Chapter 3: Ming Hua and Ghazan

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the songs that are included in this story. They're all owned by Disney and Pixar. I only picked them because they fitted perfectly in the story.

Normal POV

Two days later, Femke and P'li walked into the hospital of the Wood Villages, both with bouquet of flowers in their hands and wearing a black gown as they entered the small room where their friends lied, both of them wearing a simple gown and suit in the colors of the nation they were from and a crown of flowers around their heads. For P'li this was the first time she saw her friends since they had parted ways three years ago, and seeing them now on their dying bed, made her collapsed on the side of their beds, crying.

"Ming, Ghazan. I remember now. I remember everything. Please. Please open your eyes." P'li begged as she placed a hand on Ghazan's hand and her other hand on Ming Hua's shoulder.

"It's no use, Li. They can't hear you." Femke sadly said as she sat down next to P'li and placed a hand on her arm, tears blinking in her eyes as she did so.

"I just have my memories back and now we have to say goodbye to them." P'li sadly said as she looked up at Femke, also with tears in her eyes.

"I know, but they will be In Heaven, Li." Femke said, sniffing as she rubbed the Combustion Bender over her back. "There they can always see us, they will always watch over us." She said with a smile on her face, hoping this would cheer her friend up a little.

"That doesn't take away I will miss them." P'li said as she looked down at her friends with tears in her eyes.

"I know, but there is nothing we can do for them anymore. We have waited three years for them to come back." Femke said as she looked at the motionless bodies of her friends, one in a suit and the other in a sleeveless dress that looked very beautiful on her.

"Femke, you have spoken of 'heaven' multiple times. How can you be so sure it exists?" P'li asked as she looked down at her best friend with a small smile on her face.

"Because I believe and many people on Earth share that believe. A belief in a God that acts out of love towards all of his children." Femke smiled as she folded her best friend's hands, so it looked like he was in peace.

"And you think they're in heaven now? With this God you believe in?" P'li questioned as she smiled at Ghazan, imagining him hanging out with Ming Hua in heaven right now.

"Yes and I also know they can look to Earth from Heaven so they can see us from time to time." Femke smiled as she wrapped her arms around her best friend in a comforting way

"Even Zaheer?" P"li asked as she placed her hand on her best friend's arm.

"I am certain they can see him as well." Femke smiled as she hugged her friend around her neck.

"I sure hope so. Then they would at least be able to be happy." P'li started, but stopped when she started to sob again, which made Femke look down for a moment, not knowing what she should do, that was when she thought about a old song she had heard in one of her favorite movies and she started to sing:

I don't know if You can hear me

Or if You're even there

I don't know if You would listen

To a Gypsy's prayer

Yes, I know I'm just an outcast

I shouldn't speak to you

Still I see Your face and wonder

Were You once an outcast too?

Femke started to sing with a soft voice. This made P'li look up at her surprised, since that was exactly what the Red Lotus members were in her eyes. Outcasts.

God help the outcasts

Hungry from birth

Show them the mercy

They don't find on earth

God help my people

We look to You still

God help the outcasts

Or nobody will

I ask for wealth

I ask for fame

I ask for glory to shine on my name

I ask for love I can posess

I ask for God and His angels to bless me

Ilena, Dizanna and Selvia sang the last part as they came in as well, having heard the song, which they knew pretty well as well, and they wanted to help Femke to cheer up their friend.

I ask for nothing

I can get by

But I know so many

Less lucky than I

Please help my people

The poor and downtrodden

I thought we all were

The children of God

God help the outcasts

Children of God

As the song ended Femke was just as much in tears as her friend. Smiling as she looked at her two unconscious friends, knowing they would have heard this as well from heaven. "That was beautiful, Femke." P'li said as she smiled down at her two friends as the nurse came in, seeing they were still hugging and left them alone for a little more.

"We better go now. This is goodbye." Femke said softly to her two motionless friend as she sat by their sides and took Ghazan's hand In hers and placed her other hand on Ming Hua's shoulder. "Thanks for everything. Really. Without you I wouldn't have known what I had done with myself." She sniffled as she placed her head on P'li's shoulder for comfort.

