Despite the decades since the Hundred Year War, a Fire Nation airship landing in the Southern Water Tribe always brought with it a sense of tension. Even more so if it was unannounced.
The children, the elderly and the non-benders were all informed to take shelter immediately. They were a little ways off from civilisation, but there were still a few settlements in the immediate vicinity. In response, a small group of the village's more capable warriors stepped forward, the nervousness on their faces even visible amidst the frost.
As the vehicle came to ground with a rather ungraceful landing, the passenger compartment slowly opened. There were a few moments of frigid silence, before the burning remnants of the young pilot were tossed out onto the snow. Her bone fragments soon scattered away in the icy wind.
Taking advantage of the landing party's horror, Azula let loose a shower of flames. Much to her displeasure it only managed cut through two of them. She groaned as the cold conditions combined with the pain of her overexerted body caused her bending to fall below par.
Not one to be beaten, she dashed forward and tackled the first waterbender she came across; a rather beefy individual whose strength would have easily snapped her frail form, if she didn't happen to cough up a whole slew of fire and turn his skull into soup.
The remaining two were agile little things, and soon Azula found herself getting battered with what felt like an endless barrage of water and ice, the pressure sending her flying across the snow, her old bones close to cracking from the impact.
"Disgusting peasants!" she hissed.
Forcing herself to her feet, she raised a hand and began to channel all the remaining warmth in her body to her palm. This sensation, the power that came from splitting the atoms in the air, taking hold of the forces of nature, bending it to her will...
Oh yes, she had missed this.
With a murderous flare in her eyes, lightning poured forth from her fingertips.
Korra and Zuko had expected civilians to be fleeing in terror and a rapid-fire military response to the arrival of the former Princess. Instead, all that was left to greet them upon their arrival to the Southern Water Tribe was a graveyard.
The frozen surroundings had just about managed to quell the flames that had soaked through the settlements, but no amount of snow could disguise the bodies that lay lifeless in the cold. Young and old, their bodies blown to pieces.
It was a sight Korra knew she would be seeing in her nightmares.
"So many snatched away...to think for a time I truly had forgotten just what she was capable of," Zuko lamented. Behind him, several of his personal guard came funnelling out of the zeppelin, scanning the devastation in hopes of survivors.
"We...can't be thinking about that now," Korra choked out as she swallowed the lump in her throat. "We don't have a lot of time left, she might already be at the portal."
"Go. We will spread out to the surrounding villages and set up defensive perimeters. If she's already made it to the Spirit World...it's up to" he said, placing his worn hands on her shoulders. "Hold nothing back, you cannot give her an inch, otherwise it will be the end of us all."
Korra nodded before letting out a whistle. Heavy thuds filled the cold night as out of the zeppelin appeared the beautiful white fur of Naga. Skidding beside her beloved companion, Korra leaped onto the hybrid's back, eyes already set towards their destination.
"I won't fail."
The whole place made her stomach turn, like she had just slipped into a lucid dream. The colours, the way it affected her senses, how the air seemed to crackle in her very presence, it made her insides shiver.
Azula had no record of how long she had been walking, but then again the passing of moments had become a broken concept since her incarceration. Her battered legs eventually came to a stop, feeling the shadow of the monument before her swallow her whole. It was even more awe-inspiring than any whispers could ever hope to describe.
"The Tree of Time."
What was once Vaatu's prison was now vacant, unguarded and very much for the taking. Trudging towards the sacred flora, Azula began to feel the weight of herself for the first time in decades. That tiny room of dark and damp had quelled her flames, dulled her beauty, and robbed her of any and all lustre that once radiated off her body like the sun. She scooped a couple of fallen strands of grey hair and peered at them with disdain.
"Not long now," she hissed as she approached the base of the tree. "I'll taste my youth again before the dawn breaks."
"Don't count on it!"
The gust felt like a hammer, and when it struck her side, Azula was taken along by its current, crashing to the earth unceremoniously. Coughing out the pain, her instincts kicked in and forced her back to her feet. Good thing too, since the earth began to spit up random pillars that just barely missed her flesh.
