/*A long chapter. Thanks for reading :3 Next three (maybe a fourth short one) chapters I am going to post at once. So that'll be it for this story with my next post probably week after next. Got work and stuff due for school and I gotta graduate college n all... :D.*/
-The Spirit World—
I just wanted to visit you one last time, while I am here again.
Toph stood next to her daughter's bed while Lin lied unconscious, recovering from her near-death experience just hours ago. She felt it was better not to wake her, as they had already spoken with each other, even if it was in the liminal space between life and death. Toph held her hand, feeling her pulse, the life still present within her. Her daughter's incredible strength that was able to bring her back from death
I have always been proud of you, Lin.
Toph bent the space-rock bracelet off of her arm that she was given as a girl, shaped it back into its round form, and placed it on Lin's wrist.
I know you don't need me. I know that everything that you have done, you have done alone. But I need you. So please, keep this, as a reminder, that even in death, I still can be with you. That those of us who have passed on are not truly gone. The things we keep dear to us, the most important things that bind us to this world, the things that remind us of those we lost, and the people we have touched, allow us to preserve those lives, and overcome the hand of death.
Toph heard the sound of footsteps outside and left the room unnoticed to return to her team of old friends outside the outer walls to the Sanctuaries.
Sokka was fiddling with one of the police radios. He looked up as Toph returned.
"She is going to be okay," Toph said, smiling. "I will make sure of it." Sokka hugged her, which Toph accepted for only a few seconds until she pushed him off. "Alright, enough of that."
"Glad to hear it, though," Sokka said. He picked up the radio. "The SPORE are fast approaching. Korra's orders were to stay on the boundaries of the Sanctuaries and help them in defending the citizens. The way I see it, they will have a tougher time taking apart our souls, being dead and all, you know? So we should act as a buffer to allow the humans to set up more defenses and evacuate the refugees." The radio started buzzing. A deep voice came through, transmitting a message.
Sokka looked at Katara. "Would you like to speak to your son again?" he asked.
From the other end, Tenzin sent out a widespread message to anyone still left beyond the Sanctuary walls, informing them that evacuations to the East were taking place, and all defenses were moved to the Sanctuaries.
The familiar female voice came through to him. "Aye aye, Tenzin We'll be holding back the waves while you get people to safety."
Tenzin was shocked. Firstly because someone had actually replied from beyond the walls, but secondly because he recognized the voice.
"Who…who is this?"
"You know who this is, Tenzin."
Iroh looked beyond the statue of his grandfather and saw, perched on the walls, four young individuals, one of them dressed like a warrior from the Fire Nation. The attire Iroh had grown so accustomed to in his youth. He knew he was not mistaken in what he was seeing. It was as if the statue before had come to life and was now summoning all of his strength to protect the human race.
"They've come back for us, Tenzin. They've returned to help us," Iroh said. He looked at Tenzin.
"They're coming, my son," Katara said. "We will fend them off as long as we can. Please, hurry."
Tenzin had so many questions, but knew he could trust this voice. The voice he had always trusted. He quickly left to find his family, wondering if his old Airbending master was also out there, defending his city.
She was. Korra and Asami descended slowly and calmly down into the Spirit World, suddenly finding themselves standing in the middle of a vast and dense forest. As their surroundings materialized, they felt not as if they had fallen from some portal but had merely stepped into this other world. Bolin and Mako turned to see the two girls, mystified by the strange feeling the place evoked.
There was no sun. The sky was cloudy and burned a bright pink color which would periodically change to a dark blue. Tentacles of some floating Spirits occasionally revealed themselves through the thick clouds, so thick were the clouds that they looked as if they could be held in one's hand. The tentacles implied a massive entity watching them from above the skies. And from the looks of it, more than one. The forest was populated with all kinds of trees ranging from extremely tall and skinny to the massive and thick. Each one bloomed flowers which glowed like bright crystals, reflecting the changing colors of the sky to produce a scene of vibrant pink and blue in altering and beautiful combinations. The team couldn't help but stare in awe, wondering how such destructive forces could come from a place so beautiful.
Bolin watched his hands as he moved them through the air. Mako held his up to his ears as they unceasingly popped. Bolin shrieked, seeing his hand smear across his line of vision as he waved it before his eyes. His vision of moving things becoming blurred.
"This place feels weird," Bolin said. He couldn't decide whether the sensation was more similar to being really high up in the air or being deep under water. The air felt much thicker, like they were walking through a blanket.
These sensations started hitting Korra and Asami as their bodies became accustomed to the new environment. Asami felt her breathing slowed and could feel it moving all the way down her throat, into her lungs, and back out again, like a million little particles moving through her.
"This is the Spirit World," Korra said, "But it's mixing with whatever is left of the real world. That's why you aren't dead yet. But we don't have a lot of time. The level of Cosmic Energy in this place is so high."
"Is that why it feels like such higher pressure here?" Asami inquired, feeling like her head was about to explode.
"Yeah, the collision of this place and earth acts as a buffer to the effects of all this energy," Korra said, pulling her hood up over her face. "But soon, if we stayed long enough, it would just slowly start peeling apart your cosmic makeup. That would be your soul, and you wouldn't be left with anything after that."
Bolin looked at his hands, a scared stare, watching them, wondering if he would see them start to disappear like Korra said. "Uh…maybe we should hurry then?"
"But go where? I don't see those soldiers anywhere?" Mako said, looking around at the many different trees reflecting the lights in all directions. Even though it felt as though they had entered this world from above, no one in the group recalled being above these trees and seeing the world that rested beyond. As if they had landed in a dark void and the world just materialized around them.
"That is either a bad thing or a worse thing," Korra said. She looked up and saw, within the skies alternating in color, auroras which would periodically glow vibrantly as if orbs of light were travelling across it. The energy keeping the portals open, the white orbs of energy being transmitted. Transmitted from some all-powerful source within the Spirit World. "Those lights above us. We'll follow those. They'll lead us to her, and if we are lucky, to the soldiers as well. That'll be our compass if we get lost. Those lead out of this world, so when the time comes to get out of here, follow those lights home. Just keep an eye out. For the soldiers and for Spirits. I don't know what they are planning to do to us now that we are here so be prepared."
