Amon
[POV: Amon]
A being of balance, plagued with imbalance.
The Avatar faced me, exuding emotional chaos that hit me in magnificent waves. She was a bird, caught in the savage winds of mortal flaws. Oh, there was hardly any need for me to poison her. I guzzled her rage, her loathing of her enemy, her desire to annihilate, her reckless arrogance, but above all, her terror.
"You fear me," I declared, looking into her eyes.
She appeared stoical, stubbornly maintaining her fighting stance.
How it quivers, this little flame.
"I am here to end this, Amon," she replied.
"You have feared me from the beginning. But the shadow in your nightmares is nothing compared to what I am now."
Her figure momentarily fell out of focus as I glanced at the burning city behind her.
This is not what I wanted.
Let them feel my pain.
"I won't let you destroy this city!"
"This city has destroyed itself. Your people are at war, Avatar."
"That's because of you! I don't know what you're doing to them, but..."
"Do you truly think that my actions alone have prompted this? No, this realm was rotting long before my arrival. These are not my armies. These are free men."
She frowned in anger.
"Who are you?"
"I am become the spirit of Chaos. And you and I shall forever coexist, for every reincarnation of yours will kneel before me as I take away their bending."
Or their life. Kill this Avatar.
Finally, she lost control.
"No!"
A circle of bright orange flames spun towards me as she screamed. But I redirected her attack with my mind, and the fire split in two, rushing passed me.
I have more power than ever before.
Undeterred, she summoned the waters from under the ground below and attacked. I was quickly shielded by the shadows surrounding me. After her second failed attempt, she tapped her foot on the pillar of stone that held her high, shattering it. She fell away, and I watched her disappear in a cloud of dust. After a few moments, sharp rocks resurfaced, heading straight for me. I descended right through the deadly inverted rain and the heat of my body melted every stone that came in contact with it.
My feet soon touched the ground.
"Fire, Water, Earth," I said, my voice misaligned, hissing like ten thousand serpents. "No element can stop me."
I sent forth a second shock wave, hurling the Avatar into the distance, where she crashed, wailing in pain. The force of the attack dug a crater into the street. She recovered, trying to draw nearer as I stroke her again; wave, after wave, after wave, until she could no longer rise.
I walked towards her.
"And what of Air?" I said to the inert body lying at my feet. "You have not yet mastered it, have you, young Avatar? But even if you had, it would not matter."
Thin, long shadows emerged from me like multiple strings. They wrapped around the Avatar and lifted her up before me.
"I told you I would destroy you," I said, the shadows contracting, like black whips cutting through her tender skin.
She screamed, spitting fire at me from her mouth.
I will kill the Avatar.
No, I cannot. I have spoken the ten precepts.
"Panatipata veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami."
I undertake to abstain from harming or taking life.
The voice of Hatred, whispering through me.
She is the odious god of bending.
The voice of Anger, screaming in my ears.
Make her pay for what they have done to you!
The voice of Fear, burrowing through my heart.
Do not let her reach the Avatar State.
The voice of Bloodlust, boiling in my veins.
Watch her hot blood drip all over your body.
The voice of Insanity, tainting my brain.
Finish her off, finish her off, finish her off.
Which were truly my thoughts, and which where theirs?
"Panatipata veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami."
I undertake to abstain from harming or taking life.
I released the Avatar. Placed her back upon the ground.
Tahlt zeqt tam alk?
What are you doing?
I grabbed her by the hair to straighten her up, forced her to her knees.
My hand burned through her brown locks, fumes rising in the air. I seized the back of her neck, and brought the thumb of my right hand on her forehead.
"Your bending is a sickness," I breathed. "It has made you blind."
Closing my eyes, I finally cleansed the Avatar of her impurity.
Still so attached to your pathetic ideals.
In a single, ceremonial motion, I carefully removed my hands and let her collapse before me.
The mortals fighting around us barely reacted, so absorbed were they by their own battles. Ahead, in the debris of the Council, I saw a man emerge, crawling on his hands and knees.
Could it be?
