Out of Eden Pt. 1: The Garden

Korra cut her way through some of the thick brush. It felt as though she had been walking in this forest for a while, but the sun never moved across the sky. Everything looked like the type of place she would find in the physical world. It even felt like she had been here before.

Wait. Does this mean it happened? Does this mean I am dead?

Korra didn't receive any answer this time. Her mind no longer tapped by Daya. It felt like freedom. It felt like things were over. But she could not be sure without seeing what the physical world looked like, and even if she did, how could she trust it?

Daya…I acted too soon. I never gave you a chance to see things the way I saw them.

Korra eventually stepped out of the rainforest and onto a dirt path which looked like it had been taken very frequently. Pounded deep into the earth by human footsteps. She followed the path as it gradually widened into more of a road. Playing in the middle of the road, a young boy with is hood up sat on the ground. Small figurines of odd creatures in his hands. Korra heard him making little explosion sounds with his mouth as he crashed two figurines resembling giant birds together. The young boy had a hood with a gold spiral on the back. He sensed Korra's footsteps and turned to look at her.

"Hi there!" he said cheerfully. He removed his hood to reveal the face of a dark-skinned boy a few years younger than Korra. "You must be Korra. Nice to meet you. I'm Shoogar," the boy said, holding his arm out after standing up.

Korra shook his hand. "Nice to meet you, Shoogar…how'd you know my name? Am I still in the Spirit World or…"

"Well, it's over now. You must be hungry. Come with me! I'll make you something to eat at my house. It's just down the path on the next platform. Come on!" The boy said, then took off before Korra could say anything. She ran after him. Sprinting to catch up with him. He was incredibly fast. She had never seen anyone run so fast, but was puzzled when she got tired. Why would she get tired if she was dead? And why would she need food? Or even be hungry? Or even have a body to inhabit? It seemed weird to her, unless this was just all in her head, that dying is just a prolonged dream that you live in.

Korra distracted herself with these thoughts and nearly ran right over the edge of a cliff. She stopped herself by holding onto a tree and swinging herself backward. Over the edge of the cliff she saw various chunks of land appearing to be floating. The ground on which she was standing was one of these chunks of earth as well. They all floated above an abyss glowing green, bursts of energy shooting out of the void and striking each of the platforms periodically.

"The energy of the other world below us keeps us afloat. Keeps us in existence. We depend on it to live. My house is on that one," Shoogar said, pointing to a floating mass of earth, the top layered with grass. A small cottage built over the grass, the only structure occupying that particular floating land.

"The Spirit World?" Korra said, looking down at the glowing green below here. "How is it there? I thought we were already in the Spirit World, unless that is just some huge collection of cosmic energy…?"

"You know, we'd die without it. Also, it keeps things afloat. Even you and me, if you do it right. Usually we have to ride the Tyvens to get from platform to platform, but they can be so unpredictable and are painfully slow. They look like giant birds and they always take so long because they fly so carefully and gently. Plus the way their bodies work is if they come into contact with the cosmic energy they lose all their skin and feathers and organs. They just become skeletons, still able to fly of course. The cosmic energy allows for that. But still it's just creepy and uncomfortable. I know a better way, though. To navigate the platforms. You gotta be quick, but otherwise it is really easy. The energy below us detects the heat in our bodies so it will flare up but you just gotta like bounce off it by pressing against it with your feet like it is a wall, okay? Okay here is one let's go!" he took Korra leaped off the edge.

Korra felt her stomach in her throat, which was terrifying and exhilarating given that she thought she would never feel anything again just a short time ago.

"Prepare yourself, Oni!" Shoogar yelled, as a blast of cosmic energy flared up, launching him upward into the air. She only heard his joyful screams as he went soaring in the direction of his house. Korra continued to fall, hitting terminal velocity, now alone, hoping it wasn't too late to save herself. Below her, a bright light flashed from the green abyss, and a beam of energy shot up toward her. Trying to mimic Shoogar's actions, Korra stuck her feet out and pressed off against the rising energy, but was slightly off-balance. She was flung up into the air, but not in a smooth fashion like Shoogar. She went spinning in circles as she soared toward her destination, landing painfully on her back next to the young boy waiting patiently.