They started walking through the forests. The branches and bushes seemed to sense their presence and appeared to move out of the group's way. Each member's body was trying to reach a new equilibrium in this new world and its dramatically different levels of free cosmic energy. The energy intensified the Clasma embedded in Asami's arm. Although her sleeve was covering it, she knew the vials under her skin were glowing brightly.
Mako started to develop a heightened sense of paranoia. He felt as though the team was being constantly watched, but upon looking around him he saw nothing more than the trees. The deathly stare of the trees, each one starting to form its own deformed face. Bolin, just in front of him, rubbed his hands together hoping to hasten the process of calming his now heightened senses. He stepped in a puddle of water which produced a splash, tiny beads of water floating into the air, but they did not fall back into the puddle. They simply rested in midair, around his stopped foot. Free from the small body of water beneath them.
Korra stepped out into a small clearing and noticed tank tracks in the ground leading slightly off course. She looked ahead, through the tiny holes in the thick tree branches and saw the tops of a much larger hill around them, indicating that they were high up. "I think this is them. Come on," Korra said. She followed the tracks, occasionally looking up at the auroras to get a sense of direction.
The Team came to the edge of a very steep slope. They were very high up and were now overlooking an expansive valley. A river spanned the center of the valley. Korra followed the river with her eyes until it disappeared into the pink and blue of the clouds at the horizon. But upon closer inspection, she saw that there was no distinct horizon. In the distance, the sky actually touched the ground, and high up in the clouds beyond, she still saw the tops of plateaus and mountains, as if they were floating. The auroras above followed this river, and the tracks did as well.
"The world just seems to disappear in that cloud," Mako said.
"The tracks lead down this hill, though," Korra said. "I'm willing to bet those soldiers are down there somewhere." Korra started making her way down the hill without warning. The rest followed. The openness of the valley made them feel exposed, caught, watched. The mountains surrounding them became towering sentinels as they reached the very bottom of the valley. Intimidating the team. Asami felt as though she was trespassing, and the mountains and trees and water were telling her to turn back. To follow the auroras back to the real world. That a great danger awaited her if she continued. A horrible truth at the end of this river.
They continued through the valley, following the river to where the sky met the ground. Bolin watched the water flow down the river and suddenly could not remember which way it was supposed to be flowing. He bent down to touch it, not trusting his vision in this place, and found that it was flowing backward, going the opposite direction from the way they came. But that meant that it would have to be flowing uphill, which didn't make sense to him. At first, he attributed it to the fact that he was in a different world with different rules, but he was still bothered by the fact that he was sure it was flowing the opposite, correct way earlier when he saw it, which was why it did not stand out to him.
"Hey, guys," he said. "Do you remember which way we were going? Did we somehow get turned around or something?"
"Why?" Mako asked.
"The river is flowing that way, but I don't remember if it was going that way before."
"We couldn't have gotten turned around," Asami said. "We stayed on the same side of the river this whole time, didn't we?"
Mako looked at the riverbank and realized something they had overlooked. "When did the tracks stop?"
The Team looked around them and noticed they were no longer following any tracks. The dirt ground and grass on which they were standing looked untouched. No on remembered when the tracks stopped. Korra looked back reluctantly, not wanting to believe that they had somehow gotten lost. The path was so simple that she couldn't believe they somehow were led astray. The multi-colored clouds were much closer to the ground now and were obstructing the auroras. She could no longer see the hill behind them from which they had come. The clouds had descended upon the ground and blocked her view.
Mako's paranoia increased. He felt the trees were responsible for tricking them. Messing with their heads. He saw the branches, sharp and shaped like arms with long claws. Just like a tall person. Something moved through them, Mako saw him, but he couldn't believe it.
"Agh," Bolin exclaimed, "How did we get lost?"
"We aren't lost," Korra said. "We just have to keep going. Just keep following the river, come on, let's go. They can't scare us like this."
"What if we are just going in circles, though?" Asami asked.
"We aren't, I know it. That is just what they want us to think."
"Mako, let's go," Bolin said to Mako, who looked like he was in a trance staring into the woods. "What is it?"
"I…nothing. I thought I saw something."
Korra walked closely to the water, watching to make sure it never changed directions on them, and figuring out why if it ever did. The pink and blue colors of the world they had grown accustomed to slowly changed into a bright yellow, like the color of a desert. As if a setting sun was in the sky making everything around them emit a golden glow. The river started to change, but not directions, just the velocity of the water flowing decreased dramatically. The sound of rushing water was gone, and everything became eerily silent. The green and brown forest floor they had been walking on was now dirt and rock as if the forest and river around them started decaying.
Mako hated the fact that he did not pursue the figure he saw in the woods. He knew he recognized him. But Korra wanted to get a move on, forcing him to abandon. He looked at her up ahead, leading the group into nowhere. Behind him was just more of the dirt and desert environment he was now walking through, as if they had been in this area for miles. No evidence of the luscious forests they had just passed through.
How does she know exactly where to go, now? There are no more tracks or auroras or anything. She knew this place just as well as we did when she got here, Mako thought.
So then don't trust her…the voice of another spoke.
Mako stopped, hearing this unmistakable voice.
"Who's…" he said quietly, before being met with a harsh shhh.
She will hear you.
"Who will…?"
The one who took me from you, my son. The one who takes everyone. Who only lives to harm and kill and bring darkness to the world.
"…Father?"
Mako was staring at Korra as the answer to his question. Her fists clenched. Her long, shining blade, the hood covering her head. Like a thief. Like a murderer.
"Guys," Mako said. The Team stopped and turned to face him, all except Korra, who couldn't bear to, and he knew why. "I don't think we should keep going."
Korra started trembling. Her heart raced at an extremely fast rate. Scared, hoping she was wrong about what Mako now realized, but knowing that they were both thinking the same things.
"I know you are all aware of it, too," Mako said, looking at Bolin and Asami.
"I think…I am," Asami said. "I can't really understand it."
"Stop it!" Korra said.
"Stop what? Stop us from learning the truth, Korra? You murderer," Mako accused.
"She's tricked us," Bolin said calmly and sadly, as if something so obvious was just dawning on him. "She is just going to continue this way and we are her next victims, aren't we?"
