Azuma stood on the deck of an airship that was donated from Varric industries. Said company head was locked in prison and wanted to make a deal for less jail time. Lin took the airship but denied Varric's request. Civil forfeiture and all that.
He found it strange that an official of any kind was listening to his words. The and alchemists won't even notice if he was sitting in front of their buildings. Although the fact he had traveled across an entire universe while fused to another being, probably helped grab attention.
He looked down on his hands, while not visible to others at the moment. He saw the green fire around them and felt the heat in his chest. Uncomfortable, growing heat. Like a pot of water slowly boiling over.
Was this worth it? He thought to himself.
He felt the spirit he made a deal with twitch inside himself. An apparently visible reaction if the looks of the Avatar's friends are to be believed. Which he did not fault them for.
He was promised much for his end of the deal but even now, aspects of it seemed too strange to believe. He is on an airship to murder a king of another reality, for Ishval sake.
And yet that reaction was the same as his reasoning to do it. Ishval's sake. It was a frightful existence with just state alchemist's on his own world, but he looked through the spirit's memory and saw the history of this other world.
The wars, the atrocities, the raw power of the Avatar and their free reign to govern and police the world.
The only reason he didn't question any of the Avatar's companions about this world's logic was that he needed them. He heard the sound of a door opening behind him, he immediately turned with his flaming arms becoming visible once more.
The person who opened the door was the eldest daughter of Tenzin, Jinora. Holding a plate of food, Rice in a bowl, and broth.
"You don't scare me?" Jinora said with quiet confidence Azuma rolled his eyes at the girl and took the plate from her hands.
"I was not aiming to scare a child." Azuma refuted. "How are the others doing?" Jinora looked at him with a questioning glare. He didn't not argue against it, when the Green Flame sage was awake. Their differing personalities were fighting for dominance. The result was a conflicted being of purpose and joyful abandon. While both had minds that made plans within plans, one was more methodical and the other was more prone to improvisation.
"They still won't kill him." Jinora said bluntly. "But they are making plans to capture him." It was still a partial victory for Azuma. He just needed the manpower and meat shields to deal with the King's forces.
While their new combined forces were awkward, Azuma and the spirit were confident that their combined force was stronger. The only snag was the time they had left to fulfill that mission.
Only so many days left, a little over a week before harmonic convergence created more than their fair share of problems. That and while the spirit had set up some things in Azuma's home reality. There were still so many domino's to be put into play.
"Do you trust the spirits?" Azuma asked the airbender.
"Father said that they should be-"
"I don't want ya father's words, I want ya own." Azuma said bitterly. Whether it would be the soldiers of Amestris, the warrior monks of Ishval, or even this child. He would not tolerate a simple answer.
"No. Not you at least. I don't even think that Green Flame Sage is a real spirit." The flame arms of Azuma glowed a brighter green. "I mean what spirit would take such an interest in humans but not become parts of the natural world, Like the ocean and moon spirits." The spirit of Green Flame Sage relented and the arm slightly dimmed. "I trust that you want something from the spirits." Jinora said as she pointed at the Ishvalan's face.
"I want what I was promised. And that requires the king of the north to be stopped and the kite of evil to be contained." Jinora looked at the red-eyed man with confusion. "That is the title I was given by...Sage." He recognized the ridiculousness in his statement. "The evil spirit."
"How can a spirit be-"
"He's black and red and wants to unleash ten thousand years of darkness." Azuma countered "Unless those words have different meanings in this one then I can rightly assume that he is bad for everything." Jinora slightly nodded after thinking it over.
"Is that what it's like in your world?" Azuma didn't quite know how to answer that question.
"If you're asking whether we have spirits….I rather say we don't but I have been shown things I never knew exist more than once this week." Azuma shrugged. "My world is also quite boring compared to your own young one." He lied. His blood boiled the more he thought about the differences between this world to his own. How the Ishvalan people could have used the protection of someone like the Avatar or of a group like the White Lotus.
