Enjoy!
Prey
If there one thing that Percy had to say about the swamp, it was that it stunk.
The noxious smells gnawed at his nostrils, worse than Smelly Gabe even after a week without a shower. There was something almost visceral about the fumes that burned at him, almost as if it was trying to physically ward him off. Like a thinking entity, it seemed to follow him with each step that he took, and every effort that had made to shield himself from it were quickly defeated. Even pulling part of his shirt over his nose and adding some water didn't seem to help, the putrid aroma permeating into every fiber of the fabric.
And I thought the Pegasus stables were bad, Percy thought, his mind flashing back to the weekends spent cleaning out the stables without powers as punishment. Even with all the respect that they gave him as their creator's son, that still didn't stop them from leaving massive piles of crap for him to clean up.
In comparison to the fumes, the rest of the obstacles were far less debilitating. The sickly green water which brushed just under his knees would have been quite difficult to navigate if he hadn't possessed his authority over water. As it was, the water sloshed off him without issue, refusing to cling to him or even get him the slightest bit damp as he trudged his way through. A quick tug on the water and he was able to do the same for Nei, but after doing it for so long he could feel a pain starting to grow in his gut, like a muscle that was being used too much. He would probably only be able to keep this up for another ten minutes or so before he needed to take a break.
We both might need a break, Percy thought, turning his attention back towards the forest spirit in front of him.
Branches and tree roots that were thicker than a city bus covered the path before them and probably would have taken them hours to circumnavigate if it hadn't been for Nei. Plants moved aside from her path with a casual wave of her hand, but when she thought that nobody was watching he could see the weariness casting a shadow on her expression. And Percy didn't miss the way that some of the roots twitched when they left her control, like a snake that was testing the waters, waiting for the right chance to strike.
Nei had said that this area had been corrupted by Vaatu's influence, did that mean that the very trees were on his side? Percy's grip around Riptide tightened a little bit at that thought, his eyes glancing around the area with new suspicion as if one of the trees might rip themselves out of the ground to strike at him.
"Are we there yet?"
Percy glanced down at the group of young spirits that here huddled up between Nei and himself. They all looked rather miserable, trudging through the swamp water with downtrodden and exhausted expressions. Even the fliers were barely keeping themselves above the water, their wings sputtering with each beat.
"No, Leena, we still have a little bit to go," Nei said without a hint of frustration. It was rather impressive how she had managed to keep herself cool and calm with the number of times that the younger spirits had asked that question. A collective groan rang out from the younger spirits with all the same petulance that a mortal kid might have.
"Why do you have a sword?" one of the spirits, who Percy was pretty sure was called Alma, asked as she perched on her shoulder with a flutter of her butterfly wings. He would have thought that trying to keep track of all their names would have been easy since they all looked different, but it wasn't.
Or maybe he just wasn't good at keeping track of names.
"I use it to protect myself from monsters," Percy said, giving her the simplest explanation that he could given the circumstances. He wasn't opposed to the idea of telling them all that he was the son of a god, but this didn't seem like a good place to have a chat that complicated. Nei apparently understood that having asked only a handful of questions, mostly to gauge how helpful he would be during the trip, but the younger spirits hadn't gotten that memo.
"What's a monster?" Alma asked, tilting her stretched out neck with a curious expression on her face.
"They're—," Percy paused as he felt the back of his hairs stand up on end, his instincts screaming at him to move. He didn't even question them as he pulled himself to the side, narrowly avoiding a reddish tendril from impaling him in the gut. Faster than most people could blink Percy's free hand lashed out towards the attack, wrapping itself around it. It felt odd and squishy in his hands, like a pickle.
Great, now he was hungry again.
The limb trembled as it tried to pull against his grip, smaller tendrils pushing out towards him, like dozens of pins. But before they could pierce his skin Percy lashed down with Riptide, slicing them from the rest of the appendage. A pained scream echoed through the treetops as the top end of the tendril fell to the ground, dissipating into smoke. The rest of it redoubled its efforts to escape his grip, thrashing with everything that it had and more, but Percy wasn't having any of it.
