As he returned to the summit of Mount Patola, Aang found himself kneeling in the snow. At his feet laid the body of an old monk, its orange robes scarcely hiding the fatal wounds left by the garrison of the output that they had just seized. Its lifeless eyes peered downwards, as if in contemplation of the view before it.
As clouds swirled around himself in an icy greeting, Aang's eyes began to water slightly. In his haste to avenge his mentor on the United Republic fighters that had maimed him, the young air nomad had been denied the opportunity to hear Gyatso's last words.
Just five minutes ago, Aang had been merely the second in command of the advancing forces. Now, with the death of his oldest friend, he was its sole commander. Joining his mentor one last time, he looked out below upon his conquest.
The ruins of the Southern Air Temple. His childhood home, and everything that he and Gyatso had dreamed of for so long. For more than a hundred years, the Temple and its surrounding mountain ranges and islands had been desecrated and colonised. Firstly by the treacherous Fire Nation and afterwards, by the heretic United Republic that had emerged out of the Great War.
The ancient order of the Air Nomads had been purged from their temples at the end of the hands of Firelord Sozin. The few survivors that had remained were driven underground, separated from their homeland and everything that they had ever known. Shattered and broken, their leaders had gathered all that was left and disappeared into the only place that the Fire Nation was unlikely to find them: the unknown realm of the Spirit World.
And now – after a bitter century of forced exile and isolation – the Air Nomads had returned to their home.
Across the world, a dark spectre haunted the peace that had been so carefully sewed after the death of Firelord Ozai. Throughout their time in the parallel plane of existence that was the Spirit World, where time worked differently, the Nomads had listened carefully to the developments that occurred on the other side. They had watched as the other nations had slowly accepted the Fire Nation's grip on the world.
When Ozai had died at the hands of his eldest son, who quickly cooperated with the other nations to establish the new Republic as a symbol of reconciliation, the Air Nomads of old might have rejoiced. But the unforgiving nature of the Spirit World had been no place for pacifism, and even the wisest and strongest of them had fallen prey to its seductive whispers.
They had waited five years after Ozai's death before striking back to seize what had been theirs. The dreams of a new generation had been shattered as the new Airbender Army, the first in the history of their nation, had emerged from Spirit portals across the world to descend upon the Temples. Located in the corners of the world, far removed from the Royal Caldera and Republic City, their Elders had assumed they would fall easily.
Finally meeting the gaze of his beloved mentor, Aang decided that the Elders had been wrong. If the Air Nomads were to survive in this new world, they would have to strike with full force, without hesitation.
They owed it to the ones who had been taken away from them. The other nations, led by their Firelord puppet-master, would fall before them, and a new state would rise up to take its place. A state that would be strong enough to ensure true peace and security in the world, strong enough that nothing like the Airbender Genocide could ever happen again. Before his eyes, Aang could see the glorious path before him as clearly as he could see the majestic ruins of his childhood home.