Or at the very least the equal distribution of benders. A human versus Alchemist fight is quick in only two ways, the human has a gun or does not. And both end badly.
"So what deal did you make with Sage?" Jinora asked flat out.
"I don't know what you're talking about?" Sage did not explicitly say that no one could know about the deal but he did make it clear that people knowing about it would make it much harder. And Azuma had enough difficulties to last a lifetime.
"Guess you're going to keep lying."
"I do no such thing."
"I might be a kid, but if I've figured it out then it won't take the other that long either." Azuma rolled his eyes again.
"What I want is of little concern for the rest of you and only matters to me and my people."
"So the deal is about your people?" Azuma cursed himself.
"If that is what you extrapolate…" Azuma stood stunned by the sight ahead of him. an aura of light in the sky. Several colors, all waving like cloths in the wind.
"The southern lights." Jinora called them. "We're close." Azuma then heard the sound of several people walking up to the deck. He swallowed the rest of his food. Pushing it down with force. Before it could reach his stomach he felt a burning sensation and the back taste of ash in his throat.
The rest of the merry group was now assembled on the deck. From the bending brothers to the chief of police and Tenzin's siblings, Kya and Bumi. They were all gathered to see the assembly of soldiers down below. It was mostly human soldiers, water bender's from what Kya told them of the armies the water tribes use.
"If you're right about this." Bumi stared at Azuma. "Then they are going to fight to the death to protect their king. Even if we could convince them that he was nuts...good solider's follow orders." Azuma did not understand the grimness in his voice. Though he never did try to understand soldiers. The army of Ishval was just the warrior priest. Not a true military arm. The only one he met was the army of Amestirs. In his own mind, the soldier's work is to kill and nothing else.
What he failed to understand was that the others were not soldiers, fighters sure, but not people who knowingly took life. It was a bitter pill for them to swallow.
"All we need to do is kill Unalaq." Azuma said simply. "I can do that if the rest of you want to keep your hands clean." The group looked at the young man with partial confusion.
"Going to be straight with you son-"
"I am not your son, nor am I some child that needs to be shielded from carnage." With a flick of his wrist, Azuma's flame arm's appeared once more. In a snap of his fingers, several pillars of smoke formed in front of the group. They then shifted and molded into what looked like a battlefield with an overpowering enemy in coats and a retreating group of civilians.
The sight made the bending brothers queasy, mostly Bolin, as they saw a wall of stone rise ahead of the fleeing civilians. Trapping them between it and the army.
"I have seen things that will make you cry blood and vomit whatever traces of empathy you have for those who partake in war." Azuma with a hostile tongue. "If any of you don't want any part of fulfilling these soldiers' desire to die fighting, stay here. Otherwise, watch and see the fury of one who has studied the cruelty of others and broke it down into simple steps."
Far from encouraging morale, the words made the group question their decision to come. But little choice lay in front of them. He knows where Korra was, and how to get to her.
"We aren't murderers." Mako walked up to Azuma looking at him, dead in the eyes. "We will distract the army while you go after Unalaq. But don't expect us to be killers." After catching his breath and holding back his upset stomach, Bolin stood with his brother.
"Fine, but I do have a plan to make this easier on all of us. But you all need to listen to it." They all looked at Azuma skeptically. "If it goes as it is supposed to, none of you won't need to kill." Azuma promised. He felt a slight twitching as he made it, a twitch of the Green Flame Sage.
Not quite a lie, Not quite the truth. Sage remarked inside the mind of Azuma.
It's what they want and needs to hear to do this. Azuma argued.
They will hate you for this.
I didn't need them to like me.
Perhaps. But you might need them to like your people when all is said and done.
Azuma's mind was silent. He kept his mind focused on his damnable plan.
