A/N: Thank you again for the RFFs! Now, wanna find out what happens to Katara? :) No cheating by scrolling down; start from the top xP
I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender or Legend of Korra.
They hesitantly turned towards their mother, trying to fight the conflicting feelings raging in them. They wanted more than anything to know if their mother was alive, of course, but the very possibility that she wasn't . . . it was terrifying.
Katara's burns were looking noticeably better, though they were far from fully healed. Her clothes and hair were still charred, but of course Kya couldn't have done anything about that.
They held their breaths and stood as still as statues so as not to miss the slightest movement or noise. The seconds turned into minutes, but Katara remained motionless.
"M—Mom's not moving," Tenzin said, pointing out a fact they all knew. It didn't necessarily mean they accepted it, though.
"No," Kya murmured, her lower lip trembling. "No."
"Kya—" Bumi started.
"Don't try to make me feel better! I'm a failure, and that's that!" she snapped.
"It's not your fault, Kya," Bumi tried to comfort her, but his voice was shaking. "You did everything you cou—" He was cut off by a strange croaking noise.
"W—What's that?" Tenzin asked. "It's not a m—monster, r—right?"
"I don't know," Bumi cried, equally panicked.
"Shh!" Kya shushed them. "Maybe it's Mom!"
"Kya, Mom doesn't sound like—" The weird noise cut him off again.
Bumi and Tenzin whimpered and clung to Kya like their life depended on it. The waterbender, rolling her eyes, brushed them off. She walked to her mother and bent over.
"Mom?" she asked tentatively.
Silence. Then, a badger-frog leaped out of the pond. It opened its mouth and the same noise they had heard earlier came out of it. It regarded them with mild interest before hopping away.
Kya watched as the badger-frog disappeared around a corner. Her eyes started to water again, unable to believe how quickly her hopes had been crushed.
"See, I told you it wasn't Mom!" Bumi burst out.
All her tears drained at his words. "What was I supposed to think?" She marched up to her brother angrily. "That it was a monster?"
"It's better than getting our hopes up for no reason," he retorted bitterly.
"You're blaming me?! If I remember right, you two were cheering me on!"
"It was your idea!" Bumi glared at her.
"Did you have any other ideas?" She jabbed her finger at his chest. "Because I would have loved to hear them!"
Bumi had completely forgotten that his opponent was an enraged waterbender, but he was soon reminded of this fact when he noticed the pond water start to splash around violently.
"Uh, Kya—"
"Excuse me for not wanting to sit around and watch Mom die!" Kya yelled at him.
"Kya—"
"Kya, maybe you should—" Tenzin tried to say.
"Don't you dare take his side in this, Tenzin!"
"Kya, what Tenzin's trying to say is—"
"Is what?!" She threw her arms up in anger, and the water rose several feet above her, looming over them ominously.
"That," Bumi said in a small voice, pointing behind her. Tenzin huddled closer to his brother, frightened.
"Huh?" She turned around, puzzled. She barely had any time to gasp before the wave crashed down on them with a roar, leaving them soaked and spluttering.
"Ugh, now I know how Uncle Sokka felt!" Bumi exclaimed, coughing to get the water out of his lungs.
"I—I did that?" Kya asked, half-disbelieving and half-amazed.
"You sure did, little miss waterbender," Bumi retorted. "Man, you take after Mom too much sometimes."
"Mom! Oh no, did the wave hit her?" She scrambled to get up, but stopped dead when she heard a groaning sound, a bit different than before.
"M—M—Monster!" Tenzin cried, blowing away everything within five feet of him (including Kya and Bumi) in self-defense. They landed face down on the wet ground, smearing themselves with mud.
"Benders," Bumi muttered, annoyed, trying to wipe the mud off his face.
Kya felt her temper shoot up again. "Just because you can't bend—"
"And just because you can bend—"
"W—What . . ." a voice croaked out.
They whipped around to look at Katara. "Did you hear that? Was that . . . was that . . ." Kya couldn't get the words out properly.
