The moment the armor began to vibrate, several events unfolded in different parts of the world.
On Air Temple Island in Republic City, Jinora jolted so hard out of her meditation that she literally leapt to her feet, staring in confusion toward her grandfather's statue.
A group of badgermoles living in a mountain where the coffins of two lovers rested raised their heads and began moving the tunnels in rhythm, as if dancing to welcome something.
Druk, the dragon descended from Ran and Shaw, suddenly lifted his head from the meal the servants of Zuko had brought him at the palace, gazing toward Republic City before taking in a deep breath and roaring at full force. He exhaled a powerful burst of flame, startling the servants half to death—many convinced they must have somehow offended the prestigious dragon.
In the Northern Water Tribe's Spirit Oasis, Tui and La exchanged a glance as the surrounding water began to emit a massive aurora borealis, visible for kilometers. It left the tribe members deeply unsettled, unable to identify what was happening.
In the ruins of the Sun Warriors, the sacred flame that had burned for countless years suddenly flared high and shifted into a vivid emerald green.
In his library, Wan Shi Tong looked up from one of his newest acquisitions, his owl face managing the closest thing to a raised eyebrow, before returning to his reading. Muttering something under his breath, he extended one wing to pull out a scroll, scribbled a note, and handed it to one of his Knowledge Seekers, who bit onto it and dashed off.
Several statues on Kyoshi Island and Jasmine Island lit up in the eyes.
At the mouth of the Jang Hui River, an inexplicable mist rolled in, covering everything, as the Painted Lady manifested upon sensing the change. Lotus flowers blossomed across the river's surface, releasing a heady fragrance into the air.
In a certain swamp, an old blind woman who had been roasting her food over a campfire paused and smiled.
"At last, you've returned," she chuckled. "This will be interesting."
…
Back in Republic City, the police learned about the armor's escape from multiple street witnesses. Once they confirmed it wasn't some hoax—having seen the perfectly cut hole in the museum wall—the Chief of Police herself, Lin Beifong, was already pursuing the armor through the city, using her cables to try to keep pace with its speed. The thing seemed to accelerate by the moment, like a child getting more and more excited as it neared its goal.
She didn't just want to recover the armor her mother had treated as a treasure—she was genuinely curious to know what in the world was going on with it. No matter how much they'd interacted with it in the past, it had never reacted like this.
What in the spirits' name had Suyin been thinking, sending the armor to Republic City?!
Some of her metalbenders had tried to snare it with cables, but they'd only managed to be dragged along before being tossed aside by its unstoppable forward momentum.
Six men and women now lay unconscious in various buildings and walls, deeply embedded in them—fortunately without serious injuries thanks to their protective gear.
Though having their colleagues scrape them out of the walls with shovels had been… humiliating.
"At least it's sticking to a main avenue," Lin thought in relief as she swung along.
If the armor had been smashing straight through every building in its path, forget about financial compensation—there could have been casualties!
She wasn't worried about the armor being damaged; she and her sister had tried everything over the years and had never managed to leave so much as a scratch or move it at all, something their mother had mocked them for with great amusement.
Lin noticed the armor was headed straight for the statue of Avatar Aang, Tenzin's father, but didn't give it much importance. In fact, secretly—and without fully realizing it—she almost hoped the statue would take a good hit.
How much money, manpower, and resources—things that could have been used to help people, fund departments, and improve the city's infrastructure during its growth—had been wasted building that colossal monstrosity?
Even as a tourist attraction, it was a joke.
Because if there was one thing her mother's stories had made clear as she grew up, it was that Avatar Aang had been as poor as a toad-rat—no real job, no business in his name, no savings of any kind. Almost everything he had or restored had been funded by the White Lotus, given as gifts from people all over the world seeking his favor, or provided by volunteers.
In fact, Lin and Suyin had always felt Avatar Aang was trying to compete in size with the statue their mother had in Zaofu—a far more reasonably sized and proportioned monument. After all, the Republic City statue project had started shortly after that one was erected in the Metal City at the Avatar's request.
Barely a week had passed! It was like the tantrum of an immature child.
And then they claimed air nomads were humble and uninterested in earthly possessions. Yeah… right.
She still remembered how Tenzin had shamelessly tried to court her, despite knowing full well about the bad blood between his father and the Beifongs after the incident. Lin had not appreciated the attempt and had made sure to send her response loud and clear—leaving Tenzin bedridden for a month with several broken bones.
Later, she'd thought her mother would scold her, but the woman had just given her a thumbs-up.
Ironically, as a result of that very event, his caretaker during convalescence—Pema—had later become his partner, wife, and now the mother of his children.
Lin had been stunned when she learned of their courtship, engagement, wedding, and eventual pregnancy.
She knew Pema—they'd even been somewhat friendly, as Pema had spent some time as a police nurse during Lin's training days. What had she possibly seen in someone so stiff and serious?
"And now they're already on their third child…"
Even after all these years, it still felt surreal. Pema was far too sweet, patient, kind, and good for someone like Tenzin.
The bastard had won the lottery—no doubt about it!
CRACK!
"Hmm?" The booming sound pulled her out of her thoughts.
CRACK!
Lin stared in shock as the statue of Avatar Aang began to crack—slowly, but steadily. Multiple fissures spread across more and more of its surface, like roots endlessly branching out.
