You & I

The United Republic: Part 2

Trigger warning- mention of blood/ violence.

Iroh's POV
It was worse than I thought it might be, as I arrived at the shores of republic city, fire danced along the streets, the voices of panicking citizens filled the air, followed by screams and cries for help. Anything near water was frozen over and the ground was destroyed.

I turned to my troops and yelled,

"I want every single one of you to spread across the city, your first priority is to protect the citizens and keep them safe, after that, you need to help Commander Bumi's troops and Republic City's police force."

I watched as my soldiers saluted me, I saluted them back and they all scurried across the city, I ran towards the street with the largest amount of explosions hoping that I could get an understanding of what was going on.

Tanks and machinery filled the streets, destroying homes and businesses.

But why?

"BUMI LOOK OUT!"

I dove in front of him, blocking the blast of fire that was heading straight towards him.

He turned to look at me,

"Thank you, Iroh."

"Any time... do you have any idea what is going on here?"

As we both dodged attacks and I fired back, Bumi explained,

"Remember the order of the red lotus? They escaped. After that, people went crazy. These attacks are a message to team avatar, to the council... and to my dad... people are angry, they feel like they've been lied to-"

"But what is this achieving?"

"Nothing. It's crazy. They're crazy, and-"

We both jumped out of the way as a massive boulder came flying at our heads.

I pulled Bumi up from the ground and yelled past the explosions,

"Are you alright?"

He nodded,

"Now, lets get them out of this city."

I nodded and ran straight towards some of the attackers, fighting back.

Police officers ran around the city, trying to chain up as many of them as they could.

Somehow, we were outnumbered, but it didn't make any sense to me, why were so many people mindlessly attacking the city?

As I dodged icy slices to the throat and boulders to my skull, my thoughts trailed back to Y/N, who was still in the South Pole, she didn't remember who I was- she didn't remember us.

I could swear that in that moment, I felt my heart break a little more, before feeling the impact of a boulder to the back of my head, pounding me into the ground, and the sensation of water encasing me in ice, trapping me on the floor.

The feeling of my own blood trickling down my skin was becoming far too familiar.

I relaxed every muscle in my body and thought back to what my grandfather had told me,

Power in fire bending comes from the breath, not from the muscle.

In that moment, I melted the ice around me before standing up and blasting fire right back at the benders who attacked me.

When they didn't back down, I held my stance and began to generate lighting, but before I could finish, they fled in fear, so I directed it straight at the sky.

Some of the people around the city paused for a moment at the sight of the lightning shooting through the sky, before the volume rose once again.

I placed my hand on the back of my head and pulled it back in front of my face.

It was covered in blood.

I took a deep breath before jumping in front of another soldier, a non-bender, and blocking a fire blast being sent their way, I then sent fire right back at the attacker, knocking them from their feet.

I kept running, trying to save everyone that I could, but things were getting blurrier and voices around me were becoming more and more muffled.

I could feel my blood dripping down my back, underneath my clothes.

I was well aware that I needed medical attention, but everyone was occupied, and I'd rather that the healers helped the rest of the troops and the citizens first.

I held myself against a wall, trying to keep myself standing up straight, I could see smoke and the impact of explosions. I could see the orange flames dancing in the sky.

Then, I could see nothing.

Y/N's POV
I continued to search for him in the chaos, attacking anyone who stood in my way.

When I saw him, my heart dropped.

I ran as fast as I could, my heart was pounding in my chest, the sound around me fell silent and all I could hear was my heartbeat which grew faster by the second,

"IROH!"

I screamed out as loud as I could.

"IROH!"

"GENERAL IROH!"

He didn't reply, I kept running.

"IROH!"

He wasn't responding, his body hadn't moved.

No.

No.

No.

As I finally approached him, to my horror, his head was surrounded in a pool of blood and his body wasn't moving.

No.

I'm too late.