Responses to Reviews:

RonaldM40196867: Azula or Kuvira seem the most intelligent. Considering Zaheer did not appear to think through the consequences of his actions in killing the Earth Queen, I would have to nominate him for the other end of the spectrum though he's still a great villain and smart.

Zigzagdoublezee: It seemed like the most pacifist, but effective, thing he could do in the situation: get his enemies to attack each other.

As Always, Please Review!

Jeong Jeong dropped Yue and turned, not quite fast enough to avoid being knocked aside like a rag doll. He went flying, and Yue dropped to the floor, gasping.

She looked up to see a monstrous shape roaring above her. It looked unlike any animal she had ever seen, a huge deformed mass of flesh, constantly screaming with a terrible rage.

It glowered down at her. Now it was closer, Yue could make out that its face vaguely resembled that of a bear. She was pretty sure bears didn't have glowing eyes though. A familiar sensation washed over her, but she was unable to place it for the moment.

"What are you?" She asked softly. In response it screamed again, and swiped at her.

Yue barely dodged, rolling backwards and feeling the huge paw whistle past her. Then she was on her feet and running towards her friends. Katara had knelt down by Rinzen and was running her hands over him, funnelling running water along his chi-paths. Sokka stood guard over them, facing down Zhao with his club in his hand.

Except Zhao had lost interest in them. He was staring at Yue's pursuer with a look of fear and... was that wonder?

"Beautiful," the Fire Nation Commodore breathed. "I've never seen one before!"

Yue didn't know what he was talking about and she didn't have much interest in engaging him in small-talk, so she just bolted past him to where the others were.

"We need to go!" She told them urgently.

"We really do!" Sokka called back. "Big monster!"

"I can see that!" Katara yelled. "But I can't leave him!"

"So carry him!" Sokka said it like it was obvious.

"You carry him! He's heavy!" Katara spluttered indignantly.

"How can he be heavy? Look at him!" Sokka sounded incredulous.

"Stop arguing!" Yue shouted. "This isn't helping! Is he going to be alright?"

The monster screamed again, which helped to focus the minds of the Southerners.

Katara concentrated and then nodded.

"He's breathing and doesn't seem badly injured," she said. "He's going to be fine, thank the Spirits."

Ahead of them, Zhao stepped forward.

"Great Spirit!" He called. "I am sorry if we have offended you. I did not mean to disturb you, and I hope to leave you alone as soon as I am done here."

"Spirit?"

At the mention of the word, Yue finally realised what it was she was feeling. It was the same sensation she felt when she stepped into the Garden in the Northern Water Tribe, and sat sometimes for hours watching Tui and La, the moon and the ocean, dancing their eternal dance in the pool there. It was the sensation of being in the presence of a spirit.

This one was a lot angrier than she had ever seen Tui or La though. It roared again and raised a mighty paw to smite Zhao, but the Commodore realised what was about to happen.

"Ah, that's not going to work," he said. "Bye!"

He grinned, and then ran away.

The beas-no, spirit watched him go and then turned back to them.

"Yue?" Sokka said, trying to hide the tremors in his voice, "You're the Avatar, what do we do?"

"I don't know!" Yue glowered at him. She suspected they weren't going to outrun it, they probably couldn't fight it and she certainly wasn't going to leave Rinzen.

But she was the Avatar, touched by the Moon Spirit. She carried a part of it within her. She was far more intimately connected with the Spirit world than even most other Avatars. So maybe she could talk to it.

"Hello?" She took a cautious step forwards.

The creature stopped and looked down at her. Yue took this as a good sign and pressed on.

"We are sorry for intruding upon you," she said, copying what Zhao, who had seemed vaguely familiar with spirits, had been saying. "We beg your forgiveness, and request safe passage out of the forest."

Nothing happened for a long while. Yue felt the spirit's glowing eyes boring into her.

"Is it working?" Sokka hissed.

"No idea!"

The spirit lowered its bears head until it was about a metre away from Yue. She tried a reassuring smile.

"It's alright," she said. "What's wrong? We can help-"

It screamed again, the hideous noise nearly deafening Yue as she was forced to drop to her knees, clutching her ears.

"Yue!" Sokka tried to run over but was forced backwards by the spirit's flailing limbs.

There was a definite ringing in her ears once the noise had died away.

"Are you alright?" Sokka shouted. Yue frowned, she could barely hear him, but waved him away with a reassuring smile.

"Everything is going to be fine," she said, and her voice sounded different now, quieter. Did she have hearing damage? If she got out of this she was going to have to see Katara about that.

"Are you talking to me, or to it?" Sokka asked.

"It's not an it!" Yue corrected him. "It's... I don't know what it is. What's your name?" She asked the spirit gently. She reached a hand towards it in a gesture of friendship.

Nothing happened for a second, and then Yue felt a giant hand wrap itself around her.

"What-" she had time to say, and then she was being lifted into the air. The spirit had hold of her!

"Yue!" Sokka dashed over. He threw his boomerang but it passed harmlessly through the spirit's head, and it knocked him aside almost contemptuously.

"Sokka!" Yue called back in alarm. She screwed her eyes shut. She could really do with the Avatar State right now!

But the glow refused to come. She didn't even know how to begin triggering it anyway.

The spirit bounded away from her friends, Yue still clutched in its hand, and moved over to where Jeong Jeong lay stirring feebly in the grass.

As it began picking him up the Avatar could hear her friends running towards her, shouting for her to hold on, they were coming, they would find some way of getting her back. Yue, jolting around in the bear spirit's huge hand and by now finding the experience rather bruising, wanted to believe it, but as the creature began to bound away into the forest, Sokka and Katara's voices becoming more and more distant, she knew they could never catch up unless they had Gembul. And she didn't know where Gembul was.

At that moment the world changed around them, and the Avatar, the Admiral, and the Spirit carrying them faded out of sight entirely.