Bolin had to admit, for having to incarcerate a metalbender at the last minute, they did a pretty good job. His hands had been tied together and brought over his head, the rope looped through the binds and hung from a hook, or something to that effect, off the ceiling, leaving him to hang by his wrists. The final touch, a blindfold (and gag, but he doubted that had anything to do with his bending), now he had absolutely no connection to his element, and frankly the whole setup was really, really uncomfortable.
"Asami." Uh oh, he knew that voice; Hiroshi. From the gentle tone he hadn't come to scold his daughter, but all the same, this wasn't going to be fun to hear. He heard her shuffle around and moan, "Asami, I know I have hurt you, and I am sorry." Oh, well at least he could admit it, "But I believe that one day you will come to your senses and we can be a family again." 'WHAT?!'
"Are you insane?" She shot back disbelievingly. 'You tell 'em, Asami!' he mentally shouted with pride, "How can we be a family after everything you've done?! Mom would hate you for what you've become!"
"How dare you?! I am avenging her death." Hiroshi sounded like he just toppled over that cliff he'd been teetering on and fell into the depths of real insanity. Which kind of criminal did his mom say was more dangerous, the lunatics or the psychopaths? He couldn't remember, but Hiroshi was officially starting to scare him.
"The airplanes are ready for take off." A random voice came from the other side of the bars. 'Airplanes', so that's what those things were called.
"Good." Asami's dad growled, still calming down from his tantrum, "Annihilate the fleet." No. Bolin didn't hear that right. There was no way he'd heard that right, "That's right, General. I intercepted your message to Commander Bumi. I know exactly where they're hiding."
"You won't get away with this!" Mako shouted as Bolin heard footsteps walking away from their cell. And the laughter he heard in reply made his heart sink even futher. 'Uncle Bumi's in trouble! Come on, Bolin, think!'. There had...had to be a way out of this mess.
"How are we gonna get out of here?"
"We have a metalbender." Iroh pointed out. 'Yes, but he's a little tied up at the moment, so you might want to think of something else...', why did they have to put that gag in his mouth? If he didn't say something soon his head was going to explode, "We have to find a way to get him down."
"Maybe if I could-" Asami stopped talking, so Bolin could only imagine from the scooting noises that she was trying to get to him, until he realized that she was going in the opposite direction, "get my hands on your guys' ropes, I can free you." Oh, she was going to free Mako and Iroh first. Well, whatever was best for her. 'Wait a second, both you guys are firebenders...just burn through the damn rope...of course, you'd probably have to burn yourselves while you're at it'. There was some fumbling noises and a few grunts from all parties and then the airplane machines fired up. This was going to take too long, but it wasn't like he could tell anyone that...stupid gag.
Then he heard a muffled roar, then metal doors being forced open. That could only mean one thing. 'Naga!',thank the spirits she didn't listen to him. When all this was over, he was going to take that thirty-thousand and buy that animal everything she could want, thousand pounds of meat, her own human sized bed, a whole box full of toys and he'd spend whatever was left on treats.
"Naga! Here girl." Mako called the polarbear dog over. Pabu rattled on a mile a minute in his own ferret language as Bolin felt him jump onto his foot and climb upwards and on to his head. Naga roared a couple of the scariest roars he'd ever heard and then, he assumed from the sound, broke the bars.
'Omph', or at least, that's what he would would've said if they'd taken the gag off before shooting the rope holding him up, making him land on the ground, hard. They didn't even stick around to see if he was okay, the jerks. But at least the fire had migrated down and burned a small part of the binds, so he could wriggle them off, along with the blindfold and the gag, "Hey, wait up!" They didn't wait up. And truth be told, he didn't want them too, he had absolutely no idea what possessed him to say that in the first place.
"I'm going after those airplanes!" Iroh shouted from in front of him.
"I'll help!" Bolin dug his feet in the earth and pushed himself forward, skating down one of the runways to his left. He reached the end of the line and propelled himself upward, hitting the wing hard and rolling backwards before he managed to latch onto the airplane's rudder, "This...may have been a bad idea."
"Leave him alone, Amon!" She heard the dumb teenager shout at Amon despite the order to not draw attention to herself. That was the crack that made the statue crumble, as soon as she got the girl within arm reach, Lin was going to kill her. And in fifteen years or so, she was going to tell the next avatar what an idiot he was in his past life.
"You're welcome to come down here and try to stop me." It was in the middle of Amon's sentence that Lin made her entrance and saw that he had Tenzin trapped on the stage. Great, now they'd have to arrest her for a double homicide once this was all over. Though it was going to be a little awkward to tell the judge 'I saved them so I could kill them myself'. Now all she had to do was take down Amon, a bloodbender who was in all probability more powerful than Yakone...yes, this should be easy enough. "The Avatar needs to be reminded of the power I possess." No one had to guess what was coming next. She was close to Amon, but not close enough.
All thought of subtlety leaving her mind in an instant, Lin ran to close the distance, reached into her pouch and grabbed her whip. Knowing that he wasn't in easy range, she'd have to pull of a hat trick. Jumping as high as she could, adding a spin to give her whip as much momentum as possible, she lashed the weapon in midair and hoped that it found it's target. The position made her miss his torso, instead wrapping the chain around his neck making him fall to the stage as she fell to the floor. It would do.