Down below the airship was a collection of the faithful of Unalaq. Not chosen or promoted based on skill in conflict or strategy, but on the faith, they had in their leader. On the unquestionable loyalty in the master's plan. Even then they looked at the dark spirit's around them with dread and uncertainty.
They grumbled and talked among each other, knowing that the mindless spirits had only thought of harming outsiders was that of seething. So it was quite a shock to them all when they saw them all cower and whispering one title.
"Green Flame Sage."
The soldier saw the strange sight of the spirit seemingly fleeing from all sides as an explosion racked the ground. The soldiers immediately tried to go into the formation but as soon as they tried to go toward where the explosion came, a torrent of flame, earth wind, and even ice besieged them. One could have assumed the Avatar herself came but with but a glance all they saw were outsiders, a rag-tag band of skirmishers.
They had fallen for a classic strategic failing, failing to focus on any target.
Those that went toward the center saw the strange sight of a flamed armed man, blasting bolts of green fire terrorizing them from the center, fighting toward the center, where the spirit portal rested. Every torrent of water, every spear of ice was melted by the young man as he fought as seriously as the dark spirits themselves with the tactics of soldiers. Using walls of fire to entrap the men and then used explosions to take out as many as he could. Not kill but simply knock them down. Using that lack of battle training to his advantage.
The fighting was slightly easier for those fighting the outsiders. They seemed more preoccupied with making a circular wall around the camp than attacking the soldiers. Not to say they couldn't defend themselves but their every volley was stopped and the wall grew along the edges more and more.
"Hold the line!" Bumi shouted as he commended a Sato's industry mech with long-ranged weaponry. "Their only option is mid to long-range combat, exploit it!" Much to the man's chagrin, he was often treated as a joke. But he is a general with several decades of experience. And he will not fail to display that here.
Despite their best efforts, the soldiers of the northern water tribe could not gain any ground against their assailants. Water bending was not weak of a bending art but its specialty was long range, healing, and mid-range torrents. But against the battlefield manipulation of earth benders and the combat ability of a firebender, they had the number and that was it. Not to even mention that most have barely seen combat. Even the mech's that had them were barely of any help. Azuma targeted them first with fire and melted the machines.
The spirits, in their panic, streamed their way into the portal, Azuma moving his pyromantic assault upon them. Green Flame Sage within Azuma tacking pride and glee from making the armies of the arrogant human fall before him while Azuma simply tried to trap the humans in.
In the chaos, both spirits and Human soldiers could not see the scope of the plans. A wall around the encampment. The soldiers that were left standing were not trapped within their own camp with a wall of frozen stone. Too hard to breach through with their water bending and too many of them were knocked out to even try.
"Give up now and tell us where your boss is!" Bumi commanded from the safety of his mech. "You won't be harmed!"
The soldiers that still would stand did not yield.
"Filthy traitor! You defy your king!"
"Indeed he does." A voice called from the portal and the sunken face of Unalaq showed himself. In front of the king of the north was Azuma, the fiery hands plain as day. The King sneered. "So that coward comes back to us, tell me child did he trick you or did you both share a…." In the middle of his gloating, he saw that some of the young man's fingers were missing. Frantically he looked around and saw the wall around them was a circular wall. Circular.
A wicked grin on the face of Azuma slowly shifted to that of Green Flame Sage.
"Oh king of the frozen north, I have quite the gift prepared for you." A wall of fire appeared behind Unalaq before he could even think to go back into the portal. On pure instinct he had the dark spirits try to defend him but in retaliation Green flame Sage recalled all his fingers. And pressed his fingers on the ground. "The greatest gift! Oh, king of the north! The gift of a glorious end!" Red lighting glowed beneath the ground and the soldiers and Unalaq fell to the ground in pain. The spirit's followed after, flailing on the ground. The group watched with horror at what they were witnessing. But kept their distance. All but one.
Mako stared at Azuma in anger, jumping over the wall.
