~Celestial Bodies~

4.15

[4.15]

Until then, none of them had realized the power Bolin possessed. He was a strong bender, and that was visible through his acquiring of lava bending, but even his ability to bend earth was exceptional.

The spirit cannon hit the factory faster than Rae had anticipated, and the moment it started to crumble down, Rae's senses were overwhelmed. She felt everything and nothing at the same time. her fingertips itched as she tried to calm down, her palms pressed flat against the first earthy surface she found.

And when her senses cleared, she could help but admire the young earthbender. In the moment of her total blindness, she was powerless, and Bolin took it on himself to save them. He held the gigantic wall above their heads while everyone ran away from their spot below it. Wing and Wei ran to Rae and helped her on her feet. When the enormous wall finally collapsed, Bolin's control disappearing, the woman bent over and rested her palms on her knees, breathing heavily.

She felt the wind whirl around her and realized she could not feel Tenzin's footsteps anymore. But he returned a few moments later and engaged conversation with Korra, and Rae's breath calmed down again when she felt everyone's safe heartbeats around her.

"The world isn't safe as long as she has that weapon," exclaimed Korra angrily. Rae took small steps from the safety of her cousins to kneel next to her aunt and place a reassuring hand on her shoulder as the other went to the rubble beneath her, carefully listening to Baatar's unconscious heartbeats.

"I agree!"

At the familiar voice, Rae's head rose and the corner of her lips tug upwards at the familiar heartbeat of Lin Beifong.

"We take down that giant today."

"Lin!" exclaimed Korra, and the woman smiled.

"Glad to see you all made it out. You had me worried."

"Well you benders are gonna have to fight her alone," stated Varrick, making Rae remember he was with them, "she just blew up our factory with all our hummingbird suits."

Asami frowned and turned to the group, "Not all of them. There are the prototypes back at my office. If we can get those ready to fly, we'll at least be able to offer a little air support."

And like that, they had hope. While Asami and Varrick hurried back to the engineer's office with Su and the wounded, the rest needed to come up with a plan good enough to bring down Kuvira's metal giant. And, to everyone's surprise, it had been Meelo that came up with it. Obstructing the mecha-suit's visual field would create an opening in their attack, and, according to Meelo, the best way to do it was with paint.

While the airbenders created the paint bombs and launched them at the metal giant, Rae was by Lin's side, waiting for the best time to strike. Once the bombs had been launched, both women swung themselves at the giant's feet. Rae thrust her arms forward, grasping the metal of its joints, and pulled at it. She didn't expect those to be platinum too, and she clearly didn't expect something holding them down. She bent the platinum easily, but something beyond that didn't let her rip it off. It was glued to the metal, the substance overcoating every piece of the machine's joints, and there was no way she could break it, because it wasn't ice, and it wasn't metal nor earth.