Earth... Fire... Air... Water...

The Avatar's destiny has been fulfilled, and soon, her story will end.

AVATAR

The Celestial Sailors

BOOK THREE: DEATH

38: Healing Hands: Part Two

The wind blew through Ann's hair as she stood in silence. With a gesture, she stretched her arms out, and the wind stopped. Twenty earth-bender acolytes stood before her in awe.

Ael snapped his fingers, igniting a flame on his palm. He held it up for the group to see. His other hand whirled and wove, lifting a sliver of water off the ground, coalescing it next to the flame. He clapped his hands together, dispersing both.

"First volunteer," Ann said. A gangly boy no more than sixteen approached them nervously. He at least remembered to bow before taking his stance. Ann thrust, launching a sharp breeze; the boy scrambled to lift a stone shield. She threw more blasts at him, slowly but relentlessly, chipping away at his armor. He held firm until the shield was all but spent; Ann then lashed at his legs, dropping him to the floor.

"Good defense," Ael called, "but if we wanted a wall, we'd make one ourselves." To demonstrate, he struck the ground with his foot, throwing up a stone slab behind him. He punched backwards, shattering the wall to rubble. The acolytes gawked.

"Second volunteer," Ann said. A stockier boy approached, his body tense and his eyes wild with fear. Ann snorted. "Two more. You and you." The boys she pointed to joined their companion. Ael threw a fireball in front of them, which quickly turned into a conflagration.

"Extinguish it!" he said. One of the boys panicked and tried stamping it out; the other two at least had sense enough to curl a blanket of dust over the fire. Before they could celebrate, Ael shouted, "Defense!" and threw a water-dart at one of the boys. He instinctively called up a mass of dirt and absorbed the blow. Ael nodded in approval. "Good. Now attack."

"All three of us, sir?" one of the boys said. Ael nodded. One of them charged forward, forgetting to use his bending; the other two remained, one throwing up a barrier while the other volleyed stones. Ann easily tripped the charger by shifting the ground below him, zipping and weaving between the missiles. She caught one and hurled it with such strength that it shattered the barrier; she then used the debris to knock out the other two boys.

"Excellent teamwork," she praised them, despite their loss. "However, you should not charge blindly towards your opponents, even as a distraction. Have a plan and coordinate properly. Understood?"

"Yes, master," the boys groaned. Ael smiled at their weariness. He knew how to perk them up.

"All right, now split up into two groups of ten. I want one team focusing purely on defense while the other focuses on attack. If the defensive team can hold their ground for ten minutes, they are free to leave training for the day and will start tomorrow an hour later. The same applies if the offensive team breaks their defense before the ten minutes are up. Understood? All right, form ranks and begin!" He threw a flare up to signal the match. The boys were disorganized and too eager to prove themselves, but they managed to work together and form creative ways to overcome their adversaries. Ael scooted closer to Ann as they watched the two teams compete.

"They're so green!" she exclaimed. "I don't see how we'll ever turn them into disciplined warriors."

"You're not feeling intimidated, I hope," he teased her. Their eyes met and a spark ignited. "If the pressure of training a new generation of earth-benders for the King is too much for you, you can always go home." Ann laughed sharply and batted the bluish-pink hair out of her face.

"Are you afraid I'll show you up if I stay? I can handle this."

"Good to hear it. There's a lot at stake here. I wouldn't want you to crack under the pressure—especially when..." He trailed off, eyeing her abdomen. Ann put her hands on her hips and glared; she was showing quite noticeably these days.

"Especially when what?" Ael smiled tightly and resumed watching the teams. So far, they were evenly-matched.

"Especially when a shared burden's an easy one."

"Well," she smiled softly, "that goes without saying. Just don't go soft on them, Ael."

"Funny, I was about to say the same thing." They smirked at each other; a few minutes later, the offensive team finally broke through and surrounded their battered companions. Ael threw up a flare.

"We have a winner! The ten of you can leave; we'll see you in the morning. As for the rest of you... Well," he said to Ann, "what shall we do?"

"Isn't it obvious?" she replied as half their trainees hurried home. "We train them so they don't lose next time." He smiled and nodded.

"Do you hear that?" he called. "When the others get back tomorrow, they'll be soft and weak. Easy prey to knock off their high throne, wouldn't you say?" The remaining boys snickered, and eagerly fell in line for the next drill. They had a long, grueling road ahead of them, but Ael and Ann were determined to make men out of them. It was the least they could do to serve their king.

…...

