-Reunion-

Asami asked no questions about the unconscious man or the one encased in ice. She simply jumped in the driver's seat through the opening in the roof. O-Ren replaced the gas cap and the rest of the group got in and were back on the East-West Highway, looking for a way to get on a perpendicular road.

"Guys inside that damned place tried to kill me. Got their guns, though. Guess they didn't know who they were messing with. The thing that sucks is, they called the cops on us," Asami said.

"You think we should ditch the car?" Bolin asked, still grappling his radio.

Asami looked ahead down the road. It was so open out here. The road was empty, and she almost laughed to herself at how ridiculous they must have looked driving in that car with the roof ripped off. She felt like a sitting duck. Anyone could easily find them.

"We got to get off of this road," Asami said.

"Don't think it is going matter," Korra said as she saw two military crossroad vehicles come into view behind them in her side view mirror. The gigantic tires on the vehicles told Asami they would have no problem catching her if she decided to off-road it. The team's car was a simple sedan that would have zero driving on anything but roads, and at the moment it was having difficulty doing that.

"Damn," yelled Asami. " If they catch up to us they are just going to run us over in this hunk of garbage. Look at those tires. This car ain't got much life left in it. Looks like we are going to have to give them a hard time, then shall we?" Asami drew the pistol she had stolen from the scout at the gas station.

"Can you use that thing well?" Korra asked.

Asami loaded and cocked one of the guns. "Oh yeah. I'll be fine. Hand-to-hand wasn't the only thing I learned how to do when I was younger, that is just what my dad thinks. Never had an opportunity to use one during the whole Equalist thing. Mako or Bolin, can you take the wheel? I can provide us some cover."

"Yeah I gotcha," Mako said.

"What exactly are you going to do?" O-Ren asked. "Kill them?"

"Hopefully not," Asami said as she climbed back. "They are a bunch of idiots for coming after us, though since we are the ones trying to save their asses."

"What if they aren't trying to capture…" Sydney started to say but she was cut off by the sound of a man speaking through a megaphone. There was a speaker on top of the military vehicles. Within them, the soldiers spoke through a microphone.

"THIS IS THE UNITED FORCES. YOU ARE ORDERED TO PULL OVER IMMEDIATELY. YOU ARE ALL ENEMIES OF THE STATE AND IF YOU DO NOT COMPLY WE WILL HAVE TO USE FORCE."

"United Forces? They sent the United Forces after us!? Jeez, I didn't realize how serious Qu was in making everyone think we are terrorists," Mako said.

Asami peered over to see. "Yeah, but there are only two of them. If we are really thought to be responsible for assassination and the destruction of Republic City, wouldn't they send more? And wouldn't they just blow us up rather than chase us down? They don't really seem to be doing a good job of this. Where are all the airships? Well, anyway," she prepared to shoot.

"You never answered my question," O-Ren said. "What are you going to do? Shoot at their military vehicles? You have a dinky pistol. They will just blow you up if you start shooting with that. Plus what if they are all jacked on Clasma?"

Asami smiled slyly. "There are a few things I learned while my business was getting stepped on by Graft and slowly dying. Graft's stolen all of my customers by getting the government to absorb all of the companies, and that means he was able to convince them to change the supplier for the United Forces from many different companies to just him. He got them on his side with his big, flashy, "indestructible" cross road vehicles. Well, I'll admit they are very powerful vehicles. He demonstrated that by firing multiple weapons at those vehicles and those bullets hardly affected them. Good, right? Smart. I'd next like to direct your attention to this gun, designed by Graft once again. Notice this attachment," she flipped the gun around to show an attached component that was appended to the handle of the gun. "A nice attachment that strengthens the pistol tenfold. Or something. Good, right? All seems well except a very significant hole that would form in his business plan under the right conditions. Those conditions being an enemy coming into possession of one of these guns. Because if that were to happen, the invincibility of his vehicles would mean nothing, because do you want to know what he did to demonstrate the power of these guns?" She stood up in the back seat, quickly aimed and shot out the front tires of one of Graft's vehicles. "THAT!"

The giant military vehicle spun out and flipped over.

