/*Edit 5/21: once again the immortality thing, so while Spirits can be killed the fact that they are comprised of raw energy makes it more difficult to kill them.*/

-The Revival-

I have a story as well, Oni.
The story of Daya's destruction of our world. The second world.
We wanted to escape, but she refused to let us.
We discovered a power, a psychic power.
The possibility of control over the cosmos, allowing for the suppression of the power of a Spirit.
The suppression the most powerful Spirit in the Spirit World.
A power capable of killing Daya, capable of unraveling the energy keeping her in existence.
Her energy was too great for our hands alone to suppress, and before we were able to realize this power, our end came to us.

Korra felt herself slowly drift through her dreams. Trying on to something but a force driving her away. Voices. Screaming at her. Crying for help. A horrible sound. She tried to shut her ears, but she was paralyzed.

In her dreams, she thought she saw the starry sky of the real world. The moon above her on the hill. The forest around her illuminated by the moonlight. But eventually, the sky became cluttered with millions of stars, sparkling with different intensities, evidence to Korra that she was not fully awake. She lied on a dark blue field and knew that this platform was high above the ground. A straight-shot down. She had been here before

She saw the man standing in the white coat. Standing before a tall, ominous statue glowing green before her. At first it seemed that they glowed with hatred, but somehow Korra sensed a trace of sadness.

The man's presence overpowered her. Weighted Korra down, unable to move because of the gravity of his existence. His breath was like a strong wind, blowing against the trees, controlling his environment. Forcing it to follow his command. And Korra felt she was not in the real world, but not in a dream either. A connection was somehow made, and she believed she had connected her own mind with that of the beast's.

Within CHAOS. It was Solomon. He raised his arms, and the ground rose with him. Every step of his sending earthquakes. His significance magnified to the mind of this beast. Exercising his complete control over it.

The wind died, and the horrible screaming returned as did Korra. She felt like she was descending toward earth in a low-gravity void. In the mess of voices emitting from the walls of the relic hill, one voice seemed to speak louder, as if it was closer. Korra's stress at attempting to decipher the voices was calmed by this one particular voice. It revolved around her, and she felt that whoever it belonged to was here with her, in this same dreamy state.

We can't give up, Korra.

Asami, ONI has failed us.

We are still here. We still have time. The world won't end immediately. You said it yourself. There is still a chance.

There will be no chance if he controls the beast. If he is still alive.

The voices became louder again, mutingg Asami's voice. Korra couldn't take anymore. In the dark void in which she was falling, in this dream state, she pushed away from them. As fast as she could, she tried to escape them, and continued doing so until they became quieter and quieter. The dream felt so real. The voices disappeared, and even though Korra was falling through darkness, she knew where she was going. She knew her destination, and she fought her way to it. Fiercely. No more thoughts. No more doubts.

Asami opened her eyes. Her arm rested on the ground. Holding onto nothing. Had it been a dream? she thought. She was on the hill, underneath the rocks on the summit. Alone. She remembered the events of the night before, but she didn't understand why this had happened. She watched as the sun slowly rose.
The day came, and she was still here. Alive. But Korra was not. Korra had gone. Asami returned to the pond to tell the rest of the Team of Korra's disappearance.

That same sun attempted to light up the sands of the Si Wong Desert miles away, but failed to do so. An impenetrable layer of dark clouds had been laid across the sky, blocking the sun's rays completely. Shrouding the vast desert in darkness. What was once the orange dunes now glowed an ominous dark purple as if poisoned by the hand of CHAOS as it walked through the desert. Its skin began to burn as it approached the Memorial, emitting darkness which blacked out the sky. With each step, the sands were not depressed as would be expected if a human were to walk on it, but instead they spread away from the paws of CHAOS. Escaping from it. Driven away by the massive amount of energy the beast was unleashing to its environment. The sands continued to spread, fleeing from the beast as if each grain was a person trying to get to safety. Because of the gargantuan size of CHAOS, sand spread for miles. It looked as if the Earth was opening itself up for the creature, revealing the Memorial which had survived buried under the sands of the desert since this world's creation.