The Camp's tug of war games flashed through his head as he pulled on the limb with all this might and was rewarded with a startled squawk as whatever it was that was attacking him lost its footing. Percy turned around just in time to see a reddish shape slam into the murky water with a splash. It tried to move, but vines burst up out of the ground and wrapped themselves around its body, trapping it in place.
"Who sent you?" Nei's voice cut through the silence of the swamp. The spirit, which really looked more like a mass of tendrils and knots than anything else shuddered but didn't verbally answer the question. The vines surrounding it glowed a little and writhing intensified, but it still didn't answer. Nei growled, taking a step forward, just enough that she was in the corner of his eye.
Her face was virtually devoid of color, and her arms were trembling like she was trying to lift the minotaur up with her bare hands. Whatever she was doing was taking a toll on her and he didn't think she was going to be able to keep it up. But before he could voice his thoughts on the matter, the sound of branches shattered like kindling echoed through the swamp and Percy twisted his head in the direction the sound was coming from just in time to see a flash of white and brown.
The air left his lungs as he was flung to the side like a ragdoll. He did his best to roll with the blow, but everything was spinning so much that he couldn't even tell what was up and what was down. Instead, he grunted as he was slammed against a tree, the wood cracking under the weight of the impact. The branches and vines of the tree lashed out, quickly wrapping themselves around his body, pinning him down. Percy grunted as he struggled against his captor, but while the branches and vines did budge a little bit, it wasn't enough to free himself. Nor could he use either of his blades with the angle Riptide was pinned at and with Annabeth's dagger trapped around his belt loop.
A cold laughter drew his attention away from his bonds, and Percy glared at the spirit that stood in the center of the chaos. The wolf had its jaws pulled back into a facsimile of a smile, fangs glinting in the pale light like rows of steak knives. Its eyes practically glowed with malice as its gaze swept over the cowering spirits as they fled behind Nei. The forest spirit herself looked rather pale, trembling from fear of exhaustion he couldn't tell, but she didn't look like she was going to let the wolf pass without a fight. He growled as the wolf finally turned his head towards him, a curious glint flashing through his eye.
"So, you're the mortal Chelamma spoke of," he mused, casually making his way over to his pinned body even as more dark spirits slunk out from the shadows. His nostrils flared, and Percy winced as the spirit's rancid breath washed over him. It smelled like someone had taken a truck full of rotting meat and left if out in the desert for a few weeks. "You don't look like much. I wonder what you'll taste like."
Percy knew it was probably in his best interest to stay quiet while the Mrs. O'Leary sized wolf mused about devouring him, but that had never stopped him from speaking before.
"If you're going to kill me, could you do it before your bad breath does?"
The wolf blinked, looking somewhat taken back that anyone would dare to speak to him like that. But the confusion quickly washed away as his gaze narrowed, his lips curling back into a sneer while his hackles raised. He started to open his mouth, his impressively sharp teeth flashing in the dim lighting.
"Amarok!"
The wolf, now named Amarok, snapped his head to where Nei was standing. She flinched a little as he turned his gaze towards her, but her angry expression remained resolute. Even when the wolf started to move towards her, his massive shadow falling across her and her charges, she didn't back down a single inch.
"I should have known," she hissed out, her glare so intense that for a moment Percy wouldn't have been surprised if Amarok caught fire. But instead of looking angered by her defiance, the wolf only let out another amused chuckle even as he pinned the spirit who had ambushed them to the ground with his paw. The spirit writhed underneath the massive paw, but it wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.
"Known what, that I would choose the winning side?" He asked with an amused grin. The younger spirits squirmed under his hungry gaze, doing their best to shield themselves with Nei. Percy redoubled his efforts to pull himself free from the branches, and even though they creaked and cracked a little, they still remained firmly in place. "It was inevitable. The Master is strong, stronger than you and all the other little spirits that delude themselves into thinking that they can defy him. And the strong—"
Amarok's head snapped down with the speed of a viper. Before anyone could realize what was happening his jaws wrapped around the still pinned dark spirit, his teeth tearing through it without so much as an ounce of resistance. The spirit squealed one last time before Amarok swallowed, sending it tumbling down its throat. Caustic red fumes covered his teeth even as Nei paled and the younger spirits screamed, apparently startled by the sudden savagery.
