AN: I was going to do this and the next chapter as one large one but I think it would be just too much in one go, considering it is a fairly large sequence in the movie. Having a lot of fun writing this and thanks for all the support considering this fic is something rather unorthodox

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The Lost City of the South

Chapter 4 - Into the Abyss, Part 1

The bridge was lit slightly darker than when they had initially submerged Asami thought, or at least it looked it. It was either the lighting or the fact that they were a few miles further underwater then earlier. She had never been under the blue so she could not be sure as she entered the glass dome containing the usual unusual suspects; Commander Zaheer standing at the bow as bold as brass in his military uniform buttoned to the top of the collar, Kuvira at his side with her thick and luscious black locks tied in a small tail with her own coat buttoned up to all but the top, keeping her renegade style in full swing as it had been since Asami first saw in her apartment and what Asami guessed to be the engineer and the demolitions expert.

The former was a rather short girl, the daughter of Suyin, Asami remembered, with a short bob of rather straw like and loose black hair and lime green eyes that matched her mother's beautifully. Her figure was rather simple too, a fairly full bust with a petite frame and yet amplified hips that drew the eyes a little from her cute face. If anything she looked like she'd be doing anything besides engineering although Asami thought those hips and that face in the overalls, gloves and dungarees made her, the cuteness of her.

The Demolitions Expert beside her was familiar to Asami, having already met the stern looking dragon outside before launch. She stood the same, a turtleneck black sweater that looked like it came from the Northern Water Tribe to cover her torso with what looked to be a metal breastplate around the front of her. Whereas the engineer wore the dungarees and hat and overalls and shirt, the demolitions expert wore the sweater, breastplate and slacks to look absolutely menacing with the tattoo of the third eye on her forehead in a more prominent shade of red and flesh, as if it were a scar or a burn.

"So I said to him," the old woman one deck below was saying into her headset microphone. She was certainly elderly, with a bun of grey hair atop her head and a rather raggy blouse to cover her. The way she was sitting in her den was rather peculiar to Asami. How she was staring off into seemingly nothingness with absent eyes and almost trembling hands yet the arrogant posture and air that any ordinary person would have. If it weren't for Asami noticing the the sheet of braille in her hands the archaeologist would never have figured the old woman behind the loudspeaker system throughout the ship and the sub was blind. What a team it was indeed. Thus far Asami Sato was accompanied by a man made of steel and his supporting woman of mystery, a borderline psychotic geologist, a doctor who was enthusiastic about people needing to be mutilated, an engineer who was questionably too young to be on the expedition with a broody demolitions expert and now a communication officer who was blind.

"What's wrong with my turtle-duck casserole?" The blind communication officer was saying to her contact on the other line. "And so he said to me," she stopped, something buzzing in her ear like a bee's nest, "Hold on Katara I got another call." She quickly hit a button on her instruments and the channel flipped in her ear.

"Sir, we're approaching coordinates" she reported to Zaheer one deck above. He smiled devilishly looking to Kuvira to his side.

"Alright let's take a look around Gentlemen" he gestured to the men at the helm to flip on the spotlights afront the sub and scan the ocean floor and surrounding areas for what they were looking for. The way Asami had prepared it in her briefing before they submerged it was a crevasse of a sort, that would lead to a tunnel and then to the main chasm where they would disembark to the vehicles. Once on foot the way would become a series of winding turns and some digging to reach their destination. A trip that would in theory take another two weeks.

The spotlights came to life and began to sweep around the floor of the abyss, showing those on the bridge just how many crews had tried to reach the City of the South before. The floor was littered with wrecks of old ships and vessels. Amazing.

It was at that moment, when Asami gasped at the sight, that Zaheer finally noticed her presence on the command deck. He turned like a flash to see her awkwardly meandering around the deck, twisting her wrists as she did when nothing took her grasp. She had her satchel over her shoulder and a pencil through her apparent mess of hair with the same single strand dangling in front of her right eye slightly, it added to her innocent sex appeal in a way that almost made her look vulnerable. But not to herself. In her own mind Asami Sato possessed very little sex appeal, remaining the child in her father's study and then the budding young archaeologist while at university. She viewed herself as a tween still with big emerald eyes and the same slim, plain figure.

