Legend of Korra: Skarloey Kail
Chapter Seven.
"Unalaq is gonna destroy the whole world?!" Bolin yells out.
"He is trying to release a very powerful spirit during harmonic convergence. If he succeeds, the world as we know it is over."
"My answer is still no Korra if the world is thrown into chaos, I need the troops here to protect the city and citizens, I'm sorry," Raiko says as he turns and walks away from them.
Asami then speaks up, "If you need help I'm here for you."
"Same here!" Bolin says enthusiastically.
"Great!...Wait...where's Mako?"
Asami and Bolin look to each other with guilt plastered on their faces.
Katara walks outside two mornings later, seeing Skarloey standing alone in the open area in front of the base, taking note that his hair has been cut to only a few inches in length and is more uniform and tamed. She takes a step toward him only to almost have a heart attack as Fang flies right over her head, over the building, circles around and dive bombs right into Skarloey's body. Much to her surprise however, the dragon doesn't simply pile drive him, instead, he disappears inside of the young man's body. A massive flash of bright light shoots out of Skarloey, blinding her for a moment, and when she looks back she observes as he slams his right foot into the ground, eight massive boulders flying up from the ground around him, the first dead ahead of him.
Keeping one arm extended to hold them all in place, he takes his right hand and extends his pointer and index finger straight out, and raises it above his head. He then begins to stretch it out to the right of his body slowly, his fingertips beginning to spark, flashes of lightning coming off of his hand and lighting up the area around him in the dim light of the arctic morning. He then brings his right arm in close to his body before jabbing it out toward the first rock, as a massive bolt of lightning shoots from his fingertips and collides with the center of the boulder, shattering the rock completely, shards flying a short distance in every direction. He then repeats the process six times with the remaining boulders until there is only one left. Senna then walks out to see what all the commotion is before stopping in her tracks and watching with Katara.
"I never thought I would see the day..." Katara says in awe.
He sets the last boulder down right in front of him and again repeats the process of gathering the lightning at his fingertips, before closing his hand into a first, watching his own hand as it is charged with electricity. He then takes a ready stance and sends his fist colliding into the rock, the boulder shattering right in front of him, and as the shards threaten to fly at him he takes a deep breath and lets out a roar, as blue flames shoot from his mouth and repel the debris.
"But...that's..." Katara says as her eyes widen, remembering all too well the only other fire bender she met who's flames burned blue.
Seconds later, the two women jump back as they see Fang fly out of Skarloey's body and curl up around him on the ground, Skar dropping to one knee for a moment before rectifying himself.
"I thought the guards were just kidding when they said they saw a dragon here," Katara says quietly.
"Well you have been cooped up I the healing tent for a few days, I don't blame you," Skarloey says as he turns to face them.
"To think, another person has mastered more than one element...it isn't supposed to be possible."
"Anything is possible...however unlikely it may seem," he says as he pats Fang's head.
The group then hears the soft rushing of wind, looking up to find Oogi in the sky flying toward them. Skarloey then hears a familiar panting and looks behind him to see Izera in mid pounce at him. Fang quickly removes himself from the situation as Izera lands on Skarloey and knocks him to the ground, nuzzling up to her friend and licking his cheek. Between licks and laughter, Skarloey sees that Naga is close behind with Korra on her back. Korra hops down and immediately heads to her mother.
"Mom!" She yells happily as she hugs her tightly.
"I'm so happy you're here," Senna says softly.
"Where's dad?"
"Unalaq wiped out the entire southern resistance and captured your father," she weeps out.
"I'll get him back," Korra promises her.
Tenzin then steps in, "Mom," he says, bringing Jinora's body to Katara.
"What happened?"
"Her soul is trapped in the spirit world."
"Oh my goodness," Katara says worriedly, "How long has she been away?"
"Almost a week," Kaya says speaking up, "I've tried to keep her energy flowing, but I can feel her slipping away. You're the only one who can help her now mom."
The group takes Jenora off to a more private pool to use for healing, while Korra stays outside with Skarloey.
"Did you really fly all the way down here in the middle of the night to try and save me?"
"...Is that bad?" He asks as Izera lets him up.
"It would have been bad if you actually went through with it," she sighs happily as she walks over and pulls him into an embrace. "How did you know?"
"Fang told me, not sure how he knew. He is a spirit technically, I'm sure he still has a connection to the spirit world."
"Well, while I appreciate the thought, you forgot one crucial detail. I'm not trying to blame you, but you and Fang could have helped."
"How?"
"The avatar is a bridge between the worlds. Half spirit, half-human, Now, you can be too."
"Well, if we were permanently merged I would agree. Until that time it would probably kill me to use that much energy while fused with Fang."
"True...guess I forgot you two aren't entirely connected yet. You're so in sync. You learned Fire bending so fast that it's hard to remember that you're from the Earth Kingdom. How is that by the way?"
"Spent the last two days on lightning generation. When your teacher is a dragon it really isn't so hard. Especially when we fuse. It's like our minds become one, I know everything he does and vice versa. I was going to go for the portal but it is surrounded by northern troops and dark spirits." The group then returns outside and gathers around the two of them.
"It's alright," she smiled back, reaching across the space and taking his hand in hers. "I'm just glad you didn't get too crazy with your recklessness," she laughed out.
"Ya..I'm fine," he stuttered out with an equally shy smile. "Sorry if I made you worry I... wasn't really thinking ahead when I rushed off," he said a little too quickly with a small sigh in his voice.
