This chapter is very conversation driven, like most of my work is. I hope it is enjoyable in the least.
He stopped before the portal. While he did not understand the Spirit World completely, the thought of walking through the ball of portal-ness confused him enough to halt him.
And it didn't help that the waterbending witch stopped to laugh.
"Afraid of a portal?" She smirked, crossing her arms.
"The Great Admiral Zhao is never afraid."
"Former." Korra smirked, "I doubt you hold that rank anymore."
"Then I will earn it again if I have to."
"Nope, I'm not recommending you back into any form of military. I think an ice cutter in the Southern Tribe will do you some good, Hot-Head."
"Hot-Head is the best insult you can think of?"
Korra's brow gathered, "I'm trying to avoid using my best insults against you this soon. This is going to be a long process, isn't it?"
"At this point, the only thing I see that you could do for me is keep a bed warm. You are barely pretty enough for me to even consider thinking about that."
She then stepped into a fighting stance, pointing at him, "I'm going to wipe that stupid grin off of your face and then I'm going to burn those dumb mutton chops off you face."
Zhao grinned, "Temper, temper. If it were not for those tainted blue eyes of yours, one could mistake you as a member of the Fire Nation."
The Avatar was about to begin their fight when she realized that the spirits were gathering closer to the old tree. Deciding that fighting here wasn't such a good idea, she gave him another smirk before pulling him closer and finally throwing him into the portal by means of metalbending his armor around. She would quickly follow him, ready to trap him again, but there was no need. The waterbenders of the North already had encased him in ice.
"What," Zhao started to stutter at Korra, "Was that trickery? How did you toss me around like that without bending?"
Korra raised a brow at him, not quite understanding at first before laughing, "I forget, you've never encountered metalbending before."
"Metal…bending?"
She ignored him for a moment before asking the waterbender commander for help bringing the former Admiral to the port. The firebender was bounded in chain even after Korra's protest. The walk there was quiet as Zhao was in shock at everything he did not have in his time. He felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Everyone else that I've helped had the same look of surprise on their face. It will take some time, but I have friends that will help you. Iroh said to take this chance and I truly hope you do take this chance to redeem your past actions." Korra said softly, a genuine smile of encouragement on her face.
"We'll see. It will depend on how you let me redeem myself."
"To be fair, the amount of freedom you want will come from how well you let me teach you. If you keep calling me 'Water Tribe Savage,' we most likely won't get along well enough at all."
"Then what will you do? Return me to the Fog to suffer in my thoughts again?"
Korra stopped, causing everyone else to whine, "Why are you being difficult? You should be happy that someone, like myself, is even giving you this chance. Everyone else wanted to leave you there."
"I'm difficult? You do not know the meaning of ultimate failure. This city should have been flattened," Zhao's voice grew louder. The Northern Water Tribe soldiers were quickly angered, losing their interest in helping. They stayed though, in fear of what rumors they heard of the Avatar's past actions of revenge.
"I destroyed waterbending! I had the war won against you ice breathing barbarians. Then the last Avatar ruined it all when he summoned some ocean monster. Don't begin telling me about what help the Avatar can give me. If that was the case, then he should have never showed up and you, you and your fellow savages here, would all be bowing to the Fire Lord. Not to mention how I am being lead like a prisoner!"
The soldiers soon turned their angry gaze from the firebender to the Avatar. Korra seemed to shrink under their gaze as they began to murmur within the ranks. Words of mutiny were carried to her ears as she looked down in thought. When she finally did look back up, she saw, above them on one of the buildings, stood the Avatar Spirit hallucination. Her grim look almost seemed to laugh at her folly, reminding her of her own failures in the past. Korra gritted her teeth.
"Let's continue, unless you all want to deal with my cousins." She shouted, startling some of the younger soldiers.
The chatter continued in a series of whispers as they continued through the newer parts of the city. Residents stood and stared, some aware of who the man was. Some whispered their own concerns of the Avatar's actions.
"She has gone mad. Letting the same man who almost destroyed the world?"
"The United Republic should have just kept that traitorous Avatar in jail. "
"She certainly, is not Avatar Aang."
Although she wore a stern look, the pain within was too much. Zhao grinned, seeing the looks.
"Even the savages know when one of their own is in the wrong."
Korra spun around promptly for the soldiers to react to the ice beneath them moving them away. With a sudden flick of a wrist, the old Fire Nation armor betrayed him as it began to collapse, squeezing him slowly. With another flick, he was tossed like a rag doll into a wall.
"You are beginning to test my patience. I offered freedom in exchange of some of your time to make sure you would not fail in this new world, but now I am beginning to feel that you are a lost cause. Throwing you back into the fog may torment you, but ending your life here will just remind everyone of the power I hold. I'm tired of the doubters and sick of your ugly mutton chops mocking my kindness." She then turned to the rest of the city, daring them to react to her challenge.
"Call me a traitor, compare me to the past Avatars, but I am your current Avatar. I dare anyone to come here and take my place. Which is it? Am I to protect the world and allow it to change with time? Or do you all want me to hide away until there is a problem so hard that the world desperately needs me and failure is a knife point away from happening? Until you all can answer that, deal with me and my damn choices!"