I walked in his direction, leaving the broken Avatar behind.
The Lieutenant was alive.
At the sight of me, he scrambled to find the knife in his boot. His goggles were cracked; his shattered khali sticks threw erratic sparks in every direction. Blood covered his face, like a painted mask.
"D-D-Don't come any closer..." he stammered.
His entire world had fallen apart within a matter of moments.
Rising weakly, he seemed at a loss to understand who he was addressing.
"For-forgive my leader...I did not believe you..."
To survive in guilt is absolute punishment.
"I killed all those people, oh spirits, I..."
Wakened in the middle of a pyre.
"What have I done? I am mad!" he cried, too suddenly aware of the horrors consuming his life. "Mad! I betrayed my cause, the Revolution. So much blood, so much blood on my hands, for a monster! For you!"
Yes, for me. For us.
"I do not deserve to live."
Before I could respond, the Lieutenant pressed the tip of his knife against his stomach. All the anger, the hatred, the fear, the bloodlust, the insanity directed upon himself.
"Stop it, Lieutenant," I ordered him.
He stared into my glowing eyes, and I, into his.
Let him take his own life. Let him do it. Such beautiful inner chaos.
"Listen to me," I said, securing his gaze. My thumb rested on his forehead and burned his skin.
I am more powerful than ever before.
You no longer have your own will.
I now master the arts of the mind.
You no longer have your own will.
"You did not kill all those people, Lieutenant..."
His incredulous gaze.
"...I have."
The devastation in his soul.
"I was never who you thought I was. I lied to you. There was no illumination, no granting of powers. I am a dark spirit, and I do not care for the fate of non-benders."
"Y-You murdered them, Amon?"
He dropped his knife.
"Yes," I replied. "You killed nobody. It was all my doing. Your hands are clean."
We are the ones who granted you the power of hypnosis!
You are to spread chaos with it. How dare you use it idly?
How dare you?
"But you have served me well, Lieutenant."
I released him from my gaze, watched the breeze cover the bruise on his forehead with his hair. A red circle on a mask.
His shoulders slumped and he took off his headgear.
"You traitor."
I deserve his hatred. I want it.
"I dedicated my life to you!" he cried, suddenly darting forward with his khali sticks. Shadows surrounded me again, protecting me. Another brutal change of pressure; another shock wave. He flew back, rushing against a wall.
The trustful servant betrayed by his master.
It is the way it should be.
I knew then what awaited my mortal friend. I recalled his words, spoken in a humble whisper.
"A quiet, simple life for an old warrior."
He would retreat and heal the wounds of his body, forever crippled by those of the soul.
But each day, he would look over his rice fields and find peace in the knowledge that he had fought for what he believed in. That he had openly faced his oppressors, despite being lead on by a deceitful murderer whose name he would forever curse. That all would remember the day when non-benders decided that they had had enough. That he had been a part of it all. And that he had remained unblemished.
"I am not done with you yet, Amon!"
The Avatar's threat bore through me like an unexpected arrow, shot from afar. I turned around and saw her on her feet, energy renewed by her pointless determination.
"And what exactly do you intend to do?" I asked. "You have lost your bending, and have become nothing."
"I don't know what I'll do, but I won't let you win!"
Tears filled her eyes as her heartbeat accelerated.
It was then that a vision touched the edges of my mind.
A fleeting image, passing through the gates of consciousness.
The Avatar's eyes glowed. In her left hand, five daggers, flaring.
One for each spirit of Chaos.
In her right hand, a sixth Phurpa.
A sixth dagger, for me.
All this time, I had wanted to chase away the evil inside me. But it ran in circles, because so did I.
Struggling to resist those who where trying to subjugate me, I marched towards the Avatar as she backed away.
I fought against the forces tearing me apart and the vicious hunger for chaos.
Amon, ghalt qeth vem tak lalt!
Amon, you cannot do this!
Vhan lekhtal tem!
We are bound together!
I know.
"Stay," I said, gazing into her.
She obeyed, unable to move.
I began to chant; it gave me strength.
