Hi readers! Sorry if the last chapter was confusing. It alternated between play scenes and the Gaang's Kids' reactions. Pema's mom did not actually say that about her needing to be Tenzin's wife in the tea shop when she was four yeaers old. ALSO, if the lady actually existed, and put some potion in the tea to mess with Lin's fertility, how would she have six children in my AU? Anyways, that crazy ending as the "demise" of the Song of Earth and Air was just the fake guessed ending (Like how in the Boy in the Iceberg, it ended with Aang losing to the fire lord since Pu On Tim knew a lot of things, but not EVERY thing :)))) Happy reading!
DISCLAIMER! IF YOU ACTUALLY LIKE PEMA (like REALLY like her) stop reading because I am turning her into THE ENEMY!
:P
XD
Enjoy the rest of your life with Lin and our kids in the spirit world... if you make it in time...
~ The Solution
Tenzin looked up from the small piece of parchment fraught with confusion. There was the sound of a low but deep rumbling coming from the front of the air ship. Tenzin shoved the letter in his robes and ran to the atrium sensing something bad happening.
"We need to get out!" he yelled as they heard the first of the explosions went off.
"Everyone get in the middle!" Jiexue yelled creating a massive protective shield. Tenzin used his own airbending to break into her bubble and join his family. HuiFan closed her eyes and tore a hole in the space rug to place a hand on the metal floor of the airship.
"There's a bomb in the table!" Huifan yelled. She bent it out of the wooden structure by it's earthen components and kicked it out of the air shield as bombs went off all around tearing up the inside of the massive air ship, sending shrapnel everywhere, shattering the walls of windows.
"Let's get out of here!" Jinora yelled.
They moved en-mass off of the air ship and towards the temple as the entire thing began to droop off of the mountain side with no working engine.
"What if more bombs are there?" HungJian asked turning and nodding at the temple.
HuiFan kicked up a pillar and slammed both fists into it. "There aren't. They were only on our airship." HuiFan walked over to the crew's airship and the supply ship. All clear.
"Someone wanted to kill us all!" Kang panicked, arms flailing as he ran into his mother's arms.
"But who would do such a thing?" Jinora asked with tears in her eyes, clutching Xiaoyu and Opal for support.
"Lin, Su-" Tenzin handed them the letter he found among his mail just before the first bomb went off.
"Where was Pema in all this?" Lin asked indicating the destroyed airship, handing the piece of parchment back to Tenzin..
"No, this is written her hand," Tenzin replied. "I think she's gone."
"Like dead gone or gone gone?" Kya asked to clarify.
"She betrayed us," Tenzin breathed.
"Daddy, where's Mommy?" Meelo asked walking over.
"Mommy left." Tenzin replied.
"Is she dead?" Meelo inquired
"No, no, she— we got into a fight and sometimes when Mommy's and Daddies fight, someone leaves. It is only for a short while though."
"When will she come back?" Meelo asked.
"I don't know," Tenzin sighed.
Just then they saw their chefs and the remaining domestic crew stumbling out. Lin, HungJian, Suyin, Wing and Wei rushed to help them.
"They've inhaled a lot of smoke!" Suyin announced.
"Bring them here!" Jiexue said bending the smoke out and fresh air into Mo's Lungs while Xiaoyu did the dame for Doan.
"Why don't we camp in the temple tonight and tomorrow Su and I will go into town and see if we can borrow a radio and contact Republic City or Ba Sing Se for another airship," Lin suggested to everyone.
"I'll take first watch," Suyin offered.
The next day, Suyin and Lin took Oogi to the nearest village and parked him in a nearby wood and went to find a phone.
"The only radio I know of is in the tower, but that's controlled by the soldiers." They turned. There was a tower built on on a nearby hill but it was entirely made of wood.
"Why would they need a wooden tower?"
The merchant beckoned them closer. "It's a prison for the earthbenders!" he whispered.
"Huh?"
"Why?"
"Who's against the earth benders?" Suyin demanded. How could I not know of this in my own kingdom?!
"We don't know who they are, only that somehow they seem to know who bent and who hadn't," the old man said.
"Help! SOMEONE HELP! KIDNAPPER!" Someone yelled.
The cop in Lin instantly took over as she bent natal strips over the kidnapper's eyes and ankles as he dropped the child.
"I knew it! METALBENDERS!" The merchant yelled as men in Black robes appeared with ropes.