There was a groan and to their disbelief, Katara slowly, painfully sat up. She looked exhausted." W—What happened?" She blinked several times, obviously disoriented. She tried to focus on the three blobs in front of her, who in reality were her three gaping children. "Kids?" she asked, obviously confused at the sight in front of her, which was now relatively clearer: Kya and Bumi seeming to be at each other's throats, while Tenzin was a few feet away, crouching in what seemed to be fear.
"MOM!" The three children launched themselves at their mother, completely forgetting her condition. They were so tired and had already cried themselves dry, so they just let themselves relax in their mother's touch.
Katara winced at the enthusiastic impact, but didn't complain. Though she had no idea why they were all dripping wet and why Kya and Bumi were covered in mud, her maternal instincts kicked in first. "I'm here," she soothed them.
After a few seconds, she let her gaze wander from them, and saw the devastated island. She gasped and checked her arm—which was now an angry pinkish-red—remembering. "Bumi! Are you alright? Kya! Tenzin! Get back into the house! It's too dangerous here!" She struggled to get up.
They stepped away to give their mother some space. "Wait, Mom, you might hurt yourself! Let us explain." She tried to talk as evenly as possible in hopes of calming her mother down.
Katara didn't seem to hear her.
Bumi, however, had a completely different approach. "Mom! You almost died!"
That caught her attention. She stopped short, sitting back down on the ground. "What?"
"I'm really sorry about it; it's my fault, you know, with the glider," he apologized. "You almost died; and you would have if Kya hadn't healed you."
She blinked, trying to process what she had just heard. "Kya? You . . . healed me?" She turned to her eldest.
"Well, uh, tried, at least," she blushed. "I think what really woke you up was our arguing and the uh, wave."
"Well, you kids' bickering is loud enough to wake the dead," she said with a smirk. The children chuckled uneasily at the pun.
Katara's face then broke into a huge smile. "But you talented little waterbender! I always knew you were a healer." She opened her arms, and Kya gingerly walked into them, trying not to touch her mother's burns.
"My burn was a third-degree one, by the looks of it. And those are really difficult to heal, even for masters. I'm so proud of you!" she told Kya.
"Thanks, Mom. I actually just recalled what you taught me," she said with a shy smile. "Don't forget Bumi and Tenzin, though. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have gotten you to the pond at all."
"Are you saying that Bumi and Tenzin . . . fought?" Katara asked, disbelieving. The two boys nodded timidly.
"Bumi, Tenzin, are you alright? Does anything hurt?" She searched them for any sign of injury.
"We're fine, Mom," Bumi reassured her.
"Yeah, nothing hurts," Tenzin added.
"Don't worry, Mom, they were awesome! We really showed those firbenders," Kya's smug smile was back.
"Do you three know how dangerous that was?"They flinched at the sudden change in their mother's tone of voice.
"Yes," they whimpered, eyes on the ground.
Bumi, however, now well-educated on the capability of angry waterbenders, immediately checked the pond. He was surprised to find the water calm.
"And how extremely brave that was?" They looked up, and saw their mother smiling, "I'm so proud of you kids! Your father would be too, when he finds out." She paused, realizing something. "Wait a minute, where is he?" she asked, panicking again. "Is he all right?"
"That's uh, kind of what we need to talk about, Mom," Tenzin said uneasily.
"If you count glowing eyes and tattoos, floating in a ball of air, shooting out fireballs and having really strong winds blowing everything away from him, then yeah, he's okay," Bumi said in a way that would have made his Uncle Sokka proud. "Oh, did I mention he also cut off a part of the island? And he made lava rise out . . . which was pretty dangerous and scary, I guess, but you gotta admit, it was also cool—"
"He's WHAT?!" Katara shrieked. She looked up, and true enough, her husband was everything Bumi had said to be.
"Did he, by any chance, see me unconscious?" she asked. "Did he find out that I almost. . . died?" She had to force out the last word.
"Actually, I think he thought you were dead," Kya said softly. "He started glowing after that."