"—devour the weak."
"And if he's so strong, then what are you to him, dog breath?" Percy drawled out. He almost regretted comparing dogs to this guy, but the insult had the intended effect. Amarok's head swung towards him again, a low growl echoing through the swamp even as the other dark spirits edged away. Even the tree that was holding him shifted as if it wanted to be as far away from the slowly enraging spirit as it possibly could.
"You forget yourself mortal," Amarok hissed as he drew in close, his fangs filling up the entirety of Percy's vision. "Your kind are nothing more than useful sources of amusement for me. And while my lord wished to have a…conversation with you, that does not mean that you have to be in one piece for it."
"Get away from him!" The voice that he recognized as Alma's screeched out from behind Nei. The older spirit hissed at them to be quiet, even as Amarok glanced back at them with his burning gaze.
"I would be more concerned about yourself than the mortal, morsel. He at the very least will be granted death, you and your friends on the other hand?" He let out a deep chuckle that Percy could feel in his bones. "I hear the transformation process can be quite trying for those who do not give in willingly."
"Monster," Nei hissed even as younger spirits cowered, a few of them breaking out into tears.
"You call me a monster, but I do not delude mortals into thinking they can fight spirits," Amarok barked out, shifting around to glare at the forest spirit. "I wonder, how long did it take you to mold him into what you wanted him to be? I'm sure that you made a very convincing argument as to how he would gain fame and respect from being a slayer of spirits. Did you intend on using him as a distraction, something to throw at me so you could run away while I picked him from my teeth?"
"If you think that's what happened then you're dumber than you look, and you already look pretty dumb," Percy snorted even as Amarok twisted back to him with a sneer.
"You dare insult me, mortal?" Amarok hissed out even as he drew in closer, to the point that Percy could have tilted his head forward a little and brushed up against his fangs. "Are you so eager to die?"
"No," Percy merely shrugged, casually glaring down at the wolf. But as the ground started to rumble he smirked a little, doing his best to ignore the stinging sensation in his gut as he pulled on his powers even after nearly having reached his limits. "I just wanted you to stand right there." Amarok growled, a low rumble that echoed throughout the entire swamp, making even his own warriors flinch from the sound.
"What is that supposed to mea—"
The Wolf of Hunger didn't even get to finish his sentence when the ground exploded beneath his paws.
Korra was having a bad day.
Bad might not be the right word, terrible more like it, the Avatar thought as her body laid against Naga. Her Polar Bear Dog's fur felt warm and soft to the touch, the rhythmic and heavy breathing of the large animal relaxing Korra's tense muscles. But that still didn't little to curb her anger over the revelations that she had experienced today.
Not only had her uncle offered to teach her about the spiritual side of her duties as the Avatar, something that she had been hoping that she would be able to do with her lack of knowledge in that field. But instead of getting the help that she needed, her father and Tenzin refused to allow her own uncle to teach her!
Not only that, but she had found out that her father had been in on the decision to keep her at that training compound with the White Lotus for all those years when she could have been out doing stuff. Didn't he know how mind-numbingly boring it had been at that place, with nothing to do but lessons and training and then more lessons?
She could have been out exploring the world years ago like Aang had, learning what she needed to know about the people that she needed to protect. She could have made a difference in the world. But instead, she was locked inside a virtual fortress for over a decade. How could her own father had been okay with that?
Korra could feel the dark thread of resentment wrap itself around her heart, squeezing with each thought.
But the young woman's musings were cut short as Naga shifted, pushing Korra back on her knees to support herself. She grunted as she rubbed her eyes, ready to berate her friend and call her back to sleep when her low growl filled the room. It struck Korra almost as if it was a physical thing, and she looked up to see her friend glaring at the door, fangs bared, and claws outstretched.
"What is it, girl?" Korra asked as she pulled herself up. Naga didn't even bother turning around to face her, instead pushing her way out of the cloth door. Korra followed her, hissing a little as the cold air struck her exposed skin. She would be fine, it would take more and a little snow to keep a waterbenders down, much less the Avatar, but that didn't mean that she had to like leaving the comforting warmth of her cabin to the chill of a polar night.
"BARK!"
