So, remember when I wrote in the tags about the ACW/ATLA element benders AU that both Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee are waterbenders? And when Bobby Lee goes to Appomattox court house he ends up starting a one-on-one duel with Grant?
Anyhow, this is how it all goes a very brief version of it:
When Lee steps into the courthouse he actually complies with what Grant has written to him two days prior the meeting, but when they try to finalize the term of surrender, Lee, in a fit of desperation, starts attacking Grant, and the staffs accompanying him also start attacking Grant's staffs. The Lee staffs are quickly held down by Grant's (element benders) staffs, but when the others try to bring them to a safer place (as prisoners), Lee attacks some of these (nonbenders) Union staffs, and Grant is able to divert his attacks and make Lee faces him again (while the rest of both benders and nonbenders Union staffs evacuate the room, both to hold the two Lee staffs custody and to attempt to protect the space where both Lee and Grant duel each other).
At first they are bending just water (both bending the supply they had with them), but it is only a matter of time until they can no longer use the water they have and Lee starts bending Grant's blood. Grant attempts to keep bending whatever amount of water left around them, but then he struggles to even keep fighting since Lee is starting to control his limbs by bloodbending.
Lee is able to thrash him around like a ragdoll for a little while, while Grant struggles to break free of Lee's bloodbending control. Grant keeps getting battered around until...
...he is finally able to reverse the energy flow between him and Lee, and he too starts bending the blood 一 Lee's blood.
Now the duel starts to even out again. Once Grant gets ahold of bending Lee's blood he is able to push back and return the favor right away. Meanwhile in another part of the place the bender staffs of the Union Army 一 some protecting the prisoners, some protecting the place, and then the rest of them think of checking on the ongoing duel 一 Sheridan eventually volunteers on going to check on Grant. When Sheridan heads back to the room where the duel is happening, Lee notices him and thrashes him by bloodbending, initially attempting to hold both Grant and Sheridan under his control. Grant, seeing that Lee is partially distracted from him, finally summons all the power left in him and bends Lee's whole blood, therefore bending his whole body, pins him down and bends him into a kneeling position. (Sheridan is stunned by Lee's attack, and when he sees Grant holding down Lee by bloodbending he could only step back, go out of the room and stare with bewilderment at the situation.)
Grant, pent up with astonishment and anger at Lee's gall to try one last fight at a surrender negotiation attempt, utters this contemptuously while holding Lee in position.
Grant: "...I said enough fighting! How many more men you want to shed their blood for this?"
Lee: (heavy breathing) (whispers) "...I see you are finally able to catch up onto it..." (in a slightly louder voice) "...draw my blood out then, I dare you."
Grant: "...beg your pardon?"
Lee: "You heard what I said 一 draw my blood out, end my misery on this earthly realm..."
Grant: (stares incredulously at Lee, mutters under his breath) "...no..."
Lee: "You know you can do it..."
Grant: "...and what, then? Draw your blood out only to draw more ire and disdain from the people of the South, only for them to resent the North further and keeping on fighting this increasingly futile fight? No, I need you to surrender and I need you alive to face the hubris that is your own cause that started this very rebellion!"
With that Grant stuns Lee by his bloodbending, rendering him unconscious for a while. Sheridan, who has witnessed the rest of the fight peeping in from the outside of the room finally comes in to Grant's side. Grant, draws a heavy breath, is relieved when he sees Sheridan, later also Rawlins (who intends to catch up on Sheridan, seeing that he doesn't come back as he initially stated before he headed in), come to his side. Staring morosely, he states to both of them in a half-whisper, that that would be the first and the last time he bends blood.
The surrender negotiation goes ahead and things go more or less similarly to the original TL ;p. Some time right after the end of the rebellion Lee tries to bend water 一 only to find out that he is no longer able to bend it. He realizes that Grant, perhaps inadvertently, had made him unable to bend water again (let alone blood).
Perhaps this is truly the fitting end for him.
