Shiro Shinobi: "Koh, a malevolent spirit, whom has had a history with the Avatar mainly with Avatar Kuruke after stealing his fiancée Ummi's face. Now Korra must regain it back for Ummi so she can tell Korra how to regain her predecessors. Meanwhile, the rest of Team Avatar took back a radio station after battling a couple of spirit soldiers whom were led by Xersi and Xi'Lee. What is to happen next on everyone's voyage to find the temple?"
*Book: Strength Chapter 7: Meeting Again*
Korra and Tenzin had little distance left as they approached the entrance to Koh's lair. Korra felt a bit of pressure building inside her chest as the arc of the tree was getting more over her head. Right on the entrance they stopped walking to review the plan as to how they're going to approach Koh.
"Here we are. Remember, do not show any expressions. Keep control over your emotions. After meeting my father long, no doubt he'll try to say what he can to make you express your feelings. Should you need to, best to do it when he cannot see you, but I would not try it."
"Right. I just hope Ummi was right about getting her face back is like taking off a mask."
"I hope she is right about that as well. Let's just focus on resolving this without drawing conflict."
The two then enter the tree and started down cave. Outside, Jinora sat on the root with her arms on her legs so she can place her head on her hands. Ummi waited beside her not moving, just watching the tree.
"Will they be OK in there?"
"I'm sure they will be. Your father looks confident and the young Avatar has a lot of strength."
"Why couldn't you just tell us of the way Korra can get back the Past Avatars? We would've came back and helped you."
"You do not know what it is like, to be forever condemned in this part of the Spirit World, separated from everyone I loved in life. I know it is wrong to do this, but you know as well as I you would have done the same."
Jinora turned little bit away from Ummi being disappointed of the situation they were in. Inside the cave Tenzin and Korra finally reached the lair. With the vivid light barely allowing them to see what their surroundings were. They could hardly see the roots of the tree above ground coming through the ceiling and digging back through the walls. They could hear gentle drops as they listened and looked around to see if Koh was anywhere inside. From above, Koh watched silently as Tenzin and Korra investigated keeping a straight face to not show any emotions. He followed them, crawling on the ceiling not making any noise.
"Where is he? Do you think he might have left and made a new home somewhere else?"
"He's here alright, don't let your guard down for any second."
"I don't know, maybe he felt me coming and coward away to-"
Koh then immediately pops out from the dark and immediately confronts Korra whom luckily was able to put on her straight face. Koh watched her with the face of the Baboon with a grin on his face for a few seconds, inches from her face and then moves on past her left side to see both her and Tenzin.
"Well, for what reason do I owe the pleasure of seeing you again Avatar? Come for my help again?"
As Korra still had her back turned to Koh, she expresses her disgust and then her relief of not letting Koh get the best of her.
"We've come here to request something of you." Tenzin began the conversation to break the silence.
"Oh, and what will that be son of the previous Avatar?" Koh changes his face to that of a young man with black hair and blue eyes.
"We need the face of Ummi, the fiancée of Avatar Kuruke."
"Is that so?" Koh turned and crawls to Tenzin, "And what use will you have for it I do wonder."
"She came to us for help and as the Avatar it my duty to help the spirits as well." Korra replies avoiding to tell the true reason.
Koh changes his face to a strange rodent that had sharp teeth, slithering between Tenzin and Korra to see her face, "Avatar, you don't honestly think you can hide the reason for why you've came to this world to see me. Ummi has something you need, but in order to obtain it she has requested for you talk to me in returning her face."
Korra opened her fist knowing she was found out.
"But maybe we can arrange something: A trade, face-for-a-face."
"What do you mean...?"
He carefully places his left foot on her right cheek, "After all, this new beautiful face you have now could be my prized possession being from the Avatar. A great face to trade for any other."
"Sorry, but I'm not going to do that, there must be something else you want to exchange for Ummi's face?"
Koh removes his foot off her face and changes his face to an old woman with long white hair and brown eyes, "There is nothing I would want more than an Avatar's face to my collection." He looks at Tenzin, "Unless your friend wants to sacrifice himself, his is the nearest thing I can have that is close to the Avatar."
"Look we didn't come here to play games Koh. The world is in danger of a destructive force that will also affect the Spirit World."
He immediately turned back to Korra, "And what concern is that of mine? I won't be disturbed much less challenged."
"You can't be serious Koh? The effects on the Spirit World affect all spirits, you as well. Please, you must come to reason or by some terms." Tenzin urged Koh nearly expressing it on his face.
