The winter Solstice in the South Pole was coming, Korra decided to take a week off from her international campaign and world politics, instead, spending some time at the Glacier Spirit Festival. Contrary to its name, the festival was about anything but its traditional meaning of communing with the spirits. For days, large carnival was held at the capitol of the Southern Water Tribe.
"Nice shot," Korra raised her thumb to Asami as the nonbender hitting the target every time she pulls the trigger of the water-gun, winning the top prize of the booth with ease.
"Are you in the military?" the vendor was obviously shocked at Asami's astounding precision.
"No," the president replied as she was holding the stuffed sky bison toy with her left arm, pointing to the avatar with her free hand, "but she is."
Korra responded with a smile as she nodded to the merchant. Right now, they were wearing traditional blue parkas of the Southern Water Tribe, the giant hoodies concealed most of their faces. The man didn't recognize the Avatar and the president of the United Republics.
Their relaxing night at the carnival was interrupted by people's screams from the distance. Without a word, the avatar ran to the source of the sound, her friend didn't hesitate to follow suit. They pushed their way through the panicking crowd, as they see a few man and women, all without faces. The ground shook as five creatures appeared from beneath the snow, their shapes loosely resemble that of wolves. The creatures had giant claws and menace looking teeth.
"Dark spirit…" Korra said, her pupals contracted because of utter shock seeing the spirits in such twisted forms. Katara used to tell her stories about Aang fighting the dark spirits and she also read a lot of materials on the spirits when she was a student of the Fire Nation's Royal Academy, but it was the first time she had ever encountered spirits in the physical world.
"What do we do?" Asami asked.
The avatar immediately froze the spirits in thick blocks of ice, but it only managed to trap the creatures for a few seconds. The ice shattered as the spirits breaking free, one of which aiming its claws at Asami.
With a swift motion of her hand, Korra compressed the air around her into a blade, cutting the creature in halves. However, the spirit recuperated its form in a matter of seconds. The avatar pressurized her inner chi, producing a massive cloud of fire that engulfed the dark spirits.
The scorching inferno blew the spirits into pieces, but it still failed deal any harm on them. Korra was forced to take a few steps back as she saw the creatures growing into larger, more terrifying forms.
"Elemental attacks won't work," Korra looked to her left as an old woman tapped onto her shoulders. The woman was wearing a blue parka, her long hair tied into a bun, except two loops of braided hair on the side of her head. "Katara!" the avatar spoke.
With a series of fluid, circular motions of her arms, the waterbending master surrounded the dark spirits into streams of water. Then, the water started glowing. Different from the soft, blue light emitted from healing, the water glowed in a golden tone. The light covered the spirits, within seconds, their extended claws and fangs disappeared. The creatures returned to their normal form, wolf spirits, and ran away.
"Try it," Katara pointed to the last dark spirit left on the spot, "It's like healing, but instead focus on their life energy."
Korra nodded as she bends the water into a spiral around the dark spirit. Then, she closed her eyes, trying to connect to the spirit's energy. She can feel it: It's dark, chaotic, and out of balance. Then, she performed the same technique as healing, which she was so fluent at. When she opened her eyes, she saw a white wolf running away from her, it disappeared from her sight in seconds.
"Well done," the waterbender smiled at the avatar.
"What about those people?" Korra gestured at the faceless people.
"They don't look like the results of the dark spirits." Katara replied.
"It seems like I will have to find the solution in the Spirit World," Korra chuckled, "and I need to enter the Spirit World through the portal located in the South Pole."
"I will go with you."
"No Asami," the avatar looked at the president with a solemn expression, "it's very dangerous, I don't want you to get your face taken away." She continued, "Besides, I need you to form a peace treaty with the Earth Republic as soon as possible. We have a powerful spirit that's threatening the safety of our world."
…
"Here's your payment, in full." Colonel Kuvira metalbended a box onto Varrick's table. With a flick of her finger, the lid opened. The box was filled with coins made from gold. "The Great Uniter is very pleased with the destroyer prototype, and she hopes you can produce twelve of them for our navy."
"That will be 18 million yuan." Ju Li, the young assistant pushed her glasses against her nose bridge, "about 18 thousand gold pieces in your currency."
"Money is not a problem," Suyin spoke. The Earth Republic is now a full modernized country, considering they have the largest economy in the world and its citizen's income second to none but the Fire Nation, funding is not a concern. "I hope you can join in our next project. We want to develop a technology that can quickly disable large numbers of mechasuits."
"In that case I will give you a 10 percent discount on the manufacturing of the destroyers," Varrick said, "I've been having a great time working with some of the greatest minds in the world. I mean, the Fire Nation folks are decent, but your husband and your son are geniuses!"
Kuvira raised her eyebrows and looked to Suyin's direction, apparently, she didn't expect the conversation to go personal. "Yeah, I told him." Suyin chuckled as she shrugged her shoulders, "he's going to be part of our team for a long time anyway, so I might just as well introduce him to our family."
"Ditto!" said the businessman, facing the Colonel, "and you're Suyin's daughter, aren't you?"