WORDS: 3K

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CHAPTER XV - CONFRONTATION

The chopper had touched down on the Rock. Kav stepped out of the cockpit and soaked in the light of the full moon, his bloodbending would return to him once more. He and the One called Kaili awaited atop the massive Si Wong Rock, the only landmark in the sea of sand dunes for miles around. The Lotus airships hovered close, one of them undoubtedly held the Chairwoman and her family.

Sen landed atop the Rock and closed his glider. Kaili's men and women looked on from their airships, ready to attack at a moment's notice, if they underestimated the boy, they would surely fail.

"Are you alone?" Kaili asked.

Sen nodded.

He was telling the truth. But if he was followed unbeknownst to him, his allies would be here shortly.

The One called Kaili took her hood off. "Good," she said. "Sen, I know you've been told a lot of things about me and what I've done... But if you knew the reasons behind them, Sen, you'd understand why they were necessary. Come home, Sen. I'm still your mother."

Sen held the staff with both his hands and raised it. "No, you're not!" When he brought it down, the downward force was held by Kav's bloodbending.

He was strengthened by both the moon and the drug they had produced.

Kaili retrieved her iron weapons from the chopper with her metalbending, also boosted. All three of them had been bolstered by the drug, but Sen was naturally gifted.

He struggled at first, but eventually regained his movement, however jagged - he hadn't broken from the bloodbending grip completely.

Kav had expected as such, he had taught the boy, after all. He displayed a bittersweet smile at his former student's success. Kav had believed in the cause wholeheartedly, but if the Lotus was going down, he wanted it to be at the Hand of Sen.

The end of the Avatar's staff landed on the Rock and the Rock was no more. It scattered into millions of grains, most of them converged and erected a pillar, but the disc of the surface rose with Sen's arms as the column of hardened sand supported it from underneath. The circular platform of sand climbed higher and higher into the clouds, far from the reach of the Lotus airships - they admired the spectacle of the sight, careful to avoid the empty chopper which was now crashing down towards them.

Kaili had lost her footing on the rising, coarse, loose earth as all of her weapons were clattered on the sand and were lost to the growing heights below. She got back up to send some of the sand Sen's way.

Sen bended it like water, it wasn't as fluent thanks to Kav's stubborn grip, but was efficient enough to send more of it flailing back to the two. As he did, he saw his fear manifested. He froze as the chopper carrying the One of a Thousand Swords appeared from below the flying sand, his weapons orbiting, ready to strike from the skies. How? Kaili was grinning right there in front of him, her chopper had fell off and been destroyed, where did this second chopper and hooded person come from? Was this the real One, come out of his nightmares?

Kav intensified his grip on the stunned boy. A heap of sand and swords thrust through the air at him.

We are always with you.

Sen broke free again and his eyes traced the paths of the grains and knives, evading and airbending them away with his staff. He then discarded it to bend one of the iron weapons, a spear, straight towards the One, who barely dodged it - it had gone straight through the open doors of the chopper. As he dodged it, the movement caused his hood to fall and reveal his airbending tattoos. An airbender?

Father Glowworm was the One of a Thousand Swords. He had used Tenzin's drug-enhanced airbending to control the airflow around metal.

Glowworm saw Kuruk and Kyoshi in the boy's eyes, though they hadn't glowed. In that moment, his spirit weakened, his fear consumed him and Tenzin's body began rejecting him. He writhed. "I've been in here too long!" he shouted to Kaili.

"We're not done here, Glowworm!" she screamed.

"I won't die here for you!" He would be risking his life if he pushed his time. "My debt is repaid!" he said as he separated from the old man and escaped back to his cave, leaving Tenzin falling unconscious, tipping over the side of the helicopter and plummeting down to the earth below.

Tenzin fell and fell, deeper and deeper into the night. He would have been lost were it not for one thought that woke him. Pema and the kids! He remembered everything - how Kaili had sent him a letter threatening to kill the Avatar if he didn't surrender himself, how he'd been possessed by a spirit, how they used his body as a double for Kaili. He wasted no time retrieving his memories formed under the possession and using them to guide him to the airship that his family had been held captive in. A strong downward blast of wind broke his fall as he landed onto the top of the hull.

The scales tipped with the loss of Father Glowworm and all three of them knew what Tenzin would do as soon as he regained control of his body.

Kaili had to do something. "I'm gonna barricade us in with the sand!" she shouted to Kav.

It would mean the loss of the direct moonlight, and loss of great strength for Kav, but he knew that Jinora and Rohan would make quick work of them otherwise. He nodded and began collecting water from clouds near and far, all the while forming icicles from them and shooting them at Sen.

Kaili began constructing her sphere of sand around the platform, the grains formed a planetary sight as it closed in around the pillared stage. Kav had pinched his last supply of cloud vapour just in time - the siblings had arrived, but were trapped outside.