"Are you alright?" Asami asked him, almost shyly. Korra wasn't used to seeing her friend like this. Asami was always exuding confidence, and it must have taken an incredible amount of affection for her to be acting shy around Skarloey like she was.
'Come on Korra you need to stop falling for Asami's boyfriends, this isn't cool!' She scolded herself in her own head.
Korra continued to back away to try and give them space, but she couldn't help but keep her eyes on Skarloey. It had become harder and harder to keep her thoughts from him lately and she wasn't entirely sure why. She appreciated everything he was doing, greatly in fact. But there was something else. It was the way she had looked a Mako only weeks before. She put her hand over her mouth as her eyes widened a little in realization. "Oh man not again," she breathed out as she quickly looked away from the two, their words drowning out in her mind as her thoughts began to race.
As Korra moved away from him, suddenly seeming to be aware of how long she had been standing so close to him, He saw Asami coming toward them, having taken a backseat while the two had caught up. "Hey," she breathed out, a bit in shock."
"Unalaq has the portal totally surrounded," Korra relays to Tenzin and the others as they walk back out into the snow, breaking Asami and Skarloey's clearly intimate moment. She was simultaneously sorry for the action and happy she had done it. "Harmonic Convergence is only a few hours away."
"Then we have to break through the enemy lines ourselves and get to the portal now," Tenzin says confidently.
"There's no use in talking anymore, we know what our mission is."
"Suicide mission..." Bolin murmurs.
"Ya know I was in a similar situation once, my platoon had crawled through the desert with no water for a week! But when we finally located the only oasis for a hundred miles. It was surrounded by angry sand benders! I realized our only chance to get to the water, was to drop in from above! So I fashioned together a catapult, with the help of a few well-trained hog-monkeys-" Bumi says before Tenzin cuts him off.
"Enough of your ridicules lies! Can't you see that the fate of the world and Jinora's life depends on what we do here today?!"
"Hold on...maybe Bumi's right..." Asami cuts in, "We don't have a catapult, but we have a flying bison and there's a plane on Varrick's ship. And Skarloey has Fang, we really can attack from above!"
"What are you thinking?" Korra asks.
"Mako, Bolin and I can use the plane to create a diversion, go after some of the defenses. Skarloey and Fang can deal with the dark spirits, and the rest of you can fly into the portal when you see an opening."
Korra and the entire gang agree before she speaks up one last time, "Let's get moving."
Izera begins to whine softly, looking up into Skarloey's eyes.
"It's okay girl," he says as he pats the top of her head. "Stay with Naga and Pabu. I promise I'll be okay." She then pads slowly over to the other animals and sits down, watching as Skarloey climbs onto Fang's neck and the pair set off. Behind the southern troop's lines, the twins enter their father's tent.
"What are we still doing here father?"Eska asks.
"The invasion was completely successful and the southern tribe is under our control. The spirit portals are open."
"You restored balance, so now we would like to go home."
"You don't understand," he sighs out as he stands up. "Everything I've achieved so far will pale in comparison to what I'm about to accomplish."
"What else is there? The tribes are united."
"After today there will be no water tribe, no more nations of any kind. The world is about to be transformed into something magnificent and new. And I will lead this glorious revolution, now go outside and get the troops ready to defend the spirit portal."
"From whom? We've already beaten everyone."
"The avatar will be here soon, she has no choice."
As the three teams fly closer and closer, Oogi flies up higher than the other two.
"Are you ready?!" Asami yells to Bolin.
"I'm an earth bender, strapped to a plane hundreds of feet in the air, so...no?!"
"Don't worry! There's no way they are expecting this!" Mako yells.
The group then flies out of the cloud cover to find a line of Mecha Tanks and dark spirits.
"I think they were expecting it!" Bolin yells frantically.
The group flies overhead as the troops ready their defenses. After a few moments, Skarloey sees the water benders in the trenches fling ice shards up at them in the plane, however, Skarloey and Fang split off, flying far faster than the plane.
Asami dive bombs the plane before pulling up and telling the boys to fire, Mako and Bolin beginning to fire bend and earth bend at the troops. Skarloey, however, keeps heading straight for the portal.
"There are too many spirits! I don't see an opening!" Korra yells out, before she sees Skarloey approach the portal, most of the spirits fly right at him.
"Alright, Fang let it rip!" He yells as Fang let's out a breath of fire, followed by Skarloey fire bending in tandem. They begin tearing through countless spirits effortlessly, none of them even getting close to them. Korra and the others, however, are much less fortunate.
Tenzin does his best to steer Oogi clear of their attacks, but the spirits quickly overwhelm the giant bison. Bumi attempts to wrestle one-off but ends up falling off the bison on purpose, taking the spirit with him.
Not a moment later, the group watches the twins take down the plane and it crashes into the snow, followed by Oogi giving in and crashing into the snow not too far away.
"Common Fang!" Skarloey yells turning the dragon around to head after them but sees the troops surround the two groups of his friends. "Too many..." he pauses. "He won't kill them...not yet." He thinks out loud before turning back to the portal. "Fang head for the portal," he says after seeing Bumi get up from the snow. "Bumi will get them," he says as Fang growls in agreement and they weave quickly through the remaining spirits in their path, entering the massive beam of light as a red flash illuminates the sky.
End of Chapter