Lin ducked and rolled as Suyin threw a half dozen guards into the fruit stand.
"Let's get out of here!" Su said.
"Yeah, no shit!"
Just then the ground swallowed them whole and in the dark they were chi-blocked then knocked out.
They woke with their legs tied to wooden chairs and wrists tied behind.
"Well, well, we'll, if it isn't the Earth Queen and the Former Chief Of Police of Republic City? I might just be the luckiest man alive and finally be able to get what I want." the man said he turned around. There was no mistaking the man's stupid stringy little moustache. Lieutenant.
"Who's your leader now?"
"Someone you're both VERY familiar with, I'm sure," Lieutenant replied casually.
"Hello Lin, Suyin," a cool and cheery voice said with an uncharacteristic undertone of threat.
"You bombed the airship!" Suyin yelled.
"Guilty as charged," Pema replied standing beside Lieutenant, putting her arm around him affectionately. Lin couldnt help but want to simultaneously gag, gauge her eyes out, rip the Lieutenant's mustache off of his face and strangle Pema.
"What do you want from us?"
"Your lives, your glory, your BENDING, but we all know that's impossible. So I figured your lives will suffice. But first, you will be the bait. When Tenzin and Kya and Bumi and Izumi and your children come after you? We will kill them too," Pema said.
"They'll never fall for it!" Lin snapped.
"They already have," Pema replied. "Your prodigious bending families' days of ruling the world are over. It is time for true equality and an opportunity for the world to start anew without the oppressive rules your parents inflicted on the people of the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation! Now enough talking throw them in the highest cell away from the ground!" Pema ordered.
"Didn't know she had it in her," Lin commented to her sister as they were thrown in.
"Yeah."
Suyin crawled over to the edge and looked down.
"It is a long way down."
"Yeah, no kidding." Lin scoffed. "AND THIS IS WHY I ALWAYS WORE MY ARMOR, EVEN OFF DUTY!" Lin grumbled.
"Don't worry, Lin. We just have to be patient. Tenzin will come," Suyin said.
"That's the whole point. We are the bait. She wants to kill everybody!" Lin replied throwing her hands in the air. "What was I thinking?! We should have just flown straight to Republic City or Ba Sing Se ourselves and retrieved our own airships. We have sky bison for spirits' sake!" Lin ranted as she paced in the cell with her wrists still tied.
"Well it's over now. We're here. Stop pacing. Save your energy for when we can fight again!" Suyin yelled.
"Fine!" Lin said dropping onto her bottom with a thud and a huff.
"We should go after them," HuiFan said.
"No! The village is probably just too small so they had to fly further. I'm sure they'll be back by nightfall!" Tenzin replied.
That night HungJian, HuiFan, and Jiexue sneaked out.
"Where do you think you're going?" Jinora and Opal asked sitting guard by the bison.
"We need to get our mother back," the three replied.
"Well, our mothers are missing too," Wing and Wei said joining them.
"Oh jeez! What will Tenzin think when he's found we've all deserted him?" Jiexue sighed.
"We? They're not coming!" HuiFan said indicating Jinora, Opal, Wing and Wei.
"Stop being a stubborn Beifong! Wherever you go, you can't stop us from following! You seem to forget the same blood runs through US TOO!" Opal said defiantly.
"Fine! You can come! But DON'T get in the way!" Huifan growled. The four earthbenders and three airbenders all climbed on and flew to the village under the cover of night, the airbenders disguised in Earth Kingdom clothes.
"Let's stay by Pepper until morning," Jinora suggested with a green headband covering her arrow.
The next morning they ventured into town as a group.
"There is an awfully large network of tunnels underneath this seemingly insignificant village," HuiFan whispered to HungJian and Jiexue.
"HuiFan! The fruit merchant has MANGOES!" Jinora exclaimed running over.
The Beifongs all walked over wearily.
"Let me handle this," HuiFan said moving Jinora by the shoulder behind her and into Hungjian's arms. She slammed three gold coins on the counter and turned around facing her back to him and got comfortable leaning against the counter.
HungJian shrugged. Jiexue folded her arms and Opal glanced sideways at her twin brothers.
"That's enough for this whole cart!" the merchant gasped in disbelief.