"Nice one!" He said. "Those were some cool flips you were doing. You almost landed them."

Korra sat up and straightened her back, hearing it crack several times. "What did you…what did you call me back there…?"

"I know what will make you feel better," Shoogar interrupted, as if he didn't hear her. "I'll make us some food. A home-favorite. You'll love it and it'll fill you right up."

Korra wondered why she was feeling hungry. Why she was feeling pain. Anything. If she was supposed to be dead. It didn't feel like a dream. It felt like she was missing something. She stood up and saw Shoogar run away from her and up a small hill. The platform hovering over the cosmic energy below was quite small, only containing a single house on the surface. Shoogar's home. Wooden steps leading up the side of the hill to the front door. Several trees and plants and flowers surrounding the quaint, wooden house.

"This is where you live?" Korra asked. She heard no answer. She walked in the front door and sat at a small, dining table. He was expecting her. The table was set with plates and silverware for eating. Two glasses filled with water.

"I'll be right there, Oni. I'm just getting the meat and trays from the backroom."

Korra didn't respond. It did not ever feel like she was actually talking to the boy when she tried. Like he just didn't understand her words, or he would start talking about something else when she asked a question. Just a feeling of hearing her own words out loud, but no one else hearing them.

Is this death?

She looked at the glasses on the table filled with water and a strange sensation overcame her. It felt similar to how she felt around liquid when she could waterbend, only it was a much deeper connection with the substance this time. Like its inner structure was so visible to her. She could feel each and every molecule flowing around within it. As she moved her hand across the table, she saw the water level rise and fall slowly, but perfectly synchronized with the motion of her hand.

It can't be.

Korra lifted her hand into the hair, and the water rose out of the glass with it. Into the air before her, a contained sphere of clear water floating, swirling, kept bounded together by Korra's connection to the cosmic energy so prevalent in this world. She stared at the sphere and gently put her hand down, but the sphere did not move this time. She was no longer controlling it with her hands, with any motion of her body. She was just watching it, speaking to it, telling it to stay levitated where it was. No requirements from her hands, only her mind. The outlying speckles of water merged with the larger sphere, it stopped swirling. It looked like a glass ball. She started to freeze it, telling each component to solidify and bind with the other atoms.

Korra smiled. It was nothing like waterbending, the control she had over this sphere now. It was completely obedient to her. She reached her hand out and the sphere gently descended into her palm. It was heavy.

Too heavy

The ball suddenly became lighter. A small cloud of vapor emitted.

What else?

Korra looked around the kitchen. Each door of each cabinet opened gently for her to see in when she merely looked at it and psychically told it what to do . Then it closed when she looked away, just as she wanted. In the corner of the room was a trashcan with a broken vase inside it. Korra, sitting at the table, told each piece of the broken vase to rise from the waste basket. The pieces quickly shot up into the air, levitating, and combined back together with a quick swoosh, like pieces of a puzzle, reattaching the broken bonds and once again becoming a beautiful ornament, unbroken. Not even a single crack. She guided it back onto the counter.

Amazed and mystified by this incredible power she now possessed, Korra looked at the ice ball sitting in her hand and wondered how far her new powers could reach. She heard objects around her begin to shake lightly as she stared hard into the ball. Deep into its center. The distorted image of the kitchen looking through the ice turned into a different image. Korra stared harder, focusing her energy, and the image became clearer. She became immersed in the ball. No longer feeling herself in the boy's house any longer. In the sky of a new world looking down on a city. On abandoned streets. On masses of people in movement. A movement driven by the masses of dark figures with green eyes standing just beyond the walls. Standing still, but still standing.

SPORE. They were supposed to be gone.

Beyond the SPORE, Korra saw the glowing orb, the radius of which consuming about three blocks of the city. The portal revolving around CHAOS. Another sphere, just like the one she was looking into now. She looked into this new sphere, the portal into this world and saw herself, here in this kitchen. Here in the Spirit World.

The Spirit World. The portal is still there. I'm not dead. This isn't over, Korra realized.

There is only one way this can end, Oni.