The blind woman had skulked upward to the main observation deck of the bridge with her radio headset on and staring blankly away, however looking like she could see absolutely everything in the room. It perturbed Asami and fascinated her all at once with the way the woman was old and frail yet looking as if she had seen and been through more than anyone in history.

"Hello Miss Sato," Zaheer greeted her, shaking her hand firmly this time instead of charmingly attempting to kiss her hand; he still stirred something disgusted in her however, as if she was naturally repelling him and he was still attempting to move in on her. "Allow me to introduce the rest of the team" he started, ushering to the engineer first in the middle of the three gathered. "Opal Beifong, engineer and her mother I believe you met in your dorm."

"Have you been spying on me Commander?" She had no idea why she said it, why it was a good idea to draw a line of salt between them instantly having only really just met him but she did. She disliked him infamously already and she couldn't help it. She liked Suyin despite her over enthusiasm for people getting injured and Bolin was funny already despite his terribly manners and personal hygiene. The cook, Bumi seemed funny too with his traditionally insane food regards and hell she even thought of Kuvira highly if only because she was stunning the night she broke into the apartment. Zaheer was simply vile compared.

He ushered to the Demolitions Expert next while she chewed on a small stick with Opal blowing a large bubble from her gum. "Ms P'Li, best demo expert in the damn world, rescued her from a Fire Nation prison" he told, humouring P'Li who looked at Zaheer as if there was a little flame between them. Asami thought nothing of it as P'Li at first glance at least looked as if she would fillet the poor scholar alive before engaging her in conversation. Again not a huge improvement on what had already been established for the team. Asami was actually beginning to think she was in over her head. But again the realisation of the South was drawing closer and closer, causing her to build up inside

Finally Zaheer ushered towards the vacant and yet observant blind woman in the military beige blouse with the flattened collar that made her look out of place and out of time, a tiny hunch forming in her back. "Mrs Toph Beifong, Communications Officer" he explained. Suyin's Mother and Opal's grandmother. In her mind she already theorised and rationalised that it was a family business. She remembered Mister Varrick stating something about Opal once working with her father before the Air Temple expedition, and that her father was the engineer for that trip, now she was going solo, either due to an invalidity or death possibly. How morbid she thought indeed.

Rather than shake anyone's hand, on account of P'Li having such a wicked smile on her face that looked that she may even murder Asami in that instant, the plucky archaeologist simply nodded to everyone except Mrs Beifong, hardly like she could see her.

Zaheer stepped forward slightly, gesturing for Asami to take to the blackboard already set up for her bombshell presentation of what they would do next to head to the city. "Now everybody," Bolin and Suyin had entered the bridge, "I want you to give Miss Sato your undivided attention." Asami stepped in front of the blackboard, a short stick of plain white chalk in her hand.

"Good afternoon" she started awkwardly. Out of all the things in the world Asami Sato for sure despised any form of public speaking the worst, even in front of less that half a dozen of her so called teammates. Before she blurt out the next line of nothingness Opal popped another bright pink bubble from between her unamused lips while her grandmother simply returned to her station. "Wait!" she let herself yell, stopping Mrs Beifong and bursting the bubble gum. "How about a few pictures?" She asked rhetorically, sweating a little at the dismal crowd. She really did hate delivering presentations.

She practically dove into her small satchel on the floor for the photographs she desired, rummaging through the camera she had brought as well as several notebooks and pens and scripture until at least she clutched the polaroids in her sleek redly tipped fingers. Standing back up again she was suddenly flustered, her sleeves beginning to fall from her elbows where she had rolled them up to work and her hair was becoming gradually more and more unkempt with more strands jumping from the collective ship. She fumbled the clutch of polaroids and quickly slapped one to the blackboard, thinking of what to say next.

"Now the first picture, is a depiction of a creature so frightening, that sailors were said to be driven mad by the mere sight of it."

The sudden rise and hush of laughter from the team behind her as she scribbled a few symbols from the Fisherman's Account and some other sketchings of the creature she referred to made her stop.

