that."

"Father, what about the betrothal necklace?"

"What about it?"

"It's eerie."

"What kind of eeriness? Where did you get it? Does it give off a strange unsettling energy?"

"Yeah! Exactly like that! Dad stepped on it when he was walking home after knocking into my mother."

"My father has an orange stone that feels exactly like that too! He said it hit him on the hand and caused him to drop his machete down a cliff while he was taking a walk with my mom, and the cliff collapsed and he and mom were caught in the avalanche. They blocked up an entire strait and it took them almost three days to climb home. But somehow, they survived so dad thought the stone was lucky or something."

"Didn't you and Sokka wreck a canoe there as well?"

"Yeah! And Sokka kept blaming me because I was a girl! I can't believe such a sexist person could be born in the Southern Water Tribe."

"Hey! What are you implying about the Northern Water Tribe?"

"Just kidding."

"Wait, Katara," interrupted Korra, "How old were you when you and Sokka went fishing?"

"How did you know we were fishing?"

"Just guessing. And how old were you?"

"Uh, fourteen."

"Was it a couple weeks before the summer solstice?"

"Yeah."

"Did you mention something about...washing Sokka's dirty socks?"

"Yeah...that was incredibly weird that you knew."

"Heh, yeah. And when you got really ticked off, did you crack an iceberg in half?"

"No, I actually broke off a big piece of ice that we were on and sent us rocketing back up the strait. Pretty lucky if I say so myself. We got home a lot quicker than our mom and dad did."

"Hhhmm…."

"Why is this so important to know?"

"I think the rocks are from the spirit world."

"Blowing up a giant spirit tree that caused little pieces of rocks to fly out of the spirit world and completely change the course of time? Sounds reeeeal plausible."

"Do you really think little pieces of rock can change the future so drastically?"

"What other explanation is there?"

"..."

"Hey guys, shouldn't we check out the tree of time to see if it's okay?"

"No." said Korra turning to everyone else. "We will help you defeat the Fire Nation first. However, it is very important that nobody finds out about who we really are. Or anything about the spirit world. If someone asks about us, tell them we are orphans.

"At this point, it's true anyways."

Oh. That kind of sucks. thought Tarrlok sympathetically, then changed the topic, "Hey, you guys still didn't finish telling us about yourselves."

"Oh, sorry. I'm Korra, ex-avatar. I've fought pro-bending, that's a sport by the way, and I've mastered all the elements. But I'm pretty bad with spiritual stuff. Although, now that the avatar spirit has been ripped out, I think I'm either a waterbender of a non-bender. " she said ruefully. "Oh yeah, and I'm the daughter of a banished heir to being chief in the North pole so I grew up in the South."

"Oh." said Katara blanky, "Sorry about that?"

"Don't be." she replied tonelessly, "Mako, you're up!"

"Hi, Mako here. Uh, I'm a firebender-"

"WHAT!"

"How?!"

"Get that creature out of here!"

"Send him back to the Fire Nation!"

"He'll burn down everything!"

"WATCH WHAT YOU SAY ABOUT MY BROTHER!" cried Bolin as he lept up and stomped the ground so hard that it vibrated and dust floated down from the rafters. "He is not Fire Nation! He's from the future where everything is nice and all the nations can live together!"

"So you parents are from different nations?" asked Yakone a bit disdainfully, "Who would marry a person of fire?"

"Fire isn't bad! In fact, we all use fire to heat our house and cook our food! So what's wrong?"

"The Fire Nation is wrong-"

"Okay!" injected Tarrlok, "We're getting off topic again!"

"...Uh, back to me?" said Mako, scratching the back of his head, "'Kay, I have the same level of experience as Korra and Bolin. Oh, yeah, and I was a cop for a while. So...moving on..." finished Mako awkwardly as he gestured for the strange twins to continue.

"I am Eska."

"I am Desna."

"Desna is a man's name though-Ow!" said Hahn while Noatak elbowed him in the ribs.

"Do you dare insult my masculinity, deplorable, uncouth turtleduck?" queried Desna with a cold, dangerous look on his face.

"...well, what k-"

"Hahn," interrupted Noatak, "Do us all a favor and shut up."

"Bu-"

"Seriously," added Korra, "If we are going to bring back the moon someday, you want to be in the good graces of these two."

"Are you master waterbenders?" asked Pakku curiously.

"Indeed. As the chief's offspring, we have been instructed from infancy in the intricacies of both physical and spiritual aspects of waterbending."

"So, basically, I'm surrounded by a bunch of gifted water tribe royalty?" muttered Tarrlok, "Wow, I feel like such a peasant right now."

"Get over yourself, peasant." said Katara with a smirk, "Okay, who's next? Oh yes, Aang, finish introducing yourself."

"I'm Aang, an airbender from the Southern Air Temple, and I've never really fought anyone before. We aren't supposed to fight each other in the air nation!" He said cheerfully.

"If you are the avatar," snapped Gran Gran, "You do not belong to a nation. You belong to the World, and if the world requires a small bit of violence for peace, you must do it."

"Well, I'm sure the the rest of the world could convince the fire nation to stop attacking if they...they...what's that word...? Oh! negotiated. My friend Kuzon was from the fire nation and he negotiated with me all the time!"

At that moment, Tarrlok swore he could hear the sound of every person simultaneously facepalming themselves.

How could the savior of the world be this naive, immature twelve-year-old boy?

–

a/n: REVIEW AND CRITICIZE POR FAVOR! and check out my poll. on my profile. IT IS OF UTMOST SIGNIFICANCE!