"Come on, move it! We haven't got all day!" The whip cracked again, startling the line of people. Chained together at the legs and wrists, they could only shuffle forward, goaded by the relentless cruelty of their taskmaster: a flogging if they resisted, a beating if they fell behind. The line trudged forward, surrounded by a hundred slavers and more, traffickers in the unfortunate, the destitute, the desperate and dying. What little fire sparked in their eyes paled when compared to the fury of their captors, the heat of their voice, and the very real conflagration they were threatened with. A few of the slavers were earth-benders, too, and a handful were even water-benders, rogues and thieves and killers who profited off the chaos caused by recent events.

"On your feet, you!" one of them shouted, bending the earth so the stragglers were forced to stand. "You'll feel my whip for every minute we're late!" More people collapsed, exhausted and dehydrated, drained in body and spirit. One of them tried shielding himself as the whip came down, getting his arm lashed and bloodied. A woman stood guard over a small group of children, weathering the evil bearing down upon her.

"Blackguards and fiends!" one of the men shouted. "The Avatar will make you pay for what you've d—" He was cut off as the butt of a whip slammed against his jaw. One of the larger bandits uncoiled a nine-pronged lash, barbs and nails woven into the leather.

"The Avatar?" he grumbled, spitting to the side. "I hear she's an invalid. Crippled half to death and withering away off on some distant island. Half a bleeding world away from your sorry sack of skin. But go on—scream for her. Scream as loud as you bloody like. No one will hear you, no one will care, and no one will save you when the buzzards tear you apart!" He raised the nine-pronged lash, eliciting shrieks as others ran from his wrath. As the scourge reached its zenith, it seemed to brush against the sun itself, igniting into a brand. The man screamed and dropped the whip, shaking the fire away from his hand.

"Who did that?!" another slaver demanded, brandishing a curved sword. "Who dares to—" Suddenly, the ground beneath him lunged forward, knocking him to the ground. Another slaver went to grab a spear, but was whisked off his feet by a stiff wind and knocked flat. The slavers searched around for the source of the ambush, arming themselves with steel and iron, fire and earth. Someone whistled loudly; the slavers turned to the source, seeing ten people towering over them on a hill: seven young women and three young men.

"Listen well, you fiends!" one of the boys called. "My name is Ma-Ti! We are members of the White Lotus and friends of the Avatar! This is your only chance to surrender yourselves! Free these people and lay down your weapons, and you will be—" He never got to finish; he was already being drowned out by laughter.

"What are you, stupid?!" one of the slavers jeered. "There are over a hundred of us! We are Sung Chiang's army reborn! You're just ten kids!"

Ma-Ti frowned. "So you're not surrendering?"

The slavers laughed cruelly. "No."

He smiled, cracking his knuckles. "Good. I was hoping you'd say that." Before any of the slavers or prisoners could wonder what this meant, a blonde girl with long pigtails, not unlike the Avatar, hurled herself across the sky on a large stone slab. She crashed in front of the slavers and knocked two of them out immediately, her fingers striking vital chi-points with the deadly speed of a viper. A third slaver gawked as his companions fell to the girl—and in one blow, no less—he brandished his sword but his wrists failed him, dropping his weapon as she struck his arms. A precision strike on the forehead sent him crumbling into a pile; Suen grinned and spread her arms out. Blue-haired Nabu and redheaded Nergal vaulted onto them, shooting fire and ice, and Ishtar leaped atop the stack, grinning.

"Tower of Power formation, go!" Building up a massive sphere of air, she dive-bombed into the crowd, scattering and flattening at least ten.

I was born a warrior, force of steel in my hands
We must fight to save our world
Spread this message through the land
Seize control
We will fight to seize control
We will fight to seize control

The slavers organized a counteroffensive at once, surrounding the ten youths. Their benders rained flaming boulders, their archers fired, their warriors bared blades. Kwame and Wheeler sprang into action, deflecting the blows with their own earth and fire, dispelling and sometimes reflecting back what was thrown. Gi threw up an enormous wave and hollered wildly as she surfed on it, washing over the benders with a terrible crash. Linka blew away the arrows before they could perforate anyone; one of the slavers charged her with a spear from behind, but she flicked her wrist and upended him without even glancing backwards.

"Nergal, Wheeler, free the prisoners, quickly!"

"On it!" Wheeler called. Nergal saluted to everyone.

"Cover us!" They ran into the thick of the fray, guarded by stone walls and ice missiles and gusts of merciless wind, igniting anyone who got too close. Wheeler lashed at the chains linking the prisoners' feet; Nergal folded her hands over their shackles, melting them away. Soon they were shaking off their binds and scrambling for safety. Ma-Ti helped escort them away as his friends fought the slavers off, but some slipped through, armed with cruel whips and daggers.