The voice caused Korra dropped the ice sphere hard onto the table, and noticed several objects in the kitchen that had been levitating due to her power radiating. They all suddenly dropped at once around her. She had heard the voice, not her own, but it was within her own head. As if she was telling herself these things.

Standing up quickly, Korra turned behind her, feeling eyes upon her. Feeling movement around her. Like something slithering across the kitchen floor and into the next room.

"I'll be right there," Shoogar's voice echoed, but Korra knew who Shoogar was, and this boy was not him. Not him because this boy was just a proxy, an avatar, a body to use by the spirit who didn't have one of her own. Korra stormed into the other room just in time to see the darkness on the ground clear away and become the shadows and dark spots behind the furniture.

Daya

"What are you doing?" Shoogar asked, standing behind Korra, back in the kitchen, holding a tray with nothing on it. "I brought you food."

"What is going on here? Who are you?"

"Have you tried this before?" He asked, completely oblivious to her question. He looked to the counter. "Oh, my vase is fixed. Do you want to know how I got this?"

Korra was confused. Shoogar would refuse to answer her questions. He would not even acknowledge them. She did not know how to interrogate him and bring Daya out here until it hit her that this was Daya. Daya was manifesting herself as this boy, in this world. The boy wouldn't respond because he did not understand. It was just like before. Daya could not understand Korra when she spoke. The concept made no sense, as Korra and Daya were one and the same. Now that they were in the same world, the same realm, Korra could not use words to speak to her.

You are not fooling me, Daya. I know it's you.

Shoogar lost his smile and dropped the bare tray to the floor. He cracked his neck in a disturbing way then showed his eyes. Her eyes. They glowed green. Shoogar smiled.

Mm, you are powerful. Oh, yes you are.

Where am I?

You ask me questions you need ask no one else but yourself. A simple test. To get an idea of what you are capable of. Your power, as well as your mind. You see? You see what incredible power you possess? My power. You see how you could change so much, to be exactly what you want?

Korra drew her sword.

I won't be corrupted by this power you've given me.

You have always had this power. You have always been my reflection.

Korra ran to Daya, possessing Shoogar's body.

I don't believe you.

Yes. Attack. Use all of your strength, so that you can understand its infinite capabilities! Come!

Shoogar raised his arms. The ground shook like an earthquake. All around Korra, massive trees quickly sprouted from the ground, bursting through the floors and growing up toward the sky. Growing incredibly fast all around her. The branches of each tree extended downward toward Korra. The ends of the branches slammed into the ground around her extremities, trapping Korra's hands and feet in the thick lumber. Pressing against them with increasing strength. Korra felt the pain of her wrists about to snap, her ankles about to bend backward.

You had best free yourself quickly, Oni.

Come on, girl.

Korra focused. Daya merely created these trees. They were lifeless objects, not actual trees. A product of her power. But her power was also Korra's power.

I can uncreate them.

Korra concentrated and thought her head would explode, what felt like huge surges of cosmic energy passing through her body and up to her mind. Korra ignored the pain, considering it something that she would just get used to. She allowed the current of cosmic energy to increase, and soon the branches began to dissolve, as did the trees. Once she had started, Korra found that harnessing this power was getting easier. Her mind and body quickly adapting to the now heavy flows of cosmic energy. As if it had been made to do so.

Back on her feet, Korra cut through the remaining branches with her sword and charged at Shoogar a.k.a Daya. Daya utilized the fact that the first world was known for their powerful weapons and drew a long blade similar to Korra's.

The blades clashed. Thousands of sparks of cosmic energy flew out of the Clasma-infused metal, obliterating the walls and entire structure of the house, completely tearing it down, and even cracking the platform of land right between where the two were stalemated, opposing each other's strength at an equal force. Daya, one hand on her blade, looked to Korra's eyes. Korra felt the burning green on her skin. The fault line between them was so deep that the platform on which they were standing separated into two halves. Breaking apart, separating the two warriors.

Daya jumped back, away from Korra. The two were on separate platforms now, the energy below them pulling the two pieces of land away from each other. Although out of range, Daya swung her blade and sent a wave of energy across the gap, splitting the platform Korra was standing on again into the three pieces. The edges of these new platforms were set ablaze around Korra. She felt the fire dancing around her. It listened to her and moved the way she wanted. Rather than put it out, the fire began to swirl in the air around Korra, generating a huge fireball that she sent soaring toward Daya.