"Glowing Dad is scary," Tenzin whimpered.
Katara closed her eyes and groaned. "Oh no."
"Mom, do you know what's happening to Dad?" Tenzin idolized Aang more than anyone; he was extremely worried about him. Meanwhile, Kya and Bumi were starting to wonder if their brother was secretly a mind reader, with the way he seemed to speak their minds.
Katara hesitated; she wasn't sure how to explain it to them. But they deserved an explanation, and she knew she couldn't keep the truth from them forever. She cast a swift, worried glance at Aang before turning back to them.
"Remember when you asked what happens when your Dad gets mad?" They nodded.
"Well, that's what happens." She gestured at "Glowing Dad." "Whenever he's in extreme danger or under great emotional stress, he triggers this thing called the Avatar State."
"I heard someone say that earlier. What is that?" Kya asked.
"In the Avatar State, your father has the power of all the Avatars before him," she explained.
"But that's good, right?" Bumi asked.
"It depends. But in this case, it's not. When he enters the Avatar state emotionally, like right now, he loses control of himself."
"That's why he isn't acting like himself," Tenzin said.
"That's right, Ten. He might end up destroying the island as well."
"Then what should we do?" Kya asked.
"Well, most of the time, his Avatar State was triggered due to need, during battles. But sometimes it got triggered by emotional stress, like I said. When he found out Appa had been sold, for example. "
"Wait a minute, so when I accidentally broke that Air Nomad vase, I could have made him trigger the Avatar State?" Bumi asked, panicking.
Tenzin's eyes widened. "I've really got to start cleaning my room now."
Katara laughed lightly. "No. The emotional stress that triggers the Avatar State is usually something really devastating, something which in Dad's eyes would be almost unforgivable."
"Like thinking a firebender killed you?" Bumi asked softly.
"Yes," she replied sadly. "And those times, he had to be coaxed out of it, usually by me."
"Wait, so you're telling us that to get Dad back to normal, you have to talk him out of it," Kya's skepticism was hard to miss.
Their mother nodded. "We need to tell him that we're safe and to calm down."
"That should be easy then," Bumi said. He turned and yelled, "DAD! It's Bumi! We're safe and Mom's alive, so you can stop glowing now!"
"I don't think Dad can hear you over those winds, Bumi," Tenzin said.
"Then I'll get closer, then."
Katara stopped him just as he was about to run off. "Hold on there, little warrior. The Avatar State's purpose is to protect the Avatar. You won't be able to walk right up to him. There was one time he almost blew your Uncle Sokka and I off a mountain."
"I ran up to him earlier and I got blown away," Kya remembered.
"Are you hurt?" Motherly concern swept over her again.
"I'm fine, Mom, thanks to Tenzin's airbending." She grinned at her brother. "But you're burns aren't looking too good," she said sheepishly. "Sorry about that."
"You did an excellent job for a first-timer," she reassured her. "I'm not joking. Burns like these actually take lots of healing sessions."
"Then how are you going to get Dad out of the Avatar State?" Tenzin asked. "You're still hurt."
"Another healing session and I'll be fine," she said, stretching the truth a bit for her children's sake. "Besides, I've got a waterbender, a warrior, and an airbender to back me up." She winked. "What more would I need?"
"But—but you said it wasn't safe for us." Bumi was wide-eyed as he .
"And it's not," she agreed. "But you kids take right after your Dad and me. You're naturals with danger." They grinned with pleasure at her compliment.
"You got that right, Mom!" Kya told her. "Now let's do this!"
"We're gonna get Dad back in no time," Tenzin added confidently.
"Operation: Get Dad Out of the Avatar State is now underway!" Bumi exclaimed. "We're going to need Appa, and some waterskins, ooh, and my boomerang . . ." He ticked off each one on his fingers.
Katara shook her head, smiling. These are really some kids we've got, Aang, she thought.
I think I kind of overused the em dash in this chap -_-
Btw, badger-frogs are from the episode "The Boiling Rock Part 1"!
Reviews? How'd you like the suspense? :D