"No. I swear. It isn't what it seems," Korra pleaded.
"How can we trust you after what you have done to us? Was this your plan to bring us to you? Are we just going to be your guinea pigs to die so that you can take control of this place?" Asami said.
Korra backed away, horrified, not because her teammates were beginning to turn on her and speak such strange words, but because she truly believed their words. What they said was true, and they had every reason to hate her. Korra knew it. She thought about how she had tried to hide it from them for all these years, that she was only in this for herself, to gain her own power at the sacrifice of others. That she had been the murderer in each of these individuals' lives, the one that brought them all together here, controlling their fates since they were infants.
"I'm not just going to stand here and let the one who killed my parents get away with this," Mako said, as fire shot out of his fists into the dirt ground in anger.
Korra would have thought that Mako was delusional, if she hadn't had the memory right in front of her. As much as she didn't want to see it, there she was, standing on the sidewalk in the middle of the city as she looked now, but it was years ago, towering over the two little boys cowering in fear as their parents stood up to Korra, petrified, helpless compared to her. She laughed at their feeble attempt to slay her. In her all-powerful state, the puny mortals could not even touch Korra. They shot fire and earth, which she just pushed aside and easily swept their lives away, leaving the two young boys to rot in the darkness.
No. Stop. I don't want to see that anymore. Not again.
Korra couldn't escape the memory. She stumbled away from the group, each member, even Asami, who cocked her pistols, ready to kill her for being so cruel. To get revenge for what they truly now remembered Korra doing to them. Believing that Korra had been the one all along responsible for taking their closest loved ones away from them.
Korra couldn't stop seeing herself, laughing in a deranged manner as she watched her victims, Bolin and Mako's mother and father, burning before them in this memory. It was a pleasure to her in the memory, but a horror to see again now. She pushed it out of her mind, but a new one just replaced it. A new memory that weakened her limbs to recall, forcing her to crawl away from the group into the mist of the Spirit World. The street she had witnessed before was replaced with the inside of a large house, a mansion, blazing in red and orange and blue flames. Korra stood in the main hall, appearing just like she looked now, her hood covering her face. Realizing the truth, that she had always been this way, that any memory she had of growing up in the Southern Water Tribes, of having a family and coming to Republic City, was completely false. That she was nothing more than an assassin sent by the Spirits. Nothing more than Oni, and that Oni held the young woman by the neck, draining the life from her with every second as the victim begged Korra not to harm her daughter.
Korra looked from woman in her hands, the woman that was slowly dying, to the young, black-haired girl standing on the steps, holding on to the railings tightly, like a stone, stopped by fear by what she was seeing. The flames encircling her like dancing demons.
"Mommy?" she said, tears in her eyes.
Korra screamed while watching this happen, but only heard laughter, watching the Oni smile as the young child's mother fell to the ground, dead. She remembered specifically doing the things that she was seeing. She remembered standing in that mansion. She could even recall what it felt like to hold that woman in her hands, to feel her life being drained from her. Even the sight and joy of seeing the much younger Asami cowering was coming back to her, as if she had forgotten it. Buried it deep in her mind because now the thought of it made her sick. Made her want to die.
Blinded, disoriented, Korra could not get a grip on what was going on. The world around her was constantly changing back and forth. Like going in and out of sleep: into the dream of her memories, and out into the Spirit World. The transitions made her forget what was actually real and what was not. Confused about where she was and where she was supposed to be. One second she is standing in a dark room, standing behind a chair, hidden in the shadows. The woman in the chair being tended to by her young daughter, the daughter that Korra knew, the daughter who couldn't bear to see her own mother falling into this sick state but refusing to abandon her. Korra nearly cried seeing the scene, but remembered her feelings then, watching Lin lose hope, feeling the ordeal to be nothing but pathetic.
"Why? Why are you doing this?" Lin asked, seeing Korra in the shadows standing behind her dying mother's chair.
Korra just smiled and touched Toph's forehead, poisoning her even more, fueling the disease that she had started.
"Please stop, you demon…"
The next second, Korra feels the dirt beneath her hands, the occasional, shallow pools of water. She sees the tall trees around her, leafless, branches hanging down like hair and arms.
The light from the sky casting shadows on these trees, making them look like monsters coming after her, ready to kill her for what she had done. Korra crawled across the ground and found a puddle of water, dipping her face in, hoping to fully wake up from this horrible nightmare.
She pulled her head out and saw the reflection. The reflection of Korra staring back at her.
This isn't a nightmare, Korra, she told herself, as a new memory was played for her. She recalled the feeling of electricity charging up in her hands, directing the static discharge toward the husband and wife who desperately wanted her daughter to be safe. Giving themselves up as sacrifice to Korra, who deemed these people to be too much of a risk to be back in society. Too worthless of lives to exist.
This is the truth. This is who you are. You are…a horrible monster. An Oni. You deserve to die…
The visions changed. New memories emerged before her in the mirror of the water. Memories she felt, but did not remember happening. There was her, standing alone on an infinite plane. Only destruction around her. Only the remnants of the dead. The ashes of an old race slaughtered and burned. Devoid of all life, for she had taken it all away from the humans. Taken away their ties to this world, their ties to each other, their purpose. Dissolving it, leaving nothing but an empty, lifeless slate where she could build a new world.
The memory suddenly ended, and Korra just sat there, once again looking at her own reflection, her own face, hearing nothing but the eerie silence of the ghostly world until it was broken by the cocking of a gun.
"Do it," Korra said, still looking at the water, knowing the sound had come from Asami's gun. She felt them behind her, her three 'friends', now her reapers. She kept her back to them. "I deserve it. I don't belong here. I can't go on knowing what I have done." Korra knew they were prepared to take from Korra what Korra had taken from them. Korra did not turn around, she had no right to face them when they killed her for what she did. No right to look at them with her tainted eyes. So she stared at the ugliest thing imaginable to her at that moment.
Into the water at her own face.