Daya jumped from her platform just as the ball destroyed it. Floating through the air, just before she was about to plunge into the dark abyss below, Daya pointed her finger toward Korra and sent a bolt of lightning, blowing up the remainder of the platform just after Korra had jumped from was now falling down into the abyss below, looking around but finding no land floating around her. No platforms to be seen. She was going to have make her own.

Trying to concentrate, Korra found this to be extremely difficult while free-falling at terminal velocity. Korra stopped when she saw the flash of light beneath her signaling the rise of an energy pulse, just like before. She flipped herself so she was feet first, then pressed against he burst of cosmic energy perfectly, launching back up into the air. Into the clouds, she hardened them and used her powers to keep the ice clouds afloat so that she could safely land on them. Standing among the frozen clouds, Korra looked around waiting for Daya's attack.

All of the clouds surrounding Korra began to turn to floating icicles, but not by Korra's powers. Then, one by one, they all began to shatter. The shards of ice remaining afloat in the air afterward. A nearby cloud shattered, and through the wreckage Korra though she saw a flying skeleton. Some kind of demon. It directed its course and came right for her. As it approached, Korra saw it was a giant skeleton, but the skeleton of some kind of bird.

A tyven.

The beast was set to crash right into her. She noticed the green in its eyes. Another creature under Daya's influence. The skeleton bird was upon her. Korra jumped and grabbed hold of one of its ribs, latching onto its back. She covered her face as it crashed the ice cloud. Korra mounted the bird, holding on to the bones as if the whole backside of the creature was a saddle. It violently tried to throw her off, still under possession of Daya.

"Agh, stop!" Korra yelled. The creature's long neck curled around and it tried to snap at her with a long, boney beak. Once settled, Korra concentrated, feeling the energy flow through her much heavier, and evicted the evil Spirit's influence over this beast, slightly unsure as to how she did such a thing. The green glow disappeared, the eyes reverting back to the white with black iris eyeballs. Even though the cosmic energy had burned off the creature's skin and feathers, it still kept its wet eyeballs. The bird's face was hideous and terrifying to Korra.

As the creature regained its own conscious, it returned to its normal behavior and flying patterns. The violent lashing stopped, and rather than speeding through the air, the tyven came to a screeching halt and slowly drifted across the sky. Just like Daya had said before, these creatures flew painfully slow.

"Hey! Come on go faster!"

The tyven didn't care about Korra's yelling. It continued flying slowly, only flapping its wings to stay floating. The sky became dark now as clouds formed from nothing. Extremely dark, not normal clouds. A hole in the clouds opened nearby and Korra saw a bird much like the one on which she was sitting soar downward then right itself. Facing her. The same green eyes, only this oncoming tyven had a passenger. A young boy charged up with the energy of the all-powerful Spirit Daya.

"Come on bird! Fly faster. Can't you see that? You don't want that reach us. They'll blow right through us, come on!" It was no used. Korra's tyven didn't listen to her.

Daya was able to control this thing. So can I.

Korra placed her hands on the head of the creature. Trying to ignore her fear of the attacking tyven beaming for her, Korra concentrated and let the energy flow from her fingers to the beasts head. Connecting with it. Delivering an order. A command. In such a way that the creature would be unable to refuse. Full control over the tyven's movement. Blocking its free will.

Daya forced a smile on Shoogar's face as she saw what Korra was doing. Korra forced the tyven to pick up its speed and change direction. As Daya reached Korra's enslaved tyven, the two plunged in a downward spiral toward the abyss, Daya close on Korra's trail. Each creature following every command from its new master, dodging every burst of cosmic energy that Korra could feel rising a second before it happened. This deep in the void, their presence triggered cosmic energy bursts much more frequently. It shot upward but also criss-crossed around the two tyvens as both Daya and Korra were manipulating the raw energy, attempting to throw the other off.

It's a powerful feeling, isn't it, Oni? Having a living creature ignore its free will to obey your orders?