"Mako don't go in there!" His brother screamed but Lin Beifong held him down with one of her metallic cables. Bumi nearly did the same but same the other effects of the circle as Mako went in. From the edge of the circle to its innermost part, all matter above the ground turned to square like matter. All going towards the center into a red jewel, so shining and bright that it looked like a star that had fallen from the heavens. Glowing in an eldritch red that pulsed like blood.
Bolin has a perfect view of his brother being disintegrated and being pulled into the maelstrom of matter.
"I can make a deal!" Unalaq as the circle closed in around him and Green Flame Sage. "I can talk to Vaatu! I can-" One of the flamming arms wrapped around his neck, burning it to his innermost skin.
"No more talking." Green Flame Sage had Azuma kneel right next to the King. "The only thing I want from you is the fear and submission in your eyes." He then flung Unalaq into the transmutation circle. The spirits were added to the glowing orb, no physical matter added but their spiritual energies made the glow even brighter. Like a piece of the sun had been pulled down to earth. "Don't worry, you'll have plenty of company within the stone Oh king. You never be alone again in fact!" Green Flame Sage said with gracious arms, open wide in a mocking hug. As the
The king convulsed in slow pain. Dreadful prolonged by the design of the vengeful spirit. The matter is being torn apart, layer by layer. Skin first, then muscle, then bone. Then spirit.
"I only wanted….a spiritual….age."The king managed to say before the last bit of him was no longer singular and alive. Fused into the philosopher stone to the horror of those that watched and the spirits that stayed on the other side of the portal.
Mass murder, within half a minute.
And while Azuma had disgust for it, Green Flame Sage felt great joy. A plan was executed with such proficiency and finality. The glee in watching the tyrant king beg and draw his final breath. Green Flame now understood why Humans loved to war and fight with one another. He found no equal joy in seeing his enemy broken.
But then his shame came back. He and Azuma didn't know where the joy or tortuous turn came from. Had the fusing affected more than they thought.
"What was that!" The fused being looked to see the assembled group going toward him at breakneck speed. While Bolin looked only to literally break his neck. It was then they both noticed that Mako was gone and when they tried to sense where he was they could only look at the stone. The realization only needed a second to be evident.
"What Have I done?" Azuma clutch his sides and vomited as when he focused on the stone he heard the congealed screaming of the soldiers and king. The lingering minds of the spirits. Too strong to lose all sense of self but too chaotic to not join the screaming torrent of souls.
He barely had the time to lament as a stone pillar hit him at the side, forcing him onto the ground. Bolin now on top of him, wailing on him with unrestrained rage.
"Give him back! Give him back!" The earth bender yelled out as he struck at Azuma's face. Green Flame Sage retreated into Azuma's soul as the punishment fell upon the Ishvalen. A familiar position he was used to, being blamed for someone else's actions. The only thing that was different about it this time was that he truly deserved it. And he did not even attempt to stop the flurry of blows.
"I can't,'' Azuma admitted when Bolin switched from punching to kicking. Aiming for the Ishvalen's chest. Lin held him back.
"Killing him won't bring him back."
"You don't know that!" Bolin yelled back.
"He can't come back. As soon as he entered the circle...he was-is dead. Not coming back, no reversal. No last-minute resurrection." Azuma said bluntly, his face parallel to the ground.
"You're lying!" Bolin was barely held back by Lin, his tears streaming down his face. "You just don't want to try."
"You think if the resurrection was possible I would bother with vengeance." Azuma said with gritted teeth. "I would not be bothered to deal with spirits or benders if I had that kind of power." The rest of the group surrounded him as he laid down the reality of Mako's end. "The stone takes in all that has a soul. If they could be separated I would be storming the gates of central to take back the stone made from my own people.
The group had mixed reactions. The fact that such a stone came into being does mean such a thing was possible. But the fact that Mako was caught up in the storm of souls and that they were only told that the circle would take care of the soldiers, not annihilation. Well, it did not endear them to listen to him anymore.