"The doors of the deathless are open, for those who have ears."
Meeting my fate, one step at a time.
You claimed that meditation severed me from my body. But I see now that you feared my spiritual strength. My body is nothing. Nothing but a prison.
My prison, and yours.
The effects of my influence, which I was now repressing, were slowly subsiding. Aggression and violence yielded to horror and lament. As though the self-destruction of the mortals had become apparent to them at last. "This creature is not our leader!" some cried as they beheld me. Others weeped over their own crimes. Republic City was in ashes. There was no reconciliation, no forgiveness, only desolation, extinguishing the vicious flames of war. Crowds gathered to watch the endgame unfold.
Enlightenment. The wound I had left on the Avatar's forehead reminded me of an eye. Placing my thumb over it, I slipped into her mind, reached for the sixth chakra.
"They enter with veneration, devoid of hatred..."
An endless field of snow and ice, a bright, windy sky and a mountain rising in the middle. Within it, an eternal being.
"Awake."
Luminescent eyes and the gathering of a storm.
The Avatar State, ignited.
"Take me to the Spirit World," I commanded her.
You cannot do this!
Zith kem takt, vohltar.
Curse you, mortal.
I am no longer a mortal. We are forever bound together, you and I. I cannot be rid of you, but you cannot be rid of me. You are trapped in this body, and my will is stronger than yours.
And now, I choose to banish myself from this realm.
"I don't know the way," the Avatar said, a remnant of her mortal self still present.
But her voice now resembled mine. It was a synthesis of those of all the past Avatars.
"Yes, you do. Take me there, Avatar. My immortal body can exist in both realms."
All around us, fire, earth, water, air.
I wondered if her bending had been restored.
Finally, she left her body, and I followed her entirely, disappearing through a wall of white light.
Interminable paths, lined with towering blue trees. Glowing dust, like fireflies traveling in circles. Complete absence of time, only existence. Arcane knowledge, seeping through the fabric of eternity.
This is where the flame of the candle sleeps.
Where the darkness of night waits.
Where all that is hidden, is revealed.
As we drew nearer to Hàlin, the sky darkened; it was punctured with insidious stars and lined with perpetual dusk. There were eroded pavilions and red rivers floating in the air. A place of disorder, of instability.
My abyss, my refuge, my home.
The Avatar stopped, letting me go on alone.
"If only you knew the suffering of the mortal realm," I said, claiming my place in the Spirit World.
"I can feel it now."
"And will you do nothing to ease it, Avatar?"
"I was not yet ready for my awakening. It was artificial, forced. When I am back there and out of the Avatar State, I will be powerless."
Ethereal voices, resonating through the realm.
"But I will earn my bending back once I have made true contact with my inner self."
I sat in the lotus pose, rising above the very center of Hàlin. The Avatar faded, dissolving back into the world of mortals, from which I had exiled myself. She would be hailed a hero, a saviour, for she herself would never fully remember what had happened on the day of the Solstice. Had she really taken Amon into the spirit world, or had he forced her to do so? To the eyes of masses, it would not matter. Legend would always build the Avatar into a god, and benders would always be idolized.
Mortals do not deserve the power of bending the elements. To them, the gift becomes a curse, a sickness, because their hearts are impure. I was not a bender, and yet there had been so much evil within me, regardless of the influence of the spirits.
As the solstice ended and the realms drifted apart, I knew the open war was over, but not the silent one raging on in the minds of the persecuted. All cannot be resolved at once. I would no longer be a threat to the mortal realm, but peace would not replace the Revolution. Somehow, after all the promises men make, things always seem to slip back into corruption.
There would always be oppression, violence, cruelty. But now, non-benders would unite, stand up for themselves and show their own strength, for I knew that their belief went beyond a simple allegiance to a man wearing a mask.
It was my only consolation.
Closing my eyes, I entered the state of meditation, seeking shelter deep inside me. Looking to relieve my suffering and find order within. The spirits were locked there, underground, rustling, struggling to escape. But they could not.
For I was now the spirit of Chaos, contained.
A being of imbalance, graced with balance.