Korra suddenly felt her insides sink, pulling down every emotion she was feeling at that instant. Any sadness. Any anger. Everything was weighted and brought down to a completely neutral level. Korra didn't understand. She felt no emotion now. A voice whispered in her ear, not directed to her, as if it was something which was quickly passing by. It said:
That face…
Korra didn't feel Asami's bullet. Mako's fire. Bolin's rocks. She felt nothing, because nothing happened. As if her killers were never even behind her, she started thinking they would not be there if she turned around. She had stepped out of the real time, and into some liminal space outside of what was actually going on. The light dimmed dramatically around her, and the trees seemed to be moving.
One of the trees arched over, and Korra concluded it to be no tree at all. Its branches twitched and moved like legs as the entity bent over and stretched out toward her like an accordion, dripping with saliva and mucus, the appearance of a giant, hideous slug. Korra saw the horrifying scene, but something was keeping her emotions subdued within her. She expressed no fear, no surprise. She just watched as the giant slug-like creature approached her and stuck its head through the darkness quickly.
A human face suddenly appeared before Korra, smiling. Korra was confused but did not feel the need to react at all. Before her now, a gigantic Spirit with the body of a slug and the face of a human. The head shuttered a giant eyelid, veiling the face completely. When it reopened, there was a different face. A woman's face with long black hair. It spoke:
"It's been a while, Avatar," the Spirit said.
Korra didn't speak.
The Spirit continued, "You always were a difficult one to surprise. I suppose you are accustomed to seeing hideous things." The Spirit blinked again, and again a new face appeared when the eyelid reopened. A fat man's face with a beard and mustache. The voice remained the same. "Your face changes each time we meet. You and I might as well be the same being. Many different faces, but still the same, one entity."
Korra analyzed this Spirit, trying to figure out which one it was. She knew very little about the actual Spirits themselves. But maybe one of the previous Avatars had come across this. She tried to connect to something that would help her as the Spirit kept talking.
"Oh. But I see that you are different. You are not a just another link in this infinite chain. No, you seek to break it. You seek to free yourself from it. You think you are different, that you are not just a different face of one single entity. Unique, yes? It is quite adorable."
The memories started to play before Korra again. She tried not to react to them, but she found it difficult, the scenes replaying in her head, of her standing over the dead of her innocent victims. Mako and Bolin's parents. Sydney's parents. Lin's mother. Asami's mother…
"If anything," the Spirit said, "I would say you are closer to your definition as the Avatar than any of your predecessors have been for thousands of years. Nothing but an Assassin for Daya, an ambassador that would one day lead the human race to its destruction for its failures. Becoming the very thing you believe you are not?"
Korra looked up and calmly said, "No."
"No? There is really no room for arguing here, Avatar," the eye closed. A Water Tribe girl's face appeared now with the same voice. "You have already proven to this world that you have come to fulfill Daya's wishes. Her wishes to end this race. Your memories do not lie. They are truer than ever before. All those people whose lives were taken at your hands. You have long since begun the process of ending this race."
The memories were there, just like the Spirit said. Memories flashing quickly before her. Random memories. Thousands of lives lost, murders, with her responsible. Happily responsible. Throughout all time, Korra saw herself steal, destroy, kill. What mystified her was how she was the same age as she was now in all these memories.
"How is this possible?" She asked. "How did I do all this? Why am I just now remembering?"
"The Avatar is timeless. You have false memories to cover these true ones. You have been this way since the beginning. You had no birth, no childhood, and you will have no death."
The memories continued to flash, but one caught her attention more than the others. A memory that seemed impossible to her. For not only was Korra in the memory as the killer, but she was also in it as the victim as well.
Korra watched herself charge up the lightning bolt, recalling the electric feeling in her hands, and aim it for…herself. Something was wrong with the scene. It could not have been real. Korra remembered this event two ways. She was there. The one memory, this one, of her shooting the lightning bolt at herself on the ground. The other memory was of her as the victim watching herself shooting that same lightning bolt toward her, but only to have Naga sacrifice herself for Korra, which did not happen in the other memory.
How can this be?
"The memories…," Korra said. "They aren't true."
"Are you certain about that?"
"They can't possibly be true. They've been implanted…I remember. I remember that day more than any other day. I could not have been the killer, for I was the victim as well. I was the one who died, but I was also the one who killed according to that memory." A contradiction. A fundamental contradiction, suddenly bleeding a truth into all the other memories Korra suddenly had. Making her question their validity. Trying hard to remember what had really happened to her friends' parents. Slowly peeling away at the newly constructed lies to get back to the truth. "They are all wrong. I remember that day. I was not the killer, because I survived. Because my best friend, Naga, gave her life for me. I would never forget what I felt that day. No lies can cover that up. It was Chief Qu. That memory, you just replaced Qu with me…You did this to me? You made me believe…that I did all those terrible thing? You gave me those fake memories."
"What does remembering even mean but to bring one's mind to an awareness of something? You say I gave you false memories, but when was it absolutely stated that memories must occur in the past? Who is to say that those memories are not from the future?"
"That is impossible."
"Impossible for all but a timeless being. An entity whose existence defies the effects of time. Something like you, Avatar."
"What are you saying?" Korra started feeling emotion within her again as her old memories were slowly uncovered under the layers of lies, hoping that the same was happening to her friends.
"You have come here to destroy the all-powerful Daya, the central force of this world. So that humans may be free? So that your line of Avatars will finally end and the Spirits of the Dead that are forced to keep you in existence can rest? That is a noble endeavor, but it will not be yours today. You will not finish this battle and let yourself fall into the abyss of nonexistence. Daya will fall, but you, Avatar, you will rise. The creation overtaking the creator. You will find her power, and it will consume you, and you will feel no choice but to take her place. To keep your eternal eye on the physical world. Controlling it. Intervening in it. Removing the impurities and forcing the people to do your will in fear that you will take away their right to life, you being the most powerful entity in all of existence! A human race to continue to influence only to remind yourself of your own power," the Spirit yelled, it blinked into a monkeys face, screeching loudly, then back into a man's face. It spoke with such enthusiasm for this idea.
"I won't let that happen."
"The choice will not be simple, Avatar, when the time comes. You will see that I am right in what needs to be done."
Korra was confused as to why this Spirit wanted Korra to succeed and then take Daya's place. "Why? Why do you want to see Daya gone? Replaced?"
