Spacebender
Chapter 2: Final Test
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: Legend of Korra or any of the characters involved except Guardian S. Space.
"You've got some explaining to do," Korra said to Space as they arrived back at Airbender Island through one of Space's portals.
"What would you like to know? I'll answer to the best of my ability," Space replied.
"Who was that? And why was he here?"
"His name was Hollow, a servant of Chaos. His purpose was to capture you so that the powers of Chaos may corrupt you,"
"Like I would let that happen,"
"Would you see innocents or your friends be killed for you?"
"Of course not,"
"That's what Hollow would've done if I hadn't been here," Space stated.
"He'd kill people just to capture me?" Korra asked.
"Yes, Hollow is one of those rare occurrences where a Guardian and a human have a child, his Guardian parent is Death, so he can kill people at will without even trying," Space told her.
"Why haven't the Guardians captured him then if he's so dangerous?"
"We've tried, but with the worlds in the state they're in we cannot put enough manpower on the job to capture him,"
"Then what do you do with him?"
"We try to capture him if we meet him on our missions, but more often than not he'll escape like he did today,"
"Whatever," Korra stormed off toward the meditation hut.
"I apologize master Tenzin," Space said with a bow.
"It's quite alright, Korra is just temperamental, give her an hour to calm down and she'll be willing to listen to reason again… I think,"
Tenzin left Space standing in the training field alone. He sighed before making his way around the island until he found the meditation hut. Korra was sitting in it calmly, her fists together in front of her chest as she meditated, breathing in and out slowly.
"Mind if I join you?" He asked.
"No,"
Space sat down and crossed his legs, but instead of putting his fists together he put his cupped hands together and tucked his thumbs into the small cage he'd made with his hands. They sat in silence for half an hour before Korra spoke.
"Sorry about earlier, I shouldn't have yelled at you,"
"It's quite alright," Space replied, "I knew when I accepted this job that I'd have to deal with your explosive temper,"
"Korra," Tenzin called to them.
The pair turned and saw him approaching with Mako and Bolin.
"What is it?" Korra asked.
"We've been invited to the North Pole's spirit festival," Bolin announced giddily.
"Really?" Korra leapt to her feet using her airbending.
"We're set to leave this evening," Tenzin told them.
Space smiled as the friends discussed their plans for the festival. Mako noticed him standing apart.
"Hey, aren't you the guy who dealt with that freak earlier?" Mako asked him.
"I am," Space nodded.
"Oh, right, sorry, this is Guardian S. Space, he's been assigned to protect me for a while," Korra explained.
"I don't believe you'd be in too much danger while you're at the spirit festival," Space told her, "I'll be taking my leave,"
He extended his right hand and opened a portal of purple energy. He began to step through when Korra grabbed his arm and pulled him back through.
"Don't think that I'm done asking you to teach me spacebending," she told him.
"But-"
"I'm not gonna take no for an answer,"
He was silent for a moment, "Alright,"
Korra jumped in happiness as Space closed the portal, the party gathered their things before setting out on a large ship, on the ride there Space began to teach Korra the basics of Spacebending.
"First, you must promise you that you will not use this power unless your life is in danger and nothing else works,"
"I promise,"
"Very well. Spacebending, as you may have gathered, is the manipulation of spacial energies and the world around you, this is most often depicted through teleportation and gravity manipulation," Space explained.
"What else can spacebending do?" Bolin asked.
"It also encompasses a bit of airbending ability as you can remove the oxygen from a limited area. I did forget one thing though, since spacebending has such limitless abilities, the form you use isn't one of the martial stances you use when bending other elements, instead they are simple actions such as this,"
Space held his hand up, palm down, and pressed it toward the ground. Nothing happened.
"The true power of Spacebending comes from projecting an orb consisting of your chi around you, that allows you manipulate the space within the orb,"
"But, how is it you were able to teleport across the city then?" Korra asked.
"I'm glad you asked, think about what I just said, you project your chi as an orb that allows you to manipulate the space within the orb,"
Korra, Mako, and Bolin thought about it for a moment, but Tenzin tuned in.
"You're telling me that you have enough chi you can project it as an orb large enough to encompass airbender island to the middle of the city?"
"Thank you Tenzin," Space said, indicating the airbender.
"That's insane!" Mako shouted.
"It's part of being a Guardian; we surrender our own volition and humanity for almost limitless power,"
"So, how do I project this orb?" Korra asked.
"The simplest way to learn is to project an orb of your bending around you, and to push your will down on a target,"
Korra thought about this before summoning an orb of fire around herself.
The orb licked at her hair, but otherwise didn't get much farther.
"You're going to need to make it bigger," Space told her.
She grunted with exertion as she tried to expand the ring, eventually she got the ring to encompass herself an a few feet out in all directions.
"Now, will the ground around you to buckle under the weight of increased gravity,"
Korra was gasping as she tried to do as she was told, but the orb of fire shrunk and she collapsed on the deck.
"A nice start," Space told her.
"I barely did anything," she said.
"Ah, but you were able to expand your spacial rift, a task that takes space-magic apprentices weeks to begin performing,"
"Why don't you show us an example," Mako told him.
"Fair enough," Space nodded.
He took a deep breath before he held out his hands, a ring of distorted purple energy expanded from his body forming a large sphere that encompassed the whole ship, he made the same motion as before, except this time he had his palm upward, and he lifted his hand.
"I don't feel anything," Mako said.
"Try jumping, it's the simplest example," Space told him.
Mako shrugged at Bolin before leaping fifteen feet into the air.
He shouted as he began to fall, but he fell slower than normal, eventually lighting down on the deck.
"I decreased the gravity in the area, the most complex act you can perform with spacebending, or space magic,"
Korra was sitting up now as the orb returned to Space.
"I really want to learn spacebending now," She said.
"We'll practice your Spacial rift expansion for now, when you get to a point where you can create your rift at a decent size, we'll begin practicing with manipulating gravity. For now, you should rest, you've used up quite a bit of energy already,"
The group agreed to retire for the night and made their way to their barracks, Space was still sitting on the deck of the ship when the moon rose high in the sky.
"I hope you two are doing alright," he said to himself.