"You are free to hate me and the spirit bit know this." Azuma held up the stone and used it, bright strikes of red lighting all around him, a gate opened up behind himself. A stone-like one with infinite darkness within its stone door, adorned with circles and an ancient language no one in this world could know. "I have the key to get your friend, your messiah." They all glared at him. "You have to make a deal with me. Because the truth of it all is that your friend's absence prevents more disasters than she does. Now then are you going to trust me or continue to sit around like children waiting for your parents to save you." Azuma said as harshly as he could, to stir open their emotions.
"Are you blackmailing us?" Beifong said as she contemplated letting go of Bolin to let his rage consume Azuma.
"I'm stating facts. Now make your choice. Who is staying to help deal with the political collapse and fallout of regicide, or get in the portal? Choose!" Azuma laid out the two choices firmly as he pointed to a flag of the northern water tribe and then the portal. Bolin spat on the ground.
"Fine. I'll get Korra back." Bolin said with a grit that was never in his voice before. "But when I come I'll find a way to get Mako back, even if I have to grind you to dust to motivate you to find it." With little provocation or instruction, he made a pillar of stone get Beifong off his back and ran headfirst into the stone portal.
"Damn that kid." Beifong cursed herself for not stopping him. Bumi looked at the portal and then at his siblings and their friends.
"Tell mom I'm sorry." He said as he clutch the joystick of the mech.
"Bumi what are you-" Tenzin could only watch Bumi make his own bold proclamation as he charged toward the portal within his mech. Clumsy making his way in.
"Dammit, Bumi!" Kya shouted as she watched her eldest brother charge into the darkness of the unknown. "Machismo fueled idiot!"
"Will anyone else follow them?" Azuma asked the portal started to crackle in the air. To slowly begin to fade.
"You're not tempting anyone else." Kya said defiantly.
"I'll go." Lin said as she walked toward the portal.
"Is no one going to use their common sense! He turned a hundred soldiers into jewelry!" Kya bemoaned.
"Someone needs to keep those knuckleheads from messing this up and this might be our only chance." Lin argued. "Whether I like saying it or not, we can't let the Avatar wander around in the wilderness like a Sabertooth mouse lion with rabies." Lin tried to be sarcastically sardonic but the mood would not move away from the grimness of the Azuma. "Just let me do this, she said as she looked at Tenzin and Kya. "You two are more the diplomats right now and Katara has spent the best years of her trying to talk sense to those northern idiots." She then smirked. "And I spent too much time stuck in Republic city." Tenzin and Kya looked at each other and then at Azuma. Not trusting him but trusting Lin's judgment. And relenting to her points.
"Make sure you come back." Tenzin held out his hand and Lin crushed it in her own hands. Smiling the whole time.
"Good for you." Azuma mocked with a dry tone. "Now go in before I waste any more souls keeping it open. Lin stared at him.
"When this is over will bring to justice for this and I assume many more crimes." Lin promised.
"You are free to try chief of police." Azuma belittled. "Just fulfill your part and find the Avatar and don't involve yourself with Amestris. Especially with my own people. Their fate's my hands and I won't let anyone but me touch them!" The first real bit of emotion after his creation of the philosopher stone came out. His eyes glowing alight in fire and the heat melting all snow around him.
Lin took note of it as she took her steps into the portal, and whatever is on the other side of it.
"If they are in danger in there." Kya began to threaten.
"Your free to kill me when I and the spirit are done with our plans, I promise you that." Azuma picked up a pair of nearby manacles. "You can concoct a story about you trying to save the soldier's here to make your diplomatic talks easier."
The children of Avatar Aang and Katara didn't know how to react to this and fully wanted to bring this mass murder to justice. The urge to put him in a jail cell was already going through their minds. And as they did this, Azuma could feel Green Flame smirking. He did not plan for the fire bending brother to die here. But he did not feel any remorse for it. In the spirit's mind that singular bender served little purpose. Both in entertainment and strategic value. Not even his lightning bending and lighting redirection was no longer that unique in the population.
