Chaos
[POV: Amon]
Within me was a wasteland.
An empty, scarred, desolate place.
The very image of my soul.
I had arrived at the shore and had begun to walk across an endless field of burning coals. I felt the sting of the embers on my feet, as though the vision were real, as though my flesh were truly burning. The sky was gray and unstable, and full of stormy clouds that had gathered above the Inner Realm; the center of my being.
"Show yourselves to me," I whispered as my eyes searched the horizon. An insidious wind blew all around me, and I could barely breathe.
Then, finally, I saw the shadows. They were waiting for me. Tall, dark silhouettes, rising ominously in the distance.
Each step towards them was a torment. Like the black coals had been burning for a thousand years. There were no ashes over them to protect me from the heat, and I could not walk faster. Heavy chains weighed me down. I clenched my teeth and carried on in slow, prolonged agony. Oh spirits, spirits, how it hurt. How it hurt to be still alive.
They peered at me through the left eye hole of their masks. The same masks I had seen on the day of my illumination. The same masks, but cut in half. Fragmented, not yet complete. Their bodies stretched out from the ground, like black smoke released from the burning ground.
"Ghem ta lek amahlt, Amon?"
I stopped, frightened by the eerie words of their ancient tongue.
Words I could not understand.
"Why have you summoned us, Amon?" they repeated in the language of mortals, their five voices intertwining in an imperfect synchronicity.
"I want answers," I replied.
"Answers?"
Tell me all. Sing me the hidden verses of my damnation.
"What are you doing to me?"
"What we agreed upon, mortal."
"You said that you would let me die unaltered if I managed to complete my mission as a man. That you would change me, make me immortal and powerful only if you saw that I could not rid the world of bending on my own. That I had to find a way to cleanse it forever, and I have. I am changing the way people see bending; it is a curse, not a gift. All I need is a little more time. Why are you not satisfied with me?"
Their laughter echoed in the skies and through my head, like thunder.
"Do you really think that we, eternal, magnificent beings of Shadow, care about mortals? That we seek their well-being? That we want them to live in a world of justice? That we care about the suffering of non-benders? Do you believe that we want to teach benders a lesson? It would imply that we seek to correct them for their own good. No, Amon, you are greatly mistaken."
I had jumped blindfolded into the abyss.
"So you have tricked me. You deceived me in order to obtain my allegiance. Why?"
"Why? Why? Do you not know who we are?"
They spoke slowly, stretching out every word, like beings who had centuries ahead of them to finish their sentences. Their notion of time transcended that of mortals.
"We are the spirits of Chaos. The children of Vaatu. We are Hatred, Anger, Fear, Bloodlust and Insanity. And we revel in chaos. We desire it. We require it. We feed upon the chaos in your world. We are dark spirits living in the cursed realm of Hàlin."
My knees started to tremble. I stepped back.
"After the Hundred Year War, we found ourselves starving because of the relative peace that reigned in the mortal world. Through Tao, we tried to bring chaos back into the world by making him create visions of terror. But the disbelieving mortals chased him away, made him retreat into the mountains. He remained there because he did not have the strength of conviction. He was not like you. We chose you, Amon, for the misery of your past, for your skills, for your hatred, and for your conviction."
"My hatred? I have not felt hatred for benders in a long time. I have changed."
"Yes, but before you began your Revolution, you were filled with it. Your thirst for vengeance. Do you deny it, murderer? You killed that firebender with such pleasure, such rage. We saw what we saw."
I put my hands over my head.
"That day was a day of madness. I never killed again. Never! I gave myself the proper punishment!" I screamed.
A whip, sliding on humid skin.
"You are right, you never repeated your sin. All that remained in you was your conviction, growing stronger and stronger, until it lead you to create your own derivations, just like your Lieutenant. We wanted you to equalize the Avatar and hurl the world into a new war. Benders against non-benders. The beginning of a new era of chaos. But your pathetic ideals lead you instead of your thirst for vengeance. You truly wanted to help make your realm a better place to live. You little fool. It does not matter. Because of the work that you've done, Republic City is already on the brink of war."
Kill the bender!
"If that is true, then what more do you want from me?" I asked.
"Your body, Amon, your place in the mortal world. We spirits are unable to exist physically within the mortal realm without having to sacrifice our immortality in exchange for a body. We can only manifest during the Solstices, like we did on the day of your illumination. In your blindness and your hatred of benders you sold yourself to us, body and soul. Remember."
Oh, I had given them everything.
"But you said that my soul would be free if I did what you asked of me," I said, my voice breaking.
