Is that my old staff?' Korra asked. 'I should have kept better care of that.'
'So, what was it you wanted to speak to me about?' Lai asked.
'Right.' Korra paused. 'Lai, the world is out of balance!'
'What?' Lai spluttered. 'But, what do you mean?'
'Right, it's like this. The world is full of energy, flowing in every direction, and moving between the material and spirit worlds. The energy moves between worlds slowly in most places, but larger in others. In living things, the chi flows through in the both directions – the energy for bending comes from this. And it's how you travel to the spirit world. The biggest places of movement of energy are the spirit portals, where the spirit lights come from.'
Korra sighed. 'But the energy's out of balance. There's more energy flowing out of the spirit world than going in.'
'Huh. When did that happen?'
'I'm not sure. I didn't notice it until I died. But it seems unlikely that something like this would just happen. Raava hasn't seen it happen before – not without something causing it.'
'But how am I supposed to solve this? How do I stop this?' Then a thought occurred to Lai. 'Conduit's always going on about balance.'
'People do, even if they don't know what it is. But maybe Conduit's to do with this? He's something new.'
'Huh.' Not sure how to deal with that. 'I don't even know where he is!'
'Why not use the spirit vines?' Korra asked. 'They're nearby, and connect all things. I could use them to find induivdual people continents away. Conduit should show up like a beacon.'
'OK, I'll try it.' Lai paused. ' Can I ask you some things?'
'Sure.' Korra responded.
'Can you tell what me anything about the Earth Queen?' Lai asked.
'Sorry, she was after my time. But the division of the Earth Kingdom didn't go quite how we hoped.'
Curiosity peaked, Lai asked another question. 'Were you involved in Serpent City?'
Korra sighed, looking a little angry. 'No! I'll show you.' A memory started to appear in front of Lai.
Korra was walking through the City Hall of Republic City. She appeared to be seething, but the few bodyguards simply tried to get out of her way. Not even as she kicked open the door to the president's office. President Tulang was startled from her meeting with two bureaucrats. 'Avatar, you should have said you were visiting.'
'What were you thinking?!' Korra said, pushing one of the men out of the way and slamming her fist on Tulang's desk.
'Can you leave us, please?' Tulang said. The two men scuttled out. 'What are you referring to?' Tulang asked.
'Don't pretend you don't know!' Korra said. 'Serpent Pass Base!'
'Ah, I see, the recent election? Well, I can hardly disagree with the democratic process.' Tulang said coolly.
Korra scowled at her. 'Don't pretend you weren't involved in this! Why did you kick out the Ba Sing Sae troops? And the soldiers from Joijing? Before that election? That wasn't exactly a fair election!'
Tulang sighed. 'Avatar, what do you want me to do? The Chief is already established. The only way to undo this is to go to war. Do you want to do that? Especially since we've just had another war in Si Wong.'
Korra looked at her with anger, then slammed her fist into the wall. A hole broke in the wall. 'You're not getting away with this! I want you to withdraw your troops from Serpent Pass!'
President Tulang blinked. 'I'm not sure you're in the position to do that. The United Forces have been official invited by the Serpent City Chief to stay there.'
'Your soldiers, Fire Nation Soldiers, all of them! This is a new country, so you're going to have to act like it!'
Tulang, a little nervous, backed down. 'Alright Avatar, I'll remove our soldiers. Not that'll do any good.'
The memory faded. 'She was right, unfortunately. The City just hired a load of mercenaries, paid by Republic City. It didn't change anything.'
Lai was still dizzy after the memory. After a few moments, Lai said 'Do you know anything about Dragon Inferno.'
'They came after the breakup of the Earth Kingdom – a load of rich Republic City bankers bought some old facilities from Kuvira's time – weapons factories and the like. I remember they were a headache - we thought they might have the schematics for spirit weapons. It turns out they didn't.' Korra shrugged.
'Just one other thing – are you having any trouble with Conduit/'
'I can deal with him, don't worry about it. The difficulty with speaking is from you – but that's something you'll get in time.'
'Thanks for the lack of pressure.' Lai sighed.
'Lai, it's hard, I know that. It always is. But it gets easier. Remember that.' Korra began to fade. 'Farewell.'
