Mako paced himself as hard as he could, having had to take the long way around to make sure that he didn't get caught, but annoyingly, he'd got lost. They had only arrived in those cabbage carts a few days ago, after all, so most of the city, which he ran around at night, was hard to recognise at the minute. He hated every minute of this operation, praying that it would come to an end soon enough. Bolin had shown him the alleyways to run back through when he was done.
This is such a shithole! Mako cursed mentally as he kept on running as hard as he could. He didn't like setting that building on fire one bit, but if he was to stay here in Omashu until Bolin got out of this mess in one piece, then he would need to go along with his younger brother's misplaced ideals. He had long passed the restaurant which Bolin had destroyed, which had already been cooled down a while ago. He was proceeding along the skinny alleyways, following a trail probably caused by Bolin. In the distance, he thought he saw some kind of blue light dotting around in the sky, but ignored it.
Bolin and Mako had a rendezvous point, which would be a commercial street that the alleyways led to. After that, they would go to a sympathiser's house, and stay there for the night. This inner city was effectively like the Middle Ring in Ba Sing Sae, any beggars seen by the law thrown out, so that made their mission all the harder. The other seven lavabenders were in two different groups, and had two different houses to go to. It was a rule that the other two groups didn't know where you were staying, as that information could be tortured out of you. Just another casual fact.
Mako's heart stopped as he rounded one of the final turns. He skidded to a halt ten metres away from a horrific sight. He wanted the ground to permanently swallow him up. He trembled as he tried to keep the bile in his throat from coming out of his mouth. In front of him was the motionless body of a stocky young man. His features were bruised horribly, several of his facial bones broken, by the looks of it. Bolin lay still.
"He can't have…" Mako mumbled, tears starting to form at the corners of his eyes. He gritted his teeth together, trying not to let a whimper of heartache escape from his mouth. Mako trudged over to Bolin, incapable of tearing his eyes away from the sight in front of him. He could barely make out Bolin's features from this close, that was how badly he'd been messed up.
I've failed, Mako realised. I've failed. I've failed to protect my daughter by not being there for her, and now I've failed to protect the only other family member I have left in this world. I'm a deplorable excuse of a brother and a father!
Mako knelt down by his stricken brother's side, cursing himself for not being there when it mattered most for Bolin. That was the one reason he'd put up with this mess, for crying out loud, to help his confused little brother get out alive! And now, by the looks of it, the opposite had occurred. Bolin was dead.
Mako wallowed quietly on his brother's chest, the worst grief he had ever felt in his life crushing his soul. His salty tears flowed freely onto Bolin's chest, which was stained with blood. Mako truly felt that he had never felt this horrible in his entire life. Even when his parents had been killed, he hadn't felt this level of sorrow. Maybe because he had known Bolin much longer, and had gone through all the hardships of growing up alongside him, only to have him snatched away now as a young adult.
"NOOO!!!" Mako wailed, breaking down. He had gone through plenty of low points in his life, and the depression he had gone through just a year ago after he found out the truth about Hazukk was in no way, shape or form a joke. But now, when Mako saw a shard of glass just by the wall in front of him, he truly contemplated sticking it in his throat, to commit suicide. He saw no real place for himself on this planet anymore. He didn't even want to dare think what would happen if he held the responsibility of a small, young girl on his shoulders.
Mako reached over for the shard of glass. It was from a beer glass, by the looks of it. It didn't matter where it came from though, in Mako's eyes, as long as it was sharp and pointed. He stretched over to grab it, but frustratingly, it was just a few inches out of his reach. He feebly extended his shoulder out of its socket, sniffling as he was at it, but still couldn't reach. He growled a little, trying his hardest to get the brown piece of glass, but eventually, the former commander conceded, after a minute of hard effort.
Mako stood up, about to step over Bolin, but even then, the universe wasn't done playing with him. He slipped from a tiny puddle of water that Bolin had been lying over, and kneed Bolin in the gut while he was falling over. Bolin wheezed, while Mako miserably grabbed a hold of the shard, a few seconds away from joining Bolin on the other side.
