It had been an hour in the mortal world since Avatars Kyoshi, Roku and Aang had entered the spirit portal to pursue Bao and Korra, who had been pulled in with the Rogue Avatar when he had fallen off the airship.
In the intervening time, the Republic City police department had swung into action. The Police Chief, a certain Poppy Beifong, had immediately scrambled as many units as she could manage, and the President had also ordered the United Republic's armed forces to ready themselves. Several of the Republican Army's cannon had been brought to the spirit portal and now waited, loaded, pointed at it. Their crews waited beside them in nervous anticipation. The crews of two of the Republican Navy's massive battleships, the Avatar Korra and the Sovereign of the Seas, both at that point moored in the harbour, had been ordered to scramble to battle stations and raise steam in preparation to move off, while from a nearby airfield planes of the Republican Air Force had been scrambled to provide air support.
Some might have called this overkill; the people who had ordered it had decided that overkill was the only reliable way of dealing with a possibly hostile Avatar, let alone the combined powers of five of them going at it. And so the policemen, soldiers, sailors and airmen gripped their weapons nervously as they focussed on the portal, waiting for whatever was on the other side of it to make its presence felt.
"Why do I have to carry the Spirit?" Aang asked.
"The spirit has a name," Raava replied haughtily. "And you volunteered when you picked me up."
"Sorry."
The four of them and the Spirit of Light were at that moment retracing their steps back towards the portal that would take them back to the mortal world. Aang was clutching Raava with both hands, trying to be as gentle as possible with her.
"I don't suppose you know how to get home?" He asked her.
The Spirit seemed to ignore the question.
"I have been fused to the Avatar for ten thousand years, since Avatar Wan. For all that time, we were the guarantors of peace in the world, the ones who were called in when a great evil threatened to destabilise things. Bao threatened to undo all of that."
"He did kill two world leaders and assaulted two more, I would say he has undone part of it."
"Maybe, but the damage is not as bad as it could be, and that is down to you. The Avatar went bad, but was defeated by another four Avatars. This was the only scenario where Bao's defeat was not also accompanied by the downfall of the Avatar themselves."
"Are you saying you did this?"
"Who knows? The affairs of spirits are a mystery even to the Avatar. But yes, now your jobs here are done I do know how to get you home. When we go back through this portal to go to the mortal world, you will remain in 260 AG, but the next time you use the portal it will take you back to the time and place you were taken from."
"And then the job of making a better world begins."
"Not so fast, Roku. 'Making the world a better place' is an admirable sentiment, but history must proceed exactly as it has been. When you pass through the portal and return to your own times, you will do so without the memories of this future."
"You're going to wipe our memories?" Kyoshi sputtered.
"I met my grandchildren here! I found out my long-lost nation has returned here! And you want to take that all away?" Aang demanded. Perhaps he wouldn't have cared so much had he not run into Ikki, Jinora and Meelo. They were his grandchildren, and by the sounds of it he would never see them again. He would never see them grow up, never do whatever it was that grandfathers did. He would die before they were born. Now, though, he had been granted a sudden chance to meet them, and now that was being taken away?
"I know that might be difficult, and I can sympathise, but you have to understand, the price of letting you retain that knowledge could be unimaginably high."
"Fine. What's one more sacrifice?"
"How can I stop Sozin if I go back to not knowing what he does?" Roku butted in. He had not mentioned this plan since the beginning of the flight from Kyoshi Island, but clearly he had not abandoned it.
"That's just it, Roku. You're not supposed to know. You're not supposed to stop him."
By now they had reached the spirit portal, and stopped before it, looking into the shining pillar of light.
Raava prepared to travel through the portal.
"This is goodbye. Thank you for dealing with Bao, and I hope the next Fire Avatar is better."
"They had better be, I am not being dragged something like 120 years into the future to deal with them again." Korra replied.
With that, they took a deep breath and stepped through the portal.
Aang felt a weight in his arms vanish, as Raava disappeared, and then they reached the other side of the portal to find most of the firepower of Republic City being pointed at them.
They saw hands tightening around weapons for a second as they emerged, but as one the assembled army seemed to realise that Bao was not there. They relaxed.
Avatar Roku stepped forward to address the crowd.
"People of Republic City," he began. "Avatar Bao is dead. The search for the new Avatar should begin immediately."
He wasn't dead, he was languishing in the fog of lost souls, but that was a fate worse than a fate worse than death, and he may as well have been dead anyway.
A shocked murmur travelled through the crowd, before a woman pushed through the crowd. She was dressed in a black breastplate with a yellow symbol on one side of the chest, and had shoulder length brown hair with a strangely familiar looking headpiece.
"Sorry about all this," she shouted as she approached. "But when a hostile Avatar is concerned, one can never be too careful. As soon as the President heard you were here, he scrambled into the deepest underground bunker he could find."
"I suppose given what Bao was doing, that's understandable," Kyoshi replied.
The woman reached them. "My name is Beifong by the way, Poppy Beifong."
"Beifong?" Korra and Aang asked in shock at the same time.
"Yes, like Toph, Lin and Suyin," Poppy said, noting the shock in their faces and smirking. She then turned to the crowd and ordered them to stand down loudly.
An hour later, and the army had dispersed. A few guardsmen were left guarding the perimeter of the crater in which the Spirit portal sat, but otherwise the only people there were Aang, Korra, Kyoshi, and Roku. Poppy Beifong was there too, and eventually Jinora, Ikki, Meelo, Earth Queen Zetian, and Yang the Kyoshi Warrior had joined them. They had only got through the Republican blockade after the Earth Queen had pulled rank. It was the first time she had done that and she was very uncomfortable with it.
