Word Count: 1411
Korra
Vaatu
Unalaq
Included Element (Fire)
Korra lifted the phone to her ear, her breath trembling in excitement. It would be like the old days. The days where benders went around helping people and saving the day. The stories about the old heroes, the ones that had inspired Korra and her friends many years ago, would come back in force, and the crushing realities of monotonous life would melt away.
"This is the Avatar. I'll do it."
In the years following Avatar Aang's defeat at the hands of Phoenix King Ozai, the world had changed. A lot. The Fire Nation's victory ushered in an age of technological advancement and fascist terror unlike anything seen before. Yet, like with all things, even the almighty Fire Nation changed, and eventually relinquished its hold on its colonies after increased pressure from its citizens.
When Aang and his friends had gone into hiding, they left the world feeling hopeless, but reemerged in secret, fighting crime and injustice wherever they saw it, before returning to obscurity. They became the first heroes. Many years later, after Aang's death and Korra's birth, Korra had joined the ranks of the great heroes, fighting crime with her friends as a teen before she ran into a political scandal after saving a suicidal man.
After public outcry and political backstabbing, the heroes were all relocated and hidden from the world, forced to be normal people.
Korra snapped from her musing. She found it hard to believe, even after being contacted by these mysterious people, that this was all happening.
"Are you listening, Avatar Korra?"
The mysterious but fancily dressed man sat in his fancy chair before her as they soared far above the clouds. Korra could recognize some of the smaller, more uncharted islands 'belonging' to the Fire Nation whizzing below them.
"Sorry, I was distracted. Please continue."
The man, who Korra had to admit that he was handsome in many regards, nodded graciously, before turning to a large television display.
"The Vehicular Artillery and Tactical Asset is a top-secret, prototype spirit-related weapon being developed by our… organization. It was designed to entrap and utilize spirit power to create an extremely powerful weapon. Unfortunately…"
"Let me guess," Korra interrupted. "It started wondering why it had to take orders."
Korra had never really learned too much about the spiritual aspects of, well, anything. Her 'training' by the mystical Order of the White Lotus had taught her more about bending than spirit stuff.
The man, who had only introduced himself as 'Illusion' nodded.
"It escaped containment and is now threatening our facility. We acknowledge that we were foolish to think that we could control such an unknown vector, but our employer is an ambitious man. But who better to quell a threat such as this than the Avatar herself? After your disappearance all those years ago, I can only assume your skills are increased tenfold."
Korra's mind flashed back to her poorly planned excursion with Mako the other night that saw them barely escape a flooding ship with its passengers before accidentally running into the police and being mistaken for burglars.
"Obviously, the design itself could be quite useful, if not the concept…"
"I'm betting you want me to disable this contraption without completely destroying it."
"You are the Avatar…"
As Korra left the pod behind, she began wondering if she had messed up more than she ever had before. What was she doing here, in some forgotten jungle, looking for some crazy spirit monster-machine that was being cooked up by some secret government agency in the Fire Nation?
She jogged deeper into the thick underbrush, immediately feeling the consequences of not having jogged for quite some time. The air, which was thick enough to cut through with a knife, seemed to suck the air from her lungs as veritable swarms of insects descended upon her.
After around an hour, she was exhausted, sweaty, and probably out a liter of blood, and no closer to finding the spirit-machine than before. She rested against a tree, sitting down and looking around in tired despair. She glanced behind her, and did a double take, hope flying through her.
Something had ripped a large chunk out of the tree she was leaning on, and as she looked around she could see signs of something large tearing through the area.
"Interesting," she muttered as she knelt by a large, clawed footprint.
A large crack emitted from behind her, and before she knew it, the machine was upon her.
It was shaped like a large kite that was supported on six, spindly legs and a long tail. It was colored burgundy and crimson, and seemed to shift in and out of reality- sometimes it was a translucent spirit-like entity, and others it was a construct of steel plates and hydraulic joints.
A long, whip like appendage careened into Korra's stomach, throwing her through a tree as if it were a twig. Pain erupted all through her body as she got to her feet- she had taken much worse hits than that before. She led with a massive fireball from her feet as she propelled herself into the air with a wind tornado, bending a massive boulder into the beast. Despite its occasionally ethereal appearance, the rock made contact, bowling the machine backwards and through the ground.
Catching her breath, Korra dived in after it, finding herself in an underground chamber of sorts with alarming amounts of lava pools. She landed nimbly, softening her landing with fire jets, before being taken off guard again as the machine burst from the lava, causing droplets of boiling-hot rock to spatter everywhere. Several tentacles lashed out at her, aiming for her vitals, but she dodged, barely missing a lava-covered tendon that swished right above her, inches from her face.
She yelped in fear and bent a large pocket of air at the machine. From the way it had been fighting, the way its tentacles seemed to get closer and closer to finding her weak points, she could only deduce that it was somehow using her fighting style against her. She knew that unless she ended it soon, the machine would kill her, and it would leave Asami and the kids alone in the unforgiving world, just because of her desire to relive the good old days.
A blazing hot tentacle wrapped itself around her foot, suspending her in the air as she screamed in pain from the burning of her own flesh and in rage as she sent blow after blow, attack after attack against the monster, all of them having no effect.
Several more tentacles raced towards her vital organs, seeming to sharpen themselves into spear-like weapons, and she closed her eyes, anticipating the end.
When her eyes opened again, everything was different. As if she wasn't in control of her body, she could feel herself escaping from the tentacles with ease. Her ankle didn't hurt anymore from where the burning tentacle had taken hold, and the fear and guilt was gone, replaced by a warm, almost familiar feeling. Impassively, she blocked the machine's attacks before responding in kind, sending massive rocks, fireballs, and air blasts towards the machine, catching it off guard and plunging it into the lava. She landed on the ground, slamming her hands into the volcanic rock and bending the lava itself, suspending the machine in the air and surrounding it in a sphere of magma. For an instant, she could see the machine split in two- the ethereal side faded away almost, leaving only the impassioned metal construct, which melted instantly.
Korra stood again, the blinding white light fading from her eyes as she held her head in confusion. She remembered everything- she just didn't know what the hell had happened.
Illusion zoomed the camera out in a state of shock. He had heard, of course, of the power of the Avatar State, but he had never seen it before. Interestingly, from the way Korra seemed to be reacting, neither had she. As a member of the secretive Red Lotus, Illusion had seen many strange things that defied understanding, but this was something else entirely. And he knew that his employer was interested by the recent developments.
Her employer stood to her right, silently.
"Surprising. We must bring her back. Sound the all-clear."
He paused by the door, glancing back at Illusion and smiling in a way that sent shivers of dread running down Illusion's spine.
"And… invite my niece to dinner."
If you couldn't tell, this story was heavily inspired by the Pixar film The Incredibles, both because that was the task given to me for the final round of the Probending circuit, and also because I love The Incredibles