Chapter 1

Sweat was pooling in Asami's gloves but the unmistakable sound of cracking ice made a chill of fear race down her back. Korra had displayed an impressive feat of water bending by managing to layer up enough ice to immobilize the mecha giant. It had bought them precious time. But the ice wasn't going to last.

Another loud crack. "We need to get out of here!"

Her father remained focused, almost maddeningly calm, as he continued to slice through the hull of the mecha giant with the plasma saw. "Almost there…"

Shattered ice rained down on Asami's cockpit window. It wouldn't be long now before the entire weapon broke free. "We have to go now!"

Hiroshi narrowed his eyes in concentration. "Almost there… almost there!"

Asami stared in wide-horror as one of the giant's arms ripped free. "Dad! Now!"

"Goodbye, Asami. I love you."

Wait, what?

Her cockpit seat ejected violently before Asami even had time to process what her father had meant.

"Dad!"

The parachute deployed shortly after her ejected seat blasted away to safety and she watched helplessly as the hand of the mecha giant swung free, ruthlessly crushing the hummingbird suit with her father still inside. The crumpled suit slid away like a squashed insect, revealing a freshly sliced open hold in the leg of the giant.

Tears welled up and stuck in Asami's throat, refusing to fall. He did it. He sacrificed himself and gave us a chance.

The mecha giant resumed its course through the heart of the city, indifferent to the brutal execution it had issued. Asami saw with grim satisfaction that Korra, Mako, Bolin, Lin and Su had not wasted any time taking advantage of the opening her father had created. They understood the stakes. There would be no messing around.

Take that bitch down for good, Asami silently willed as she watched the woman she loved and her team disappear inside the mech.

Her ejected seat thudded to the ground with painful force, making her vision blur momentarily. Asami scrambled to release her harness and untangle herself from the ropes of the emergency parachute. A quick survey of her body told her that nothing was physically broken or seriously injured. She was able to keep fighting.

Asami scanned her surroundings. Even without her unconscious calculations of speed and trajectory, it wasn't difficult to discern the path the mecha giant had taken with its ground-eating strides. Varrick and Zhu Li had crashed a ways back. She could try and find them to see if they needed help but finding their crash site could take time. Time that they maybe didn't have.

Pushing down her grief, Asami took off at a sprint in the direction the mecha giant had taken. Kuvira needed to be stopped. She would help the casualties and mourn for the dead later.

The trail of destruction was impossible to miss. Following the mecha giant on foot, however, proved to be more challenging. Large chunks of decimated buildings blocked pathways and car-sized craters had made many roads impassable.

An explosion made Asami look up toward the skyline. She saw the top of the smoking head of the mecha giant collapse toward the ground. Fierce hope surged within her.

The team did it. The plan worked! Please be ok. Please, please, please be ok.

Fueled by a second wind, Asami picked up her pace toward the ruined mecha giant. She needed to find Korra. She needed to know if she was safe.

She wasn't sure what happened next.

The air seemed to compress around her. Her eardrums popped. A second, deafening explosion of sound and energy seemed to rip apart the very fabric of time.

Asami reacted instinctively. She dove for cover inside a ruined building just as the shockwave was about to reach her. As quickly as the explosion had formed it suddenly, almost impossibly, retracted back into itself. Asami dared to peek out from her makeshift bunker and felt her jaw slacken ever so slightly as she tried to take in the new sight. The newly-formed yellow beam of energy stretched proudly up toward the heavens.

A… portal? How…? What could have…?

New fear clutched at Asami's insides.

That portal is right around where the mech fell.

Korra!

She couldn't be dead. Surely the creation of a new portal meant that some sort of avatar-spirity-thing had taken place. Something Korra had done intentionally… something she knew she could survive…

Or maybe chose to sacrifice herself so that others could survive…

No! She has to be alive. She can't be… not without knowing that I…

Asami fought back a fresh set of burning tears and resumed her sprint toward the crash site and portal. She didn't know what she would do if she lost both her father and Korra on the same day. There would be nothing for her but the vast expanse of a lonely, cold future.

Korra has to be alive. She's the avatar. If anyone could have survived that blast, it's the avatar.

A search team had already begun at the base of the portal by the time Asami arrived. She saw with relief that Mako and Bolin were in one piece, though a bit worse for wear. What had once been the Republic City spirit wilds had now been replaced by an enormous crater of vines and mech wreckage. An odd collection of allies and enemies spread across the crater, both trying to find any sign of the combatants.

"Keep looking!" Tenzin barked out.

Asami frantically scrambled around the uneven surface of the crater, feeling more and more hopeless with each passing second that they didn't find any evidence of the avatar or Kuvira. A familiar bitterness and anger welled up inside of her. Korra had already been taken away from her by Zaheer. Against all odds she had survived and returned… returned to her. And now thanks to the delusions of grandeur from yet another power-crazed maniac, Asami had lost her second chance at telling Korra what she really meant to her.

If Korra had somehow survived, she would not miss a third opportunity.

"The spirits have returned…" Tenzin said, wonder apparent in his voice.

Asami looked up and was almost momentarily distracted by the beauty of the spirits and colors floating above her. The flicker and movement in the swirling portal light drew her gaze downward. The outline of two figures began to form and take shape.

Her heart thudded in joyful recognition. "And so has Korra!"