The Avatars had just finished explaining what had happened to Bao.
"Serves him right," Zetian declared.
"What's going to happen next though?" Jinora asked.
"As far as the Avatar cycle is concerned, Bao died in the spirit world. At this very moment, somewhere Fire Nationals live, the next Avatar is probably being born."
"A new wait for an Avatar so soon after the last one isn't going to be good for global stability," Poppy told them.
"It's the shortest Avatar period since Kuruk I think."
"Indeed, shorter even."
"Still, that wait was worth it. It ended with the discovery of Kyoshi, and we know how that went! Hopefully the next Avatar is another Kyoshi."
"Everyone seems to know it except me, anyway." Kyoshi replied, only half joking.
Ikki had just opened her mouth to launch into a long explanation when Kyoshi put her hand up.
"Please, there's no point explaining. I'll lose all memory of this when I return to my time anyway, so I'll discover it in real time."
"They are wiping your memory?" Jinora suddenly looked horrified.
"They, whoever they are, want a guarantee that we won't use the knowledge we gain here to change the future."
"Oh," Jinora replied. "It's understandable, I suppose, but it's disappointing."
"What will you do when we go back?" Korra asked, trying to change the subject.
"Oh, the usual," Jinora replied. We'll go back to the Air Temples, and I daresay Zetian will go to Ba Sing Se."
The Earth Queen nodded in response.
"So will I," Yang added. "My Kyoshi Warriors had a duty to protect the Earth King, and that has transferred to his successor."
"Thank you," Zetian told her.
"Besides, the Earth Monarchy still owes us wages," Yang added.
"I would invite you to the coronation, but..." Zetian tailed off. They all knew the reason they couldn't go.
Kyoshi looked towards the portal.
"I think it's time I was off then," she said.
"So soon?" Yang asked.
"Yes. I've kept Rangi waiting for long enough. About six hundred years, give or take."
She looked at her future lives.
"I won't remember this in a minute, but it was an honour to meet all of you, and it's nice to know the future of the Avatar is in such good hands."
"You know, you weren't so bad yourself," Korra told her.
Kyoshi smiled. "Well, let's find out shall we?"
She stepped away from the group and walked towards the portal. As she approached it, the light framing her tall figure, she turned around one last time and waved at them.
And with that, Avatar Kyoshi was gone.
"I suppose that's my cue as well," Roku decided. "Back to the Fire Nation, back to Sozin. Back to Ta Min," he added.
"Good luck," Aang said.
"Goodbye Aang. And I'm sorry."
The Fire Avatar too walked into the portal, and soon he had vanished too, travelling hundreds of years into the past.
"I suppose it's fitting," Korra mused. "I came to this time through this spirit portal, and I'm going back to my time through it too."
"Goodbye Korra," Jinora said.
"It's not really goodbye," Korra insisted. "You will all be there on the other side."
"Maybe not for you, but it's goodbye for us," Ikki added.
"I suppose."
Jinora, Ikki and Meelo all scooped the water avatar into a hug. When they broke apart, Korra looked towards the spirit portal.
"No spoilers, but a great life awaits you on the other side of that portal," Meelo said.
"Then I look forward to it," Korra said, and with that she was off, towards the portal. She stepped into it and turned around much like Kyoshi had, giving one last wave before she too disappeared.
This only left Aang.
"Well, goodbye," he said, looking sadly at them.
"Bye!" Ikki replied, and the others echoed her.
"I just can't believe that I find out I have grandchildren and that my nation that was destroyed is back, but I have to forget all that again."
"Look on the bright side though," Meelo replied. "Katara is waiting on the other side of that portal. You may lose some memories, but I'm sure you have many reasons to return to the past. Your friends."
"Yes, I do," Aang said. He supposed that him losing the knowledge of these events didn't especially matter; they would still happen, and for that he was grateful.
"One last group hug," he said, and his grandchildren obliged. The others just looked at him.
"Well, what are you waiting for? I meant you too!"
The Earth Queen, Yang, and Poppy exchanged glances, and then joined in the hug.
"Thank you," Aang told them all.
"For what?"
"For everything."
Aang broke off the hug, and decided he couldn't put it off any further. He had one last look at the people who had defined his time in the future, and then turned and began to walk towards the portal. He reached the edge of it, and felt the energy. He took a deep breath, and took one step forward.
His vision went white, and then black, and then he felt a muffled sound of arguing.
"...Can't believe you! You do this with Suki all the time!"
"Don't bring Suki into this!"
Aang remembered where he was. He was on the balcony in Ba Sing Se. The war was over. Zuko was the Firelord. His friends were all here. He and Katara had just kissed. Life was good.
Still, Aang had a sense that something was off. He was sure he hadn't been here a moment ago, but he couldn't remember what if anything might have caused that sensation.
"...Aang?"
The Avatar was broken out of his thoughts by Sokka looking at him curiously. He and Katara had stopped arguing.
"Did you hear my question?"
"No, what was it?"
"I was going to ask if we wanted to go for a ride on Appa to watch the fireworks."
"Are you alright?" Katara asked, detecting that something was off.
Aang shook the feeling off, reminding himself of where he was.
"No, no, it's fine. I think that's a great idea Sokka. My mind was just somewhere else for a moment there."
Author's Note: That's it. The Five Avatars is officially done, the third of my stories to be completed. As always, I hope you all enjoyed it, and I thank all who read and reviewed it.