"Naga!" Korra hissed reaching up to pull on her friend's collar, "You'll wake everyone up."
But instead of listening to her like she had expected, the Polar Bear Dog shrugged her off and returned to barking at the storm. Korra's eyes searched for anything that might have set her friend off, but the combination of the moonless night and the small storm made it impossible to see outside of the camp. If there was something out there she couldn't…
Wait, what was that?
Korra's focus zeroed in on a pair of twinkling orbs piercing through the bank of fog. The Avatar felt her muscles tense as she prepared to unleash an attack on anything foolish enough to attack her when a small fluffy creature popped its way out of the inky darkness.
"Ha," Korra said, turning to her friend, "That's what you were scared off?"
The small foxrabbit blinked at the two of them with an uncomprehending look. Honestly, Korra found its expression rather adorable, but it wasn't something that she wanted to have to deal with right now. She just wanted to get back inside and get warmed back up.
But instead of calming down Naga continued to growl her hackles rising as she positioned herself between the two of them. Korra could only quirk an eyebrow at her friend's strange behavior. Foxrabbits were hardly the most threatening animal and this one looked like it would fit under Naga's paw. Why was she acting so wei—
"Defiler."
"What?" Korra asked, whipping her head around. There wasn't anyone to match to the voice that she had heard, only the lights of the emptying fairground.
"Defiler," the voice said again, whipping through the air with the chill of the coldest polar night. Korra could practically feel the malice laced into the speech, but she still couldn't find anyone that might have been speaking. It sounded as if they were right next to her, but that could have merely been the wind carrying the voice, but that still didn't explain…
"Defiler," the voice hissed, and Korra felt her eyes widen as they landed on the otherwise innocuous foxrabbit. Or rather, what would have been a rather innocuous foxrabbit if it didn't have a rather insane smile stretched across its features. There was an all too human spark of hate in its black beady eyes which Korra had found cute a few seconds ago, but now could only shudder in revulsion at the sight.
"Korra!"
Korra turned to see her father pulling himself out of his tent, a worried expression crossing his face. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Korra couldn't help but scowl, the spark of anger that had been diminishing reigniting into a small fire. She could take care of herself, why couldn't he see that!
Korra opened her mouth to give him a piece of her mind when an expression of pure terror crossed his face, looking towards something behind her. She could hear Naga's low growl turn into a whimper in an instant and a pit of dread grew where her stomach had been as she felt a wave of anger and malice pass over her like a cold headwind. The young Avatar slowly turned around, nearly freezing at the sight of what had once been a foxrabbit.
Half a dozen mouths of varying species fixed her with far too savage grins as they rose up to tower above her. When they opened they all spoke at once, delivering a single word that sent tingles of fear down her spine.
"Defiler!"
Korra felt more than saw the creature move as it plowed forward, clouds of snow and dirt billowing up behind it. She didn't even have time to consider acting before Naga rushed forward, her friend's fear of the unnatural creature giving way to the powerful protective instincts of her kind as she moved to protect the member of her pack. The sight of a Polar Bear Dog's snarling maw was enough to make most creatures think twice about their next move.
The monster plowed through her like she was an overgrown pup.
"Naga!" Korra cried out as her friend was tossed aside by a misshapen arm. The white beast slammed into a building so hard that the wood cracked and buckled underneath her immense weight and she slid to the ground with a whimper.
More out of instinct than cognit thought Korra rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding joining her friend on the ground. She could feel the cold breath of the monster brush by her as its jaws tried to reach out, but it had too much momentum in a single direction to turn so quickly. It gave Korra the time she needed to put some distance between herself and the monster and get a good look at her opponent.
What had once been an innocent looking rabbitfox now would have towered over Naga had she been standing. Now it stood as a patchwork of creatures like someone had stitched together a bunch of animals to see how hideous of a monster they could make. She could recognize the hind legs of a Buffalo Deer and the front of a Leopard Seal, but the stinger that hung from the beast's back was alien to her.
But it was hardly as strange a sight as the creature's face. Instead of settling on one, it seemed that it had chosen to take a dozen different animals and blend them all together into half a dozen mouths. Korra almost gagged at the sight, only her training keeping her from spewing chunks all over the ground.