She then grabbed the man using metalbending again, holding the man above the water, "This is your last warning, Zhao. Accept my offer or accept your final demise. Which is it?"
His stern look faded slowly, "I accept your proposal, Avatar. Just get me out of this city and these chains."
Korra set him down roughly and unlocking the restraints, "I will. The rest of you are dismissed. I don't need your help anymore."
"But Avatar Korra," The commander started, "Who will run the ship?"
The Avatar growled, knowing that she could not run the entire ship on her own, "Fine, but I only want a few of your guards. I will watch over him on the ship."
She then stormed off, Zhao following.
Hours into their journey to the Fire Nation, Korra stood at the bow of the boat, releasing her built up anger. Kind words were not heard as she cursed the day's events.
"That was quite the scene in the city today." She heard behind her.
Korra whirled around, blasting an accurate aim at Zhao's face. The man dodged, barely, only to see another attack aimed at the other side of his face.
"I told you I was going to burn those stupid mutton chops." Korra said, panting. A quick smile appeared.
Zhao growled as she seemed to laugh her actions off. With her back to him, he rubbed his face clear of the burned hair and joined her at the railing.
"If it were not for your threat, I would have burned your hair off."
The woman sighed, "I don't like being put on the spot like that. You forced my hand. Most of the world doubts me now and I have to react forcefully. I do not like seeing the world fear me. That's not my place."
"Fear is the only way to get people to mind you."
Korra shook her head, "No, that was never the case before. There was a short time when I was respected. It was my fault in losing their respect."
"Are you going to tell me a long story of how you wronged someone?" he sighed.
The door was shut behind her as she finally reached his cell. The airbender was sitting in a meditative form when she twisted the metal bars of the cell he was behind.
"Come to chat with me again, Korra?" Zaheer asked.
A wicked smile formed as a wooden bowl was dropped on the floor. A metallic liquid was seen in the bowl as the airbender's grin quickly disappeared.
"No. I'm here to give you a taste of what you gave me." She said, "After all this time of being haunted and followed. All the time of being in that wheelchair and having to learn to walk again… No, this is your final moment Zaheer. It's insulting to see you live with such a luxury of being behind bars like this after all I have gone through."
The metal poison began to float in the air as the man returned to the floor.
"That's…" the Anarchist's eyes widened.
"The same poison you gave me, four years from today. It took me a while to learn how to use it, but like water, it quickly came to me."
Fear quickly gathered on his face, "You won't get out of here without the guards knowing who did this."
"Yes I will. They will not know it was me. They did not see me come in. The poison will not be in your system when you lose the fight to it. I will simply disappear into the night, without a trace of what happened to the man whom killed the Earth Queen."
"You think revenge will give you back everything you lost?"
"No. I expect nothing to come out of this but the satisfying feeling that I saw you suffer like I did until your last breath."
The metal chains at his arms and legs were pulled apart after her last comment. After being pinned to the wall, the poison slowly floated over until it seemed to hover above his limbs. It seemed like days that he watched it stay there, just above his skin. The look he took note of on her face was not of the Avatar he knew. The look on her face was bloodcurdling; her words were thicker than the venom. Then pain. He was left to roll and claw the stone and air. A distorted laugh filled the small room. Visions of the past flooded his mind as he gasped for air.
"I hope the visions are just as painful, Zaheer and unlike me, you do not have the Avatar State to save you."
As soon as he was gone, she brought the poison out of his system and placed it back into the bowl. She quickly left, leaving the guards to rush into the cell, finding him left on the floor.
She shook her head again, "I'd rather not talk about it. It is in the past and now I am trying to correct the bond between us and the Spirits. Since the portals are open, there is no need for the Lost to remain in the valley. This new town is important to me and I need you to help me with not destroying my progress."
"So this town is thriving?"
Korra smiled, "It is, for the most part. I had lots of minds to convince but overall, the people I brought back are grateful. I can go into Chongsheng and be happy for something good I did."
"An Avatar to fear seems interesting enough though." Zhao smiled wickedly, "Seems better fitted for you."
The Avatar sighed, fixing her braided bun, "You are going to ruin this for me, aren't you?"
"Perhaps, but like you, I do not have much choice on where to go. You even said that we're surprising the Fire Lord with my sudden appearance."
"I did… and I'm dreading that conversation." Korra pouted as she continued, "I figured I'd just show and they'd take you back, but in the back of my mind I know that I'll probably be stuck with you for some time."
The Avatar would then lean on the railing, "I'm going to hate myself in a couple of days. I just know it."
Days later, the ship arrived just outside of the capital city's port. They were awaiting permission to come into port. The men in the hull were on edge as the Avatar insisted in staying there until their permission was granted. She was beginning to drive them all mad with her finger tapping and pacing.
"This is the Fire Nation Port Authority, please respond." The radio went off.
"This is ship 'Evening Sky.'"
"Permission is granted to port, 'Evening Sky.' Please forward message to Avatar Korra that her request to meet with the Fire Lord in the morning has been granted."
"Affirmative. Message will be passed."
Korra let out a shout of joy before bolting to her room. With all of her belongings gathered, she then went to find Zhao.