Their airbending wasn't strong enough to blow apart an opening big enough or for long enough to enter - unlike the airbenders', this was genuine sandbending.

Kaili focused on maintaining the sand barrier while Kav and Sen fought with ice and water, though they could barely see each other due to the storms of sand. Occasionally Sen also tore a hole through the sand-barrier, but it was quickly repaired by Kaili.

The two outside continued their assault, but Jinora saw that this wasn't getting them anywhere. She noticed Ikki on the ground signalling her to come back down to her. "Rohan! Keep going! I'll be back!" she shouted before flying down to her sister.

Tenzin, Ikki and Meelo had just finished taking care of the remaining Lotus fighters and had been observing the hastily constructed battleground evolve from a distance.

"What are you doing, Ikki?" asked Meelo. "Why are you calling Jinora back here?"

It all made sense to Ikki now, the only way a helicopter could fly faster than Rohan was if it was helped along by some airbending, but it still wasn't fast enough to reach the East in the time that it had appeared to have - there were two helicopters and two Ones, Tenzin was the One who had attacked the Capital, while Kaili stood by near the East. Ikki would never forgive Kaili for using their father against them like that. "Meelo," Ikki grabbed hold of Meelo's shoulders and looked him in the eyes intensely. "Now's the time. You have to do it. The Air Bomb."

Meelo recoiled. "What? How do you know about that?"

Tenzin had clearly missed a lot. "Air Bomb?"

"I connected the dots," Ikki replied. "C'mon Meelo, the Avatar needs you!"

"But he's still in there!" Meelo said.

Jinora landed.

"Jinora!" Ikki said. "No time to explain, right now, we need you to tell Sen to throw some dust around and tunnel down the sand-pillar while they're distracted."

"And how is she supposed to do that?" Meelo asked, watching Rohan struggle to penetrate the barrier.

"Using my spirit projection."

Jinora fell to sit. "I can't do this for long, though."

They watched Jinora's projection fly to the sandy, round formation.

Ikki was confident that this would work. "Get ready," she told Meelo.

After a while, Jinora entered her physical body again and Rohan followed far behind.

"He said to give him a minute," Jinora reported.

They looked on silently, looking for any sign of Sen's escape, when they heard a crash.

"That must be Sen!" Ikki said. "Meelo, do your thing."

He took a deep breath before assuming his stance and pointing his arms upwards toward the sand bubble. The air nearby to it had begun to gather above it.

Ikki saw the twisty column of sand bob and jerk. "That's him! He's tunnelling down! As soon as he's far enough away, blow it."

Rohan came back and landed near Jinora to join her in her amazement at Meelo's bending. Even their airbending didn't have such reach. But their wonderment turned to concern when they turned back to Meelo to see his blood pooled at his shoes.

Sen used the dust to cover himself, the visibility was already poor and his two opponents were still recovering from the blast caused by the mass of sand he had dropped on them. He began tunnelling through the dense sand, the deeper he went the tighter its grip held him. His struggles could be seen for miles around as the pillar wavered with him. Sen's downward velocity shrank, slower and slower until eventually, he had come to an involuntary halt. He let out a cry as the sand almost crushed him, spitting him up back out the way he came. It was Kaili, she had bended the sand. Her face twisted into a callous smile as he returned to the surface.

The void in the sky grew large enough and Meelo was nearly at his limit, his clothes were stained red by his own blood now. But Sen hadn't returned yet. The group squinted into the distance, they saw nothing. Meelo's veins bulged out of his skin as he tried to contain the energy of the white crystal he had created, it could be seen sparkling in the moonlight.

"Hold it!" Ikki hated to say it, but Sen wasn't here. "Where is he!?"

Kav engaged with Sen in the back and forth waterbending contest once more, this time assisted by Kaili, who had needed to spend less time mending the spherical sand and could focus more on attacking the Avatar. As much as Sen tried, as hard as he focused, he couldn't react accordingly to their combined barrage.

Everyone grimaced, Sen was still nowhere to be seen. Ikki regretted coming up with this idea in the first place. "Can't you just slowly release it back into the air?" she asked Meelo desperately.

He couldn't even reply, instead giving a strained shake of the head. There was only so much Meelo's body could endure. His entire body, all of his muscles were clenched trying to keep this explosion from happening.

Rohan hovered slightly toward the scene. "We have to do something!"

"Stand down," Jinora ordered. "Get back down here."

"But, Jinora-"

"I gave you an order, Captain!" Jinora snapped. "Stand. Down."

Rohan thought for a moment. It was Jinora's orders that had gotten them captured before. He turned and wordlessly jetted away despite Jinora's irate screaming.

Jinora's rage turned to her sister. She grabbed her collar. "What were you thinking!?"

"I'm sorry!" she said. "I thought I saw him tunnelling down!"