That was too easy, Asami thought, surprised. The other vehicles continued after them. She took aim again, but found that her pistol had become jammed. The enhancing mechanism was malfunctioning. As she reached for her other pistol, two metal wires extended from a metal bender in the military vehicles and quickly came toward her. O-Ren shot up and redirected the wires deep into the road, forcing the metal bending soldier out of the vehicle as it drove on. A few rocks zoomed toward her as well but Bolin easily countered them with other rocks, allowing Asami to safely take aim again with the second pistol and shoot out the tires on the remaining vehicle, which spun out just the same.

Asami was confused. "That was it? That was pathetic. I thought it would take a few more shots. That was definitely a different design than I remember."

"They changed it?" Mako asked.

"Yeah I guess. They must be trying to upgrade or something but that was worse than before." Asami looked at the added component on her pistol. "And this just jammed up immediately. Faulty designs."

"What are you thinking?" Korra asked.

"Not sure. That was a pathetic attempt at capturing us. It's like they were disorganized and just bent stuff at us. No strategy. Not even any guns. And for some reason it looks like their equipment is changing but it's becoming worse than it was. I wonder what happened." Asami looked at her gun, trying to fix it.

"Yeah," Bolin said, "Even their airships look different." The team simultaneously turned around at this. Behind them, beyond the upturned military vehicles, an airship was flying toward them. It showed off the seal of the United Forces.

"I don't think a few bullets is going to hurt that thing," O-Ren pointed out.

"Worth a try anyway," Asami raised her weapons and fired the remaining bullets out of the guns at the airship as it approached. She fired about eight shots until the guns jammed up again, but it appeared as though one of her bullets had taken off one of the airship's propellers. She tossed the useless weapons out of the car. "Pieces of junk. Looks like I hit something, though. Their artillery really sucks…" just as she said that a missile shot from the airship and hit the road next to their car, causing Mako to lose control of the wheel. The car swerved to avoid the new hole made by the airship's missile and flew off the road into the grass.

"This car isn't designed for this terrain. You won't get anywhere," Asami said as Mako pressed on the gas, feeling defeated. She was right, the car was barely able to move anymore.

"What should we do, Korra?" Mako asked. Korra looked behind her at the approaching airship. Another missile was visible and prepared to fire.

"Get the hell away from here," she said urgently as the Team jumped out of the car, some through the open roof. They sprinted from their car across the grass as the ship fired another missile, but this one was not as direct in its trajectory as the first one. It seemed to have caught something as it fired. It flailed around in the air and went in random directions before it struck the ground nowhere near the Team. They continued running when they heard the explosion far away. "It looks like there are some woods up ahead. Maybe we can hide there under the trees."

"Yeah, unless they are just going to blow up everything until they kill us," Bolin said.

"You guys," Sydney yelled, "They aren't even getting close to hitting us. Their last missile just malfunctioned and landed way over there. I think we can make it."

"They have to run out of missiles or gas or something soon," Korra yelled.

The ship prepared another missile, but its entire structure was moved suddenly as if something strong had pushed it forcefully. The Team heard a loud crash and looked to the sky to see what was happening. The ship was gliding quickly away from where it had been before. A small white cloud about a quarter of the size of the airship rested in the air.

The group stopped running to watch. "What is that thing?" Sydney asked. "It looks like an animal or something."

Korra couldn't believe it. She smiled. "Oogi."

From high in the sky, Tenzin commandeered the flying bison. The force of his air bending and Oogi's mass was enough to do some damage to the airship and push it away. Another person was on the bison with Tenzin.

"Fly closer, Tenzin. I want to show this world that even without my bending, single-handedly bringing down a flying hunk of metal is still a Bei Fong past time."
Lin drew her mother's hand-crafted sword and leaped onto the airship. From one side, she stuck her sword deep into the ship surface and sprinted across the other side, easily tearing a hole into it. A metal panel was punched off from the inside and two soldiers ran out to stop her. Still with her sword in the ship, Lin slid down the side of the airship, continuing her critical tear. She removed the sword as she approached a propeller and sliced it off along with a few exhaust pipes. Using her feet, she pushed herself away from the ship and was free falling until Tenzin flew underneath her and grabbed her hand, pulling her onto his bison.