Then Koh changed to the white face that had black eyes and red lips smiling, "My apologies, but I think there will be any transaction this time and so bid you a farewell." Koh then starts to crawl towards a pitch black corner in the cave.
"Fine." Tenzin said with his head down, eyes closed. Koh stopped to listen, "I'll do it."
"What? Tenzin, you can't be serious. I won't let you, think about Jinora and everyone." Korra urged Tenzin.
"I'm willing to sacrifice myself in order to secure their future along with both worlds. This is my decision and mine alone."
Koh turns to look at him still with the white face, "Do we have a deal then?"
Tenzin sighed, "We do."
As Koh approached him as Korra stepped aside with her head down. His face is over a foot away from Tenzin whom still had straight face on.
"Before I exchange my face, I want to at least see Ummi's. It's at least fair I see the spirit for whom I sacrificed myself for."
"Very well." Koh changes his face to Ummi's.
Right before he could take Tenzin's face, Korra immediately jumps onto Koh grabbing on Ummi's face on both sides behind the ears and gets into the Avatar state to start taking the face off. Koh yells as if in agony as Korra pulls with all her might and soon a white light starts to shine in between Ummi's face and Koh's neck area, until finally Korra takes it off him. She falls onto the floor holding a sphere of light that reflects Ummi's face within. Koh threw his faceless upper half left and right still yelling in agony crashing onto the cave walls.
Tenzin quickly helps Korra up, "Quickly let's get out of here while we can."
Korra nods once and they run for the exit.
"AVATAR!" Koh yells to her. He stops moving around and makes a demon like insect face with human features appear where it had been empty. He starts crawling swiftly with rage through the tunnel chasing Tenzin and Korra. The two make it outside, Korra having to jump out and roll right before Koh could get her. Koh flies out looking down from above at Tenzin and Korra. Jinora jumps up looking at Koh and starts to run to help Tenzin and Korra.
"If you honestly think you can steal from me you are mistaken! I will have both your faces at the end of this!"
As Koh swoops down to attack, Korra water bends with one hand as Tenzin air bends. They manage to hit at and below the middle of his body. They dodge him jumping aside as he causes a dirt cloud to spring from the attack. He flies upward to strike again. Jinora arrives and gets to a stance to prepare for the attack with her father and Korra. Koh notices her and decides to attack her instead.
"And now it seems I'll be collecting three faces."
Koh grins showing his sharp teeth and swoops toward Jinora. She prepares for Koh moving her hands to generate air. She then jumps over Koh, making frost consume the upper part of his body freezing his face. Jinora lands a few steps from Korra. Koh yells in agony again, but sounded a bit muted due to the frost on his face. He slams his body onto the ground to break it all of him.
"That took a lot of nerve, but it won't help you against me!"
Koh spreads his upper legs and aims the sharp points of his legs towards the group. Ummi jumps on his back right before his legs stretched so fast and long causing him to miss impaling his feet to the ground. Everyone was able to dodge them despite of Ummi's attack on Koh. As he lunges around Ummi hung onto his back until he managed to get her off him. She lies on the ground defenseless, but showed no injury.
"I should have gotten rid of you long ago, but now I will once and for all."
"Ummi look out!" Korra calls out with her right hand out.
Koh uses his back end to try and crush Ummi where she was kneeling as she had gotten up. She was able to jump out of the way, but Koh drags it to still try to crush Ummi.
Just then, the white monkey with a brown cape on his left side appears and stops Koh with only his right hand, "Finally, you came out." He said with ease.
"You!" Koh said.
"Yes, I been waiting for this a long time. Now we fight."
"Who is that?" Korra asked Tenzin.
"I don't know. Whoever he is he clearly can handle Koh." He replied.
The monkey got into a fighting stance, "Now it's time to finish off what you started long ago."
He then jumps high to Koh's face and kicks him nearly knocking him to the ground. Koh tries to attack back using his back end and again with stretching his legs, but the monkey was too fast for him to get. The monkey unleashes an array of attacks showing Koh was no match for him. Koh realizes he wasn't going to win and starts to withdraw from fight heading back into his cave.
"You may have gotten the best of me Avatar, but I will obtain your face in the future." He disappears in the darkness.
"Thank you for helping us." Korra thanked the monkey as they all approach him.
"It was nothing. He and I go way back. I make sure he cannot go out and steal more faces from innocent beings and spirits."