And the time has come for man to change
And free this earth from coming plague
Change is coming, my voice shall be heard
A new day dawning, hear my words

"We're gonna have real fun skinning you, boy!" they snarled. Ma-Ti glared in righteous anger, whirling his quarterstaff before him. He thrust as one leaped at him, cracking him in the head; another slammed down with his knife, but the staff found his wrist and broke it, causing him to drop his weapon. The butt end crushed his chin; a second blow to the headed grounded him. The one with the whip slashed wildly, keeping Ma-Ti at a distance. Ma-Ti waited until he was about to strike before guarding himself with the staff, catching the the tail end as it coiled around. The man chuckled and tried to yank the staff away, but Ma-Ti was surprisingly strong for his age, and pulled the whip out of his hands with a firm flick. He then crossed the distance and brought the slaver down.

"Hurry! Go!" he shouted to the prisoners. "There's a river half a mile due east from here. Follow it north and you'll come to a town. You'll be safe there." He ignored their thanks as four more slavers rushed at him. Ma-Ti leaped into the air, whirling wildly, kicking one so hard that he careened into another slaver, knocking them both down. He ducked quickly as a sword sliced after him, nimbly weaving out of the way as it slashed. His staff hooked around the slaver's knees and toppled him; the fourth jumped over his fallen companions with a dozen stones orbiting around him. Ma-Ti backed off and held his ground.

"Think you're good enough to take on a bender, boy?"

He beckoned with his fingers. "Come get some." The stones flew rapidly; Ma-Ti darted out of their path and struck at several of the larger ones, smashing and even reflecting them. Suddenly, a gust of wind thrust the slaver forward, face-first into Ma-Ti's staff. As he fell, Ma-Ti saw Linka blushing.

"Sorry! I did not mean to steal your thunder!"

"No worries," he chuckled, just glad to make it out alive.

I bring truth and understanding to your darkest fears
Ascension to your destiny is drawing near
Taste the wrath of my swift sword, legion of the night
Immortals come to rule the earth on beams of light
Fight to seize control
We will fight to seize control, we will fight

More stone projectiles hurled through the sky as several of the enemy benders got to their feet. Linka nodded to Marduk, who jumped up and flew as Linka boosted her with a blast of air. She shot down the projectiles as they hurled at her, fists and feet flailing at blinding speeds. Kwame launched himself at a small plateau, knocking part of it off and hurling it to Marduk. Nabu quickly covered it with ice; Marduk grabbed the frozen plateau and slammed it to the ground as she fell, shattering stone and ice, which Gi scooped up and hurled, blanketing the air with freezing shrapnel.

Nergal and Wheeler stood back to back, firing bolts from their fingers (accompanied by childish sound effects), setting the slavers' hair on fire. The slavers screamed; the few remaining prisoners laughed; Linka just sighed.

"You are having far too much fun," she scolded. Wheeler gave her a cheesy grin and flashed a thumbs-up, but the momentary distraction caused one of the slavers to slip through and chase after a stray prisoner.

"Ha! Not on my watch, pal!" Wheeler exclaimed. He slapped his hands together and hurled a whirling blaze, setting the ground ablaze before the slaver could make another step. Suen rushed in and knocked him out, dusting her hands off tidily.

Change is coming, my voice shall be heard
A new day is dawning, hear my words
I bring truth and understanding to your darkest fears
Ascension to your destiny is drawing near
Taste the wrath of my swift sword, legion of the night
Immortals come to rule the earth on beams of light

Ishtar fretted as fifteen of the slavers cornered her, most of them sporting nasty bruises from her friends. The swords and spears were so close that she could see her face in their cold metal.

"Okay, you guys, seriously!" she wailed. "This is your last chance! Throw your weapons down if you don't want to get hurt!" The slavers just laughed, drawing closer. Ishtar glared and puffed herself up. Her hands became claws as she hoisted the wind up with so much precision that it robbed every man there of his weapon. She held them all in the air for a moment before slamming them back down, smashing them against their owners. "I told you to throw them away!" she exclaimed.

Meanwhile Marduk was making stone prisons for the slaves, boxes just large enough for them to squeeze into with only a little hole for air. Gi raised her arms and wove them through the air, patterning her water after her movement. In an instant, she became violent, thrusting one beaten slaver after another into the prisons. Any who tried to escape her wrath were pursued by Nergal, who actively tried to set their pants on fire as they ran (chanting something about them being liars in the process). Linka drew them in with air-vacuuming, and Ma-Ti pummeled them with his staff. Together the ten youths secured every last slaver, freeing every single prisoner, and generally saving the day.

