"Asami?" Korra called into the trees. Well, they weren't so much trees as they were giant leaves whose trunk-like stems sprouted from the ground in a similar manner as trees. She wasn't entirely sure why the Spirit World seemed to have such an aversion to actual trees while being abundant in "forests".
Korra pushed through the foliage, raising her voice louder. "Asami, where are you? Sorry for running ahead, I was just excited!" She had noticed that Asami had disappeared a few minutes ago, shortly after they had broken brush to find General Iroh, and panic was already beginning to rise in her chest.
"What am I going to do?" Korra wondered. "I can't lose you... not you!" As she wracked her jumbled brain for a solution she continued to stumble around the forest, turning herself 360° as her eyes wandering the shadows for Asami's familiar shape. So absorbed was she that she was taken completely by surprise when she backed right into a tangle of vines.
When she regained her balance, she looked around to find herself in the middle of a long hallway lined with lockers. Confused, she looked down at herself, and found that she was dressed in a gray and maroon outfit that looked like a Fire Nation academy uniform, though the skirt she felt was a bit shorter than would probably have been allowed. She also couldn't help but note, after registering the sudden clothing change, that her chest was decidedly lacking in its usual plumpness, and her arms and legs were quite scrawny. Her rear was thankfully also not quite as voluminous, as it barely fit underneath her skirt's fabric as it was. All in all, her body hadn't looked like this since she was fourteen.
"Great," she said to herself. "More spirit world shenanigans. Just what I need."
Korra looked back up at the place from which she had fallen, and saw an open locker. It had a stack of books and some pictures of several people she knew from the material world, including Mako with X'd out hearts drawn around him, Bolin, Opal, and Jinora. A large poster of Asami in a very provocative pose as she sat on a Satomobile clad only in a bikini was also pasted on the inside of the locker door. It was autographed.
Grabbing the small bookbag from the locker, she closed it while attempting to force the blood from her cheeks. "Well… guess this was meant for me," she reasoned. "Only way I'm getting out of here is probably going along with it."
A bell rang from high on the wall, and doors burst open all around her. Korra found herself in a sea of bodies dressed in the same type of uniform. As she tried to navigate the flood of spirit students, she felt a vague sense of familiarity. It was as if she knew the boys and girls bustling around her, though she couldn't place the faces. While she reflected on this peculiar feeling she walked right into another student and they both dropped their bags.
"I'm so sorry," she blurted as she ducked down to gather the books that had spilled out of both their bags. "I wasn't paying attention."
"Don't worry about it, Korra," a youthful boy's voice said. When Korra looked up, she saw an airbender who looked for all the world like a bald Jinora. Aang smiled. "I was pretty lost when I first got here, too."
They both stood at the same time, their books safely back in place. Another young man behind Aang clapped his hand on his shoulder and spoke warmly. "Fortunately you had a kind upperclassman to help you."
Korra stared at this new boy. His hair was jet black, his skin was smooth, and his face clean-shaven, but the features screamed "Avatar Roku."
Aang turned to Roku and laughed. "Yeah, I guess the honor is mine, now, huh?"
"E-excuse me, Aang," Korra said unsurely. "I… I thought all the past avatars were destroyed years ago. What's going on?"
"Good question," Aang said, his brows knitting in confusion. "I'm not sure what you're talking about. The Spirit Academy Avatars haven't lost a Probending match in… what, nearly two hundred years?" He elbowed Roku as if sharing an inside joke.
Roku laughed. "You're never going to let me live down that fumble, eh? Thankfully, our most junior member picked up my slack in the next match."
Korra's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Ho… kay…"
The bell rang again, and Aang grabbed her wrist. "Oh, but we don't have time to stand around and talk. We have to get to class!" He pulled her along behind him as he raced down the halls. Korra was shocked at the strength he must have in his small frame to drag her around like a doll like that. Before the bell finished ringing, Korra found herself thrown into a desk toward the front of a classroom, feeling bewildered. She looked around the room, recognizing the faces of several of her past lives, though many significantly more youthful than she remembered, but curiously Aang was nowhere to be seen.
"Avatar!"
