Responses to Reviews:

RonaldM40196867: Probably the Avatar Spirit, without whom none of this would be possible.

Zigzagdoublezee: Desperate times call for desperate measures indeed. There's only one way she can harness enough power to stop a flood, but she can't access it easily because she's nowhere near a fully realised Avatar yet.

As Always, Please Review!

Azula sat up and got to her feet, a savage triumph etched across her face as she watched the water flow.

"Too late," she grinned.

Sokka, Katara and Suki stirred on the ground. They too were beginning to make attempts to get up, but they had not fully regained their bearings quite yet. The Fire Nation Princess turned to look at them. They would make fine prisoners. Capturing both children of the Chief of the South meant his entire dynasty would be in her hands. That was significant leverage in future negotiations. Maybe they could even persuade the South to surrender peacefully... if they didn't just raze it to the ground in retribution for the defeat suffered there.

As for the other one, Azula considered her as she idly turned back to watch the rush of water. The Kyoshi Warrior Suki was of limited value as a hostage, unless she could be used against the Avatar perhaps.

"Now where are the other two..." she wondered. The Avatar and the Air Nomad had gone. She turned to see Lu Ten getting up too.

"Not a bad day's work," she told him.

"No," Lu Ten agreed, but he didn't seem sure. His face went pale as he watched the water racing down the valley.

"That's not important right now," Azula patted him on the shoulder. "What we need to do is chain these three up while they're still disoriented."

She gestured to the remaining three members of the Yuad. Lu Ten nodded slowly, and then stepped towards them.

Azula turned back to watch the scene of her triumph one last time, just in time to see something blue and white flash past.

What?

She followed it on its descent until at last it hit the water with a distant splash. For a moment, nothing happened.

Maybe it was just a bit of debris, she reasoned. It had been a powerful explosion, after all.

Then the water began to glow. A white light illuminated it, as it began to boil and bubble.

Azula got a horrible feeling she knew what that piece of debris was, and what it was now doing.

A moment later her fears were confirmed. Avatar Yue burst up out of the flood, hovering just above it. But something was different about her. Her hair, normally pure white, was now glowing with spiritual energy, whipping about her head in the wind which spun around her, keeping her aloft. Azula could not see from this distance but she knew her eyes would be glowing too.

Yue had triggered the Avatar State.

Instinctively, as Yue began to gain altitude, the wind howling around her, Azula settled into a bending stance, charged up a lightning bolt and sent it racing towards her. But Yue looked up and saw her just before she could fire. Nonchalantly, the Avatar held up a hand and the lightning stopped short of her, disappearing into thin air harmlessly. Azula saw her turn her head and stare directly at her with those pitiless, emotionless glowing eyes. Then she slowly began to raise a hand towards her. Azula's eyes widened.

"Agni protect me!" She muttered under her breath, standing away from the edge in horror.

"What was that?" Lu Ten came rushing up to her. Then he looked down, saw what Azula was staring at, and his face went white. They had both heard the stories of what the Avatar State was capable of.

"We need to get out of here," he said. "We can't fight the Avatar State!"

Azula could not agree more. As she turned and ran, followed by Lu Ten and any of their supporters capable of standing, Yue faced the valley, towards where the water was flowing towards Jet's army. Slowly, serenely, she extended both hands in front of her. The flood slowed down, and then stopped, responding to her commands. A vertical wall of water now stood, and as Yue pulled her arms backwards it began to recede back towards the broken dam. Trees, submerged and drowned by the flood, were once again basking in sunlight. Yue turned and extended one hand towards the dam, and the flow of water out of the deep gash in it immediately ceased, and then reversed. The Avatar was feeding the water back into the reservoir.

From their position next to the rising water, the Yuad watched on with amazement.

"That's the Avatar State! She can do that?" Suki breathed. She had not been with them at the start of their journey or at the Battle of the South Pole and so had never seen the Avatar State in action before. It took her breath away, in a very literal sense with the way the wind was howling.

"She can," Sokka confirmed, looking up at her with the light from her glowing hair reflecting in his eyes. "Although the rules are very unclear."

Suki didn't ask any more questions. The water was rushing back uphill, through the crack, revealing all that had been lost to the waves before, as the reservoir filled up. It was almost back up to regular levels.

Gembul landed next to them, and Rinzen jumped down.

"Thank the spirits, it worked," he said.

"What worked?" Katara asked.

Rinzen grimaced.

"What. Worked?" Katara asked again, with greater emphasis.

"She may... she may have deliberately jumped off Gembul to trigger the Avatar State."

"Oh," Sokka seemed dismayed at that. "Well, as long as it works I guess..."

"And what if it didn't work?" Katara asked.

"She knew the risk," Rinzen told her.

"And you just let her?"

"It was the only way!"

Katara sighed and rubbed her forehead.

"Look!" Suki butted in.

The water was now back at its regular levels, and the glowing light in the sky that was Avatar Yue was floating towards them. With one hand extended to keep the water from just pouring out again, she pointed at the ground with the other and slowly raised it. The ground underneath them began to rumble, and then split open at the base of the dam. The earth rose higher and higher in fits and starts until it covered the gap caused by the bomb, and then Yue lowered her arms.

For a moment, she just hovered there, and then the light in her eyes flickered.

"It's not going to drop her is it?" Sokka asked.

A moment later, the light went out altogether. Her hair stopped glowing and returned to its regular white colour. Then Yue closed her eyes, groaned, and fell. The Yuad yelled in surprise and horror, but fortunately Rinzen was faster and leapt off the edge with his glider-staff, catching her easily and bringing her in to land safely.

He laid her down gently.

"Yue, are you alright?" He asked her. "Can you hear me? You did it, Yue. You did it."