"Hubba hubba" P'Li remarked and that made Asami look towards the polaroid now stuck to the blackboard. Why me? Why public speaking? In her frenzy trying to find the picture of the creature that she took from the page in the Account she had hurried and pasted the polaroid of her at about fourteen in her full body swimsuit with floaties wrapped around her rather skinnier arms and a rubber ring around her petite waist in the shape of Nessie. She was mortified.

Come on Sato.

She chuckled to herself in a faux state of self confidence while she quickly sidestepped and yanked the polaroid from the blackboard, checking in her hand for the correct one and sticking it there in place. She then quickly completed her scribbled depiction of what appeared at first glance to be a lobster of sorts, with a smaller one continuing on from the head and a much larger tail, more resembling a scorpion.

"Okay, so this is an illustration of something called The Leviathan," she finally stated. Such a hideous title of legend was only becoming to what she and the Account had shown the team. It looked more menacing than anything Asami had certainly seen nevermind the rest of the team and she had only been studying the Fisherman's Account for two weeks. Her years of research into every source on the Southern Water Tribe had never even turned up the name Leviathan let alone reveal an image even a sketch. The Account had mentioned that the South were hundreds if not thousands of years ahead in technology at the time of their demise but nothing of a creature so called guarding the gates to the region. Was it a machine possibly? Or something more? The questions that the scripture failed to answer had been flying around in Asami's mind for two weeks and she hated not knowing. She prided herself on being informed on every detail of what she was letting in but ever since Kuvira had broken into her apartment she had been in the deep end with no life jacket and she couldn't swim. It was almost suffocated but again the thought of finally seeing the legend of the city before her eyes, even if it were some hazardous ruin with broken pottery littered all around, would leave her accomplished truly for the first time in her life and the only time that would ever matter to her, truly.

P'Li looked deep in thought at the image, seeing either the lobster or the scorpion resemblance and liking. She leaned to Opal's side muttering, "With something like that I would have white wine, I think." It made Opal giggle like a schoolgirl and even Asami chuckle slightly internally, covering her mouth with her red nails.

She pulled the Fisherman's Account from her satchel, surely this time and opened it to where she had bookmarked. It was the section regarding the creature itself. "You see," she began again, perching her reading glasses on the tip of her nose. "It's a mythical sea serpent and in the Account, the Fisherman describes it as such.

"Out of his mouth fly burning lights, like a flame on the blue. Sparks and white shoot out"

"But it's more likely and much simply just a carving or a sculpture erected by the people millennia ago to ward explorers off" Asami finalised, folding the arms of her specs and tucking them into her small waistcoat that covered her blouse. Despite the nature of the expedition for she retained her higher class academic look; she had more suitable clothing for when they disembarked the sub.

Everyone seemed to understand, Opal blowing another bubble of approval while Zaheer examined the sketches with intent. "So we simply find this masterpiece" he grunted in his more deeper tones as if ushering an order to the helmsman.

Before anyone could ask another question Bolin popped up from seemingly nowhere, his hair unkempt and looking just a little deranged. "When do we dig?!" He exclaimed in a higher pitched voice than what Asami was expecting, crazy for the mention of dirt or sand or earth in any capacity.

The truth was all the more crushing to him. "Actually we don't have to dig at all." Asami moved again, gripping the chalk and drawing an oval shape on the blackboard next to all her other scribbles. "According to the Account, the path to the city opens up at a tunnel at the bottom of the ocean, leading to an air pocket, very like a grease trap in a sink" she explained proudly, having finally conquered the nerves of public speaking.

Kuvira leaned in to P'Li's ear, a devilish smile across her beautiful face. "Archaeologist, Linguist, Mechanic, Plumber. It's a wonder she's still single" Kuvira hissed, however she was still looking Asami up and down, observing all the curves and contours that made up her slender and curvaceous figure. P'Li chuckled a little to herself, a manly laugh that would put Bolin certainly to shame.

She swiftly brought her own lips to Kuvira's ear, whispering a soft, "We all know you would Kuvira." The mysterious woman simply gave P'Li a glance, smiling again.

It was quickly taken away however with a gentle but apparent tug on the sleeve of her tightly fitting and alluring sweater. It was Bolin in his parka jacket that had come from the North just like all of their clothing, kneeling for some reason while he repeatedly tugged at her. Once she acknowledged him he finally looked up at her with big eyes looking as if he may cry. "You said there would be digging" he stated, in a way blaming her.

