Responses to Reviews:

Zigzagdoublezee: The situation of our heroes is looking fairly hopeless at the moment.

RonaldM40196867: I have ideas for new stories at the moment, some of them Avatar related, some not. But I won't be developing any of them until I'm finished with this one.

Bolin

Bolin made his excuses and raced from the hospital ward, following his friend. He found her on the flight deck, watching a lone flying machine rising into the sky.

"Dad..." she whispered.

"Was that him?" Bolin asked. Asami nodded tearfully.

"We have to stop him!"

She grabbed his arm and began pulling him towards the bridge. He allowed himself to be dragged, still watching the receding shape in the sky until it changed direction and began to go towards the enemy fleet.

"Radio that flying machine!" Asami burst in to the bridge, Bolin in tow, and spoke to the captain. "Get him to turn around!"

"Why?" The captain asked.

"Why?" Asami seemed to puff up with anger. "Because my father's on board!"

"Your father volunteered for the mission," the Captain pointed out. "He knows the risks."

"So do I, which is why I want you to bring him back."

But the man merely shrugged.

"I'm not sure he would even listen if I did. For a start he went up alone. He has nobody to operate his radio with him. And he did seem very determined".

"At least try."

Bolin saw the flying machine in the distance. It had dived down to wave top height and was making its way straight towards Kuvira's ship.

"Stop him!"

"No," the Captain snapped. "Why should I? That man killed friends of mine during the Equalist uprising. And if he succeeds, he'll prevent more friends of mine from dying today."

"But he's my dad," Asami pleaded, tears in her eyes.

The captain turned to look out of the window, and stood there still for a few seconds. Then his shoulders slumped.

"So be it," he said. "Give the order."

Bolin saw a radio operator flick a few switches on his device and speak urgently into a microphone.

The only response he got back was static.

"He's not answering."

"Keep trying!" Asami yelled at him, rushing to the window. They watched as the flying machine steadily drew closer to the battleship, closer than the other pilots had managed, until it was almost right on top of it. Something small fell away from the underside of it, but Bolin noticed that Hiroshi seemed to make no effort to turn away afterwards. There was a distant flash of purple, and the flying machine vanished.

Asami made the most terrible sound then, the scream of a woman whose world was crashing down around her, and fell to her knees. She knew, they all knew, that Hiroshi's mission had been one-way.

Bolin was right there with her in an instant, kneeling beside her and throwing his arms around her in a hug. She did not seem to give any indication that she knew he was there. Mako, then Korra, then this. Bolin suppressed his own sadness, knowing he had to be there for her at this moment.

"Direct hit!" A voice came from somewhere above him, followed by cheers from the others in the room.

Bolin ignored them, whispering comforting words to his friend as she sobbed uncontrollably in his arms. She was still unresponsive.

"They've stopped firing!" The voice from above said. Someone grabbed Bolin's shoulders and he looked up into the sympathetic eyes of one of the officers.

"I am sorry," he told them. "But we need this space."

Bolin could hear the sound of aircraft engines growing steadily louder as the attack wings began to return and approach for a landing. He nodded, and began to try to move Asami to her feet. She struggled, resisted, but finally followed him.

"We're going to see Korra," Bolin found himself repeating to her. "She's fine, she's in the hospital bay, they're looking after her."

It was all he could say really. So much loss on this one day, and Korra was the only one of the three he could latch on to. He still didn't know what had become of his own brother when Kuvira had destroyed the Audacious, and Hiroshi was already gone. But Korra, though unconscious, remained.

He remembered that Asami had told him that Hiroshi had not wanted her to go to war. She hadn't listened to him, had told him that it was her duty and responsibility to go, but now he could perfectly well see why he had been concerned. He had fought before; equalist and anarchist terrorists, even vengeful spirits, but this was something far worse, more indiscriminate. The scale of the violence was far more expansive than anything he had seen before, the waters for miles around strewn with the burned out wreckage of ships and men. A simple press of a button on Kuvira's ship, or however else those terrible weapons were fired, meant the end, instantly, for potentially hundreds of people, and his brother was possibly among them.

He thought of Mako. Despite the war, his brother had been happy when he had seen him last. He had found love again, with a Princess of the Fire Nation no less. His brother was going to be a Prince! Maybe. He didn't know how that worked. But now? It seemed to all have been snatched away in a moment, so much loss in such a short time and all at the whim of a tyrant hoping to gain a temporary advantage. How could he have ever seen qualities worth following in that woman?

He supposed, once, there had been some. But no longer. She had reasoned herself into doing worse and worse things in the name of security. Who knew how much further she would go if pushed? He did know that Kuvira would unleash the same on the rest of the Republic, possibly upon the Fire Nation too out of some sense of vengeance, if she was not stopped.

So he knew that that was what he must do, especially as he did bear some responsibility for following her in the first place.

He vaguely heard a commotion around him. A purple flash shot past, impacting the water and showering the decks with boiling liquid. So Kuvira had got the guns firing again.

A moment later, there was another noise; some kind of siren.

"Have we been hit?" He demanded of a passing sailor.

"No sir," the man shook his head, taking in Bolin's uniform and the fact he was still clutching a distraught Asami. "That's the general retreat order."

"Retreat?" Bolin repeated numbly. "But what about stopping her?"

"Haven't you been paying attention?" The sailor asked, astonished. "We'll all be sunk before we land a scratch on that thing!"

Then he ran off, Bolin taking no notice of his insubordinate tone.

So that was it. They had failed. Their fleet had lost the battle. The sea route to Republic City was open for Kuvira. How many people were dead, his brother and Asami's father maybe among them, for nothing?

Bolin sat down where he was, and racked his brain. There had to be something he could do! But he came up short, again and again and again, and as he heard the engines speeding up to race north, he could feel the despair welling up inside him.

What could they do now?