"Again, I need to do a little more damage before that thing falls."

"What about the soldiers?"

"Just stick by. I'll take care of them. I'm pretty sure I know who is flying this thing anyway. I'd like to have a word with him if I may?"

"Just don't do anything rash, Lin."

"Sure thing, captain."

Lin stepped off the bison while it flew above the now torn apart airship. She landed on the far side from where the soldiers were. They were attempting to mend the metal tears, but Lin just made more. They charged at her and tried to subdue her with their metal wires. She easily dodged their attacks and cut their metal wires into little segments as they came at her. She dug her sword back into the ship and ran across the side until she got to the rudder. Without pulling her sword out, she ran alongside the rudder so that she was cutting its attachment to the ship. The tears in the ship's steering mechanism caused it to swerve uncontrollably. The quick turn made Lin lose her balance and she almost fell off the ship but she held on to her sword still lodged into the rudder. The other metal benders weren't as lucky.

The ship started to go down. The pilots inside where trying to stabilize it, but Lin's damage had been too much too quick. The machine would not fly again. Lin looked at the mountains that the ships was quickly descending into. She anxiously looked below her dangling feet.

Any day now, Tenzin.

Just then, a metal bender appeared on the rudder. Lin was not surprised to see him, but the same couldn't be said for him when he saw her.

"You! How are you here!?" He yelled.

"I'm a hard person to run away from, Rong. And I'm even harder to kill."

"We'll see about that. You don't realize the extent to which I've been practicing, just so I could face you like this and prove that I am superior and I always have been!"

"Well, I'm sorry to ruin that opportunity, but I must be off. You might want to try and fix this ship before it crashes into those mountains and blows you up." Lin let go, although Tenzin was not yet beneath her. She fell for a while and started to get scared that he wouldn't show when finally through the wreckage a white fluffy bison flew toward her and in the next instant she was safely next to Tenzin.

"Job's done," she said, but looked up to see Rong pushing himself off the falling mass of metal with his metal wires and land on the bison next to her. The force of his impact and his extra weight made Oogi quickly descend in altitude. Lin wrestled with Rong, trying to prevent him from metal bending anything at her or Tenzin while he continued to steer Oogi. She got behind him and used her sword to start detaching the supply of wires attached to his back as part of his metal bending armor she remembered once wearing. He fought back and she kicked him off the bison, but the little wire he still had left he used to wrap around her and pull her off with him.

The two landed hard on the grass and rose to face each other. Separated by a small distance. They panted as the ship they were once standing on crashed and burned at the foot of a nearby mountain. She and Rong were several hundreds of meters from the rest of Team Avatar. The Team waited for Tenzin's bison to take them over to where Lin was. As they boarded the bison, Tenzin double-took when Korra and Asami stood there.

"Korra..." he said, confused that these two were both alive and perfectly well.

"Yeah, we can discuss later," Korra said as they got on Oogi.

Lin continued to stare at Rong, and he at her.

"How can you possibly think what you are doing is the right thing?" she asked him.

"You killed Graft. Your hatred for the Republic of Nations has made you a terrorist. I will prevent more killing by ending you."

"That is what Qu has told you. Qu has lied to you, Rong, and while you stand there trying to kill us, the real danger, the one who actually killed Graft, is out there and is about to do something even worse. He'll kill Qu just like Graft, and he'll kill us, too. No one is safe from him, but we are trying to stop him. Why do you stand in our way when all we are doing is saving you?"

"Enough with your lies, Lin! I'll show you how wrong you've been about me!"

"Is this about doing what is right, or is this about proving yourself to me? Proving that you're better than me? Why does that matter now?"

"I'm proving that what Graft had in mind for this world was a better one, and the only way we can be better is by bending. Bending is superior! Bending makes us gods! Without it, we are weak, useless, just like you! And now," he was yelling, his face had turned red and veins were pulsing, "Now I'll demonstrate what a true god's power is!"