The diameter of this opening in the Earth spanned nearly the entire desert. The sky spiraled around this newly formed crater, its center point making contact with CHAOS as it slowly descended. The sands continued to spread out, arrays of large towers were revealed from their hiding spots under the desert, stretching across its entirety, rows going in all directions, fossils of the SPORE lining each of these towers. Thousands of fossils of the dormant planet destructors, long crystals extending from their bodies, the crystals that Graft and Solomon had discovered to be able to extract Clasma. Disrupting the balance of the world.

CHAOS stepped into the memorial, its paws placed in between the towers. The ground it was standing on, beneath the sands, was different than regular earth. The towers looked not as if they were built on this surface, but were growing from it. The beast connected itself to this surface, its paws losing its form. The cosmic energy now directed, flowing from its massive body into the ground and up into the SPORE towers. Bringing life to the dead contained within them.

The towers glowed with a green light. The green of Daya. Tiny dots lining the towers. The eyes of each SPORE. Solomon stepped down from his safe chamber within the beast and onto a small platform, raised slightly above the ground connecting the beast to the SPORE. He smiled, reveling at the center of the intense light show happening around him. He could feel the life of the planet destructors pulsing through the air. He closed his eyes and breathed in the air, taking in the scene with his whole being. But as he filled his lungs to capacity with the smell of his own victory, he sensed a foulness that flattened his smile.

"What is that…?" he said. He looked down and opened his eyes to see the young, dark-skinned woman standing before him, below his platform. "Your hood might veil you from mortals, but it won't hide your face from an Avatar, Oni. An Avatar, just like you once were."

The green of the SPORE towers reflected off of the young woman's long blade, like a saturated cluster of stars. Her grip tightened on the handle.

"Well, I'm glad you are here," he continued. "You get to see first hand the glorious revival of the SPORE, the key to fully connecting the Spirit World to the physical world." Solomon walked toward the edge of the platform, looking over Korra below him. "Once enough souls are collected and the channel between these worlds is dissolved, then Spirit World will be fully upon this world, and they will wreak their havoc on this planet, wiping it completely clean in order to build a new one over it! And you! Have you come here to watch? What is your reason for meeting me here?"

"I've come to end you, Solomon."

Solomon laughed. "End me? Hmph, okay, so let's make the assumption that you are even capable of beating me. Then what? Do you think that will put an end to any of this?"

"Killing you will at least remove your control over CHAOS. Blind it from strategy. It will give the humans a chance to hold it off. It will give me…a chance…to kill her."

Solomon just seemed to dissolve through the platform on which he was standing. He was now on the same level as Korra.

"Is that why you are here, then?" he asked. "You think your plan is flawless, but only if you just 'simply' get rid of me? I'd like to remind you how I nearly ended your life the last we formally met like this."

"I'm still here, aren't I?"

"Only because I allowed it. But I will make sure to amend that generosity. I will make sure I don't hold back."

"I don't think so, Solomon. Not this time." Korra pointed her sword at the man in the white coat. She wanted to clear the sly smile off of his face. She wanted Daya to plummet out of this man's body. He looked as if he did not even consider fearing her in the slightest, but she wanted to change this. The layer of darkness in the sky over the desert was affecting the rest of the sky across the world. Cracking it as two worlds were preparing to collide.

Solomon's fists began to glow with the cosmic energy. "You've been struggling over whether or not it is right to end her, haven't you? And yet you feel so justified in coming here to kill me?"

"You have died, Solomon. You should not be on this earth. Your only purpose for being here is killing us. You must stay where you belong. I know you've died in hatred, but you have to see, that this race doesn't deserve this end. The Spirits created life. Life that feels. That strives for greatness. Some fall, but some learn to value this life. Learn to value their potential. Learn to love and care for one another. Do they deserve death because of their faults?"