With a snarl and snap of her hand, blue flame blanketed her horizon, giving her a moment to recover and set her sights on her attacker. She growled as Korra stood before her, her body low to the ground, immovable like a mountain.
"The Avatar. I see you finally hit puberty, look how manly you've become," she scoffed.
"It's over Azula, you're not setting a foot inside the Tree of Time," Korra responded, earning her a sharp cackle.
"I see you're just as high-strung as you were when you had an arrow tattooed on your head. Well, listen up new blood, whatever advantage you think you have over me, you can forget. I was setting cities ablaze long before you were wetting yourself in the snow."
"Oh, I don't know about that." Korra said as she swerved her feet to the side and reached deep inside herself and the ground below. "The way I hear it, you were getting stomped by Zuko and Katara even back in your heyday. Tell me, how does it feel to know you lost so badly? To be worse than a peasant" she said slowly, letting the words dig in like a razor's edge. "To be nothing."
Hatred and fire consumed Azula's eyes, and with haggard cry and let loose a vicious amount of fire from her palm. It did little to change Korra's expression, who brought her entire body up in a surging motion, causing a wide wall of earth to ride up and nail itself into Azula's midsection, redirecting her flames and sending her flying once again.
"You...brat!"
Even mid-fall, the flames kept coming, but Korra was still a step ahead, weaving through and countering with short bursts of air as well as shielding herself with barriers of stone. Eventually, she closed the distance and let her fists fly.
Still stunned from the pain in her abdomen, the first punch made its mark and nearly knocked Azula's jaw off. However, it didn't take her long to respond. Even at such close distance, she didn't hesitate to let loose her flames. Trying to pin down the Avatar and scar her flesh, but it wasn't that easy.
"You're weak Azula," Korra said before countering her fire-laced punch with another burst of airbending, pushing Azula onto her back once again. "Whatever you were in Aang's time is long past, you don't have a hope against me" she warned.
The look on Azula's face was closer to that of an animal than an older woman. Grasping for oxygen, she just about brought herself to her swollen and scalded feet.
"What I was?" she hissed. Her flames didn't seem to be responding to her, but still she persisted in trying to conjure that beautiful blue. "What I was...what I am...is royalty. I am the true Fire Lord, the one who brought down Ba Sing Se. I was the one who killed the Avatar," she howled as the flames began to grow, coating her arms and even licking at her face. "I am Azula! Princess of the Fire Nation! And I demand that you BURN!"
The flames were intense, eating the air before Korra, She could feel strands of her dark hair singe. Everything before her eyes spelled doom, but still she did not falter. A harsh breath before she took a new stance, one that she had practised since she was a child. Brilliant orange flames embracing her own hand. With a mighty battle cry she let loose a stream of firebending, meeting its blue opposition head on and resulting in a titanic clash of flames. It was a spectacle to behold, but one that didn't last more than a second.
As Azula struggled to maintain the ferocity of her attack, she felt a familiar fear swell in her gut. Before she could identify it, her own flames began to fade before the overwhelming might of her opponent's, one whose eyes began to glow with the light of a thousand suns. Imbued by the Avatar State, Korra's firebending soon devoured all before it, scorching through earth, cloth and screams.
The heat soon dispersed, as did the light in Korra's eyes. Walking along the scorched ground, no sign of hesitance in her face, she approached the slouching Azula. Her fists still clenched in case the elderly escapee hadn't had her fix yet. Though from the way her body had crumpled to the ground and was layered with fresh burns, she doubted that would be happening.
"It's over."
The words were final, spoken with absolute authority, and earned something of an unexpected response. A low, grading sound that erupted from the back of Azula's throat. It grew and grew in volume until she realised that the old woman was actually crying. It was a pitiful look that Korra wasn't used to, and the last thing she had thought someone of Azula's infamy would fall to.