Mako stopped, and jerked his head back at his younger brother. Bolin was suddenly looking up at Mako with one squinted eye. The other was swollen shut. Mako blinked, then had a double take as Bolin and Mako just stared at each other silently for a few seconds.
"Mako, why are you crying?" Bolin asked, in a whisper. Bolin was referring to Mako's puffy red eyes, and the tears streaming down his older brother's face. "And when did you get here?"
Mako's breath caught in his mouth, disbelief shrouding every corner of his mind. He just stared at Bolin, ninety percent sure that he was hallucinating. Mako cautiously poked Bolin in the jaw, who groaned at the contact. Mako would've had a mental breakdown right there and then, but he forced himself to stay in the moment, amidst his whirlwind of conflicting emotions.
"She healed it, so it'll be fine in a few days," Bolin told Mako, his voice completely neutral, no emotion coming out whatsoever. "But until then, I can't have any physical contact with it. I'm not even sure if I'll be able to eat."
"You're alive?" Mako asked, daring to believe.
"Yes," Bolin rasped, gazing at the stars, albeit strangely with a sigh. "But I really shouldn't be. Let's leave, Mako, before we, or rather, I get into any more trouble."
"You're alive!" Mako cried, his crippling sadness from just a few moments ago switching to the purest form of relief possible. He cried endlessly with tears of joy into Bolin's shirt for the next few minutes, unable to express how worried he had been to his younger brother. Bolin just let Mako cry his heart out, but didn't move the entire time. When Mako had gotten over the initial flurry of emotions, he tried to help his younger brother to his feet, but Bolin moaned in pain when Mako touched him.
"What's the matter?" Mako asked, wanting to get Bolin to help as soon as possible. "Is your back hurt?"
"I got smashed into a wall twice," Bolin said dryly, still gazing up at the stars. "So I'll be very lucky if I haven't slipped a disc or something like that."
"Who did this to you?!" Mako demanded suddenly, itching to wreak havoc on whoever injured his brother so badly to the point that Mako had thought he was dead.
"Didn't you hear what I said?" Bolin asked Mako. "I want to go home. To forget all of this ever happened. Let's leave, Mako. I'm so sorry for pissing on Ling and everyone else's legacies. I should've listened to you back in Ba Sing Sae, but I let my rage blind me."
"Go home?" Mako repeated, taking a second to register the meaning of Bolin's words. He looked at his brother, but Bolin wasn't joking. "I mean… of course! But, aren't you still…"
"Angry?" Bolin finished bluntly for Mako, to which the elder sibling nodded. "Not any more. Although, even if I did want to keep going, I couldn't."
"What do you mean?" Mako asked. "You're not able to? Have you broken a bone or something?"
"It's much worse than that," Bolin said, and painfully started to push himself up.
"Don't do anything reckless!" Mako urged him, ushering for Bolin to sit back down, but the twenty-one-year-old, soon to be twenty-two, ignored his older brother's advice.
"I got several chances to quit," Bolin told Mako, "but I stubbornly refused them all. But when she took it, it's like she took away the filter that I've seen life through ever since Ling's death as well." Bolin hit the ground with his palm. "I feel really empty right now, but honestly, I'm able to see everything that's happened in a neutral perspective because of that. And I can see how shallow of a human being I became too, while I was at it." Bolin hit the ground with his palm again.
After a few attempts, Mako realised that Bolin was trying to earthbend, but nothing was happening. "Did you get chi-blocked?" he asked.
"In a way, yeah," Bolin answered, not showing any happiness or sadness in his replies. "But this is the real deal. It's not gone just for an hour. It's permanent." Bolin pursed his lips as Mako tried to make sense of what his brother had just told him.
"What do you mean 'this is the real deal'?" Mako questioned.
"It's gone," Bolin repeated. "Forever. I can't earthbend anymore."
Mako just stared at Bolin, going over what his brother had just told him, and then double-checked. He would've laughed any other time, but Bolin wasn't saying it in a joking manner.
"Are you drunk!?" Mako demanded, even though that was highly unlikely. It seemed that Bolin was dead serious.