"We lied to you. Your soul is now bound to your body, which you gave up to us. You shall never reincarnate again. Amon, you are our vessel. The sacrifice of our immortality is no longer required. We can enter your world through your body without losing our immortal nature. During your illumination, a part of each of us infiltrated you. And on the next solstice - the only moment where our worlds are close enough to allow crossing over - we shall leave our realm and enter the mortal world. We will claim your body entirely and transform it to make it immortal. No matter what you do to it, even if you cut it to pieces, or turn it to dust, it is ours and we can seal it back together with fire. We will kill it, in order to rebuild it. There will be no turning back. Soon, Amon, you will become the first immortal creature living in the mortal realm."
"...But why wait for so many years? Why did you not take me over in the desert, from the very beginning?"
"How could we have allowed your remarkable oratory skills to go to waste, Amon? You are gifted. Your leadership and strength of character were qualities that we noticed in you long before your seventh birth. Qualities that we could use to obtain the blind loyalty of many mortals. You a born leader. We knew that if someone was capable of provoking a new war, it was you. But above all, Amon, we required time to prepare our throne within you. To fill you with our shadows. Your humanity was an obstacle to our coexistence. You needed to lose contact with your body, so that we may come to control it. Our patience has been rewarded. Look at yourself. You do not sleep, you do not care for pain except the one that exists in your mind, you meditate obsessively and forget yourself... You have grown colder than you have ever been. When we take over your body, you will offer little resistance. Our souls will forever be bound together. We shall all coexist; you, us, all in one body of eternal fire."
The coals underneath my feet seared. I could barely stand.
"Once in your realm, we shall watch the mortals kill each other and revel in their bloodshed. We will pick up where you left and increase the fire of their hatred, for we shall become you, their leader. And whoever has the misfortune of surviving this war will live forever under our reign. We shall equalize every new-born avatar of every age. We will maintain total control of the mortal world and keep it in a state of perpetual chaos. We will make sure that your realm is never again blessed with a time of peace, like it was after the Hundred Year War."
"You vile, deceitful creatures. You used me and the Revolution. You took advantage of the suffering of non-benders. Of /imy/i suffering..."
"Do not pretend that you are innocent, slave. You absorbed all of Tao's evil teachings on mind control and applied them to your rallies. Used them to gain new followers."
They knew everything that I had done. All my faults. All my weaknesses. All my sins.
"I... I did. But the words that came out of my mouth were my own. I stand by all that I have ever said. I convinced my followers because in me they saw the light of Truth."
"Yes," the spirits sneered, "They were all your words. And look at what they have done to the Lieutenant. He has become a far better servant to us than you."
"Don't you dare hurt him," I snapped.
"We don't need to. You've done quite enough already to destroy him on your own."
My hands. My own hands had torn him down.
"You tainted my influence over him with your evil!"
"Our evil is a part of you, because you embraced it."
The wind blew away my hood as I stared down at my feet. They were as black as the coals underneath them.
"We have made a mistake. We thought your conviction would make you a better servant, that it would make you persevere instead of giving up like Tao, but it seems as though it has rather become a hinderance to our plans. Instead of equalizing the Avatar, you decided to wait for her own people to deliver her to you. You want everybody to agree that bending is wrong. You seek balance, Amon. And balance is the exact opposite of chaos."
The spirits began to withdraw into the ground. The vision was fading.
"Your body is already dying. And on the next solstice, we will claim what is ours. Alk tet vam! Your time is up, Amon."
"No, not yet," I whispered, and the wasteland subsided.
When I emerged from meditation, I fell to my knees and put my hands over my ears. I crouched over until my unbearable, ridiculous, ugly face was pressed against the cool floor.
And soundlessly, I wept.
I wept for all the lies that I had been told, for the recklessness of my decisions, for my own fate, and for all the evil I was bringing into the world.
The vicious fire I had spread.
Oh, but I would not let the Spirits rejoice in complete victory. I would do everything in my power to lessen their satisfaction. The least I could do was repair my mistakes. The hatred I had instilled in my followers, I would remove. There would be no war. And if somehow, the world survived the atrocities that were to come, it had to emerge as a better world. I could not let the Revolution be blamed for what I had unleashed. My ideals had to be dissociated from all evil; cleansed, purified. It was the chaos created by benders that had opened up the appetite of the Spirits of Chaos in the first place.
If the mortal world was to be annihilated by the dwellers of Hàlin, then so be it.
But I would fight for my cause until the very end.
A drop of balance in a burning sea of chaos.