Korra looked at her tyven's eyes, glowing a slightly different green than the eyes of Daya's. Refusing to admit that Daya was correct, she commanded the creature to fly upward, away from the danger and back toward the sky. As she ascended, she noticed that several platforms of land had reappeared. Daya was controlling them, moving them quickly to obstruct Korra's path. Two giant platforms of land slammed together right in Korra's path. With nowhere to go, Korra had no choice but to create her own hole in the rocks and fly through the center, continuing her way back to the clouds. Once far enough away, she released her control of the tyven and jumped off of it, allowing it to escape from the battle, unsure of whether or not it was actually a real living thing or just a projection from Daya.

Korra fell out of the sky and immediately saw Daya not far beneath her. Daya lightly pushed off of her tyven and drew her blade. Korra, at full speed, clashed her blade into Daya's, causing a wave of cosmic energy to discharge and destroy several of the platforms nearby. What looked like green lightning traveled back and forth between the two blades.

That is an interesting weapon you have there. I think it once belonged to the boy whose body I now possess. I believe he had fashioned it to kill me. But just like you, his love for power exceeded his love for his people.

I don't believe you.

He killed them all! He released the SPORE because he thought power was in it for him! This power that you now hold! You are helpless against it! You are human, just like the rest!

Shoogar's mouth opened wide, the green eyes turned black. His body disintegrated into the familiar swarm of darkness surrounding the falling Korra. She righted herself and unexpectedly landed on a surface.

Korra looked down at her feet. It was dirt, sand, like a desert. When she looked up again she saw that she was in a different environment all together. No more floating platforms or infinite voids beneath her. She was high up on a dirt mountain overlooking a small, rural town. The entire scene was very familiar to her. She saw the long train that led from the big water-tower just outside the town up the mountain to the location at which she was standing now.

The second world.

Korra didn't hesitate. She began to climb the mountain, never forgetting to check her back for when Daya or one of her creations would randomly appear in some form that she didn't know yet.

If Shoogar was her form in the first world…

A few meters up the mountain, Korra found the large mouth of an entrance to a cave. The path inside was lit by strange, illuminating writing on the walls of the cave. The cave, the whole mountain was familiar to ehr. Glowing green. Always glowing green, just like everything in existence. Everything that had life glowed green. Was it actually green, or did Korra just perceive all life as this color?

Voices echoed off the cave walls. Two men. Arguing. Disagreeing. One of them anxious, tense, scared. Reluctant to go any further. The other was quiet and calm. Unafraid. The illuminated writing glowed brighter as Korra walked into the cave. Burning with more energy. More life.

All life glows with this energy. With this power. Her Power. Mine…

The voices became louder as Korra descended deeper. More understandable.

"What are we even doing in here? No one ever comes here. I know you feel it, too."

Silence. The first voice spoke again. "This is so frustrating. Can you just tell me what you are trying to do?"

"There exists something in this universe. A power that flows through it, a current that powers every little thing in it. Whoever would have access to this power, whoever, or whatever, was able to gain control over it, would consequently gain control of everything. An entire universe to toy with, to arrange and rearrange and experiment on. To see what can exist, tear it down, rebuild, and explore every possibility of what can be. Every outcome. Every result of endowing a world with a driving force such as this. Observe the things that can be created and learned from giving an inanimate thing the power of life. Our connection with this power was determined by something, some kind of entity, something that has absolute control over it. Over everything." Daya. "There is so much to understand, so much to grasp, the fact that this supreme entity gave us so little of this power makes me ask, 'why'? Was it to use for our own well-being? Or was it a clue. A trail. A trace leading to some kind of scheme beyond our understanding, a truth we could not even comprehend or ever realize on our own. We live in this world oblivious to what happened in the others."

"What others?"

"The worlds before. The worlds after. I can see them. I can see all the worlds. They begin with an idea. This forms into a structure. An organization of objects. A conscious placement of inanimate bodies. Inanimate bodies that serve no purpose and have no reason to exist until they are given the only thing which gives them value. The one thing that once contained within them, gives them uniqueness, gives them the ability to think and choose and create their own words and their own purpose and their own destinies. A power that is unpredictable, that has no pattern and derives from no formula. Without this, they are nothing. But who…but what…is the one who begins it all? It must be one who controls all this power. This cosmos. One who is born from it. In it. A direct product of nothing but chaos. Trying desperately to produce order."