The Spirit turned away from Korra and slithered around her without making eye contact, its face blinking into several different faces periodically. "Daya took something from me, and in the end, she was wrong to do so. She knows it, and I lie in this place, this damp and dirty place, powerless, waiting for her to get what she deserves for her mistake."
"What did she do?"
"Thousands of years ago, I was once the most powerful Spirit in this world, rivaling Daya's power over the cosmos. The fabrication of the second world, prior to your world, gave me hope for a perfect race. The connection those people had with the Spirit world gave them a very close interaction with the cosmos, allowing them to thrive while paying their homage to their creators. At that time, I was not the Spirit you see now. I had a strong body, a beautiful body. A beautiful face. I cherished that form that I used to have. My hands emitted energy I was so saturated with raw power. So much power that I decided to intervene in the second world. To enforce the laws on those who tried to evade them.
"I went into that world and simply plucked those who did not belong. The wrongdoers. The nonbelievers. The free-thinkers. Easily. A messenger from the Spirit World, I even had to paint my face, a coating, armor, to protect my beautiful face from the tainted eyes of the humans. I existed to make them afraid. Live in fear that I would come for them, and that fear resulted in a world without violence. But soon the people rebelled, and their world was wiped away like the one before it. I eagerly awaited the next world, but before I could go in to continue my work, she found me, and told me that I must stop. That I could no longer do what I had been doing.
"I refused her orders, but I underestimated her power. Daya took everything from me. My power over the cosmos. My Adonis form. Even my face. My beautiful face. She gave me the form of this hideous creature. Unable to do anything. But I was able to at least retain one power. Now I sit in the depths and shadows of the Spirit World, luring people to me, stealing face after face, none of them good enough to be my old face. Not even close. They are all such ugly faces!" the Spirit yelled.
Korra nearly shrieked, but covered her mouth, finally realizing what had happened to her. Why her emotions were automatically subdued around this Spirit.
Koh: the Face Stealer
Korra began to tremble now that she understood what she could lose if she even showed the slightest emotion. Koh slithered and looked up to the sky. Korra was not prepared to speak to Koh, but her hand fell and hit the object tied to her belt. Amon's mask. She pulled it off and put it on her own face, desperately hoping it could act as a barrier.
Koh spoke again. "But Daya was wrong. And she knows it. She said what I was doing was wrong, but she soon learned that there was no other way to control her people. The humans. They are born into darkness and only live to destroy. They will all kill themselves if they are not controlled. If they do not live in fear of us, their rulers. That is why you must take Daya's place. She has failed, and you will fulfill her role. You will be the ultimate ruler. You have immersed yourself in the human race, and so only you know how to make them succumb to us."
Korra felt her breathing increase. Her teeth clenching. No longer fear. Anger. "No. I won't do it. I promise you, Koh. I am here to set the humans free. They deserve to be free. You cannot even grasp the concept of the human. You know nothing."
"You will do this, Avatar. It is embedded within you, as Daya's creation. You will become the supreme ruler."
"No! Stop it! Stop trying to control me, I'm not your Avatar, I'm not your supreme ruler. And I'm not afraid of you. I'm not!"
With this display of anger, the Spirit shrieked. Out of its body, a long hand shrouded in darkness stretched quickly toward her face, only taking a second to reach it. The hand, ready to steal her face, collided with her mask, breaking it into two pieces, knocking it off Korra's face and causing her to fall backward onto her back. She opened her eyes, realizing that she still had them, and the rest of her face as well. Koh cried out in pain as it looked at the mask pieces on the ground.
"That face. That face!"
The hand lightly touched it. Korra rolled over and quickly drove her sword into the Spirit's arm, causing it to cry out even louder.
"What face!?" Korra asked angrily, unafraid to show her emotions to Koh.
"This face. This is not your face…this is my face. How did you get this…!?"
Korra looked from the Spirit to the mask that Amon had once worn. Koh's voice now sounded as if it had so much sadness in it.
"How is that possible?" Korra asked. "This is just a mask."
"Has she done this to mock me? That is the same way I wore my face into the physical world to deliver my punishments to the humans…"
"This mask belonged to a man who developed the ability to block chi permanently. What do you know about it?"
"He was a messenger, just like me, for Daya. While you and your past Avatars concerned themselves with the plight of mankind, this man must have listened to our cries for help. Wearing the very same face that I wore into your world. To begin the process of its punishment for all it had done wrong. Realizing that I was right, and that she was wrong for doing what she did to me. Daya pleaded this new messenger to take your bending away, to embrace his powerful bloodbending powers and use it to do her will, to take from you the very thing which makes you the Avatar, and the only thing keeping her completely locked and suppressed in that statue. But he misinterpreted his mission. His goal to take you down was coupled with the idea of a new world where human ability triumphed over the powers of the Spirits. And he got himself killed."
"His ideas were right," Korra said. "His vision is the very world we are fighting for now. A world where we can finally be free to realize our potential as humans, not as the gods you have made us to be. We are not gods. He tried to show us this truth, but in the process, he was corrupted, by your world, by her, as she gave him the mission to destroy me, as his own bending warped his morality and turned his noble quest for change in the world into an act of terrorism. It was not the humans that turned him into what he was, it was you, the Spirits, who pushed him into embracing his bending rather than his ideas as power which only led to the destruction of others and himself. We could have seen a much more peaceful world had his ideas united us rather than polarized us, but in the end, your intervention twisted his goals because you seek punishment rather than peace. It is you that is trying to prevent that peace from happening. A peace where we can be free and prosper together with our own ideas and beliefs. No. You must implant your own onto us. You act against us when you decide we are in the wrong. Had it not been that way, he could have helped bring about that world. He could have shown us what we are truly capable of without the aid of the Spirits. But you…you killed him." Korra stepped on the mask and shattered it into a million pieces.
Koh pulled his arm away and back into his body. A new face appeared, a face painted white with red lips. As he slithered back, Korra realized she was in a different place than before. Trees surrounded her again, and she stood on grass. Auroras glimmered across the sky changing from pink to blue.