"We will let you go now. You can always see us and Zaheer wherever he might be now." Femke felt her voice broke and a moment later she started to break down into sobbing "Just… just don't try to drive each other nuts up there okay?" Femke sobbed as she and P'li shared a small smile remembering all the their squibbles.

"We will miss you. But this is for the best," Femke cried as she now placed Ghazan's hand on Ming Hua's shoulder and got up, holding P'li by her shoulders as she did so.

"We love you. Thanks for a great lifetime together. Goodbye for now. Until we meet again." P'li quietly said as she walked back to her friends and gave them each a kiss on their cheek as she did so, she could have sworn she felt Ghazan's breathing increase.

"Femke. He is breathing." P'li stumbled as she looked up at Femke with a shocked look.

"Of course he is, they… they didn't give the shot yet." Femke sobbed as she held out her arm for her best friend.

"No, I mean it increased… Like he is waking up…" P'li said as she looked at the body of her best friend with a stunned look, unable to believe she what she had just heard and what she saw next, namely that Ghazan's fingertips moved.

"See!? He moved!" P'li said as she pointed to the fingertips just as they relaxed again and went back to how it had been before.

"That could just as well have been an automatic reflex…" Femke started, but stopped as she gasped in shock when she saw Ghazan's whole hand moved this time. "It can't be…" She mumbled as she looked at her friend's hand moving, before she almost ran to the side of his bed and bended over him to listen to his heartbeat, which suddenly seemed stronger as well now.

"Ghazan! Ghazan, can you hear me?" Femke asked with widened eyes as Ming Hua behind her started to move as well.

"Hmmm..." Ghazan moaned.

"Get the respirator, they're waking up!" Femke called now as she stormed to the door. A nurse immediately came to check and started to do her job.

"Ming! Ming is waking up!" P'li gasped in as tears of joy started to appear on her face, running to Femke who pulled her into a hug

"It's a miracle. It's a miracle!" Femke said as she hugged her best friend, tears of both joy and relief streaming down her face as she did so.

"Can someone please explain why this is a miracle?" Ming Hua muttered as she opened her eyes. "I got knocked out in a fight. It happens." She said as she looked from Femke to P'li with a raised eyebrow.

"You weren't. You've been in a coma for almost three years." Femke said as she sat on the side of her bed and hugged her.

"I'm so happy! That said there's… something you need to know. About your legs..." Femke carefully said, remembering the nurses had told her that Ming Hua's legs had been too heavily damaged by the electrocution that they had to be amputated. "What in the hell are you…?" She started but stopped as she managed to bend some water a small vase on the room's table into makeshift arms and lifted the blanket.

"Oh." she stated simply as her face turned somewhat pale.

"Your legs were too heavily damaged by Mako's electric attack. They couldn't save them anymore." Femke said as she looked down "I am sorry." She said as she looked down.

"Like you should be, considering you weren't there and both look quite alright." Ming Hua snapped as she looked at Femke angrily.

"We are fine right now, we weren't at the moment of the last fight." Femke said as she moved her shirt down a little so Ming Hua could see the scar on her shoulder in the form of a spiral.

Femke's POV

"Wow. A scar. Totally worse than having no limbs at all. But whatever. What happened?" Ming Hua asked as she looked up at Femke with a sour look.

"P'li... The Beifong sisters almost got her." I said as I looked down, thinking about that last awful moment on Laghima's Peak when I realized my dream was about to come true.

"I leaped in to save her without Lin getting hit in the process. It was my only option." I said as I looked at my lap, and it was the truth. I could have just bended the metal away from her head, but then Lin would have been hit and Lin had been too tired to move away. If that hit had reached her, she would have been done for and even though Lin hated me, we were family.

"That sounds dandy." Ghazan smirked as a doctor and a nurse came in, helping out the two, since they were still weak. "Alright, now stay still… You've been laying down for three years, that's going to have some after effects." I heard the man say as he walked to Ghazan and went to sit by his side, looking him straight into the eye until Ghazan just rolled his eyes, because he couldn't bear being coddled.

"Sir, can you tell me your name and where you are from?" The doctor asked calmly.

"Yeah, my name is Ghazan Lee, born in the lowest ring of Ba Sing Se now Thirty-Seven years ago." Ghazan replied mimicking the doctor's voice, which got me giggling.