"Ah, Korra. In the new world, there will be no faults. There will be no shortcomings. We will be perfect."

"You cannot expect such a thing to ever exist in this world, Solomon. An ideal world is not reality. It is not human. In an ideal world, we are not free. It cannot ever be."

This enraged Solomon. The cosmic energy intensified until it could no longer be contained in his hands. He shot the beam at Korra. The energy subdued her and brought her to her knees. She tried to fight back, but he was able to keep her down as he approached her. "There is no one to protect you this time. No Uncle around to intercept you. No second chances. You're going to go where you belong. Far from this world, where you can only watch it burn to the ground."

Solomon grabbed Korra's and she felt herself stretching out, her arms and legs shaking wildly as her environment around her was sucked away. The green of the SPORE blurred together and was pulled into an abyss as Solomon transported Korra through space, bringing her to the prison within the Spirit World he had intended to bring her previously before she was saved by Tomkin.

He's right. No one is here for you this time, Korra, she thought as she was pulled through Solomon's portal. It's up to you, girl. Korra freed her arms from Solomon's grasp and pushed herself away from him with enough force to break his portal to the Spirit World, throwing the two off-course somewhere on the other side of the planet.

Korra came to, feeling the cold stabbing her skin, but still unable to see. It was not the dark void that she had just been in, Solomon's portal. Rather, she could not see because her eyes were irritated by something, causing them to want to close when she looked up. It was something cold, falling from the sky quickly.
Korra realized quickly that it was snow falling on her face. A strong storm was upon her, blinding her except for merely a few inches in front of her. The ground on which she stood was a steep, slippery slope, indicating that she had set herself free from Solomon's grasp but in doing so had cut his path to the Spirit World and landed them at the summit of some mountain. The snow cleared for a few seconds and she was able to see the range of peaks surrounding her. Her body began reacting to the cold and altitude. Extremities began losing blood. Her ears started popping. She stood on a path which curved down the mountain, sharp turns beneath which were extremely huge drops.

Korra looked around her frantically, trying to adapt to her new environment, almost the exact opposite of the one she had just come from. The blistering heat and vast sands of the desert to the sharp cold and thick snow of the mountains. Finally she spotted him, nearly camouflaged with his white coat and white hair in the snow, especially as it started to pick up again in its intensity. Korra was blinded again by the blizzard.

The snow wrapped around her like a blanket, but it served as no protection from him. She knew he had seen her, but she could not move with any confidence as to where she was going. His sword was drawn, she felt it. The powerful sword from the Spirit World. She could not see or hear. The sound of the wind masked all other sounds. She held her blade up high, giving off the appearance that she was prepared for Solomon's attack. The illusion. Korra circled around in her spot. Waiting for her enemy to materialize out of the heavy snowflakes. She heard the footsteps in the snow getting louder behind her. She quickly turned to see Solomon running at her, his blade drawn. She was able to block his blow, but her lack of preparation for the attack weakened her.

The clashing of the two swords released a burst of cosmic energy, bright green, soaring in all direction like fireworks. Solomon just continued back into the veil of the snow after his attack, shielding himself from the young Avatar. Korra panted as she tried to get up quickly, getting ready for Solomon to appear again out of the snow, looking all around her, hoping she would see him before his sword went through her body. She needed to triangulate him somehow. Suddenly she heard him speak.

"Unable to see very well, Korra? I'll remind you that bringing us here was your doing. I'm just toying with you now." Korra tried to find which direction the voice was coming from, but it seemed to be all around her.