"The answers may not be as clear as you think, Avatar. You won't find it to be so simple when you reach her," Koh pointed out toward the place from which the auroras were being emitted. Before her, down a small hill, Korra saw the metal blocks rising up from the ground like towers. The green grass and trees ending and turning into a collection of cold metal. The sky above this metal dark and rumbling with thunder. The metal blocks ranged in sizes like the trees. An artificial forest. Lightening conducted across the tops of the blocks. At the center of this cluster, a very tall structure, towering over all the blocks beneath it, stretching into the skies.
Daya's Lair.
"However, I can assure you that just getting to her won't be so easy for you," Koh said. "I'm sure we will meet again, Avatar. One way or another. We will meet again."
Koh disappeared. She looked to the tall tower before her, not more than a mile down the hill. She knew what he meant. Whatever it took to gain access to Daya's Lair, it would not be easy. And it was about to be made even more difficult now that Daya would have Spirits defending her sanctuary.
But Korra had help. She had friends. And she turned to face them, her three friends behind her in the woods, still ready to attack her, to kill her. Bolin holding his rock, Mako preparing his fire. Asami aiming her gun. They made eye contact with her, and the weapons were slowly lowered as they realized the truth. As they were sickened by what they had wanted to do to Korra just minutes ago.
Korra ran to them and hugged her friends.
"Korra," Asami said. "I don't know what happened. I was so sure that you…"
"It's okay…," Korra said, trying to console her friends broken with disgust for themselves. "They were trying to turn you against me. But you broke free.
"I'm sorry, Korra," Mako said sincerely. "Please, can you forgive us?"
"Of course…I had the same memories, too. They were horrifying."
"Yeah, I don't think I could handle that again. That was a rough ride of strange emotions," Bolin said.
"You guys are my closest friends," Korra said. "I need you now. We've reached it. The end of the line. The source of everything that is happening awaits me in that tower," Korra said, pointing to the skyscraping building ahead of them, beyond the metal terrain.
"What about the soldiers?" Asami asked.
"I think they are down there, at the threshold of her lair."
"Ok, then," Bolin said. "We'll go down there, take the soldiers back home and you go kick some Spirit butt."
"I think I need your help with something else, too," Korra said. The darkness contained in the branches of the trees above them started to glow green. The unmistakable green color. "Come on let's go," they started running for the tower as the green color descended upon them, revealing them to be the eyes of the SPORE.
Even as the small grunts trailed them toward the city of metal, Korra knew that Koh was referring to a much more powerful defense. Mako and Bolin held off the grunts with their bending, which seemed to be enhanced rather than degraded in this world. Mako could sweep entire frontlines of the SPORE and Bolin could uplift the biggest chunks of land. Asami noticed this enhancement, and wondered if she would be even more powerful than she would have been on Earth if she released the Clasma within her. Likewise, Korra realized this, too, and was able to simply detonate large clusters of grunts with her control over cosmic energy.
"The wave is diminishing," Asami said as they ran toward the center tower. They found themselves running through a maze formed by the metal walls of the raised blocks around them. Forcing them to turn left and right to traverse across the environment as the walls were too high to climb over. The tower was visible from all positions and indicated the general direction they needed to go.
The many grunts chasing after them turned to a few. As Korra ran toward the tower, they were met with a tall metal barrier with no way around it. Korra refused to turn around, and she simply said, "Hold on," as she launched her and her team violently into the air with her similarly enhanced airbending, soaring over the blockade. The few grunts left following them tried stacking themselves on each other to get over the same wall but failed due to so little remaining.
Korra looked from the grunts toward the tower, seeing the aisle in the maze of metal that led to its front gates. The epicenter of the maze. A large, circular platform absent of any of these metal blocks rested before the apparent tower entrance. "There, the soldiers, on that platform by the entrance," Korra said, pointing to the circular platform resting at the foot of Daya's tower. On either side, strung up on poles, the two soldiers hung by their wrists, barely breathing, bruised and beaten up.
Korra started over to them but suddenly stopped, feeling an intense collection of energy nearby. The sound of something massive starting to move toward them from the abyss that lied beyond Daya's tower. Her sensitive cosmic energy nerves going crazy at the size of the army of Spirits approaching.
"We have to hurry."
They reached the platform. Mako and Bolin quickly untied the soldiers from the poles growing out of the ground on either end of the circular platform. Still breathing. Their cuts organized across their faces as if the Spirits responsible were very careful and ornate with their punishments to these two men for infiltrating and trying to tear apart the Spirit World.
Korra walked past the group toward the tower, but realized when she approached that the ground on which she was walking just ended before reaching any kind of entrance. Like an optical illusion, the tower seemed much further away from this perspective. Between her and the tower now, there was a large gap too big for her to jump, and even if she could make it using airbending, there was nowhere to go on the other side. No door. No latch. She would just hit a wall. The tower rose all the way up into the skies, but when Korra looked down, she saw that the tower stretched infinitely downward as well into clouds below her, into what looked like a reflection of itself across a horizon. If she were to fall into this gap, she would drop infinitely into the sky. Another sky below her, making her disoriented about her relative position.
Korra bent down and stuck her hand out over the edge into the gap. Rather than the emptiness she expected, her hand was met with a cold surface, producing ripples that distorted the image of the tower stretching downward. Disoriented the reflection. As if she had touched water that was reflecting the tower. She knew she would be able to walk on it over to the tower, but knew that was not the way in. She felt it was some kind of trap. When she pulled her hand back, she saw that she had left a very small mark on the water-like surface. A fingerprint. It soon disintegrated and Korra felt a rumbling, jolting the ground she was standing on, as if she had awoken something. Korra suddenly realized what must have happened. She walked back to the platform where her friends assisted the unconscious soldiers.
"They must have tried to get across to the tower," Korra said. "It looks as if it drops but it is really just a reflective surface that anyone can walk on. But…I think it is a trap. There is something about that tower that knows when there is an intruder. If the reflection is ever disturbed, it must set of an alarm or something."
"You're saying it set it off for these two?" Asami said, referring to the two soldiers.
"Yeah, they probably figured out that they could walk across. But the thing is, there is nothing over there. There isn't a door or anything. Although, who knows if they even got that far before the Spirits came for them and did…this," Korra said.
"Korra, what is this tower?" Mako asked.