"Go away Bo" she dismissed in an instant.

As the rest of the team began to chatter amongst themselves Mrs Beifong almost silently returned to her station a deck below, Asami equally silently packing up her things from the presentation into her satchel, ready to return to her clean bunk and sleep finally.

Mrs Beifong sat down, tuning her radio a little to instantly hear another, more louder buzzing noise coming from the outer hull microphones. Investigating further as Asami and Zaheer talked above deck the noise became more than buzzing, more like a churning, or indigestion coming from the middle of the ocean. She grumbled, lighting a cigarette and taking a rather long drag and listening closer to the noise coming into her ear. The fact that she could pull out a cigarette, light it and then continue to smoke it whilst blind was astonishing. "Commander" she muttered barely audible, more just waiting for him to pay attention to her on his own. She hardly cared.

Asami was decoding some more of the transcript regarding the Leviathan while Zaheer was only pretending to listen. He was caught between Asami, Mrs Beifong and then the rest of the team so he hardly had good choices of conversation. Only on the third time Mrs Beifong murmured his name did he sling his head towards her direction. "What is it Mrs Beifong?" He asked in a half bothered tone, only answering to shut the old woman up as she smoked her cigarette.

She kept her unamused, drained tone as she returned her instruments in tuning, still doing from memory or something. "There's something on the hydrophone I think you should hear" she told him from her station, another puff of smoke following.

Zaheer walked to the balcony of his observation deck. "Put it on speaker." They heard what she heard, the same churning and muffled groaning sounds that had come through to her own ears. The same pitch and pace and everything and it was fairly menacing, putting Kuvira mostly off guard but also Asami, she hardly wanted to be assaulted by an underwater creature.

Kuvira stepped closer to her commander, ready for something, anything. Zaheer was suddenly around outside to see if he could spot anything off. "What is it a pot of tiger-whales?"

"Uh-uh, bigger" Mrs Beifong called up. The rest of the team, except Asami had wondered off to where they might be needed.

Kuvira moved down the steps to Mrs Beifong's deck, taking a spare headset and listening herself. She quickly took command of the radio deck, tuning it to as she saw fit with a determined and frustrated look on her face. "It sound metallic, could be we simply hit a small rock" she was rationalising. Asami detected a little fear more than precuasion, like Kuvira was actually scared of what may becoming.

Mrs Beifong simply grunted at her. "You wanna do my job?" She asked almost incredulously, taking the least drag of her pathetic cigarette then immediately lighting another. "Be my guest."

"Is it just me or is it getting louder?" Asami asked the room, again instinctively, even if it was a fairly poor time to start acting smart. If it wasn't a pot of tiger-whales, and there certainly wasn't another creature of that size living with all the debris of the ocean floor. Suddenly there was a growing sickly feeling in the pit of her stomach again, as if someone had secretly fed her carrots without her knowledge. That usually meant something bad.

Yet just as fast as it had come over the loudspeaker system it was gone suddenly, fading out as if the source was getting further and further behind the sub as it drifted through the deep. Kuvira let out a quick sigh of relief and straightened up, looking to Zaheer above deck. "Whatever it was. It's gone now Commander" she informed him, taking one hell of an assumption in Asami's eyes.

Zaheer smiled slightly, turning to the helmsman. "Helmsman," he shouted and the old man turning to acknowledge. "Bring us about and tighten-"

They were suddenly all tossed about like ragdolls, Zaheer flying across the bridge towards the rear with Kuvira flying with him, landing in his grasp to save her. Mrs Beifong was held steady in her chair yet still jerked enough for whiplash to follow bruises that would form later. The Helmsman was killed on impact and a few more ensigns piled up together near the wheel. No one had any idea what had come out of nowhere to hit them but when Asami landed precariously on the cracked glass of the dome she stared at it in the eye. Jimminy Christmas. It was glowing, purely glowing with a dark and yellow hue that emanated from it's, what she thought, face. It was certainly shaped like a lobster too and from the etherealness and transparent nature it simply had to be what she deduced in seconds.

"It's a damn Spirit!"