Meelo was steadily approaching his limit. It wasn't his will, but his body simply stopped obeying him. He finally collapsed into the puddle of his blood and let go of the massive bank of energy stored in the white crystal about to burst violently in all directions.

"Meelo!"

Sen had been knocked down by one of Kav's attacks. He looked up from the ground and saw the light pierce through the top of the spherical barrier.

DAYS AGO

There was no way Sen could crush a boulder or even crack it by just using his airbending. He had tried for months but still hadn't made any progress. He would often obliterate the boulder with his earthbending out of frustration.

"I think it took about this long for me, too," Rohan said. "You'll get it eventually."

Sen wasn't so convinced. "Maybe I need a better master," Sen joked. But it had given him the idea. "What was it like to be taught by Jinora?"

It didn't take much thought to come up with an answer. "It was pretty hard."

Sen had expected as much, she was really scary sometimes, he imagined her to be very intense during training. "How did she teach you how to do it?"

Rohan grabbed his chin and looked into his memories. "Well, when I wasn't using enough power, she'd yell 'Weak!' and if I was underperforming she'd yell 'Not good enough!'" Somehow, Rohan's impression of Jinora had been very accurate. "It wasn't all negative though, whenever I did something well, she'd say 'Good.'"

"Wow," Sen said earnestly. "She sounds like a great teacher!"

However the siblings trained, they were clearly doing something right.

"Yeah, she was," Rohan agreed, he wouldn't have gotten this far without her. "But it was hard for her, too, it's not easy training the strongest airbender in the world!" Rohan pointed at himself with his thumb, grinning a toothy grin. Rohan was the only one who was proud enough to overwhelm even Sen with his haughtiness. "But it's even harder for me, I have to train the strongest bender in the world!" He laughed proudly into the sky.

It was clear that whatever pride Rohan felt for himself was overshadowed by the incredible pride he felt for his student.

Sen smiled and got up to try again, his master's proud laughter empowering him. He spread his feet and pointed his arms towards the boulder. The resulting blast was damaging, but not enough to leave a lasting mark on the face of the boulder.

"You're using both of your hands?"

Sen was starting to get creeped out by how much Rohan's impression sounded like Jinora's real voice. "Okay, that sounded exactly like Jinora."

"It was Jinora." Rohan pointed upwards.

She stood in the air with her arms folded, her cape fluttering in the wind. Sen saw the underside of her boots, they were spotless, this had probably been the first time she had been outside in days, a momentary escape from the never-ending meetings and mountains of paperwork - even with Ikki helping her - and she was a great help - it still wasn't a fun time.

"You're using both of your hands," she repeated.

"Well, yeah," Sen said. "That's how you guys do it."

Jinora descended. Sen appreciated her using some of what little free time she had to help him. "It's a special case for us," she explained as she landed.

Sen looked back to his teacher, who was as blank faced as him.

"Huh?" Rohan said. "It is?" Rohan had only remembered ever using both his hands to send out twin concentrated gusts that combine to form a single blow to crack boulders - that's what he had been teaching Sen.

"Don't you remember? When I first taught you, I told you that when I was developing the technique, I originally started out leading with my right and only using my left arm to stabilise the channelled energy from the other. Like this-" Jinora put out her right arm out and held the forearm with her left hand. "I only use both arms because I can't produce enough power from one, even if it is my dominant arm. Rohan, you're the same way."

Rohan performed the move into the air with both his hands, like he usually does. "Right," he said, inspecting his hands. "We don't need extra stabilisation, we can do it with one arm each." He looked amused again. "I guess you never stop learning, huh."

"Well, no," Jinora rebutted. "You did learn it but you forgot."

Sen laughed, then thought about what Jinora just told them. "So, you're saying that I might be the opposite way? I might be better at dishing out air-power and... less better at stabilising it?"

Jinora shrugged. "Only one way to find out, kid."

Sen nodded excitedly and mimicked Jinora's original technique. He built the energy in his stronger arm, his right, then used his left to control it. The air escaped from his palm, it whistled through to the boulder, the impact was not enough to completely split it apart, but a few more of those would have caused a significant crack or two - it was definitely an improvement from before."

Sen beamed, turning to Jinora to bow to her. "Thank you, Jinora!"

Rohan chuckled hesitantly, scratching the back of his head. He was still embarrassed that he had forgotten that minor detail.

"He. Is. Adorable," said Ikki, walking up to the three. Sen's face warmed slightly as he raised his head. "Sorry to interrupt," Ikki continued, "but we have to get back to work. We're on a schedule."

Jinora sighed.

PRESENT

Sen felt the colossal source of energy about to explode above him.

The hardened layers of sand above gave Sen enough time to stick his right palm out upwards at it, his left supporting the other arm, ready to stabilise the energy about to surge through it.

The heavy blast flashed through the sand as Sen's eyes began to glow a hot white. He had no choice but to try to absorb the force of the condensed crystal, or he would perish...

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