"I wish I was," Bolin said, taking deep breaths. "But in fact, I've never felt more sober in my entire life." He stiffly put an arm on Mako's shoulder. "Come on, let's go. I'm not making a joke, by the way."
"H-h-h-how?" Mako asked, shock starting to set in once again. Mako pinched himself, as if it was a horrible dream, but his surroundings weren't those created by his own imagination. "Who?!"
"Who do you think?" Bolin posed the question. "Who in the world could possibly have the power to take my bending away?"
"Amon," Mako suggested, although he didn't even consider that for a moment. There was only one person in mind that could perform such a feat, and he hated to think that she would do something like this.
"I haven't heard of him in years," Bolin told his brother. "There's only one more option. Just say it, Mako."
Mako stayed silent for a few seconds, incapable of summoning the name from his mouth. He desperately didn't want it to be the truth, but as he looked into Bolin's emerald eyes, his suspicion was projected out of his own amber pupils. He found no way of avoiding the truth, and whispered the name out, as if he would be smitten by a god if he uttered it too loud. "Korra?"
"Yep," Bolin confirmed. "She gave me multiple chances to leave, and I turned them all down. She's still in the city, by the way. You can probably see her flying around." He budged over to the wall, and sat against it. "She healed my jaw, for some reason. I'm not sure why, but maybe she thought I might die if I couldn't eat."
"Korra..." Mako repeated, a major shock hitting him for the third time in a few minutes. "Did... did she do all of this to you? I mean, your face too?"
"She did," Bolin confirmed, very gently brushing over his face to feel how bad the damage was. "I must look like I've had my face smashed in with a hammer, huh?"
"Something like it," Mako said, resulting in a humourless chuckle from the former earthbender. "You two must've fought?"
"We did," Bolin started, "but I was no match for her, really. She could've killed me several times if she wanted to."
"Why would she take your bending away, then?" Mako demanded. "She nearly killed herself when it happened to her, so why on earth would she do it to you?!" Mako's shock was starting to change a little bit, to something a bit darker. "Who does she think she is?!"
"You want to fight her?" Bolin asked, raising an eyebrow, but even that caused pain.
"Maybe!" Mako responded, standing up, and started pacing back and forth in circles. "I agree that you were badly mistaken by coming here in the first place, but taking away your bending is like losing an arm! And your whole lavabending school will have to do without you now, so you've lost your business too!"
"I don't really care about money," Bolin told Mako honestly. "I just want to apologise to everyone and then maybe move back in with Opal. Let's leave."
"I can't leave just yet!" Mako declared. "I'm going to talk to her, about everything! I know that I was horribly in the wrong about Kalla, but I can't let this slide! Where can I find her?!"
"Mako, look at me," Bolin warned, causing his older brother to glance over at his disfigured features. "You don't stand a chance. She can bloodbend you if you actually manage to get her in a corner."
"I beat Amon when he was bloodbending me," Mako argued. "And besides, it's not a full moon tonight."
"She used the red Avatar State to do it," Bolin said, looking gravely at the ground. "Trust me, Mako, I've only ever felt more terrified when mom and dad died. Leave her be, you're looking at an example of where rash decisions against Korra will get you."
"It's not just about you," Mako told Bolin. "I've been waiting for the chance to make it up to her and Kalla for the last year, but she's stepped over the line. No-one fucks with my family."
"Did you hear me!?" Bolin asked, and stood up with great difficulty to look Mako in the face. He clutched his lower back while he did so. "You don't stand a chance at fighting her!"
"Did you injure her at all in your fight?" Mako asked, not backing down. "Judging by your injuries, I'd say that it was rough for her too."
"Not really," Bolin admitted, although he didn't seem embarrassed. "I mean, I broke one of her arms, but that was just lucky. She won't fall for something like that again. And to add to that, she can firebend with her mind now. And I saw her heal her arm a fair bit before I passed out."
"That means-" Mako started, then had a double take. "Wait, she can firebend with her mind?"
"Yes!" Bolin reiterated. "Like the crazy tall woman from the Red Lotus right after you two broke up, and her fire is blue now too! I don't know what that means, but it's a lot hotter than regular orange or red fire, I can tell you that!"