"This is her tower. The entrance to her lair. Daya. The one I have come here for. The one who is causing all of this, and the only one who can stop it. I am a copy of her, so only I can stand up to her…" Korra stared at the platform underneath her, and her words seemed to have more than the obvious meaning to her now.
"But why is it rigged so that anything that comes to it will just get slaughtered?" Mako asked.
"Because only she can go to and from her own lair," Korra said. "The tower is her pillar, the support for her domain. But it isn't the way in. It's just an alarm system. There is only one way in…and there is only one entity that has the ability to get in. That entity is Daya, and if I am just a copy, a projection, of her, then I have the ability to get in, too." Korra looked at the platform's design. Very simple, yet so tied in with everything she had learned. Engraved in the platform, two circles, concentric. One large circle, and a smaller circle withing it.
The physical world and the Spirit World's connection.
"This is it…"
A loud noise came from the tower. A very low tone sounded. The Team could feel it vibrating in their chests. Korra looked to the reflection of the sky to see it rippling, becoming disturbed. Suddenly, several dark Spirits rose from the agitated liquid. They looked like SPORE, only instead of green eyes, they had big globs of yellow all around their heads Tiny antennae placed in between each of these yellow eyes. Darkness as skin, and possessing long claws. As they rose from the water, Korra saw that they had no reflections. They did not set off their own alarm. They were sent from Daya. Not for stealing souls. Only for killing.
The sentinels leaped to attack the group, the first of blown backward by the blast of Mako's firebending. Like the waves of SPORE back on Earth, Korra knew that these sentinels would aslo come in stronger and stronger waves. These were not SPORE. These were Spirits that had no intentions to steal souls. To retrieve the energy. To dissolve the boundary between the worlds.
The SPORE were simply agents of the Spirit World. Slaves that could be controlled and manipulated and reincarnated each time they were destroyed. These new Spirits attacking the group now were the ones in control. The SPORE were opening the portal. These were Spirits that would come through that portal. To tear apart the fabric of the physical world, and build the next one around CHAOS.
"No," Korra said as Mako unleashed his fire toward the attacking sentinels. "Try not to kill so many of them! These aren't mindless, lifeless SPORE. They are actual inhabitants of this world."
"Well, what do you want us to do?" Bolin yelled. "They are trying to kill us!" The small wave had ended, but Korra saw in the distance, beyond the tower, more, bigger sentinels approaching. Gargantuan silhouettes forming in the clouds, slowly getting bigger as they came for the Team. Korra needed to act. She was not here to attack the Spirits. She was not here for violence, for a genocide. She was here for peace. She was here to preserve both worlds.
"No one has ever confronted Daya. No one but she can get in," Korra felt the platform. "I have her power. I am her. Only I can get to her. We are not here for war, we are here for an agreement. For peace. You guys get these soldiers and get out of here. You've been by my side until this point, and I thank you, but only I can go forward from here. You must get these men back to their families, and you all get back to yours. Follow the auroras, they will lead you to the exits. Hurry, these Spirits will follow you to those portals back to the real world. Make sure they do, because I am going to need a lot of energy and concentration to get up to her," Korra said, looking upward to the sky where the tower disappeared. The Spirits were getting closer. "They will follow you to the physical world, but I'll make sure to get to Daya before they do any damage. All you guys have to do is stall them and get back safely."
Bolin and Mako nodded their heads, picked up the two soldiers and lingered for a second, wanting to say something to Korra before they parted.
"Just go!" Korra yelled.
"This…this won't be the last time we see you, right?" Bolin asked. "You'll be on the other side when this is over, won't you?"
"In one way or another…," Korra said sadly.
"I hope so," Mako said. "We'll need you."
"You don't need me anymore. You don't need me to guide you. You are strong enough to do that yourself."
"We don't need you for guidance. We need you because your our friend. Our family," Mako said. He looked at the oncoming Spirits and decided to cut the goodbye short. "We'll see you there, Korra. When this is all over. When we are finally free," with that Mako and Bolin began making their way backward, away from the tower, following the auroras.
Asami stayed behind.
"Korra, please, before I go, what Tenzin said…"
Korra grabbed Asami and pulled her close, kissing her passionately, wishing it was not the last time. The alarm on the tower sounded again. The Spirits neared. Korra stopped and looked deeply into Asami's beautiful eyes filling up with water.
"Asami, when this is over," Korra said. "I won't be coming back. I've made up my mind long before this, and those that I love, their existence, is worth mine. Daya holds me together, she created me, and by destroying her, I am destroying the only thing keeping me bounded. Please, understand, and leave this place, get out of here alive…for me," Korra took her hands from Asami and backed up toward the platform, preparing herself to gain entrance into Daya's lair. Asami trembled where she stood, uncertain of what to say. Of what to feel. She backed up, against her own will, not knowing what else to do.
Korra's hands glowed a bright green, the vast energy of the cosmos giving life to this world now flowing through her veins and out into the platform. Korra looked up at Asami, sadly, and watched the girl she loved turn and hesitantly leave her, catching up with Bolin and Mako.
Korra's eyes and veins began to glow green as she concentrated all of her energy into the platform, knowing that energybending was the only way to activate the portal leading up into Daya's lair. Just like each nation had their element as the key to their most sacred rooms, the Spirit World's most sacred realm could only be accessed by the most powerful energybending, which only Daya, and the Avatar, possessed.
The concentric circles on the platform lit up, albeit dimly. Korra felt that she was expending so much energy but was only able to barely ignite the platform. She began to sweat as the platform gradually glowed brighter, but sensed the Spirits approaching behind her, knowing they were only following the auroras to the physical world just like Mako, Bolin, and Asami were. This other fraction of Team Avatar reached the top of the hill which overlooked the metal maze, the glowing platform at its center.
The shadows of the oncoming, giant Spirits stopped just beyond the tower. Arrays of them. Their silhouettes merged together into a skyline of long horns and yellow eyes. The most powerful of all the Spirits under Daya.
Mako and Bolin continued on, carrying the two soldiers, but Asami stopped, looking at the massive entities.
"You guys, they aren't coming for us," Asami said. Mako and Bolin turned around to look down at the Spirits lined up across the horizon. Just beyond where Korra was trying to open the portal to Daya.