"It's not fair..." she borderline wept as she looked up at the Avatar, now appearing older than ever. "I had it all. I had the world. I was respected and feared...and now I am less than mud! I live inside my own grave! Never allowed to taste the open air, never allowed to see the shores of my home! I've been tortured by time, eaten away by the years!" she screamed as she hammered at the earth. "The world cannot do this to me!"
In truth, Korra didn't know what to feel. The sight of this elderly woman expressing such sorrow was something that would have earned her full captivation, yet she knew who she was facing, and so still kept a defensive front up. She did, however, take a long stride forward towards her.
"Come on, I'm taking you back," she warned.
"...Back?"
Azula's eyes peered up, and while they were consumed by tears and droplets of blood, she none the less held the look of a fearsome beast. Her nails broke as she gripped the ground beneath, clenching the scorched earth.
"The only thing I'm going back to...is my birthright!" she snapped as she swung her arm up, and from along her fingers came the crackle of electricity, a wave of lightning bursting forth.
Korra's eyes widened. Years of facing down the worst the world had to offer made her wary of when an opponent went down, whether they had been truly defeated or were just a caged beast waiting for a chance to bite the hand of mercy. It had been a lesson of hard knocks, but one that had sharpened her reflexes on a whole other level. Almost without thinking, she leaned back while bringing up her right knee, the vigorous motion causing a small pillar of earth to sprout from the ground and strike Azula's wrist. A snap was heard, but there was no time for screams as the disjointed hand veered off, the lightning following like a loyal dog.
Only to head right into the heart of the Tree of Time, where its ancient bark began to combust.
The aftermath was filled with shimmering light, piercing sound, and a shock-wave that sent Korra flying back like a rag doll. Azula on the other hand, was anchored in place. As the tree itself began to splinter, a pulsating energy began to spill out like someone had shattered a cauldron, its otherworldly contents pouring forth with the lone strand of lightning acting as the tether. The force was indescribable. Korra could barely see as her eyes were assaulted by the unnatural light, but she just about spotted Azula's frame, stranded like an island amidst a storm. If she was screaming it was impossible to hear. But like all storms, it soon ended, leaving Korra gasping for breath as she tried to muster the strength to stand. The entire area looked like it had hosted a war. Craters and large patches of burnt earth as far as she could see, but in all honesty it was mere commodities compared to the tree itself.
"Oh no..."
What had once been a grand structure stretching far and wide was now a broken husk, with many of its branches missing. A pale imitation of its former splendour, now reduced to a smouldering wreck by the hands of the living.
She felt a hole form in her heart as she gazed on the ruination of such a precious piece of the Spirit World, and knew that she had had a hand in it. Her sadness shifted to rage as she looked for the one responsible, only to see that Azula had vanished from sight.
Korra swerved herself around, desperately looking across the landscape, but not another soul was in sight, only faint remnants of smoke. She growled like a wounded wolf.
"Azula!" she snapped as she continued to make her way forward, raising her guard again. "There's no point in hiding! Come on out and face me!" she snapped, though part of her was starting to doubt that anyone could have survived such a thing. No, the firebender was too slippery to be taken so easy. "AZULA!"
"Who's hiding?"
The kick came out of nowhere. Even when the shadow of the limb came into Korra's view, it was too late to stop it. Her reflexes acted out once again and she raised her arms to defend, only to feel like she had just been struck by a metalbender. Air left her lungs as she was launched backwards, her face kissing the ground, her vision blurred. With strained eyes, the fluctuating figure before her stepped into view.
The remains of the rags she had worn were still drenched over her body, though needless to say her flesh had filled out immensely, her prisoner's attire now laced to her sturdy frame. Even from such a distance it was clear that barely any of it was fat, rather all of it seemed to be toned muscle forged from rigorous training and pure genetics. What was once wrinkled was now smoothed, and what was once grey had now become a deep auburn. But above all else, what had changed the most was her mouth, as it was now curved into a smile unlike Korra had ever seen.
"A...Azula?" she coughed out.
The smile deepened, followed by a heel coated in hellish flames.