Title: it's over now

Fandom: The Legend of Korra

Summary: AU. The mask cracks.

Character(s): Amon, the Lieutenant, Korra

A/N: Written before the S1 finale.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to the Legend of Korra.

Amon could taste victory. He would finally make good on everything he had promised all those who believed in the Idea he'd shed his identity for, they would be justified and he could breath again.

But the tide was turning. Against them.

Amon had been pushed, so he had pushed back, hard. Should he fail now they would push back even harder; benders seeing a radical in every nonbender; how would his Equalists be treated if taken prisoner, slow torture or straight execution; without any bending to remove, nonbenders always had to worry about the worst options, more permanent and crippling ones, life-stealing ones….

Amon had to be calm, but he was losing grip on the all emotions he'd been holding back for so damn long. That damned fear was returning, the fear he wanted so desperately to shed. To instill in benders for a change. Even though he had found to his controlled and hidden alarm that making them just as afraid made his stomach drop. No matter, his followers surely would take some comfort from it, it never mattered how he felt, not at this point.

At this point. At this point, if he failed, he'd have only made things worse for his people, for nonbenders, for everyone. It would be all his fault.

###

"Sir, the Avatar and her companions have been sighted; I'll—"

"—Fail me again?" Amon snarled into the radio, finally losing patience with his Lieutenant. Couldn't stand against the Avatar (never mind that Amon had said she would be last), couldn't take on Sato's daughter (never mind that the Lieutenant had taught the girl how to fight while in his civilian identity), couldn't withstand Tarrlok's bloodbending (never mind that Amon had expected that from no one but himself), he'd been taken down by the Avatar's damn polarbeardog, he could've d—!

"I'm coming down."

"Sir, with all due respect, you need to lead—"

"I'm coming down, Lieutenant, I won't take a chance on your incompetence again."

The radio clicked off, and Amon left.

###

Amon had gambled. He'd speculated the Avatar might react differently to the energybending technique he had struggled to find and learn. But hoped the Avatar would lose her bending like everyone else.

He'd gambled, and lost.

The Avatar Spirit would not allow bending to be removed. It seemed to blow out of the girl, her eyes no longer full of the fear that had haunted his dreams. ("You want to stop oppression, stop the hurt, but you terrify little teenaged girls that were randomly born to be symbols, it's no more my fault I was born the Avatar than you were born a nonbender unable to save your family," the dream Korra would say in a sing song voice while chained up before him. "How is that fair, how is that equal?")

The Avatar was Korra was a girl who grinned and whose hair blew undone from her ties and who looked insane and inhuman and was a girl Amon had broke, had made her something she shouldn't be. Amon should've done better. He should've.

The injuries he'd suffered ached, his blood still dropped. Spirits, he could barely move, he was running on empty now.

Amon had broken an innocent girl, not a symbol. Amon was just so tired. He wanted it…done. He had never given up before, but he wanted to now. Should, he just should. Should've died all those years ago with his family, would've spared himself and everyone else a lot of agony….

Amon stared at the fire the Avatar State brought to life. Yes. Yes, he was ready. Water, earth, fire, ah hah, air….

They combined and sprang toward him, and Amon just stared at the girl's lifeless eyes…he'd forced the life out of them…flooded them with a cold hard light….

The light was suddenly blocked, a shadow over him.

The horrible familiar sound of flesh and bone crunched by the elements sounded before him.

Amon stared at the Lieutenant's back.

The older man wheezed, and began to tip backward.

Amon lunged, catching him.

Someone screamed. It couldn't have been Korra, she flinched, as if she'd heard it, and the light began to fade, the life return to her blue eyes. The scream hadn't sounded like the Lieutenant. There was no no one else in the ruined room. Amon had to guess it was his own voice that had screamed.

He stared down at his Lieutenant. At what was left of his chest. His hands jerkily went to cover the gaping wound, though Amon knew it was too late.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?" The Lieutenant asked, his voice too low. Amon saw drops of water fall on his face. As Amon was hunched over the older man, he had to assume he was crying, and he was so hunched over, angled the right away to allow the tears to fall directly from the holes in his mask.

"For getting you involved in this. For leading you and everyone else to ruin. For just making everything worse." Amon's voice cracked as he spoke the truth.

The Lieutenant coughed, blood spat out. He shook his head. One of Amon's hands went up to stop the move, holding his head still. "Nah. Life would've been empty without you. No—"

The Lieutenant coughed again.

"—no meaning. Got me thinking I could fight back. That I could…."

No no no don't leave me I'm sorry I snapped at you I'm sorry I'm sorry don't leave me too, and Amon vaguely remembered that small voice as his when he was a little boy.

"…could do one thing right, for once."

And the Lieutenant closed his eyes, and went limp, his head heavy in Amon's bloodied hand.

Amon barely remembered what happened afterward, just that he stayed with the Lieutenant for a very long time. When he'd been captured and the Lieutenant's body pulled away, he could not answer Councilman Tenzin's question about where Avatar Korra was. He did not know. Amon no longer cared.

He'd been wrong to think he could fight back. But that wasn't something he could tell the Lieutenant while he was dying, now could he?

###

Entering the Avatar State had made Korra feel like a god. Invincible. Absolutely nothing could hurt her.

But then she'd heard an agonized scream and fell back to Earth, where she was mortal, no god, and she'd just killed a man and broken another. For Amon was a man. He was a man worth dying for, he was a man who grieved and whose shoulders slumped and shook as he cried and never left the body.

The words had been low, but Korra had heard everything. The dying man's words, Amon's apology, his despair. "Moustache guy," Bolin had called him. Korra didn't even know who she'd just killed.

Korra walked backward, just watching Amon weep over that dead man, there was something horrifying about seeing him so hunched over the tears fell directly from the holes in the mask, reminding her that he did have eyes….

Korra walked backward until she finally just turned and ran. And ran. And ran.

She found Naga, took her to the bay, some ships still undamaged, one big enough for her and Naga. She tied Naga's harness to the mast, then waterbent the boat away. Far, far away from Republic City. And as Korra had fled to Republic City, she fled away from it now. Korra remembered Sifu Katara's stories of Aang. How he'd spared the Fire Lord despite his plans for permanent genocide. How Aang had run away when he was a boy.

Korra was keeping that Avatar tradition, at least.

And Korra ran. And ran. She had to get out now.

###

Of course they would not allow him the mask in prison. Of course they recoiled when they took it away. They gave him rolls of bandages to wrap his ruined face in.

Amon glanced at the bandages, before turning away, leaving them untouched. He no longer wanted to hide or pretend.

"Look better that way anyway," said Tarrlok in a silky smooth voice in the cell across from his. Not like Councilman Tenzin would let the former bloodbender go. Never mind that he seemed strangely calm; what was more familiar where his ever watchful, calculating eyes.

The irony of it all pulled no reaction from Amon. Concern over Tarrlok as a growing threat moved nothing within him.

Amon was just tired.

fin

A/N: Amon's in jail. Korra's run off. There's even a stinger with Tarrlok still around and scheming to probably be the next Big Bad. Contained a Transformers Prime and Digimon reference.