Avenger Korra Chapter 7
Oh my goodness. I am so sorry for the delay. School got up to me, then college applications, and then life, and now I come back to you with the inadequate words of 'I'm sorry'. Forgive me?
SO, after much delay, here it is. Enjoy.
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The Avengers were called up to fight one day. Korra was not allowed to go. As soon as Steve disappeared out the door (with an apologetic backward glance), two agents descended on Korra and escorted her to the Helicarrier. From there, she viewed the fight.
"Iron Man, get down the block and barricade the street! These guys just need to be corralled." Steve was shouting out orders over the little ear radios. "Black Widow, take out the ones on fifth, Hawkeye, give me visual. Thor, follow Hulk and don't let him harm the civilians."
There were battling, funnily enough, fiery animals. Korra had heard them called horses, and she snorted. Animals on this world were so strange. The horses would run and leave fire in their wake, which would remain stationary like the liquid plasma Tony and Bruce used in the lab.
They were creatures easily slain, but there were so many of them. They seemed to be pouring from an unknown location. Korra watched as her friends began to tire. She glanced at a clock. They had been fighting for upwards of four hours now, with no end in sight. They must have been exhausted.
Korra started scanning the screens that were laid out on the screen in the conference room they had placed her in. An agent sat with her, young and very bored of babysitting duty. Korra had tried to talk to him, but he was sworn to some kind of silence.
There! She saw it! It was a small hole in the concrete, right next to a large dumpster in an alley.
"Hey! Right there!" She pointed at it. The agent in the room looked closely. "They just need to close that."
The man got up and beckoned her to follow, which Korra did with an annoyed glare. She wasn't a sheep.
They entered the large control room, and the agent talked to another lady in a black suit who ran up to Fury and began to speak in a low voice and gesture at a screen. After a moment Fury turned to the general room.
"Avatar!"
Korra spun over on a ball of air, just to annoy the man.
"You called?" she asked drily.
He ignored her tone. "Can you close this?"
"Heck yes. And I can put out the fires. This would already be over if I had been able to go in the first place."
Fury glared at her as he addressed an agent off to the side. "Agent Williams, escort this girl to the fight zone."
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Once there, Korra barely said hi to the exhausted team. She raced over to the alley where the horses were pouring from, dodging them like fiery bullets. She took up an earth bending stance, and with a few well-placed stomps, closed the hole. For good measure she moved a dumpster to cover the once-hole.
It had taken her a while to learn the art of bending concrete. It was a man made stone, and therefore very strange to her bending. The first few times had resulted in blackened stone when her frustration spiked too high.
Korra raced out of the alleyway, to find that the Avengers had already pretty much decimated the remaining fire horses. Lucky for them, there were no corpses left over, since the horses would crumble to ashes once killed.
Korra studied a fire-puddle next to her. It would not yield to her fire bending. She could tell that water would not phase it. So, she encased it in a sphere of air, starving it's oxygen source. The result was an interesting one.
Instead of dying, like she suspected it to, the fire-puddle melted and changed. It took the form of a fiery, but very alive, bird. Once it was done shifting, the bird looked at her with friendly brown eyes, it's feathers the shocking color of a summer sunset. She released the air bubble, and watched the bird, phoenix, fly away. It trilled out a happy melody at her.
Once she had transformed all of the fire-puddles, she headed back to where she had last seen the team. Steve was waiting for her, but no one else was in sight. They fell into step, heading back to the tower in the fading light. Steve yawned widely, and Korra could tell that even the inexhaustible super soldier was tired. Other than the fight zone, the city was it's usually bustling self. They strolled along, getting closer to the tower, not speaking.
Suddenly Korra froze with a gasp. She saw something in the shadows, something that looked so familiar… was it? NO!
Steve's hand landed on her shoulder, and she jumped violently, reacting on instinct and levering him over to the ground. He yelped, and she snapped out of her reverie, dropping his hand like it burned her. She took a few steps back, eyes flickering to the empty mouth of the alleyway.
Steve was climbing to his feet. "What was that for?" he started out hotly, before catching sight of her expression. "Korra? Are you okay?"
She nodded automatically, and felt more than saw the disbelieving look he shot her. She turned away and headed back towards the tower. Steve followed reluctantly, after one curious glance at the alley.
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Back at the tower, Korra headed straight to her room and shut the door, ignoring the food Tony had ordered.
"What was that about, Cap?" Tony asked around a mouthful of pasta.
Steve shrugged, confused himself. "I think she had a flashback or something. She flipped me onto the concrete."
Everyone hummed in response, too focused on eating and getting to sleep to care all that much. Except for Thor. After everyone had gone to bed, and the moon was high in the sky, Thor went to Korra's room and peeked in on her.
She lay on her bed, her head pillowed on a sleeping Naga's paw. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and even in sleep she had a tension to her face.
Thor frowned sadly. She is one too young to feel the weariness of life. He tiptoed over to her, sliding her boots off of her feet. Then he tucked a blanket around her shoulders, patting a sleepy Naga in the head. As he left the room, he shook his head in consternation. Humans are so strange.
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The next morning, no one thought it strange that Korra did not appear. She was a teenager, and no matter what world she came from, she liked to sleep in.
No alarm came until Steve decided to check on her, thinking on the strange events of the night before. He came hurtling back along the hall in a panic.
"She's not in her room! Bruce, check the pool. Thor, the roof! Natasha—"
"Steve, shut up!" Tony commanded. "Jarvis, is she in the building?"
The cool voice of the AI came from the ceiling. "That would be a negative, sir. Korra exited the building at approximately 5:30 this morning."
Natasha swore in Russian. Clint spoke up. "Should we call SHIELD?"
"Not yet," Steve said. "Let's spread out and check the city first."
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Korra snuck out of the building just before the first light of dawn kissed the buildings, seeking out a certain alley in the maze of the New York streets. It took her an hour to locate.
She paused at its mouth, her heart suddenly pounding and her mouth dry. What if it wasn't what she thought it was? What if she was just imagining things?
She closed her eyes, searching in herself for strength. From somewhere deep in her soul, she heard thousands of voices rustling in a soothing whisper, calming her and giving her space to breathe.
She stepped forward with hesitation, but sureness. Whatever she found down here, she would be okay. She was the Avatar and she was strong.
She walked slowly, searching every narrow doorway and stinky crevice. She finally reached a door that looked as if it had been recently disturbed. Sucking in a breath, she stepped through the crack in the door.
It was pitch black inside, but she refused to light a flame. She felt her way forward, hands coming into contact with a wooden table, which she skirted around. She heard a creak somewhere ahead of her, and her palms began to sweat.
Her foot connected with something that crunched. She gave a muffled curse, freezing and listening. The silence was deafening. Then, a golden flame flared into existence a few feet in front of her. Korra gasped in astonishment, a half-sob forming in her throat.
Their clothes were tattered and dirty, and they had mud up to their ankles. They looked skinnier, but none of that mattered.
A pair of green and a pair of gold eyes met bright blue, and she smiled calmly, even though her heart felt as if it would pound out of her chest.
"Well boys," she addressed the brothers of earth and fire. "Welcome to New York."
There you guys go. Enjoy! I hope that the next chapter will not take me so long. Also, I plan to have a few more chapters more in this story, but then I want to have a collection of one-shots started up about Korra and her adventures with the Avengers. Thanks again for reading!