The monster's eyes were so bright that they almost appeared to be glowing crimson through the fog, but the main pair of eyes that were attached to a crocodilian-like snout were a dark purple that sent chills down the Avatar's spine. The monster spat and hissed at her, but it seemed to recognize that it had lost the element of surprise maybe she could—
"Korra!" Her father's voice cut through her thoughts and she cursed as the beast's attention snapped away from her and towards her father. But before she could berate him and warn him to get out of the way a pillar of ice shot up from the ground, knocking the creature back with an unearthly howl.
"Korra," her father said, grabbing her by the shoulder to look her in the eyes, "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," Korra said with a mild scowl. She could see the concern in her father's eyes, but that only incensed her feelings against him even more. He knew she was the Avatar, she could take care of herself without him looking over her shoulder. Her father's brows furrowed, and he opened her mouth to speak.
"Korra I—"
The two water tribe members were cut off as something slammed into them and sent them flying. Korra could feel and see the world spinning around her before she finally crashed into an ice bank, sliding to the ground with a groan. Pain traveled up her spine from the point of impact, but she could still pull herself up. Through the fog of the storm, she could see her father lying in the snow, struggling to pull himself up. Korra felt her heart skip a beat as the monster zeroed in on him, maws open wide and displaying far too many teeth for any single mouth to possess.
Korra felt her rage bubbling to the surface and sparks flew out of her hand and the snow bank started to melt under the sheer heat of the conflagration she unleashed. A torrent of fire slammed into the creature, knocking it back with a scream. The Avatar watched as the flames punched straight through the monster's body, ripping it apart. But the savage smile that had spread across her lips quickly faded as the monster literally pulled itself back together, tendrils of purplish ethereal energy wrapping around its dislocated parts like Spider Wasp webs and pulling it all back together.
The monster roared again, its unworldly howl sending shivers up her spine, but it was quickly cut off as a slab of stone rose up from the ground to slam into its face just as another burst of flame scorched its back. Korra turned around to see that Bolin and Mako had apparently been awoken from their slumber by the racket, and she could see Tenzin not far behind. Korra felt another pang of frustration at the appearance of her air bending teacher, but the beast's roar drew her attention back towards the fight. But despite the creature's blood-curdling growl, it didn't look to eager to push forward just yet.
"So, uh, nice wildlife you got here," Bolin said with a shaky smile as he and Mako took up positions beside her. Without any conscious effort on her part she took up formation with them, the instincts drilled in from their time as a probending team taking over. His eyes betrayed his fear, but frankly, Korra couldn't blame him, this thing was creeping her out too. "It's very uh…toothy."
"It's not an animal," Korra said, eyes focused on the creature as it paced around, keeping its distance but looking for any sign of weakness. It did remind her of some of the artic predators that roamed the wastelands, but she could feel something off about it. A prickling on the back of her neck that was warning her that whatever this thing was, it wasn't made of flesh and bones. She could feel that certainly sing in her blood. "It's—"
"Spirit," Tenzin said as he approached them, placing himself between the two groups. Korra felt another spike of irritation toward her teacher at the interruption. He couldn't let her have this, could he? He just had to be the one to know everything and never give her a chance to prove herself like past Avatars. She was always going to be Korra the coddled, wasn't she?
"It was Tenzin and your father that kept you secluded at the South Pole."
Her uncle's words whispered through her mind again, a comforting chorus in the sea of anger and uncertainty that she was experiencing. How was it that her uncle who she had barely interacted with until these last few days had more faith in her than her father and mentor?
"Spirit, please tell us what we have done to anger you," Tenzin said as he slowly approached the monster, hands outstretched in a placating manner. The beast snarled and growled, but it didn't make a move to attack him.
Yet.
"Is he crazy?" Mako hissed out, still holding his bending stance. She could feel the tension in her boyfriend and his brother, both of them just waiting for the right moment to strike. But with Tenzin in the way, their options were severely limited. They couldn't let loose a direct strike without the risk of catching him in the crossfire.
"I don't know, just get ready," Korra said back, holding her own firebending stance. Her aqua colored eyes tracked her mentor as he slowly but surely closed the distance between himself and the snarling spirit.