"Noted." The doctor said as he took Ghazan's pulse and temperature.

"Doctor, could it be all this had something to do with that strange light we saw before?" The nurse asked as she sat down on the side of Ming Hua's bed and started to take tests by her as well.

"Light? What light?" I asked surprised as I looked from the older man to the nurse with a surprised look in my eyes.

"Well, two days ago around the afternoon, a strange light emitted from their chests. It was yellow and had the form of a V and a T crossing one another." The nurse said as she looked at us sternly, which made me gasp at P'li.

"Around the afternoon? That is when that happened." I told P'li as I shot her a firm look. P'li looked back at me slightly confused, before she gasped in realization.

"My powers. That's when I unlocked my Voortrix powers!" P'li exclaimed. The afternoon. That is when it happened." I told P'li.

"Those vague powers we have seen from Zaheer once, you mean those?" Ming Hua asked as she looked from P'li to me with a puzzled look on her face.

"Yes. Through a strong bond with her inner Voortrix and with me she unlocked the Voortrix buried deep inside of her." I explained as a a feeling suddenly took me over. As the nurse had seen that light with Ming Hua and Ghazan as well and maybe Zaheer felt it as well. That could mean three new Voortrix had been born alongside us. I looked from the nurse to my friends now with a shocked look at the idea of three new Voortrix that came into existence because of the deep bond that had always been inside our group.

Ming Hua's POV

"You're awfully quiet all of a sudden, Femke." P'li asked Femke after a moment of silence as she gave her friend a worried glance. Femke indeed had fallen silent after that nurse had said something vague about a light. Right on the same time or something. It happened to P'li, though it all sounded strange to me.

"I was just thinking." Femke replied as she looked from P'li to me with a stern look in her eyes. "Here we go again. You're sounding like Zaheer." I sighed as I gave the nurse that held a needle a firm glance to warn her she better do things right.

"Ming, I meant to say; that light the nurse saw appeared on the exact same time as when P'li somehow unlocked her fairy powers." Femke said and as I was distracted by what she had just said i felt a sting in my shoulder, as a sign the nurse had given me the injection.

"You mean the same thing we saw by Zaheer? That strange light back then?"

Ghazan asked somewhat confused, and believe me if they could my eyes would have rolled right out of my skull. Ghazan can be so gullible. Unlike me. My parents had made sure I wouldn't be able to believe in anything childish. Ever.

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Flashback

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I was born without arms, which made it so my mother had to carry me around the first few months of my life to keep me entertained, which annoyed her to no end. She learned me to stand on my own feet and care for myself as soon as I had the age for it. That way I wasn't a burden to them so much anymore. All they now had to endure was my constant questions and the fact that I ate, drank and breathed.

"Seriously, child! Stop asking so many questions! It's not like anyone is going to answer, anyway!' My mother often snapped at me if I was curiously walking around the house again, asking whatever crossed my young mind as new and odd.

"Mom, I just want to know why..." I started, but stopped as my mother shot me a deathly glare.

"Don't talk to me, you little misinformed brat or no dinner for you!" My mother snapped at me. This made me run into my room and hide in a corner with my only plush which I had named Ami, feeling more than miserable because I didn't get dinner that evening...

"Spirits, you're so skinny. Do you eat enough?"

The older woman that was my aunt Ti asked. And before anyone in the room could protest my aunt had put an second plate of food before me, at which I threw herself hungrily.

"Ti. We're trying to teach her a lesson. Take back your plate and leave her be."

My father Hong Hua sternly said as he looked at me with a stern look, making me nervously crawl a little more towards my aunt for protection, feeling aunt Ti was kind and caring, unlike my parents.

"Hong, she's just a child. You can't deprive her from food. That's inhumane!"

Aunt Ti Hua raged. She looked at me with a look full of pity, as she gently wrapped her arm around my three year old self and pulled me close, making me immediately feel safe and relaxed in her arms since she hadn't screamed at me. Not even once. Which was at that point of my life something that was very rare.

"Poor child. You know, tomorrow it's going to be just you and me. You'll see, it's going to be fun."