He was infinitely expendable.
Azuma cursed the spirit under his breath for turning the group against them both. He did not do it out of sentimentality but out of practicality. They are the most competent people in this world and do have the capacity to undo their plans.
I swear that I will teach my people to hate you.
You may teach your people to be wary of me all you want when this is over but recognize that I will be the reason for their salvation.
While the children of Katara, and the daughter of Toph circled around him cautiously Azuma snapped his fingers. In an instant, he was no longer in the south pole. But once more at the refugee camp where he met the spirit. Physical exhaustion and mental weariness melded as he drifted to sleep against the wall of a dilapidated. The sound of fellow ishvalen's calming his mind.
Across the portal, Amestris.
Korra, Edward, and Alphonse sat across from Izumi and her husband. Her harsh glare focused on the boy's while Korra stared back at her. Izumi's husband, Zeig was the only calm one. The calm of a very stern man who is unmoved by the direst or awkward of situations.
"You've seen the gate." She said as if the very words were the most horrible taboos to utter. "You saw the truth and committed the ultimate taboo." Edward and Alphonse flinched. Korra didn't but she did recognize that she hit the nail on the head. Edward Weakly recounted the events of that day.
And by the end of it, Izumi's face slightly softened it and looked toward Zeig. He tenderly put his hands on her shoulders and gave her a sad but assuring look.
"For the longest time, we thought I was barren…" Izumi opened up. Korra's face also softened. Katara brought her to pregnancies to help and to learn, as is the custom. She could tell with context what was coming. "Then we finally had a chance...but then I became Ill, greatly ill." Korra dreaded the next words and the Elric brothers were speechless. "Our child didn't survive, our little boy died as he was being delivered. In my arrogance...I committed the taboo." She did her best to carry herself with resolve. Regretting her actions but not negating the emotion behind them.
She went into intimate detail of the night. How she made the circle and had what was left of her son in the center of it. Hoping to hoping that it would work, but of course, it didn't even as Korra listened to it and knew that such an act of impossible. A naive or just hopeful part of herself wanted some solace to the story but of course, it was a tragedy.
Not only did what remained of Izumi's child was mangled into a macabre corpse that she described in visceral detail. And how her organs were removed. Basically ensuring that she could no longer have a child. Make a low chance zero.
Korra herself never saw the need for children herself but...She could understand the pain for someone who did...having that taken away from them and having it dangled in front of them that it was their own fault. She looked at Izumi with sympathy, not pity on her behalf but sympathy, respectful sympathy.
"I never wanted you boys to know this. Only now do I realize that I should've." Izumi's regret was clear on her face as Edward gripped his metallic arm. Edward looked up and forced a smile.
"Don't be worried!" He said with created confidence and rocky guile. "We brought on ourselves." He played off.
"Yeah." Alphonse joined. Despite the lack of a face, everyone knew that he was faking as hard as Edward. "I even have a list of delicious things to eat when I get my body back." Everyone was waiting for the mask to fade.
"Yeah, so there is no reason to be worried abou-"
"You idiots!" Izumi shouted at the boys. They closed their eyes expecting a shouting fest but as soon as she got close to them she held them close. "There is no reason to suffer alone." She said to the boys as she hugged them. "You stupid, stupid boy's."
As their cold-hearted master's words entered their minds, the boys finally let themselves feel the shame, sadness, and regret they always feel to some degree. Edward even cried, knowing his little couldn't and that he couldn't hold them back anymore.
Korra didn't want to intrude on it but she hugged them as well. Both their master and her students. Zeig followed the example, comforting his wife. As they all let the sadness and shared grief wash over them and whether as one.
For a brief moment, Korra felt the community she missed from her home in front of her. In its own way, not wanting this to ever end.