With the supply of wire that Rong still had, he extended them as if they were his elongated, metal arms. Like metal tentacles. He had complete control over them. Lin slowly pulled her sword out, ready to cut through any wave of metal he was about to send her way.

Rong rotated his arm back, preparing for his first blow, when he suddenly stopped. The veins in his face were pulsing more than ever, now. It turned from red to purple. He was struggling to breathe now and it looked as if he was having a heart attack. Lin was confused as to what he was doing, then became worried when she thought she realized what was happening.

He was dying. In his mixture of grunts and groans, he struggled to get a questions out to her, "What…what did you…do to me?" His metal wires fell to the ground. His arms were shaking, and soon he fell to the ground in a seizure.

Lin ran toward him. "Rong! Rong what is it? What's wrong?"

"MY…MY ARMS…MY…GAH!"

"It's the metal bending," O-Ren said. The Team had caught up to Lin by now. "He's going to pass out, although he looks worse than…"

"Rong! Stop metal bending! Stop trying to control the metal! Just relax! it's killing you!" Lin yelled sternly. "You're going to DIE if you don't relax yourself."
Rong's body continued to shake. He wasn't listening to her. His stubborn rejection of Lin, his refusal to ever follow one of her orders again and his pride for himself and his bending were all causing his slow death.

"Dammit, Rong, you don't have to die! I'm sorry for whatever I've made you feel about yourself. I would never want this to happen, and I don't want it to happen so please just listen to me so you don't let this consume you."

Finally, Rong concluded his life was more important to him than his pride, and he relaxed himself. He discontinued his attempts to bend against Lin, and within seconds his shaking stopped and he fell unconscious. Lin checked his pulse, and he was still alive. She breathed a sigh of relief and sat in silence. Seeing Rong nearly die reminded her of the people who may not have survived the airship crash. The airship she had just torn apart. They had fallen off the ship and she had no control. Of course, her mission to destroy the ship was ultimately the cause of their downfall. But Lin knew her airships, and she knew that taking that airship down was not a difficult feat. If anything, she showed those men how vulnerable and mediocre their newest airship design was. But there was still no rationalizing lost lives.

There was no other way to stop them, she thought. They had to go down. Tenzin looked at the crash site in the distant, whispering words to himself, condemning himself for the potential deaths of several people.

Lin pushed her remorse out of her mind and stood, "How long will he be out?"

"Few hours I suppose," O-Ren answered.

"Good, leaves us some time to get out of here before more show up."

"How did you find us?" Asami asked.

Lin thought about answering the question before she realized who had asked it. The last time she had seen Asami her mind was completely overtaken by the Clasma. She had become a mental case and now here she was back in her normal state. Lin looked around and spotted Korra, who was also completely unwounded. It was as if she had never even received Solomon's beating in Graft's office. Like none of that even happened.

Lin sighed, and Korra knew exactly why after the two made eye contact. "It's obvious that I am missing something, it looks like. But we don't have much time. We found you from the broadcastings. We caught a transmission saying the terrorists of ONI were on East-West Highway. The Avatar was in there, too. Once we had that it was relatively simple to find you. Only ones on this road. Everyone else is packing the Transcontinental Highway."

"You were able to get those transmissions? How? Our radio has been nothing but noise and weird music?" Mako asked. Lin held up a small radio.

"With this. It picks up the frequency ranges that police and military transmit over. An emergency had arisen when I had seen Tenzin back to his family out west, and so we had to set out East again."

"On the way back," Tenzin said, "We happened to come across a small group of people in a town who wanted to speak with us. One of them was carrying this radio, and when we asked about it he just gave it to us. They didn't tell us much more before we had to be going, but he said we need it more than he did."

"What is the emergency?" Bolin asked. Lin looked at Tenzin, who looked depressed upon hearing the question. Lin cast the question aside for now.

"Enough questions. We shouldn't talk about this now. We should keep moving. Get away from this place before more of Qu's men show up."

"We were heading for Metro," Korra said. "I can fill you in on what is happening on the way."

"Oogi won't be able to travel long with all of us on his back. We may need to stop after a while and travel on foot," Tenzin said.

"Anything is better than here," Lin said. "Let's move."