Mako didn't say anything as he had a flashback to his fight with Kenichi Shinoda, who was the only person he had ever encountered to be able to produce blue flames. He had been a small, sixty-year-old man, yet Mako remembered vividly how he was half a second from being executed by him. Shinoda couldn't even firebend with his mind, or combustion bend, as somebody had called it, but his blue fire was deadly enough on its own. Mako calmed himself down, and started to think more rationally about what he was going to do. After a minute of hard consideration, he came to his conclusion:
"I'm not going to fight her," Mako declared.
"Good," Bolin said, relieved. "We'll head back to the house, and I can get looked at tomorrow. They won't bother keeping us here for much longer if I can't lavabend."
"You can go ahead if you want," Mako offered. "But I have business with Korra."
"That's per-," Bolin started, then he realised what Mako had said. "Wait, what?! Why? I thought you weren't going to fight her!"
"I'm not," Mako told his little brother. "We're going to talk it out. I have no doubt in my mind that if I pass this opportunity up to talk about Kalla, I'll be waiting ages for the next one. I swore to myself that I wouldn't back away from confronting Korra about my mistakes."
"Mako, no!" Bolin urged. "She's in a piss-poor mood! The energy I sensed from her when she went into the dark Avatar State was horrible, and I don't have a clue about spiritual stuff! Stay away from her at the minute, I'm sure that she'll be in a better mood when this entire war has been stopped!"
"I don't know when that will be," Mako responded stubbornly. "How do I find her?"
"I'm not telling you," Bolin replied. In his head, he noted how quickly things had been turned in the space of a few minutes. An hour ago, no, just even ten minutes ago, Mako would've done anything to tear Bolin away from the city. Now, Bolin was the one urging him to leave, but Mako wouldn't leave now.
"Bolin," Mako sighed, looking at his brother pleadingly. "Do you remember Ling's message for me, right before he died?"
"Ling's… last words?" Bolin questioned, tensing up. His breath temporarily caught in his throat as he thought of his best friend's death. This did coax a little emotion out of Bolin, sadness. Before, it would've been rage, but now, he just didn't have the conviction to get angry any more. He'd never imagined that having his bending taken away from him would have such a physiological effect.
"Never give up on Kalla," Mako quoted. "That was his dying message for me, right?"
"It was," Bolin confirmed, "but you're taking it out of context! Listen to me carefully: Korra. Is. Unstable. Emotionally and physically!"
"Maybe you'll understand if you have a child yourself," Mako said, looking at Bolin gently. "But I can't bear to be away from Kalla any longer. If I have a chance to make up with Korra, then I will grab hold of it with both hands! She definitely knows where Kalla is, I'm sure of it!"
Bolin tried to be stern with Mako, but just couldn't find the energy. He was already zapped from the fight, struggling to stay standing up. He tried to get Mako to give in with one last look, but the firebender didn't budge.
"Fine," Bolin relented. "If that's really how you feel."
"Thank you," Mako said, glad that he had permission from Bolin. "Now, how can I find her? Or do you even know?"
"It's pretty easy," Bolin told Mako, and pointed to the sky in the far-off distance. "See that bright-blue spark zooming around? That's her firebending."
"She can fly now!?" Mako asked, amazed, as he peered at the blue spark he vaguely remembered seeing earlier.
"I honestly don't know how she's gotten so great at firebending," Bolin said. "She's miles better than you now. She honestly is unstoppable when she goes full out. She can make you freeze with bloodbending, and blow you up with her mind. Also, she can lavabend, if you didn't already know."
"Fuckin' hell," Mako muttered. "Does she need to go into the Avatar State to combustion bend?"
"No," Bolin answered, then sat back down on his ass, knackered. "Good luck. I have faith in you." He held out his fist.
"Thanks, Bo," Mako replied, fist-bumping his sibling. The now-nonbender bade Mako farewell, and the young father started jogging back the way he came. He also noticed how that was the first time he'd called Bolin, "Bo", ever since the former lavabending teacher had told Mako of his decision to go to war.