In her periphery, Korra saw the snow separate and a shiny piece of metal glide through the air. Solomon was upon her again. Korra turned and threw her sword up before his could reach her, blocking his attack, just barely, releasing again another burst of cosmic energy as the swords made contact, popping loudly as the Jacob's Ladder of energy ascended. The glow illuminated her surroundings for a brief moment. She saw Solomon instantaneously disappear back into the falling snow. His blow had nearly thrown Korra off of her feet. She dug her sword into the ground, trying to maintain balance. Trying to preserve her strength. Solomon was extremely powerful, especially with his sword. And somehow he could see her easily even in all this snow. Knowing this, she spoke back.

"What do you think your purpose will be once CHAOS has destroyed this world, Solomon?"

The voice was all around her again, He somehow was able to sever it and place it anywhere he liked. "A new race must be created."

"And you think Daya will give you the honor of helping her? That is what you want, isn't it?" Korra yelled. "You want a position at her right hand. You want to be the one who architects the next world, the next race. To make it perfect! The ultimate creative power. You want to make everything in this new world your way. A civilization that serves you. You'll fix everyone to be without their own thought so they will only do good?"

"You simply do not understand the complexity which goes into the creation of an entire world."

"Maybe not, but I do know that your dream to be Daya's architect is a floating one. Once this world ends, you will have no more use for her. You are human too. She's lumped you into the same category as the rest of us. After all this, you'll be killed just the same, taken apart and thrown back into the Sea of Souls to be used for the next world. You will not have any power. Daya will not think twice about keeping you. She creates and destroys. She fulfilled your end of the deal: you murdered Graft. You got your revenge. She no longer needs to provide you anything. You live for vengeance. You are no better than the worst of us. And once she simply flicks you back into oblivion, maybe before you are completely disassembled you'll finally see, finally feel, the evil that you have helped to facilitate on this race."

Solomon gave no reply. Korra heard nothing but the wind. She gathered that her words affected her enemy. He was moving through the snow. She hoped desperately she had just convinced him, but she knew this was unrealistic. Her own words, however, had affected herself. To Korra, her words sounded like the words of someone else. A man she once knew. An old master.

That's it, Korra thought. Uncle Tomkin's training. Korra remembered the most important thing she had learned from his training. That she picked up on her own. The very thing that allowed her to progress, to beat her opponents and begin to understand the world around her.

Korra closed her eyes. I don't need them. Let the wind deafen me. She no longer tried to listen to the his footsteps approaching. Although she only saw the darkness of her eyelids, her surroundings lifted themselves from the cover of the snow underneath which they were buried. She could see all around her. The energy of the planet radiated in all directions, reaching Korra's sensitive being, allowing her to process its messages. Seeing every path and drop of the mountain clearly. Aware of everything that was making contact with it in her small radius. The stormy mountain became but an empty room to Korra where she could easily see her opponent standing before her, unknowing that she had remembered her training. He charged for her, but this time, she was ready. Korra no longer frantically searched for his arrival. She awaited it, knowing his every step, predicting his path toward her. Sensing him, raising his weapon toward her, his muscles tensing in way which indicated to Korra how he was going to unleash this next blow.

Once Solomon was swinging his weapon, Korra knew this would be when he was most vulnerable. As he attempted this strike, Korra moved from his path and deeply cut Solomon's arm, the arm with which he was holding the sword, causing him to drop it. Korra kicked it off the side of the mountain and ran for Solomon, but sensed his massive quantity of energy being concentrated in his fists, ready to shoot a beam of energy to kill her.

Korra raised her hand in front of her, a last, desperate attempt to block Solomon's attack. She felt the energy beam collide with it and run through the veins of her arm, trying to completely vaporize her, but it pressed no further than her forearm. As if it faced too muscle resistance from her to go onward into her body. Up to her heart, killing her. Korra was able to prevent it. She halted his energy beam with her own power over the cosmos, and even found the strength to push the beam out of her. She was reversing it, creating an energy beam of her own, forcing Solomon's back down her forearm, to her hand and even outwards back toward him. A bright green stream of energy now glowed between the two opponents, stagnant, struggling back and forth as Korra and Solomon pushed it in opposite ways.