"Then we'll take the whole cart, call button and all," HuiFan said turning around again, drilling into the man's soul with her piercing green eyes. She leaned over the counter towards him as the gold coins she put down ensnared his wrists. "You seem like a well informed man in this town. Yesterday, two greying older women passed through this village, one my height, and the other slightly taller. Both were asking for a phone. Where did they go?" HuiFan asked lifting the man onto his toes by the gold band.
"I- I don't know. We're just told to report any earthbenders!"
"By who?"
"The Equalists!"
HuiFan frowned. She threw the man into the back of the shop and destroyed the call button under the counter with her metalbending "Keep the gold. Jinora, take your mango, let's keep looking." HuiFan ordered.
"Jinora!" Jiexue screamed.
The man had a second call button. The reaction time was instantaneous as he hit it, HuiFan turned, and the ground swallowed Opal and Jinora whole.
HuiFan could feel them in the tunnels and immediately tore the road from the main street of the tillage, flinging the debris over the roofs of the strip of houses and shops in a fantastic feat of earthbending. She jumped in the tunnel evading the chi blockers and blocking them herself.
"Let them go!" Jiexue yelled running forward, leaping over her sister, jumping into the tunnel blasting the chi blockers away from Jinora and Opal with a circular air current.
They jumped out of the tunnel and HuiFan collapsed it. She reached further collapsing as many tunnels as she could feel.
"We need to get you moved!" a group of masked equalists announced barging into the tower-top cell, grabbing Lin and Suyin off the ground.
"Why?" Su asked.
"We are going to blow up this tower," Pema replied entering calmly. They bound the two Beifongs arms and legs up to the elbows to minimize their bending ability as they were being transported and the wooden tower blew up.
"What was that?" HuiFan turned to the merchant who began to laugh maniacally.
"That, my dear, was the earthbender prison. Your mothers were in a holding cell at the very top level. Even if they jumped, they wouldn't have survived," the man said with a devious grin.
"No!" HuiFan yelled. She jumped and slammed her fist into the ground shaking the entire northern half of the Earth Kingdom, the tremor reaching Republic City and the lower ring of Ba Sing Se. As she stood up, a ripple coursed through the town collapsing almost every house like they were made of match sticks. And she brought the tower down. Then she turned to the merchant and listened to his laugh.
"You're lying! They were moved-" HuiFan yelled.
"HuiFan! Stop! They're trying to distract us. We should just move on!" Jinora said grabbing her sister's hand.
She wrenched it away and rejoined the group.
"If your earthbending was powerful enough to shake everything this far away," Jinora began to think as they reached Pepper and looked out on the broken trees and fissures in the ground. "What does that mean for your seismic sense? Maybe you can find Aunt Lin and Aunt Su that way."
HuiFan took a deep breath and slammed a rock pillar up so she could dig both palms and feet into the earth. "I think this way," she said pointing. They flew and she pointed down at a torn up meadow.
"Under here!" She tore a massive gauge in the ground and tossed it aside and they saw their mother's crouched on the ground, a hooded figure dragging a rope that pulled their mothers'.
HuiFan jumped into the opened tunnel and shot the one holding the rope out hung Juan ran over with a blade and cut out Lin and Su and the airbenders blew away the oncoming chi blockers-"
Wing and Wei ensnared the hooded figure trying to flee and pulled her back. Jinora yanked off the hood.
"Mom?" Jinora gasped stepping away from Pema in shock and fear.
"Honey! Love! It's not what it seems-"
"YOU BOMBED THE AIRSHIP!" Jinora realized. "AND YOU CAPTURED AUNT Lin AND AUNT SU?!"
"I needed them to get out of the way-" Pema explained.
"OF WHAT? YOU'RE AN AIR ACOLYTE! YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO FIGHT OR ENGAGE IN THESE TYPES OF THINGS-"
"I am also your mother and you have to understand all I have done has been to keep you safe-"
"Keep me safe? I WAS ON THAT AIRSHIP WHEN YOU DECIDED TO BLOW IT UP! YOU tried to KILL me!" Jinora replied.
"Listen!"
"No. I'm through listening-"
"Your father was acting... questionable and I had to test his loyalty."
"Questionable? I KNOW my father. And I KNOW Aunt Lin! They would never engage in something so immoral but you? ATTEMPTED MURDER? You're a stranger and I NEVER want to see you again!" Jinora yelled. She blew her bison whistle and Pepper landed nearby.
"Let's go," Jinora ordered herding the eight Beifongs back towards the bison.
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