"Damn it!" Lin paled at the sight.
The statue was absurdly large. If it crumbled into pieces (and the chunks would be massive), the wave it would send crashing from the river would be a disaster for the city—and a death sentence for any nearby boats!
Why in the spirits' names had they decided to put the massive thing in the middle of the river?!
There hadn't even been a natural island to support it—they'd had to build an artificial one just to house it!
It reminded her of something her mother used to say:
"Even dead, that bald hypocrite still brings nothing but trouble!"
The next incarnation had better not cause chaos in her city!
"No, I need to call for reinforcements and get people to start—"
BAM!
The armor smashed into the statue, and Lin had to pull out her spyglass to see what was happening from the bridge—there was no way to get closer with all that water around.
Astonished once more, she saw that the armor's impact had revealed a hollow space inside the statue's chest—a space like a cavern, containing a large green crystal that was also beginning to fracture.
Was something… coming out of it?
"Tell me I'm not about to deal with spirits!" Lin swore to herself. If Avatar Aang had sealed away an evil spirit inside the statue without telling anyone…
ZZHHHHUUUUNNNNNNNNN~
An even more powerful vibration spread through the air, and Lin—along with anyone within twenty kilometers of the statue—had to grab onto something to keep from being knocked off their feet.
Fortunately, it seemed that, for some reason, the vibration had spared the buildings within its radius.
A beam of green light burst toward the skies, and the entire upper half of the statue vaporized—or, to be more precise, was reduced to sand so fine that the wind could carry it away without posing any risk to the surroundings.
Jinora and her family's eyes widened as they watched Aang's statue explode, its head and shoulders gone, while they could feel the chi surging furiously even from this distance.
The young airbending master shivered when she felt a gaze fall on her for an instant, but no matter how much she looked around, she couldn't find anything unusual.
"Is it coming from there?" Jinora wondered as a possible hypothesis, trying to remain calm despite her trembling hands from the overwhelming amount of chi she felt.
She could sense the anger in the gaze, but strangely, it didn't seem directed at her. It was as if she had only been seen in passing while it looked around. She wasn't the target…
Meanwhile, Tenzin was already thinking about investigating what was going on and why dad's statue had ended up this way.
The armor slammed against the green crystal and, combined with the cracks on its surface, shattered it, revealing a young man emerging from within, his two eyes glowing as if he were in the Avatar State—except instead of blue, they were green!
The armor fitted itself to him as if something guided its hinges, locking perfectly onto the young man's body. It almost looked as if it had fused with him.
"You bald, hypocritical traitor!" the man shouted, still emitting chi to the point where it almost materialized into something tangible. "Seventy years! I spent seventy years locked away because of that cowardly ambush!"
He destroyed the remaining crystal that had imprisoned him and slowly began to float a few inches above the hollow space's floor, fully controlling his movements.
"So this is what Aunt Wu's prediction meant?" the man muttered, taking a moment to examine himself. "For it to happen like this is beyond exasperating—it wasn't worth the price I had to pay!" he lamented, his tone heavy with sorrow. "Where did that traitor bring me?"
He expanded his Chi Vision outward—and froze.
"Republic City? But—! Oh, right, seven decades have passed…" Then his brow furrowed. "That guy had the audacity to lock me inside his own statue? If he weren't already dead, he wouldn't like one bit running into me!"
No, he could still act against him. He would make sure the Fog of Lost Souls sounded like paradise compared to what he would do to that spirit. He'd make him pay for every second of life stolen from him and his loved ones.
But first…
With a fist-clenching motion, he reduced the remaining statue to fine sand, including the artificial island that held it at the river's base. He already knew no one else but him was present there, so the spectators could only watch as one of the city's most iconic symbols turned to sand and vanished, swept away by the river.
Republic City would never get that statue back as long as he was alive!
Lin dropped her spyglass, shattering its lens upon hitting the ground, more shocked than any other witness to the event.
"It's identical to the family portrait…" she thought in a daze when she recognized the person who had just destroyed Avatar Aang's statue. The fact that he was wearing the armor only added legitimacy to his identity. "Mom was right—he's been alive all this time!"
Witnessing what had just happened, the story of the incident that had sparked the perpetual conflict between Avatar Aang and the Beifong family suddenly clicked into place, as if she had just found the final piece of a puzzle.
"You bastard!" Lin gritted her teeth hard.
Avatar Aang had lied to the world about what had happened—exactly as her family had suspected for decades!
She took a deep breath to calm herself. Right now, the priority was to talk to him and clear things up. She crossed her fingers that he wouldn't head straight for the island where Tenzin's family lived; if even a fraction of what her mother had told them was true, they didn't stand a chance.
"What are you thinking?"
"I have to figure out how to save Pema and the kids from the worst-case scenario," Lin replied absentmindedly.
It was only after saying the last word that she realized something was wrong.
She turned—and nearly fell over from fright. How had he gotten behind her without her noticing?
"I think we need to talk," the man said as his feet touched the ground and his eyes stopped glowing, revealing eyes devoid of light. The wind at the top of the bridge blew, parting his brown hair to reveal an emerald mark on his forehead.
Lin still felt like everything that had just happened was surreal. Maybe she had fallen asleep at the office after a long night of paperwork?
"I'm glad to finally meet you, Uncle Jin."