Another side effect of the air shot, the whip didn't hold properly and was easy for Amon to shake off, though it had left him winded. By this time Korra had made it down from the referee platform and faced off against his nearby guards. The kid could use some backup, but unfortunately, so could Lin. She was down in the midst of a mob full of 'concerned citizens', and was being held down by sheer numbers. They had her in the clutches, but she still fought to get free. But then she heard a scream, and the world seemed to stop, along with her struggles. She looked up to see Korra, held down by three people, one her knees in front of Amon. The thumb came down on the girl's forehead and she fell to the ground.
"I told you I would destroy you." Amon told the girl in a raspy voice that Lin, in the front row, could barely hear. "It is over."
"The Avatar has been equalized!" The lieutenant shouted for his boss, as Amon's throat was too sore to yell to the crowd. They filled the place with a thunderous cheer. Lin was passed to her enemies and brought before the masked man himself.
"You have tried and failed time and again." He tried the usual intimidation technique of staring her down menacingly, but it was a wasted effort. " It would be in your best interest to accept defeat."
"Never!"
"Amon," The second-in-command leaned in to whisper in his ear, "she's too dangerous to be kept alive."
"Listen to him, Noatak." If what Tarrlok had said was true, Amon wouldn't dare kill her and even if he did, maybe she could buy Korra and especially Tenzin some time. Time for what, she didn't know, but it gave them all time to think of something, "Come on! Finish what your father started!" The man's eyes narrowed at her taunting, he may have been seriously considering it.
"What is she talking about?"
"You didn't even tell your lieutenant?" she scoffed, "I may be a brute and a killer, but at least my officers followed me knowing exactly what I was. Tell them the truth, let's see how many of your equalists will still follow you."
"She is trying to divide us." Well, he was right about that. Deciding to waist no more time on her, he turned to Tenzin and began walking towards him. Making sure to walk very slowly, just to make himself look more imitating. Lin was all for the slow walk, it gave her a window of opportunity and gave him chain around the neck, "And biding time. But the time has come. " His head flunkey repeated his words for the audience to hear, "This is only the beginning. Take her away. She will face trial." Nobody moved an inch.
"Trial? Are you kidding me?" Seriously, he was kidding, right? Amon looked to his people, who's mouths were probably agape underneath those masks, waved her off. They broke out of their dazes and forced her off the platform and out of the room.
"Tenzin..." The avatar started to come out of her own daze,
"Soon we will find the other airbenders, and we will rid the world of them."
"No!" Korra tried to get up, but was held down by her captors. She couldn't take them on, not like this, not head on...but if not head on like an earthbender...maybe...maybe she could take them on from a different angle...like Tenzin...like an airbender. She flung herself backwards, breaking the nose of the man behind her and making them both fall down. The other two unwittingly let go, allowing her to roll overtop the third and behind them all . She punched the air a couple of times before she remembered that her firebending wasn't going to work anymore.
"Your display will not stop the inevitable." Amon had taken notice, he'd even paused, but the young woman's show would could not end in any way but defeat. And so, knowing this to be fact, he resumed the position to remove the airbending from the man in front of him.
"No!" Purely out of instinct, while in an airbender mindset, she circled around, bringing her arms forward in a smooth pushing motion, and the air around her pushed with it, all the way to Amon, knocking him into her teacher, but keeping his thumb away from the arrow. Korra was as surprised as everyone else in the room, even Amon stared blankly at her for a few seconds before he came to his sense. But as the equalist leader rushed to face her, so did most of the equalists. The girl blew one, two off the stage. Amon dodged once, twice, three times. Korra sidestepped Amon's arm and jumped over a leg sweep. She threw a strong gust of wind at him, which he went under. He went for a jab at her neck, she was too slow to avoid it. Unnaturally slow, as a matter of fact.
"You're bloodbending me!" She shouted for everyone to hear, but no one believed her. Amon didn't look like he was bending. It just looked like he had Korra's pressure points in a lock and seemed to be forcing back down to her knees by them. A familiar feeling of having her body freeze inside before going numb came over her and she fell limp again.
For once, Amon had no words, his pride obviously hurt by this new revelation that his power wasn't foolproof. As the room looked at the teenager in silence, waiting for her to get back up and shoot fire at them, the dutiful mustached man came to nurse his wounded ego back to health,
"She was the avatar."
"Yes, I may have to use the technique two more times." Once for each element that the girl could bend, or at least he'd let his followers think that. He knew better, his bloodbending should have done the job right the first time. But they couldn't take any more chances with her, "Restrain her." The next thing a semi conscience avatar saw was the lieutenant's kali stick coming straight for her head.
…..
"Where am I?" Korra woke up laying in a meadow, the sun was in her eyes, and from her position on the ground she couldn't see over the tall grass, but someone offered her a hand.
"Hello there." The figure said kindly as it blocked the sun. With the offensive light out of her of the way, she got a good look at the smiling face that belonged to the hand.
"Aang?" Was it really him?
"Nice to finally see you, Korra."