Aunt Ti smiled as she gently kissed me on my cheek. I looked at her while beaming brightly when she said this, liking the idea of spending a whole day with my nice, caring aunt instead of my parents who were always mean and didn't seemed to care about me at all.

The rest of the next day was perfect. Aunt let me say what i wanted to say. Be happy, free, like a normal child. For one amazing day I was just me. It felt amazing. That day ended way too soon for my liking.

I never saw aunt Ti again afterwards.

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End of flashback

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"You think we have magic as well then, right? Cool!" Ghazan called, which snapped me out of my memories and made me look at Ghazan with a raised eyebrow.

"Magic? us? Come on. It was already hard to believe Zaheer was magic but us?" I snapped, not believing in that kind of nonsense, those things only existed in fairy tales.

"I think it's possible you two have the same magic. If you want to I can teach you how to control your magic." Femke offered as she looked at me with a small smile on her face.

"That would be great." Ghazan replied, as I looked away. I had too many bad memories about learning to use my waterbending.

"Bend the water like you mean it!"

I heard my father's voice rage at me as my younger self was trying to master a very simple technique.

"Why? Why did the spirits curse me with a useless armless girl?"

My father's voice scolded me, which made me clamp my water arms over my ears, making myself as small as possible to protect myself from the memories.

"You already were useless and now you lost your legs as well! You will never become powerful."

The voice of my father called into my head.

"Go away!" I called out, not realizing that i must have called that out loud until suddenly Femke's arms wrapped themselves around my waist.

Femke's POV

From the moment I had started talking about Voortrix training with Ghazan, I noticed Ming Hua started to act rather strange. At first I thought she thought it all to be nonsense and that this was why she was acting like this but suddenly she started clamping her ears. I heard her moan words like 'not a freak' and 'I can be as strong as I want to be' which made me realize the whole training thing must have brought up the trauma of her past training with her horrible bastard of a father.

'Poor Ming. She suffered a lot under that bastard.' I thought as I reached out and pulled my friend in a hug, which made her relax slightly.

"Calm down Ming. It's okay. It won't be as horrible as back then. You will see." I reassured her as I stroked her over her back with a smile on my face, trying to cheer up my friend, who was right now looking horrible.

"Femke? I thought you said your friends were on the verge of dying." The voice of Raikou called out just as I wanted to ask Ghazan if he knew a way to snap Ming Hua out of whatever was causing her to be distressed. Now I looked up with horror in my eyes as president Raikou and Tenzin stood in the doorway of the hospital room and looked at us with a shocked look as I still held Ming Hua.

"They were, just as they wanted to administer the final injection, they snapped out of it." I said as I looked at the nurse that just then came in, who immediately nodded in reply .

"The two came out of their coma right before we wanted to end it. Great luck, I guess." the nurse said as she went to fetch the doctor who gave them all the reports of the duo that showed they indeed have been in a deep coma for three year and only got out recently, before ushering them out of the room.

"Femke, would you mind explaining how they knew we're alive?" Ghazan asked casually. "They saw P'li when she came to see me a few days ago. They were already pissed I lied about her being alive so I rather told them you two lived as well so they wouldn't get pissed at me more." I replied with a small smile on my face, which made Ghazan nod in reply with a smirk.

"If Ming was aware, she would have probably freaked out and tell you to get us the hell out of here." Ghazan said as he pointed to Ming Hua who still sat in my lap with her water arms clamped over her ears.

"We probably should, before they come back." I said as I carefully got up and shifted Ming Hua in my arm, clamping her close as I held out my other hand to the remainder of the group, who took it, all smiling at me as we held hands, just as Raikou came back in.

"Terra Teleportius!" I called loudly 'Goodbye, Tenzin. We will meet again someday, hopefully under better circumstances.' I thought as I looked at Tenzin's shocked face as everything started to spin around us faster and faster, until the room of the Wood Villages' hospital had fully disappeared and we were on our way to my home back on Earth.

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And with that I end the chapter. Next up will be Femke's homecoming, and of course, the Red Lotus crew meeting our Earth, since it will most likely be as it is now. If you're curious to find what is going to happen next, be sure to keep reading!

Thanks paranoidgirl for doing such a great job as a Beta reader.