Once the energy beam was just beyond her hand, Korra used her draining ability to send the energy extending from Solomon back to the Spirits World. Once his grasp over her had been suppressed, she acted impulsively. The only chance she might get, Korra bolted through the snow, against he wind, up to the unsuspecting Solomon, and drove her sword into his chest. Between her and him, the sword acted as a wire, forming a connection between the two Avatars, enabling Korra to easily drain the immense power possessed by the recreated man, forcing them back to the Spirits World. The Clasma embedded within her sword, Shoogar's sword, enabled this flow. The flow of Clasma from Solomon's body back to the Sea of Souls.

Korra didn't want to pull the sword out, for fear of Solomon somehow surviving the impalement. He stared straight up into the sky, not so much in pain, but in shock. In fear. But also in sadness. Korra stared down at him. It was a strange sensation: killing a man who was already dead. If anything, she was doing his former self justice. His eyes slowly changed from their bright green glow back to their original, brown color. Solomon raised his hand to try and grab the blade going through him, but he simply phased through it. With his energy from Daya drained, nothing was holding his physical being together. Nothing kept him in this world any longer.

"Daya…she will know," Solomon said calmly as he began to disappear. "Eventually, she will find out and try to tear you apart."

"I've got friends in the Spirit World…friends that are doing all they can to keep her from doing so. Friend who keep me alive, here." Korra was no longer talking to him as if he was an enemy. She did not hate him. She saw the Spiritual influence over him fading away just as he started to fade away. Returning to his normal self, a man who had been corrupted by Daya's will. She suddenly felt that she cared for him. She wanted to talk to him, to tell him that things were going to be okay.

"We are close. Close to the city. And CHAOS…now that I will be gone…it will bring the SPORE to wherever the most souls remain. It craves the inherent cosmic energy of people. Might I remind you that you contain a large amount of this energy as well, being the Avatar."

"What will it do? How can we beat it?"

"The beast will come where there are the most souls. Where there is the most contained cosmic energy. That is its only direction. The SPORE follow and attack anyone in its way. Once this happens, the channel will dissolve...and the Spirits will come to bring the end. Daya remains within the beast. If you can get inside before this happens…you might have a chance."

His voice no longer sounded demonic. He sounded like nothing more than a regular man. Exorcised of the dark force influencing him.

"Get inside? How?"

"The beast will release the Spirits to this world somehow, right? The world will be open. Beyond that…I'm not sure."

Korra watched in horror as Solomon really started to fade into nothingness.

"You do know," he said, noticing that she was watching him, "that you will meet this same end if you are able to miraculously succeed in your mission?

"Yeah," she said, "I know."

"For whatever it is worth, I am truly ashamed that I had let my anger completely overcome me. I am sorry."

The blade merely stuck in the snow now. The blizzard was suddenly calmed. Korra saw her surroundings. She was completely alone on this mountain. She looked up to the sky, flickering strangely. Streaks of purple streaming across it. The initial effects on this world as the Spirit World began its assault. The Revival had completed. Korra looked down and stared at the spot that Solomon had been lying on as he disappeared, wondering what it would feel like when that happened to her.

It will happen to me. And only me.

Someone else heard this thought as well. Korra looked behind her to see him, the tall air bender in his yellow and orange robes. The blue arrow tattooed on his bald head.

"I had to do it, Aang. He had to go. Don't give me your speech about life. He was already dead."

"You know why I am here, Korra."

"I do?"
"Yes, you called me here. I've been trying to contact you, but you've resisted until now."

Korra knew why. Her inner walls had been torn down at seeing Solomon disappear, knowing that this was going to be her fate in the near future. The sight had weakened her guard against Aang showing up. She needed to confirm her strong resolve. She needed to tell him.

"I'm going to stop this Aang. One way or another, I am going to kill Daya. She can't do this any longer."

