A/N: All licensed characters belong to their rightful owners. I own nothing except my imagination.
Deep in the depths of the ocean…
Far, far below the ice of the South Pole…
The great beast slept. He had slumbered there for a very long time.
He was a very old creature. The great beast had been old when the Avatar was just a man named Wan.
The great beast had been ancient when the Lion-Turtles were just hatchlings.
The creature had once roamed the earth, in days when the land was young and hot. In that long-gone, long-forgotten era, there had been other giant creatures in the world… beings of such size and power that most men could not dream of.
Fights between the giants were often, and would have been the stuff of legend had there been people to record them.
But that time was long gone. The earth had grown cooler and the other giants were all gone now. He, the great beast, was perhaps the only one left. Only the spirits knew of him – and they had no wish to share or recall that knowledge, seeing the giant beast as something better left forgotten.
And so, the lone giant slumbered beneath the seas…
Waiting, perhaps, for a time to awaken, and to fight once more…
(174 Years Ago)
Thunder boomed and lightning crashed and the wind howled as the storm gave voice to its rage.
Avatar Aang yelled out in alarm as he and his sky-bison were knocked out of the sky and into the southern ocean. They sank into the depths – before the young nomad's tattoos glowed white and the power of the Avatar State made itself known.
Within moments, a new iceberg had formed, with the last airbender and his bison friend sealed inside.
Through it all, the great beast slept on.
When Aang finally emerged from the ice a century later, the slumbering giant only twitched a little and continued its deep, dreamless rest.
(74 Years Ago)
At the North Pole, the Moon Spirit was slain by a power-mad Fire Nation admiral.
The Ocean Spirit merged with the Avatar to destroy an invading fleet.
A princess gave her life to restore the moon.
The great beast stirred in its sleep, but it did not awaken.
And so it went. Throughout the rest of the Hundred Year War, the great beast slumbered. He did not stir when Azula took Ba Sing Se, or when Aang defeated Ozai. He did not stir when Zuko was crowned Fire Lord and the war was declared over.
The giant beast slumbered through the following decades, through the attempts at harmony and unity. The Harmony Restoration Project gave way to the construction of Republic City and the creation of the United Republic – and through it all the great beast did not wake.
(4 Years Ago)
The whole world was rocked as the Harmonic Convergence came.
A mad spirit priest sought to plunge the world into darkness, and released the wicked spirit of chaos known as Vaatu.
Avatar Korra battled the Dark Avatar Unalaq for the fate of the world.
Monstrous vines choked and nearly destroyed Republic City. Spirits escaped into the physical world.
Unalaq was destroyed and Vaatu was defeated, never to rise again.
The world was changed forever -
-And the great beast opened its eyes and awoke.
(Now)
Smoke billowed into the air.
Republic City was in a state of panic.
The entire fleet of the United Republic lay in ruins, sinking into the waters of Yue Bay.
A titanic menace threatened to lay waste to the entire city-
-The newly revealed superweapon of Kuvira's Earth Empire, a colossal mecha standing over twenty-five stories tall, stood on the plains before the city; the spirit-cannon mounted on its arm still glowed slightly from firing.
Inside the cockpit of the Colossus, the self-proclaimed Earth Emperor kept her face expressionless as she stared out at the smoking ruin that had once been a warehouse. To be specific, a warehouse where her advisor (and fiancé) had been held hostage.
Baatar. I'm sorry, she thought. But it had to be done.
Kuvira shut her eyes for just a moment. Then she opened them again, and her face was stern and composed; the invulnerable Great Leader of the Earth Empire.
For the sake of the Empire, I had to do it.
It was a necessary sacrifice. His life, versus the opportunity to kill the Avatar and all her allies in one shot? Tactically, it made perfect sense. Now the path to reclaiming what was rightfully hers was open.
Her empire would be complete today. This would be her greatest triumph – she would make sure of it.
Kuvira focused on that thought, and she moved forward with the attack. The Colossus began to march, slow but deliberate – an unstoppable juggernaut – towards the defenseless Republic City.
Deep in the ocean…
In a place where the petty wars and empires of humans have never reached…
The great beast was coming.
He had started out slowly – stirring from his resting place beneath the Arctic ice. Gradually breaking free from the deepest deeps of the bottom of the ocean, from the tons upon tons of rock and ice on his shoulders.
Over two years, he had risen from the deeps, slowly but surely.
He had fed himself during that time: on whales and on giant squid, on sea-serpents and on vast swarms of jellyfish and huge clouds of minnows and many of the other things that swam about in the ocean.
The ancient beast fed himself, becoming more awake and more alive with every day's passing; the great furnace in his belly stoking itself up and becoming hot again.
By and by, day after day and month after month, the giant one rose through the depths of the ocean, closer and closer to the surface – to the site of the event, the Convergence that had woken him…
The great beast was so very close, swimming beneath the surface of the waves.
He was almost right at his destination…
A/N: So, welcome to this idea of mine. I first had it back during the time when Book Four was coming out, and we all saw what Kuvira's ultimate weapon was. I *immediately* drew mental comparisons to Pacific Rim and Godzilla, and the idea grew from there. XD