Just as Baatar was finishing up the finishing touches on the spirit weapon, the bay doors opened and Kuvira stood on the other side, looking as unimpressed as ever at the warehouse.

"You're a day early," he said, glancing around her, "I wasn't expecting you."

She walked over to him and replied, "I know, but I wanted to see how it was going, and I missed you. How is the project coming along?"

"The only thing I can show you is the finished prototype," he said, motioning for her to follow him as he walked further into the warehouse, "the real thing should be ready by tomorrow morning."

As Kuvira walked over to him, she said, "That's great to hear. With that completely I'll test it at noon. I want everyone to be at the testing sight to see it's full power."

"I'll put it in writing," Baatar replied.

A shift in the floor. She stopped and spun around to look at some boxes on the far wall behind her. "Did anyone else feel that?" she asked. She could have sworn it felt like someone was earthbending over in that direction but no one was there.

"Feel what?" an earthbending guard asked.

Maybe she was just being paranoid. There wasn't any movement around the boxes. No more vibrations through the earth. "Never mind," she said, looking away.


The next day, Baatar wheeled the weapon onto a cart and across the fields. Kuvira had picked the perfect target, an old mining town that had long been abandoned in a valley with a massive mountain behind it. There was nothing for miles.

Baatar brought out the weapon. A gun shaped mechanism made of metal that fit perfectly on her right arm, right above the elbow. It was nearly as along as her arm as well. She lifted the barrel up and when she made a fist, she used metalbending to fire on the town. Baatar braced himself, fearing she would get caught up in the explosion. The blast showed purple and cut through the town like butter and made a huge hole in the mountain behind it.

The ground under their feet shook. Kuvira lost her balance and continuously shot a beam straight into the sky, cutting clouds in half. She cut the weapon off. Alarms went off behind her.

"The underground cell!" she exclaimed, "Your family! Baatar!"

"They must have broken out," he said.

She wondered how they knew that was the perfect time to break out, when almost no one was around to stop them. But she didn't have time to think. She examined the ground being torn up behind them, obviously by earthbending. She took the weapon off her arm and prepared herself for battle. The people she expected came up from behind the crowd, Suyin, Lin, Opal, Wing, and Wei were all there, striking at her troupes.

Completely unprepared, they went down in groups. Having finally studied some airbending, Kuvira made walls between her and her army.

Miski got in on the action, she pulled water out of the grass out from under them and created a massive whirlpool around Wing. "Wei!" he shouted as his brother disappeared from view.

"Wing!"

She quickly froze them in place and moved on. Su danced out of the way quickly, and Lin wrapped her up in metal wires and threw her into the ground.

Kuvira grabbed Opal from underneath and pulled her halfway into the ground. Still, Su and Lin managed to get the upper hand over those in her army. For a split second, she thought of turning the weapon onto to them, but it was too far away, and she knew she only wanted it to intimidate people, not actually harm anyone.

Kuvira brought out her metal strips and attempted to attack Su with them. She used earthbending to throw them off to the side and attacked Kuvira back with as many rocks as she could muster. Kuvira let them build up behind her before swinging them around and taking Su down with them.

She took out more metal strips and created a quick whip with them, grabbing Su's ankle she pulled her in close. Su stomped the ground and threw a rock at Kuvira's feet.

Kuvira danced out of the way and withdrew some of her metal to regain her balance. The ground shook violently under her. She watched as a massive wave through her entire army off. She managed to stay on her feet and glared in the direction of whoever managed to do that. All these years, only she had ever had the strength to do cause that much damage so quickly. Who was in her way?

Toph stood across the carnage in front of Juicy, Opal's sky bison. Her children and grandchildren collected themselves and ran back over to her. Just as they were about to climb on to escape, a massive circle of lava surrounded them. Long towers grew up and around them, closing them in. Opal used airbending to cool down the lava. From the outside, Bolin made it turn to stone.

"Bolin!" she exclaimed painfully, "How can you still be on Kuvira's side? Look at what she's done to my family!" She gestured to them, now trapped at Juicy's side.

He asked, "How can you not be on her side after all the things we've done for this country?"

"I've heard the rumors of exactly what she's done," she said, "it isn't right, and I expected you to see that by now. I can't believe you haven't."

"And I've seen what happens when we don't help," Bolin explained, "have you ever seen starving people with nothing get rustled by 50 bandits faster and stronger than them with no means to stop them? I have! Opal, they die! The bandits don't care and the old government didn't care either. It only seems like Kuvira cares and I thought you would to but I guess not."

Kuvira finally made her way across the battlefield, got between them, and said to Opal, "What do you think you're doing here?!"

"Stopping your reign of tyranny for good," Opal answered angrily, "you've gone too far! You've caused so many problems and broken so many laws and you know it! You have to stop!"

"You're the only one who's breaking the law right now," Kuvira explained, "trespassing, assisting in a jailbreak, endangering people on a testing site-"

Toph stepped in and said, "Don't explain the laws of the earth kingdom to me, little girl."