"Raiken…" the other voice said. Korra was running by now. Running to the place within the cave where the light glowed the most intense. The cave which stretched much further than the mountain could possibly allow, but Korra didn't take any notice to this. She didn't care. She rushed to get to the source of the voices because she knew them. She knew his. She knew the words. The meaning. The name. The time. The world. She knew it, and she knew what was going to happen.

They were just around the corner. As she reached them, she saw for just a brief second the two figures she expected to see. The tall male figures, long black cloaks with hoods veiling their faces. Just a brief second, then the green light on the walls dimmed, and their was only darkness. She stopped, The lights returned, but not scattered across the cave walls like before. The light was emitted from a single source before Korra. The brightness of the light blinding her, making her fail to realize they were coming out of two eyes. The light brightened the floor before Korra, showing the body of one of the men who had been standing here. He appeared dead, but upon closer inspection, Korra saw he was still breathing.

Gasping, Korra rushed up to him. The light flashed brightly and the walls were once again lit. Standing on the other side of the man on the ground, the familiar face of Raiken, one of the dead that served as a crucial component in the energy that kept Korra in existence. His eyes glowed.

"What are you doing to him?" Korra asked. Raiken took no notice.

"Get up," Raiken said to the body on the ground. The man struggling to breath, got to his knees in a very irregular, forced way. "Bow to me."

The man obeyed.

"What is this?"

"You see," Raiken said, looking at Korra. "He does everything that I tell him to. This power, your power, knows no limit."

Korra watched the man struggling to stop bowing, hating that he was doing this against his will.

Against his will…

What is that?

You are controlling his physical motion, but you do this against his will. He struggles to get free. Struggles to reverse what you are doing. You have not changed him, you have only made him appear to be changed. You said it. You have given him this life. He has free will. You cannot change free will. The only way to change it at all is to get rid of it. Get rid of it and give it back in a new world with new objects that will affect a new society. A society you can only hope will grow and evolve into the one you want, but not one you can absolutely predict. Absolutely control. Such a society would not exist, and yet you try to make it. You strive for so much order but will always lose to chaos.

Korra was losing herself in all of this. Daya was becoming less of an enemy. She forgot about the earth she came from. It was nothing more than a small speckle of dust in the chaotic cosmos of existence. Daya, some cluster of energy randomly forming together, trying to control the uncontrollable force that created her. And where did Korra rest in all of this? She, a product of this Spirit wanting to issue order on chaos. Was she, too, destined to become the same kind of being? Just like Koh said. Was this a battle against Daya? Or against herself?

It was always about control. It was always about creation and power and order. Even with you. You are no better. You have failed to see that in this chaos, we came upon something unexplainable. Something which has no order to it. It is uncontrollable and has bound us together: love. But you cannot understand such a thing. And your confusion turns to anger, and anger turns into hatred, and when backed by this power over the cosmos, it leads to violence.

The walls of the cave cracked loudly and broke apart. Behind the walls was a starry night sky. The rocks broke apart gently and revolved around the platform on which Daya and Korra stood. Daya did not reply to Korra's words. The floating rocks surround the two recombined around Daya, forming a barrier between her and Korra. Other rocks were set ablaze, and as the ashes landed around them they became blades of grass. Daya creating a new environment around them. Korra drew her sword, but not before Daya had burst out of her armor of rock, taking on the appearance of a young woman, her sword colliding with Korra's sword and knocking her off the platform and into the grass.

Korra shot upward to her feet but saw that she was looking at a reflection of herself. An exact reflection. Daya had taken the latest form of her incarnation in the physical world.

Daya had become Korra.

The line begins to blur between who we are. Between where we are different. It becomes unclear. Your goals and mine. Your beliefs against those that I have held to be true. Your anger, my anger. Your origins. And mine.

The swords continued to clash, continued to make the only noise among the silence of this distant place as even the words exchanged between the two were never spoken. Energy scattering off of them as they made contact. The sound echoing and fading into the infinite abyss all around them. The infinite meadow stretching off into endless darkness.