Twenty minutes later, Mako stopped, putting his hands on his knees. He'd had to run about three miles altogether just there in order to catch up to the mother of his child, who was hovering in the air fifty metres above him, seemingly unaware of his presence. He could vaguely make out that her right arm was limp, while two rockets of blue fire blasted out of her feet. She was on the lookout for new attacks, of course, but didn't know that there weren't any scheduled for another five days. That didn't concern Mako though, as he only had one ambition on his mind. He took a deep breath, and then cupped his hands around his mouth.
"KORRA!" Mako bellowed, shattering the silence cloaking over the otherwise dead-quiet city.
Korra hovered in the air, clutching her head with her left hand, while her right arm hung limply. Vaatu was crowding the space in her head, like a monkey that wouldn't let go of your leg. Korra could barely look in front of her without losing all concentration, having given up trying to search for lavabenders long ago. It had been half an hour since she healed Bolin's jaw on a whim, along with her elbow. She would get it looked at properly at the end of the night, but for now, she would just have to do with numbing the pain.
Get lost! Korra shouted mentally, forcing Vaatu into an imaginary bottle inside of her head, and slamming the cork down on top. Finally, he was locked away, at least for the time being. Korra breathed a sigh of relief, as she felt his struggle end, and gazed meekly around the city. Her vision was a little fuzzy, but other than that, she was fine.
Korra wasn't sure how he had suddenly gained such a foothold on her mental wellbeing, but the young Avatar reckoned that she had a pretty good idea. When she had taken Bolin's bending away, she felt no remorse nor regret. But one thing she had felt was any bond that they had previously shared was gone completely. She hadn't had any proper friends her age growing up in the South Pole, so when Bolin had accepted her immediately, he became her best friend. Later, he shared that with Asami, until Korra started dating her, so subconsciously, he was her best friend, again. That showed how little of a social life she had, not seeing her best friend in nearly two years.
I'm the Avatar and a mother, I have more important things, Korra told herself. Then, naturally, her mind went to the fourth person in her old friend group. Dirty bastard! She cursed mentally. The next time I get my hands on him, I'm going to-
"KORRA!" a certain voice bellowed from directly underneath her.
Korra's entire body froze as she recognised that voice instantly. She suddenly became 110% aware of her surroundings, goosebumps rippling down her skin. She had spent the last five months resenting the owner of that voice to the point where she had decided that she was going to end his life once they reunited. But now, she felt her body go rigid, despite the rage that bubbled up inside of her.
She felt Vaatu trying to creep out of his bottle, but Korra couldn't afford to dedicate herself to completely preventing another mental breakdown, so she left it be for the minute. She swivelled in the air, and there he was. Korra lowered herself down to the ground to face him, regarding the father of her daughter with a loathing look.
He wasn't really any different from how she remembered him the last time, except he was a lot cleaner in general now. He didn't have any facial hair, and he didn't smell like vodka and piss like the last time. His hair was swept to the side neatly, and his posture was tall and strong. He had a black jacket, black trousers and brown shoes on. His face was red, presumably from running. She could see why an impressionable teenager like she used to be might have fallen for him, but she knew the truth behind his face. A fresh apple, but rotten at the core.
Mako was slightly in awe of Korra as she lowered herself down, the heat emanating from her flames twice as hot as Shinoda's had felt. She was wearing the water-tribe getup that she'd always worn before, but he knew instantly that she'd never been this big. Her biceps bulged, matched only by the side of her shoulders. Korra regarded him with a look that conveyed numerous emotions, all of them negative.
But when he saw the tattoo of an eye with lines wiggling out of it peering into his soul, Mako genuinely felt like taking a step back. However, he remembered all the reasons why he had insisted on coming to her, so he swallowed his fears with a large gulp. Suddenly, his mouth felt dry as he realised that the moment he had been waiting for since he had stumbled out of the Tree of Time had finally arrived. He licked his lips nervously.
"You!" Korra snarled. She wanted to blow him up so badly, but first of all, she had a bunch of questions. His inevitable demise could wait a little longer, as a dead man couldn't answer her questions. There was no way he was escaping now anyway: she wouldn't dare let that happen.
Note: Korra and Mako are located close to the rear part of Omashu, the opposite end to where the entrance to the city in ATLA is.