"Your actions have consequences, Korra. You cannot afford to go into this without thinking about…"

"I have thought about it, Aang. And I'm tired of the unknown. I have to make a decision. And it has to be made now. Mine is exactly that. I am going after her, and I am going to kill her, even if it means murder, even if it means my own death as a result. Even if it means the end of bending. I know it must be hard for you to watch a culture die, but can't you see that these people have moved on? Can't you see we don't need bending anymore? We need to stay alive. That is most important. These people need me one last time, and after that, they will be free. They will never need an Avatar. They will never have to confront the Spirit World again. The two will be separated until the human passes on as a Spirit through death. As it should be. I'm not going to let this consequence keep me from saving a whole race of innocent people. I've made up my mind."

Aang looked sad. "Perhaps you are right, Korra. Perhaps I have been obsessed with the idea of losing bending that I've failed to realize what is most important. It would not be the first time." The wind completely died. It was completely silent on this mountain now except for Aang's voice, which only Korra could hear. "When I was young, I refused to allow the world to change, even though it would help bring peace to the world. I fought to keep the Four Nations separate, stubborn in my disapproval of them conglomerating. I wanted cultures to remain the way they always were. That was what I believed was right, that was what I wanted, and that was what the Avatar before me wanted, as well. He even told me I would have to go as far as to kill my best friend to make that happen. But along the way, I saw the light, with some help. I saw that the world was changing, and that I knew this better than Avatar Roku did. It was up to me and only me to make the decisions. We were moving into a new era, and I needed to accept that. I cut myself off from the previous Avatar. I knew this new world, and I needed to make my decisions on my own. It seems that you must do the same, Korra." Aang approached her.

"But…we've only just met…"

"We've known each other for a long time, Korra. A history of wisdom, of experience, continually growing, but ultimately ending with the realization that we have fulfilled our purpose in this world. Ending with you."

"I have your approval, then?"

"You do not need my approval. We are one and the same. You are the wisdom of a new age. It is necessary…that I leave you. That I cut off myself completely. But before I do, I will tell you this. Daya's end may be the only way to end this, but please, make murder your last resort. If there is anything that must be done once this is over, it is ensuring that the relationship between this world and the Spirit World is free of hatred, of violence, of strife. That it remains balanced. That is why you were created in the first place."

"But how do I do that, Aang? How do I make her stop this? How can I make her see the evil she is committing?"

Aang placed his hand on Korra's shoulder. "I know it is possible. We all do." Behind Aang, Korra now saw rows of individuals, ghosts, old and young, male and female. Fire Nation. Earth Kindom. Water Tribe. Air Nomads. "We have been created in her image. All of us. We are her reflection. But in the end, we had chosen the human race. We have adopted the values and customs of these people. We were born gods, but we descended to serve the humans. Grown to love them, and longed to be a part of them. To be loved by them as well. We live to protect them, now. We live to preserve this world. I believe we are no different than her, and so she is capable of seeing the same truths." Korra felt strength within her being generated simply by the stare of the previous Avatars. A strength that felt like one she thought she had lost. But in a different form. She clenched her fists, and felt the energy rush through her arms.

Aang spoke one last time before he and all of the ghosts of the Avatars disappeared.

"When we hit our lowest point, we are open to the greatest change."

The energy emitted itself from Korra's fists, but she had full control. Full control over the green beams of cosmic energy, stretching out from her body like vines, zigzagging into the sky. Complete power over the Cosmos. Solomon's power.

The true power of the Avatar.

She felt the energy as it crisscrossed through the skies. She saw where it ended. A city, far away, once again revived, just like the SPORE. A revival of civilization, but for Korra, a revival of hope.

/* to be clear - Korra doesn't exactly have her bending back, but she has control over raw cosmic energy like Solomon did. A true god.

Also I haven't just forgotten about Team Avatar :D their side is explained in the next chapter i.e. what they were doing while korra was kicking Solomon's ass.*/