Korra felt she was being overpowered by Daya. By herself. By this other Korra dealing blow after blow. Burst after burst of energy. She felt the heat of the two blades clashing. She sensed the energy and thoughts radiating off of Daya and recognized them immediately as her own energy and thoughts. Just being reflected back to her. Fighting nothing but herself.

What are you trying to do to me? What are you trying to prove?

Who is the 'you' that you are asking?

I'm talking to you. The one before me. Attacking me.

That would be yourself. Attacking yourself.

No. You are not me. You are not.

But I am you. We share the same thoughts. The same memories. The same feelings. How can we be different if we are the same in every way?.

Korra backed away. She knew it was not true. The other Korra drove her sword into the ground and ignited the cosmic energy underneath her feet, setting off a series of very loud explosions around where Korra was standing. The blast sounds were quickly muted, sucked into the silence of the void. Korra dodged each one, but her attacker pressed on through the flames after her.

Korra felt helpess. She felt alone and scared and summoned the only thing that gave her power. That allowed her to stand up against this oppressor. She drew in cosmic energy from all ends of the Spirit World. She felt the surges more powerful than ever and tried to channel it into some kind of powerful attack. Her green-eyed mirror-self stopped before her and smiled. Korra became confused, and focused harder on the energy flowing through her. She started to feel her immediate environment detach from her. All sound compressed and siphoned away. Her lungs filling with something thick like water. A saturation of cosmic energy. The power transmitting across her fingertips...

And then she felt something. Something beginning to form in front of her from nothing but only her two hands. Something pulsing periodically, sending shockwaves throughout the space she was in.

A heartbeat. In her efforts to channel the cosmic energy into its ultimate form, she created life with only her two hands.

Korra backed away. Trembling. The process not completed, Korra's abandonment caused the life to be not fully be created. As if she had seen a window into the future of what was about to be, but stopped before it was, returning back to the place she had just been. Sitting in the grass, horrified at what she was about to do.

What were you about to do?

Create a life. Bring a living creature into the middle of this.

So?

I have no right to do that. I have no right to tamper with life. No one does. Even if they do…it find its own way around their control.

What is so important about this? What is the significance? Why care so much? If we create them, why can't we use them? Why can't we control them? Why can't we destroy them?

There is no way to explain it. There is no way to make you understand. Not through words. Not through proofs and systems and models and theories. There is only one way to make you see it. You brought me here so I could serve as a demonstration to you. A demonstration of how we have failed. To demonstrate that we have given up everything to the acquisition of power. Of control. But I have come for a different reason. The only way to make you understand, to set us free, is through your death.

You know it is not my death. It is our death.

I know.

You would die for these people? For this race that embraces evil?

Some of them do. Some are misguided. Some of them remove our value. But those that don't, those that love and embrace life and create, their value cannot be undone. Cannot be cancelled out. Cannot be lost in the absence of evil.

You believe this?

Yes.

The space was filled with the glowing green of Daya's eyes illuminating within the darkness. Watching Korra, but seeing the original creation speaking to her. The very first avatar that had ever existed. The direct descendent of Daya.

Daya saw Oni, and it was Oni that Daya heard speaking to her.

Mother. I have been among these people. Grown because of them. Learned from them. Learned only things one can learn from being one of them. I feel their pain, their joy, I laugh with them, cry with them, hold them, love them. I am them, and they are me. I was born from you, but I have been molded by them. I am ready. Willing. To give up my existence. To separate these two worlds. For that is the right thing to do.

My Oni. You have not been lost. You have been changed, but not lost.

Korra was now looking at this girl. At Oni before her. The girl about her height. The girl with short black hair and green eyes. Dark skin. She looked no different than any girl Korra would have seen on the street. But it was her. Oni. The girl locked within Korra for so long. Changing her. Changing Daya. Destroying her hopes for a world with order, a world she could control, a world without chaos, with absolute control, and inevitably, without freedom. Without life.

Brought down to her lowest point, so that she was open to the greatest change.

Do it, Oni. It is the only way to stop it. It is the only way to right this eternity of wrong. There will be no strife. There will be no hatred. It is the only way.

Korra slowly drew her sword fashioned by the first world. She channeled her energy into her hands, preparing herself for draining, the technique discovered by the second world.