Korra, too, felt them watching her. The Spirits. She realized they were not going for the physical world. Not yet. They had come for her. Sent by Daya to stop Korra before she ever reached her. She then heard a sound which sounded like a swarm of flies gradually getting louder.
"What is that?" Bolin yelled as the clouds around the Spirits were blacked out.
Dammit, Korra thought to herself. She reluctantly broke her concentration, stopped charging the platform and turned to emit a bolt of cosmic energy at her attackers. The large Spirits were releasing thousands of smaller sentinels upon Korra, preventing her from successfully opening the portal. She wiped out one of the waves and quickly returned to the platform, refocusing her concentration on trying to open the portal, but having to stop the process more and more frequently as the sentinels kept raining down upon her from the sky.
"She's not going to make it," Mako said. He put the soldier down carefully and started to make his way back toward Korra to help, only to be halted by Asami's arm. "What are you doing? Korra is in trouble."
"Yes, I know. But so are these two men. You need to get them out. If you go down there you will only get yourself killed and this will mean nothing. We don't know how powerful those Spirits are. And there are so many of them."
"So what then?" Mako yelled. "We are just going to leave her and let her die?"
Asami hesitated, then held her forearm in her hand, knowing that now was the time, that this was the moment she had been preparing for.
"No. She won't be left behind. You two get out of here. I'll go back for Korra."
"Asami that is crazy," Bolin said. "You said it yourself. Those Spirits might be so powerful how do you plan to hold them off at all? Let us go! We can use our bending."
Asami turned to them. "No. I've made up my mind, just like Korra had, a long time ago. That I would give myself up when the time came for what was most important," Asami pulled her sleeve up to show the green vials embedded in her forearm, glowing with unused Clasma. Mako and Bolin gasped at the sight. "I've waited for the perfect time to use this. An extremely powerful, rendered Clasma that I created while infected with it. Powerful enough, especially in this world, to stop this swarm, and let Korra get to where she needs to go safely. But at the same time, too powerful for my own being to handle."
"Asami! I'm not going to let you…"
"Yes. You are. Go back home. You have people back there. Both of you do. People that care about you. That love you," she said, looking to Bolin. "The only one left that truly loves me, and that I truly love as well, is her. I'm not scared. I' m ready. I know what I am doing. Please, just let me do this. This will give the power to save her, to help stop this. I don't care if it means my life, because the thing I will fight for means just as much to me."
Mako angrily agreed to let her go. He indicated to Bolin to turn around and follow her orders, realizing that the unnatural power the Clasma would give her would be enough to hold off this swarm. Bolin, before picking up the soldier, hugged Asami.
"I knew I might be saying a lot of goodbyes, today. But that doesn't mean I was ready for them," he said, starting to cry.
Mako walked up to her next. "Asami…I don't want to do this. Please know that. I don't want to lose you. You think that Korra cares about yo so much, and I know she does, but just know that she isn't the only one. We are still a family, no matter what. We both love you, too," Mako said. Asami hugged him.
"Thank you. You don't know how much that means."
The two brother and Asami left in different directions, the two heading following the auroras leading to the physical world, to their home. The other, Asami, sprinted back to Korra.
The young Avatar panted, exhausted from switching back forth as she tried to open the portal while staying alive. She became desperate. Losing hope. The shadow, not that of the Spirits, but that of a human, appeared on the ground before her.
"Korra, get up. Get up, Korra!" The person yelled.
"Asami!? What are you doing back here? You'll die."
"I'm making sure you get to where you need to be, Korra. You have come this far and I won't let these Spirits stop you."
"There are too many. There is no way you can hold them off. Your guns won't do anything. Please, just go!"
Asami looked as the giant Spirits approached, sending more swarms of smaller sentinels, a cloud of black and yellow soaring toward them.
"Let me handle these, Korra. Hurry! Open the portal. Don't worry about the Spirits, I'll take care of them," Asami extended her arm out, showing Korra the Clasma vials.
"It was you?" Korra said. "I sensed the Clasma all the way out of the city. You had it the whole time?" Asami stood. "No, I won't let you use that! It will corrupt you. Don't do this for me."
"You aren't the only one here today who is prepared to give herself up for this race. For the ones she loves. Do what you need to, Korra!" Asami said. The sound of the swarms go louder, drowning out their voices. Korra rose to stop Asami as she walked to the boundary of the metal road and the liquid in which the tower rested, walking to meet the swarm head on. Korra stopped herself upon seeing the light in the platform begin to dim, and returned to continue charging it, using all her energy. It began to glow brighter. Korra pushed through the pain, hoping to open it before the swarm arrived so Asami would be able to escape.
Asami looked up to see the sentinels just upon her.
Goodbye, Korra.
She was too late.
"No! Asami!" Korra yelled.
Asami clenched her fists and triggered the vials to release the powerful substance into her veins, instantly transforming her internal makeup. Instantly changing her into something else. The memories and thoughts and feelings of a thousand people concentrated in this one substance flowed through her mind, but along with that was their bending. The sentinels stuck out their claws to kill, but were completely vaporized in a wave of flames emitted from Asami's hands and mouth.
Asami's concoction proved to be more powerful than she anticipated. Soon any memory she ever had of herself was buried. In addition to her advanced design of the substance, her bending was enhanced too by the power of the Spirit World around her. The metal blocks were uplifted and broken up into tiny, compact pieces which Asami fired at the swarms. Fire storms erupted above her, lightning discharged within them, forming an impenetrable barrier between the sentinels and the vulnerable Avatar.
The bright light on the platform reached its maximum intensity, and Korra felt her energy quickly return to her. She was pulled to the ground by what felt like a strong, gravitational pull. Her surroundings became blurry.
When she felt the force lift from her, when she was able to get up, she rushed toward where Asami had been standing just a second ago, only to see that Korra was no longer in the same place. She had risen into the realm in the sky, the tower's peak. No more clouds, no more swarms, no more Spirits around her. Just a silence. An emptiness. And stairs.
Stairs which ascended to Korra's final destination.
Asami…I will come back for you. I don't know how, but I know I will. I have to.