Korra jumped in her seat and whipped her head to the front. There in front of her was a Fire Nation officer with sideburns more impressive than even Tenzin's beard. She leaned back as she realized this was the war criminal, Admiral Zhao, who had once successfully invaded her sister tribe in the north and temporarily killed the moon spirit.
He stalked toward her, a glint in his eyes. Leaning down, he growled, "I am Zhao, the Conqueror. I am the Moon Slayer! I will capture the Avatar." He narrowed his eyes.
"Uh…" Korra said. She smiled uneasily. "Well, looks like ya got me."
Zhao brought his hands down forcefully on Korra's desk. "I am Zhao, the Conqueror. I am the Moon Slayer?"
Korra looked around the room, the uneasy feeling that she was in the presence of a madman sinking in. A quiet hiss drew her attention to her left, where she saw Roku holding up a piece of paper with words scrawled across it. He was pointing animatedly at it.
"I am Zhao, the Conqueror. I am the Moon Slayer?!" Zhao said once more.
"U-uh, I… uh…" Korra stammered. She cleared her throat and recited Roku's message. "Zhao the Conqueror, Zhao the Moon Slayer, Zhao the Invincible!"
Zhao straightened, clasping his hands behind his back as he smiled approvingly. "I am a legend, now. I will capture the Avatar."
Korra sighed and sank down into her seat as Zhao continued to pace the classroom, spouting what seemed like complete non sequiturs at the class. This went on for nearly an hour before the bell rang again, and he dismissed them with a hearty, "Do it!"
Aang appeared as soon as Korra stepped outside the room. "What did I just sit through?" she asked him.
"Yeah, Professor Zhao's class can be pretty boring," he said. "That's why I always skip it. He's never been able to catch me, either."
"Y-yeah," Korra said.
"Come on, Korra," Aang said, grabbing her arm. "It's lunchtime. You should eat with me and my friends."
Korra allowed dumbly allowed herself to be pulled along behind Aang, whose speed was impressive even without using his airbending. She found herself in the lunchroom in a blink, her tray filled with heaping piles of spirit food. "Does… does that cupcake have eyes?" she wondered aloud.
"Let me introduce you to our group," Aang said as he sat down beside her. He gestured to three other people sitting across from them. "You already know Roku," he said, and then pointed at a tall woman with short hair and heavy makeup. "That's Kyoshi."
"Greetings," she said in turn.
Aang then pointed at a young man with long, wild hair and a cocky grin, his uniform jacket unbuttoned and rumpled. "And that's Kuruk."
"Yo," he said.
"Guys, this is Korra," Aang said. "She just enrolled here."
"Uh," Korra began. "I didn't exactly…"
"So are you into Probending?" Aang interrupted. Then he punched himself in the head. "Oh, what am I saying, of course you are. You're here."
Korra couldn't argue with that, exactly. He wasn't even wrong.
"Hey, yeah," Roku said, giving her an evaluatory once-over. "She's Water Nation… maybe she can join our Probending team."
Kyoshi nodded solemnly. "Yes, our current Water Nation player has been… distracted lately. And you look rather formidable, besides."
"Wait," Kuruk said, blinking. "What?"
"See what she means?" Roku said, gesturing with his chin at the long-haired Water Tribesman. "It's worse than when he first came here after his girlfriend left him for some two-faced jerk, but now…"
"I dunno what you guys are talking about," Kuruk protested. "I'm perfectly…" he trailed off suddenly and his eyes became unfocused. His jaw went slack and his face flushed bright red. "Beau-u-u-utiful…"
"Cue the soft focus and cheesy music," Kyoshi quipped, rolling her eyes.
Korra, against her better judgment, turned to see what had gotten her predecessor so worked up. To her surprise, though given this was the Spirit World she knew she shouldn't have been, she literally saw the world slow, go unfocused, and glitter like the surface of a pond on a sunny day as Avatar Wan strode into the cafeteria, his hair blowing in a nonexistent wind.
"Oh, yeah," Aang said, quietly. "That's Wan, our Student Body President."
Kuruk sighed. "And… what a body…"
Korra looked back at Kuruk, a horrified expression plastered upon her face. "No. No, no." She hit the table with the side of her balled fist. "This… is too weird!"