"Spirt please, what has been done to anger you so?" Tenzin asked again, an almost pleading note entering his voice.
"Uh, I don't really think its in a talking moo—" Bolin started to say.
"Defilers."
"—or I could be completely wrong," the earthbender hastily corrected.
"You have taken what is ours," the spirit said, its unearthly voice echoing through the storm. Its mouth spoke in unison, each one with a voice of its own, sending shivers up Korra's spine. She could feel the hate and rage in the spirits' voice as if it was a physical thing, wrapping across all of them.
"Please, respectable spirit, what have we taken from you, and how may with right this wrong?" Tenzin asked, taking a step forward towards the spirit, apparently emboldened by his success. The spirit still remained motionless, but Korra could still see the way it was tensing, readying to pounce at a moment's notice.
"Tenzin—" She hissed out, only to be quickly shushed by her air-bending mentor.
"Not now Korra," he half whispered back to her, not even glancing away from the beast to chide her. Korra couldn't exactly fault him for that, she wouldn't want to take her eyes off that thing either, but that didn't stop the anger from bubbling up at the dismissal of her warning. She ground her teeth against each other, ignoring the concerned glances from her boyfriend.
"This was our land, our world. But you and your kind took it from us, ripped it away into your own greedy hands and drove us away. You take and break, but now more! Now, now we will take it back."
Tenzin didn't even have a second to try any further diplomacy with the spirit before one of its limbs shot out. The airbenders was tossed to the side with almost contemptuous ease, falling off the cliff and into a snowbank below with a thud. Korra and her friends responded in almost perfect unison thanks to their time as a Pro-Bending team. The spirit howled as it was thrown off the cliff by the combined might of two jets of flames and a wave of solid rock. It slammed into the fair below, but instead of trying to climb back up to engage them, it smashed its way through the nearest festival stand, shattering the wood into splinters.
Koh take it, Korra cursed as she shot off the cliff with a jump, a vortex of air forming underneath her to keep her from splattering herself on the ground. The festival might have been closed for the night, but there were still guards and workers still there. If the spirit continued its rampage there was no telling who might get hurt.
Satisfied that she was close enough to the ground to avoid hurting herself Korra let a bolt of pressurized air loose behind her just as she brought her arms above her head. The Avatar shot towards the ground and slammed her fists into the snow-covered earth. The spirit barely had time to realize what was happening before a slab of stone shot out from beneath it, but whatever she could say about the spirit it was fast.
Instead of being flung into the air like she had expected it to, the spirit used its claws to cling to the rock, holding on for just long enough to get a good height to leap off of. Before Korra could realize what was happening she had a very large and angry looking spirit hurdling towards her face.
Korra dove down into the well of power that she knew she possessed, grabbing onto that now familiar experience as her eyes started to glow bright white. She could feel the power of every previous Avatar coursing through her veins, she could feel their knowledge and experience become one with her own she could –
-orra!
What? Korra thought, the confusion at the sound of a voice whispering between her ears shocking her out of the Avatar State. The flame that she had been gathering burst out towards the falling spirit, but without the power of her previous lives to back it up, it was far less lackluster than she had been expecting. The spirit still screamed as its outer layers were charred and boiled, but it pushed through, its maw emerging from the flames like something straight out of an old Water Tribe horror story. Hundreds of teeth filled its main mouth, a gaping pit of flesh and bone all the way down into its throat.
The stuff of nightmares.
For a split second, Korra forgot that she was the Avatar as her heart pounded against her chest and blood rushed to her ears. She could feel the roar of the spirit in her bones, but she couldn't move. Her body refused to respond to her as if she was being bloodbended by Amon again, and all Korra could do was watch in horror as the monster's mouth drew in so close that she could feel its rancid breath beat down onto her face, colder than the ice beneath her hands.
But the beast's killing blow was interrupted as tendrils of water rose up from the ground. They were thin things, barely larger than her wrist and hardly enough to do any appreciable damage against the spirit, but instead of shrugging through it like it had with every other attack the spirit stopped. With an almost sluggish movement, it turned to face the bender responsible for the attack, and Korra joined it. Hope welled up in her heart as the sight of her uncle who was currently in the process of some sort of very complicated water bending. He moved with a grace of a gentle tide, and Korra could practically see the tension and killing intent melting from the spirit.