"Is there anything we can do to repay you for your help?" Tenzin asked.
"There's no need, it is something of a duty for me. Now if you don't mind I would like to go back to meditating." With that he jumps up a tree and gets to a meditative position.
Korra holds out the light sphere towards Ummi, "Here, we were able to get your face back from Koh."
Ummi grabs onto the sphere and looks at it. She then drives it into her chest and unleashes a bright light illuminating her body. Everyone turns away blocking the light with one of their arms. Once the light had stopped everyone looks Ummi. She slowly lifts her hands up to her face and removes the mask revealing her face, opening her eyes. She look at everyone and smiles, happy to have gotten her face back.
"Thank you, all of you. Now I'll be able to find peace. But before I do, as promised I will reveal how you will regain your past lives. As you know the Eastern Temple houses the statues of every Avatar that had existed. Their purpose is to house the spirits of the Avatar. Kuruke had told me of what they were for when he was in doubt at a young age to contact the past Avatars. He had stood in the giant room in the center of the circle with the statues looking down towards him. He went into the Avatar state making the eyes of every statue light up."
"Of course. The Eastern Air Temple has always been special to the air nomads. Now I see why."
"Thank you Ummi it really means a lot, to Korra and everyone in the physical world."
Then a light appears behind Ummi and all sorts of voices, a few filled with joy, could be heard, "Finally, after so long, I can be with him and everyone." Ummi started to walk toward the light and vanished with it after crossing over.
"May you be at peace." Korra says as everyone bows their head.
"We must head back to the physical world. We have a chance to end what's happening once and for all."
"Let's reunite with everyone else before we head on over to the Eastern Air Temple. We'll need all the help we can get."
Back in the physical world, everyone left the radio station heading off on their planned route. Asami walked from the radio to her friends who were relaxing on the furniture.
"Well I just got back from talking with the President. We'll be heading to Kyoshi Island, the naval ships can be used as transmitters to carry radio signals at least for the major bottom half of the mainland."
"That's a good idea to temporarily get communications back up."
"Right now, the radio station is the only thing he can communicate through, but it has limited range. And from here on out we won't be communicating with anybody else as well."
"Well to Kyoshi Island we go. It'll delay our voyage, but at least we'll be up to date through others on what the current status of the world is."
After traveling down the mainland they finally reached the shores, Kyoshi Island up ahead.
"Kyoshi Island is up ahead." Captain Mharu said in the overcome.
Bolin got up and walked to see it. As the airship got closer one could see the naval ships. There were small flashes of light coming from them that later turned out to be fire bending blast coming from their canons. The ships were being assaulted by soldiers on not only dark spirit dragons, but also dark water serpent like spirits. The soldiers on deck were bending fire, water and earth where ever they saw the dark spirits.
Captain Mharu sees the amazing battle going on and immediately comes on the overcome again after pulling a switch that made a red light come on, "Red alert! Red alert! Enemy is assaulting the naval ships! Prepare for combat!"
Asami and Mako rushed out of their courters and ran through the small hallways onto the bridge meeting with Kyria, Ronin and Bolin.
"Guys, they're here too." Bolin pointed out.
"We should hurry and help them. If something happens to those ships, there won't be any communications to keep the United Forces informed of where the soldiers are bound to attack. Bolin and Kyria, head up top of the ship and fire those earth disc at the spirit soldiers. We'll need to get close so we can land on one of those ships and help out."
"Right!" Kyria replied, "Come on, let's go." Bolin nodded and off they went packing earth disc into a couple of bags as quick as they could.
"We should get ready as well."
"I'll go get the parachutes." Ronin runs to the cabinet where the parachutes are stored.
Asami then runs back to her room to get into her battle suit as Mako goes to the door, opening it to see the battle better.
"Is everybody ready?" Mako says holding up his walky talky.
"We're ready up here bro." Bolin replies through his walky talky.
"Alright, let's move on forward. Captain." Mako gave Captain Mharu a nod.
"Here we go mates, best of luck to you all." The Captain says as he pushes a lever to increase the airship's speed. As the airship entered the battle a couple of spirit soldiers spot them and fly on over to them. Bolin and Kyria see them and start throwing the earth disc at them. At the far distance the soldiers were a few disc missed them, but two of the six that head towards the airship got knocked down. There were a few crew members whom also fire and earth bended along with the two friends. Finally the airship was close to one of the ships that had a few parts of it having smoke coming from it.
"Jump!" Mako yelled out.