Kuvira turned to her and replied, "Sorry, Grandma, but I wasn't talking to you."

"Don't call me that!" she said, "I'm not your grandmother!"

"Actually, Grandma," Baatar said, walking up behind Kuvira, "I'm about to make Kuvira a Beifong, so you're about to become her grandmother." He held her hand and they smiled at each other.

Toph said sarcastically, "You sure know how to choose 'em, Junior."

"I'm sorry, Grandma," Baatar retorted, "I forgot to ask, how's Grandpa doing?"

After a moment of angry silence, Suyin stepped forward and said, "Baatar, I can't believe you're doing this to your own family, your own flesh and blood." She gave him a heartfelt expression and put her hand to her chest.

"Right," he said, "family, the only thing that really matters, except when they start having ideals outside of your own so you throw them out until they bend to your will. And you claim to be so enlightened. If there's anything I've learned from living with Kuvira over the years, it's that you don't actually need a family to thrive." They all gasped, Su covered her mouth.

"Is that...?" Huan asked, walking over to them, "Grandma Toph? You finally decided to show up to visit your own family?" He struggled to see her through the stone pillars.

"Huan?" she asked, "Why aren't you in jail with the rest of your family?"

"Before you start questioning me about my choices, I want to know why you deserted us when I was little," he said, "has anyone even told you about what happened to me?"

She asked, "What the world are you babbling about?"

Su stepped in and said, "Mom, Huan is losing his sight. Soon he'll be completely blind, just like you."

"What?" she asked, "And none of you bothered to say anything to me sooner? No grandson of mine is going to stumble around blind!"

He said, "Too late. Take them all away."

Out came the shirshu spit darts from the surrounding soldiers, taking them all down.

As Kuvira, Baatar, Bolin, and Huan, all walked away together, Baatar said, "You know they're going to escape again."

"That's their choice," she replied, "if they do, they won't attack us again. Next time they'll simply run away." She stopped and put a hand on Bolin's shoulder and said, "I'm sorry Opal is making you choose between her and this nation."

He said, "I don't understand what they think we're doing. We're really helping people!"

"You've seen the airbenders in action," Baatar explained, "how they swoop in and solve one or two problems temporarily and think they've saved the town forever. Opal thinks she's helped just as many people as we have but we're the ones doing all the hard work." He patted him on the back.


"You want to write a letter to President Raiko directly?" Miski asked, now standing in The Iron Maiden's office cabin.

"Yes," she said, "but sorry Miski, it has to come from Huan." She turned to him.

He gestured to himself, "Me? I can barely see well enough to read now, how am I supposed to write a letter?"

She put her hand on his shoulder and said, "You can do it. I'll tell you exactly what to say. 'Kuvira's arriving to Republic City by rail in two weeks.'"

Baatar asked, "Two weeks? But we're less than a week away."

"I know," she said, "they'll evacuate the city. This way no one gets hurt when Korra refuses to back down." She smiled at him. "And when it comes from you, they'll believe it."

Jae entered the room and said, "Empress Kuvira, we just got a message from some radical supporters of yours in Republic City."

She replied, "I told you not to engage them. They might be our supporters but they're crazy, if we speak with them it'll look like all of our supporters are like them and make us look bad."

"I didn't," he said, "I promise, but you definitely need to hear them out. They claim to have kidnapped Wu."

"WHAT?!" she shouted.

In complete disbelief, Baatar asked, "What do they expect us to do with that royal idiot?"

He said, "They claim he's on his way to you right now by some other train." He showed her the letter. "Should I write them back?

That was exactly what it said. She looked up and said, "If we cross paths, we'll release him back to Raiko immediately. If we don't, well, that means he escaped, or they were lying just to appeal to us. Ignore them. We're on our way to Republic City anyway."


Kuvira had the perfect plan already set. She planned to roar passed different towns and cities on the way to Republic City, making it obvious they were going above the speed limit so the townspeople would notice The Iron Maiden was going by. Then, by the time they got to the mountains surrounding Republic City, she forced the train to stop abruptly once it cleared a small town.

Even with everyone bracing themselves, the entire train jolted and threw everything into the ground. Kuvira struggled to stay on her feet as she used metalbending to force the train to stop.

"Everyone off," Kuvira commanded.

With a curve in the tracks, rock cliffs stood directly in front of them. Bolin got out and opened a side of a cliff, revealing a perfectly carved tunnel made with earthbending days earlier.

All the metalbenders got out, including Huan, on both side of The Iron Maiden. They unhooked each car and used metalbending to take it off the tracks. Together, they heaved the first car into the cave. The others following behind. Bolin quickly closed the entrance of the cave behind them.

Firebenders took to the sides of the army as they marched and lit the way. Kuvira marched at the very front, remembering the marching songs of her childhood she lead the way to Republic City through the tunnels.