As she pulled herself to her feet, she watched as the tendrils of water continued to rise from the ground, not touching the spirit, but surrounding it as if it was being caged. Despite the fact that the spirit had been pretty intent on killing everything in its path, it seemed to be relaxing as the tendrils grew even more. Her uncle's movements became more complicated, Korra having long lost understanding of what he was doing, most of the movements didn't seem to be corresponding with what was happening with the water, but there was something just so soothing about it that she couldn't help but know he was doing so much more than what she could see.
The spirit straightened up onto its hind legs, and Korra watched as the misshaped features that it had been wearing receded into nothingness as the two tendrils of water glowed bright yellow. Within seconds what had once been a horrifying monstrosity was now a relatively indistinct blob of blue energy. There were some humanoid features with its legs and gangly arms, but it was still too off-putting to refer to it as human. The only other features were a pair of glowing purple eyes, and despite herself, Korra felt a shiver of trepidation at the sight of them, but she couldn't tell why. It was as if the uneasy thoughts had emerged into her head fully formed, but she couldn't pin down from where.
"Go in peace, spirit," her uncle's calm voice cut through the haze of her thoughts. The spirit that had been intent on murdering them a scant few seconds ago now calmly walked towards the empty abyss of the polar planes. With a few more seconds it faded from view, as is it hadn't even been there before. Only splinted buildings and bruises remained as proof of its rampage.
"H-how did you do that?" Korra asked. Her uncle had calmed down the spirit when Tenzin had failed and had saved who knows how many lives in the process. Her uncle smiled at her as if he was proud at her curiosity. It certainly gave her a better feeling that Tenzin's constant degrading of her exploring her Avatar powers.
"I've have spent a lifetime studying the ways of the spirits. I doubt that there is a single human on this world that knows and respects them as much as I do," Unalaq said as he approached her. "It is still my wish that I could share this knowledge with you. If you had known how to calm the spirit, then this conflict might have been avoided entirely."
Korra really wanted to say yes. After years of being told that she didn't know enough about the spiritual component of being the Avatar, here was someone that was willing to teach her everything that she needed to know. Her uncle wouldn't baby or coddle her like Tenzin and her father did.
He will give you all you want.
"Korra!"
The young Avatar turned to see her father and Tenzin running up to them, Mako and Bolin following close behind. Her father had a pained look on his face and was clutching his stomach, and Tenzin had a pretty nasty bruise developing on the side of his forehead, but they otherwise looked fine. But her relief at their survival was quickly dashed away when they started talking to Unalaq about how he couldn't be the one to teach her and how it had to be them and that she wasn't ready.
They don't trust your judgment.
"Only I can give Korra the training that she needs," her uncle said, bringing her attention back towards the conversation. Her father and Tenzin startled before they both settled in varying expressions of irritation.
"I told you, that isn't going to happen," her father said, practically growling at his own brother who wanted nothing more than to help her. She couldn't get why he didn't see that this was the best way for her to grow as the Avatar. This would help her, couldn't he see that?
They hold you back, confine you in body and spirit.
"How about what I want?" Korra asked with a glare, pushing herself between the two groups. It sounded somewhat childish, but she was tired of being treated like a fool as if she couldn't make her own choices in life. This was something that she needed to know, and her uncle had already shown more knowledge of it than Tenzin ever had. He hadn't been the one to calm the spirit down had he? "Unalaq is the only one that's shown me what I need to learn!"
"Korra—" Tenzin started, holding out his hand to rest it on her shoulder, to calm her down and comfort her.
He thinks you a fool, a child.
She wasn't having any of it. She brushed off the airbender and glared into his eyes, bringing forth all of her anger into her next words to make sure that he understood what she was saying.
"I think it's time I got a new teacher."
Special Thanks to my Patrons: Sphinxes, Sanjay, xxpowerxx1qz, Marcel, Ask Oliver Oliversen Tegler, RavenS013, The Sleeping Knight, Ares88, Sean, Andrew Munger and verdthandi.
Please consider joining my Patrons in donating to my P atreon.
