AUTHOR'S NOTES: A few hours late but this one's a kicker. A few chapters ago I foreshadowed a moment that happens in this chapter, and there's going to be a lot of that sort of thing here, especially as my version of the show's 2nd season strays from the beaten path. I won't spoil too much though.
Happy Reading!
BOOK THREE: WATER
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TEN: A BRIDGE REPAIRED
As the spirits began to close in, they suddenly stopped and turned around them, from the direction that Korra and her team had just come. Something was stirring them up and drawing their attention, much to Unalaq's ire. However, whatever was attacking the aggressive spirits was driving them away from Korra's company. Korra stepped to the side to try and see what had distracted so many of the spirits, only to see a lone figure duking it out with them and carving a way towards her and her group. Whoever it was, they were definitely a waterbender, with slabs of ice, jagged spears, and barrages of ice daggers launched deftly from their hands and feet. Based on the sounds of the grunts and yells this person was making, it was definitely female.
Tonraq and Unalaq were soon trying to get a good glimpse at this woman as well, and Naga, Mako and Bolin joined in a moment later. Desna and Eska seemed indifferent.
Whoever this assailant was, they seemed to be holding their own quite well until one of the spirits launched a tendril that wrapped around the waterbender's ankle, and then flung her through the air where she nearly collided with Bolin. Bolin stamped his foot out of habit, but since he was on ice instead of stone, there was no earth to block the flying body. However, the waterbender intercepted her own flight path by pivoting and bringing up a wall of ice that she crashed through. It stopped her fall and sprayed chunks of shattered ice in all directions, but now that the woman was right in the middle of Korra's group, they were able to identify her.
"Senna!?" Tonraq recognized his wife right away.
"I thought you said you came alone!" Korra and Unalaq both spoke, although Korra's surprised and curious tone was a sharp contrast to Unalaq's accusatory one.
"I came of my own accord," Senna brushed herself off as she rose to her feet with Korra's help. She had a rather large slash on her right cheek in nearly the exact same place as Korra's cheek scar, which was poetic in a way. "And it seems I got here just in time too…"
The spirits had started to move in just as Senna crashed the party. They evaded her, but it seemed they were trying to wreak havoc on everyone's supplies.
"Oh man, now we're in for it!" Bolin whined.
"Bolin, stay calm!" Mako tried to encourage him, "there's no reason to—panic!"
The spirit that attacked their supplies had emerged from the ground beneath their feet as opposed to from the sky, which caught them off-guard.
"Everyone, go!" Tonraq ordered. "We'll hold them off!"
"Perhaps the noblest thing you could do," Unalaq agreed, "normally I would try to reason with them, but there are far too many and they are far too agitated."
"I've got your back, love" Senna hopped up on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on Tonraq's lips, before turning to Korra, not even worried that she still had a knife in her hand. "Don't worry about us, Korra. We'll hold off the angry spirits; you go open that portal."
"So you're still okay with…" Korra started, but Tonraq cut her off.
"Of course we are; now get moving, quick!"
"Don't worry, sir," Mako called out as he hopped back onto his mount, "I'll keep an eye on Korra for you both."
"Thank you, Mako," Tonraq's tone was a bit gentler despite the frenzy. The waved each other off and the spirits gave Korra her friends, and her uncle and cousins a bit of clearance as they plunged southward, determined to reach the pole. Senna and Tonraq were still sort of following them, but at a much slower pace as they attempted to attract as many spirits as they could to keep them off of Korra's back. For a while, this proved effective, but there were simply too many of them for Tonraq and Senna to handle them on their own.
That was the first theory, at least. With Korra distancing herself from them, it seemed that some of the renegade spirits wanted to take her and her group down more than Tonraq and much more than Senna, who some of them almost appeared to fear. For a little bit it seemed almost like Senna was following the group in hot pursuit as she tried to pull the spirits off her daughter and her friends.
However, these spirits were not like mere wild animals trying to tear their quarries apart. They didn't even appear to be trying to kill or even gravely injure their targets; but more seemed to be trying to sabotage their efforts. Korra mused that there was certainly a level of misunderstanding going on here even if she didn;t know how to resolve it and Unalaq seemed either unwilling or unable to purify so many spirits at once. They were small, almost more like gremlins than anything, but they were fast and there were so many of them that they were hard to follow.