The three friends fly for a few seconds in the air and when they neared the ship they used the parachutes for a quick smooth landing. They took off the parachute packs as quick as they could and help the servicemen fight of a few spirit soldiers on deck.
Mako grabs his walky talky to contact Bolin, "Come on down."
"Understood, over." Bolin replied. Kyria and Bolin run to the left side of the airship and jump. As they flew, they past a couple of spirit soldiers and were lucky to have missed the oncoming earth disc and fire balls flying in the air. They could see a couple of air benders flying around air bending. Kyria and Bolin release their parachutes nearing a ship. As they were going to land on a carrier, a spirit soldiers was going in for an attack as he thought they were both vulnerable. Kyria bended an earth disc that flew nearby and used it to knock off the soldier down with the dark spirit dragon. The two friends land on the deck and use the scattered earth disc that were left after the carrier received a hit. Bolin left his guard down and a spirit soldier that was a fire bender saw his opportunity to strike. He throws a fire ball at Bolin whom notices it as it was a few feet away. But then a whirl wind comes in between and stops the fire. Opal swooped in and uses another whirl wind to defeat the soldier making both him and the dark spirit dragon crash into the sea.
"Opal!" Bolin happily called out as she landed on the deck of the ship.
She runs and hugs Bolin tightly, "Bolin, it's great to see you! How is it you're here? I thought you were going to be close to Chameleon Bay by now?"
"Well we got side tracked by the Dragon Brothers' Army on our way."
Kai then comes flying in air bending taking down a soldier that had been chasing him. He does a landing roll and gets up, "Bolin, nice to see you again."
"It's great to see you too buddy. Man you've grown."
"Don't mean to interrupt your reunion, but we still have a battle to win." Kyria said as she earth bended a disc to an incoming soldier.
After a couple more spirit soldiers fell, the rest retreated towards the mainland. The ship Ronin, Asami and Mako landed on start to sink with the back end going underwater. The servicemen started to jump into the water as others with the three friends helped the rest inside escape.
"That's everyone." Asami said as one last service member ran across the deck and jumped.
"Alright, let's get off as well." Ronin replied.
They jumped into the water near a rescue boat helping everyone out of the water. Once the three friends were up on another ship, the commander greeted them.
"I assume you all are the friends of the Avatar?"
"Yes sir, we came here on behalf of President Raiko." Mako answered.
"And what news from the President. I haven't been able to communicate with him in awhile."
"The radio stations had been taken over by the enemy force. Though we manage to liberate some, their towers are either damaged or destroyed. He said to tell all of the United Forces to use messenger hawks and that the ships can be used as temporary radio transmitters."
"Is that so, we'll get onto it. In the meantime, I need to get these ships repaired. The enemy took us by surprise, luckily everyone was prepared. I also want to thank you all for showing up. Will you be staying here?"
"We'll be staying in Kyoshi Island if that's OK sir. We're on a mission to find the source of the Dragon Brothers' army. The spirit soldiers we fought."
"Should you ever need of assistance, my fleet will come to your aid. Just send a message to me Commander Argo." The commander hands a paper to Asami then walks off with his officers behind him.
In the evening at one of Kyoshi Island's shores where everyone gathered around a fire, as Bolin and Opal sat on a wooden picnic table having two coconut drinks on the center.
"It's going to be great traveling now that you're coming with us on the airship."
"Yes, I look forward to it. Where is Korra by the way?"
"She, Tenzin and Jinora left to the Spirit World to find a spirit that knew how Korra can get all her past Avatars back. It was quite the shock for her."
"Really? That's great isn't it? She'll be able to find the temple now without any problems."
"Yes. But for now, we have to help everyone who's being attack by the army. It just seems every time we have a plan, they're one foot ahead of us." Bolin then drinks from his coconut.
"That is a bit strange." Opal replies.
"So where's our next stop?" Ronin asked as Mako reviewed the map he marked the encounters with the soldiers.
"We should head up to get back on our route to Ba Sing Se. We'll stop at Zaofu to see how they're doing. Sue probably has been taking care of the region."
"I just hope Korra, Tenzin and Jinora are alright. I got a bad feeling like if something has happened." Asami wrapped her arms around her legs.
"They're alright, I just know they are. Don't worry about them, we'll see them soon enough in Ba Sing Se before you know it."
"I hope so Mako, I hope so."
Mako places his hand on Asami's right shoulder to assure her as she looks up at the night sky at the moon above, with a couple of bright stars shining and a few clouds moving across it.