See the world burning, is this a dream?
Warrior returning, his blood is steel
Time has come for man to change
And free this earth from coming plague
Change is coming, my voice shall be heard
A new day dawning, hear my words

"Aww, no more?" Marduk groaned. Just then, the largest man any of them had ever seen lumbered into view. Towering over them at an unspeakable seven feet tall, bulging with muscle and bristling with an enormous beard, he wielded a cruel battle-ax in one hand and a heavy kusarigama (or a chain-linked flail) in the other. He shook the ground with his ax and whirled a tornado with his flail. Lightning sparked in his hands, and fire leaped from his mouth.

"No more games," he snarled, his breath stinking of blood. "I will personally crack all of your skulls in my bare hands and leave you for the vultures to rip apart. I will—"

"Get em', Mochi!" Ma-Ti shouted. His lemur screeched and leaped at the burly man, biting and clawing ferociously.

"Ahh, get it off, get it off!" he screamed, scrambling around wildly. "My eyes! Gaah, why do they always go for the eyes?!" The youths merely smirked at each other before Ma-Ti mercifully called Mochi back. Marduk and Kwame constructed an extra-large earth prison for him, packed solid with ice—and just for good measure, Nergal and Wheeler set his beard on fire.

"Not the beard! Anything but my beard! Please, I'm sorry!" The man wept and cried; the team laughed as he tried putting it out.

"How long ya reckon it'll take before Motoki's people come to pick these no-account polecats up?" Gi wondered. Ishtar shrugged.

"No idea. How long do you think it'll take for his beard to burn off?"

Everyone stared at each other blankly, then burst out laughing.

"Hang in there, big guy!" Nergal exclaimed. "Motoki's real busy these days! It might take awhile before he rescues you!" Everyone laughed again as he continued to beg for mercy. Alas, with this group, there would be none.

…...

Ebb, flow. Ebb, flow. Left, right; curling, flattened. Ebb, flow, ebb, flow... Usagi kept her pace slow and steady as she practiced her water-bending. The surf was relentless today, thrashing madly against the cliffs below despite how calm the day was. Nary a gust of wind and the waves were battering the island like it had committed an offense. Usagi toyed and teased them for an hour or so before she relinquished her hold, the ocean none the worse for her interference. Good. She recalled a story Vainamoinen had told her during their travels, of a bender who diverted rivers and clouds so that his land could always be fertile. He ended up slain by his neighbors, whose crops had withered for want of water. "Remember the balance," he'd conclude, and then be silent for a moment before muttering a verse about fish or insects or some other tiny thing dancing down mountains.

She willed a rock to her palm and threw it into the ocean, then called it back, drying it with a gesture. She split the stone in half, taking the water she had drawn away and forming it into a disc. She fused the two halves around the disc, then surrounded the whole thing with an air-shield, spinning and weaving until a little squall had formed. Usagi drew in a breath and quickly exhaled fire, shattering the stone and dissolving the water, then used the air to extinguish the flame. She took a moment to recharge and smiled at her efforts.

"Not bad," she murmured proudly, "not bad at all." The sun had almost completely risen over the horizon when she concluded her exercise; she decided to brave it and went searching for her chair so she could watch the fire climb in comfort. Ami stood waiting for her next to the chair.

They stared at each other anxiously for a long time. Usagi waited patiently for her fate to be sealed.

"I'm finished with my tests," Ami stated solemnly. She took a deep breath and gazed at her friend pensively before nodding. Usagi felt a part of herself crumble in disappointment and fear. She knew she should have been happy, but...

"I'm assuming Mamoru is the father," Ami continued, her voice barely a whisper. Usagi nodded again.

"Yeah, we, umm... The night when...when the second sun came up, we..."

"So that means you're almost three months pregnant." Usagi could only nod. She took a deep breath and suggested they sit down for this, and the only place where both women could do this was inside the hut. They went inside and sat.

"Ami, you...won't tell anyone about this, right? Especially not my parents."

"Of course not," she replied, a bit taken aback. "Anything said here between us is strictly confidential. I'd do the same for any patient I had treated!" She cooled down a little and added, "It's your choice when, where, and who you tell. If you want my advice..." Their eyes met, and Ami reached out to hold Usagi's hand. "You should at least tell Mamoru. He deserves to know."

"But he's the king," Usagi said, her voice so soft that even in that intimate setting, Ami could barely hear her. "I love him, but...I don't want our child... I mean, I do want to be his queen—I already see myself as his wife, but...I can't. I'm the Avatar. I can't be anybody's queen. And I don't want our child to...how do I put this? I don't want them to complicate things, if that makes sense."

