YIN-YANG
FOUR MONTHS LATER
Korra stared at the forest of stone pillars that lay beyond the salt flats, quietly examining each one of the great wind-carved structures in the gentle light of dawn.
The place felt familiar, although Korra knew that it should not have, the spirit of the First Avatar having long been purged from within her.
Seventy-three years ago, Avatar Aang had fought a titanic battle against Fire Lord Ozai among these very pillars, saving the Earth Kingdom from total destruction and putting an end to the Hundred-Year War.
Today, she would bear witness to the final act of a titanic game of politics, posturing, and threats, which, if successful, had a good chance of putting an end to the very idea of total war: wars with unlimited objectives, wars of total victory for the victors and total defeat for the losers. Today, she would bear witness to the start of a new great peace, enforced by the nations and their arsenals.
For what good was conquest if all parties involved were reduced to charred rubble? And what defeat could a victor possibly demand from a defeated party who could still level the victor's greatest cities? No truly intolerable terms would be accepted. No truly intolerable demands would be seriously pressed.
No. Henceforth, wars were far more likely to be limited. Bickering things, with endless negotiations, grudging, temporary defeats, and fleeting, ungratifying victories.
Far better that wars be limited. Far better that wars be bickering things on the margins of nations than firestorms of slaughter that marched through their very hearts, leaving in their wake suffering on a vast scale.
She turned towards Asami, who smiled as she eyeballed outputs from a vast network of sensors, ready to record every detail of the coming test. Behind them, Varrick directed a mover camera crew as they captured every moment of this glorious day in full color and sound.
It was time.
General Bumi donned his flash goggles. Korra followed suit.
She stared downrange at the steel tower, and squinted as she tried to make out the Gadget perched atop it. The dark glass of the goggles turned the world into a great big shadow, the sun the only feature in a dim yellow sky.
Atop its shot tower, the Gadget initiated, releasing energies equivalent to ten thousand tonnes of blasting gel in an instant.
A great flash bleached the landscape white, followed soon after by a monstrous roar, as the energies of a titanic fireball, hundreds of meters across, worked their way out of the vast salt flat.
The fireball rose majestically into the dawn sky, pulling a pillar of smoke beneath it, forming a gargantuan, gently glowing cloud the size of a mountain and the shape of a mushroom.
An apt shape, Korra thought. Mushrooms were poisonous.
Everyone cheered, Korra hardest of them all.
Kuvira had been warned that United Republic possessed Spirit Energy Weapons. Varrick's movers had described to anyone who would listen a vast and growing stockpile of Spirit Energy bombs, rolling off production lines and heading straight to aerodromes around the United Republic, well within range of Bah Sing Se.
Her army had been stalled for weeks, as they scrambled to figure out how much of the United Republic's bluster was truth.
Korra knew the truth. This morning, the United Republic had four bombs.
Now it had three.
And everyone knew they worked.