Will these green eyes be the last thing I ever see…?

Korra drove the sword into Daya.

As soon as it happened, Korra saw it. The SPORE burst into dust. The Spirits heading for the portals were halted. The energy opening the entrances between the two worlds beginning to diminish.

The effects were instantaneous. A storm of green energy erupted from Daya as Korra impaled her with the clasma-infused sword. She felt the draining process occurring. The energy that kept Daya together as an entity travelling up the blade. Beginning to break the sword. Cracks forming, glowing green. Daya moaned as her life force was drained from her, and Korra prepared for her own life to end as well.

But in the midst of this cosmic energy storm, Korra realized that she was overpowering the most powerful entity in all time and space. The entity born from nothing but chaos. The entity that she was created to replicate. Absolute power, it belonged to her as well, and with Daya gone, it would only belong to her. As the cosmic energy travelled up the sword, Korra was possessed by the realization of the things she could do with it. She could make her own worlds. Her own universes. Establish her own rules. Watch a society grow, then end it to build a new one. Perhaps it was Oni that chose to give her life for the human race, but was it Korra that did it as well? It was unclear to her who made the choice. It was unclear why this power was given to her. It was unclear if it would benefit the world more if she had complete control over it. Confusion. Anger. Hatred. Violence.

Daya felt the power leave her and Korra absorb it.

So the cycle continues. So my creation proves the inevitable. That power takes precedence…

Korra did not die. Did not disappear. Did not stop existing as she expected once she subdued Daya. She was taking her power from her. Using it for herself. Becoming the very thing she had come here to end.

You are not becoming me. You were always me. You…

But something cut off Daya's transmission. Something that knocked Korra's concentration from stealing Daya's power. From becoming a God. Something which sounded like a breath. A sigh. The sigh of a woman in pain, or the sigh of a woman accepting death. Or the sigh of a woman who had gone through something difficult.

Korra thought she saw this woman. This woman looked a lot like her, only older. She was exhausted. Tired. Ill. Fatigued. But she smiled nevertheless. Because in her arms slept a rather large, baby girl. Sleeping peacefully as the baby's mother provided a comfort that was irreplaceable. The woman holding the baby looked to Korra and spoke to her.

"I had only just met you, and I loved you more than anything. And I always will…"

But why? Who are you? And why should I care? Why do I care?

Korra could feel the woman. Feel her heartbeat. Feel her emotions. The woman could hear her, see her, and Korra knew it.

Korra didn't want the woman to leave, but when she did, another woman came into view. She was a young girl, lying in the grass. The sigh of acceptance. Acceptance of her own fate. That she was going to die, that she had lost all connection with who she was and would never remember, but in spite of all that, held on to the one thing she knew was true. Held on to that feeling of love, a different yet similar kind of love than the mother had shown. A passionate love. A relentless love. That even though death was upon this girl, she would never let go of this feeling. This feeling that Korra felt so strongly that it burned everything inside of her and made her grit her teeth out of anger for herself for nearly losing herself in the infinite span of the cosmos.

She was not Daya. They were not the same entity.

"No!" Korra yelled. The voice reverberated around the void. Daya looked up, fear in her eyes. Hearing Korra's voice for the first time. "Yes. Hear my voice. I am not the continuation of your cycle. I am not your demonstration of the human race's failure, and I am not the humans race's demonstration of your failure. I was not born from you. I was not born a Spirit. I was born from Senna and Tonraq of the South Pole. I was born a human. Not an Avatar to serve the humans. Not an incarnation of you that is no different than you. No, I am not defined by you. I am not defined by the Avatar. I am not defined by my power. I am just a human, I am only Korra. And I am only defined by Korra."

The last of Daya's energy drained into the sword. At the completion of the process, the sword shattered, the cosmic energy that once comprised Daya began to diffuse back into the cosmos. But before it did, Korra used whatever strength she had to harness it. Keeping the Spirits of the Dead working to hold her bonds to existence together once again for just a little longer.

Absorbing Daya's power. Not to create life. Not to end it. Not to become the next absolute ruler.

Korra had one final reason to exist. One final person to find and set free.

Asami. I haven't forgotten you. I am coming back for you.