"I think I know what you mean," Ami replied. Any other time and this would have been happy news: Mamoru and Usagi would have their child, be a family, and that would be that. Even a king siring an heir out of wedlock wasn't entirely uncommon; many well-respected rulers of the past had been illegitimate. But for a Regent and an Avatar to bear a child, when one is sworn to their country while the other is sworn to the whole world... Oh, Usagi could certainly marry Mamoru and raise their child with him in Ba Sing Se, but she'd just be perpetrating the cycle of neglect that so many other Avatars before her had been guilty of. Kiyone abandoned the Fire Nation, K'ung Ming divorced himself from the Air Nomads, Bitasu openly hated the Earth Kingdoms (save for her own corner of the realm), and Kalkin only seemed to care for his own land. For Usagi to swear fealty only to the Northern Earth Kingdom meant that the years of strife would continue, and all her efforts, and the efforts of her friends, would have been wasted.

She couldn't do that—not even for her child.

"So what are you going to do?" Ami asked. Usagi suddenly felt like the weight of the world had chained itself to her, and all she could do was lay back and cover her face.

"I don't know, Ami. I don't..."

She laid there until she fell asleep, Ami at her side, silent.

…...

When Ami returned to Omashu, she was greeted warmly, and explained that Usagi was well, and getting better. She kept her word and didn't mention the pregnancy to anybody—not even to Minako. So now both women were keeping a secret from each other.

A day or two after that, Rei came by to visit, bringing gifts from Kotono. As she made her rounds, she ran into Yuichiro, who—coincidentally or not—was there on an errand for her grandfather. As always, he was bumbling and flustered around her, and as always, Rei was apprehensive around him. As busy as he was, he offered his services to her as well ("Yes ma'am, no job too big or too small for me!"), and might have endeared himself to her if he hadn't gone and complimented her singing (though she had to admit, when he claimed she was a "worldwide sensation", it sounded quite pleasant). She might yet have suffered more of his flattery and attention if their paths hadn't crossed with Minako's. She was off on one of her many errands for Motoki (who was "still recovering" as he planned his honeymoon) when the two met, and immediately Yuichiro stiffened and snarled, like a cat cornered by a cobra.

"What are you doing here?" he grumbled. "You disgrace your uniform and your arrows. You're no better than Mishka."

"Yuichiro, stop!" Rei snapped. "I'm surprised at you! Where do you get off—"

"Do you have any idea what she's done, Rei?" he bellowed. "Do you know how many people she's killed?!"

"No, and I don't care. Mina's my friend and I won't have anybody slandering her—not even you." Yuichiro squeezed his mouth shut, his fists curled and trembling in rage, his eyes burning in silent indignation. Finally he spat at Minako's feet.

"If you had any sense left, you'd turn yourself in to a tribunal. That's all I'm going to say. Excuse me." He turned around and stormed off, leaving the two women in his wake. Rei fumed as she crossed her arms; Minako just slumped.

"I swear, the nerve of that guy! He has no right to judge you!"

"He's right, you know," Minako mumbled, glancing away in shame. "I've done things that would've gotten me exiled five times over. I don't even deserve Artemis."

"Don't say that," Rei said, taking Minako in her arms. She combed her fingers through long golden tresses in an attempt to console her. "We all love you, Mina, Ami especially. There's nothing you could ever do to change that." Minako didn't know what to say—even now, she couldn't find the strength to forgive herself—so she just nodded and said nothing. Rei sighed and released her. "The next time I see that idiot," she muttered, "I'm going to really give him a piece of my mind, and my fist. Nobody talks to my friends like that."

"Oh, go easy on the guy, Rei," Minako sighed. "He's really sweet and he means well—plus, he's a hard worker, and pretty easy on the eyes. He's just...very passionate about what's right and wrong. He's a better man than I am."

Both girls froze as they realized the blunder. Minako blushed.

"I mean...he's a better person than I am! A better person! I meant... I mean, I'm not a guy, I..."

"Ah, I was wondering why you were getting so muscular all of a sudden," Rei said cattily. Her mouth curled mischievously as her eyes glinted. "Now that I think about it, you probably would look good with a mustache, Mr. Aino. Hmm, should I tell Ami how manly you've become? Maybe she'd be into that."

"Rei, stop it, you know what I mean." Minako couldn't fight the smile growing on her face, and as soon as Rei started snickering, she couldn't help but join in. Tears came to her eyes as she began to laugh. "You know," she said, weeping for joy, "I can't remember the last time I told a joke like that. It feels like it's been a lifetime."

The End of "Healing Hands: Part Two"

Next time: "All Good Things"

Author's note:

The song is "Ascension to Destiny" by Sanctuary, my favorite song—because if you're going to have one last fight sequence, you'd better pull out the big guns.