"Uh-oh, it's in the engine!" Bolin gasped as the spirits went and sabotaged his snowmobile. The others may not have had this much trouble, but the spirits were laying waste to their supplies and soon dismounting them nearly by force. Despite this, they managed to press forward to the point where Tonraq and Senna were no longer visible. Korra worried for their well-being, and while she may have been willing to share this with Mako and Bolin, she really wanted to vent it out to Asami, which she could not do since she was not here.
"Well great," Mako sighed as they glanced over their now ruined equipment, "there goes our what are we supposed to do?"
"There's only one thing we can do! Bolin exclaimed, "We gotta turn back!"
"No," Unalaq insisted, "the solstice is tonight. We are so close."
"I dunno," Korra hesitated, "this mission is too dangerous now, uncle. I don't want to jeopardize the lives of my friends or even my cousins."
"Cousin Korra worries about us?" Eska raised an eyebrow.
"It seems a waste of energy, to be frank," Desna replied. This did not sway Korra's mind at all.
"Come now, Korra," Unalaq encouraged her, "let's open this portal and lead your father, mother, and the entire Southern Water Tribe in the right direction. We don't have much time, and we've nearly arrived at our destination anyways."
"Trees frozen in ice…" Korra exclaimed as she looked ahead of her. It was bizarre to think that trees existed this far south in such a frigid clime, but at the same time, if they could survive up North, then there was no reason (according to Korra's logic) that the South could not be the same way.
"So what do I do?" she turned to Unalaq, cracking her knuckles, as if these frozen spirit woods called to her. "How can I fix this?"
"You must find your way to the heart of the spirit forest where the dormant portal lies," Unalaq explained, "from here, you're on your own."
"Wait a second," Mako interjected, "there's no way she's going alone."
"Yeah, that's why we tagged along in the first place!" Bolin added, "someone's gotta have her back… she doesn't take care of herself otherwise!"
"Really, Bo?" Mako stared him down. Korra simply chuckled.
"No, no," she glanced at Mako, "he's kinda got a point. You guys wait here though—I'll be okay. I'm a bigger enemy to myself than anything these wilds can throw at me—promise."
"Alright then," Mako smiled, "We'll trust you. Good luck, Korra."
"Thanks," Korra took a deep breath, pulling her coat up closer to her form. She glanced up at the daunting walls of ice and the eerie green shadows they case, almost as if the green Southern Lights were physically trapped within the ice itself. She looked up at it, and then down at her feet. Briefly, she turned to glance at her uncle and her friends. A moment later a rather massive spirit appeared from beneath their feet to block entry. Before Korra could attack it however, it simply disappeared into the forest, its long tendrils pulling walls of ice down behind it, collapsing the entrance. No amount of waterbending could move this spiritually-infused ice, as Eska, Desna, Unalaq, and Korra all realized.
"There must be another way in," Unalaq exclaimed, "as if reconciling with these spirits wasn't important enough already…"
"There's always another way in, uncle." Korra assured him, looking around and then above her again. The ice was thick and hard to scale, but she was pretty sure she could launch herself over it using airbending or the like.
"As impatient or demanding as I may sound or may have acted, Korra," Unalaq humbled himself a bit if his tone was anything to go by, "I trust your judgment. From the years me and the Red Lotus trained you, we've seen what a clever and resourceful woman you are."
"Well thanks," she smiled, "don't worry… I'll just launch myself over this wall and be in. Just make sure someone's got my back covered, yeah?"
"I'll do what I can to placate any hostile spirits we encounter," Unalaq promised, "of that, Avatar Korra, you have my word."
"Well then," Korra's eyes began to glow as she entered the Avatar State, "cowabunga it is!"
She launched herself skyward in a remarkable display of blue flames, before flipping through the air and landing on the other side of the ice-chunk wall and charging forward with what looked like reckless abandon. Unalaq could not help but sigh.
"You would think that she would learn not to abuse that power…" he muttered.
"Some things never change," Bolin couldn't help but chuckle, "I'm not the sharpest light in the box, but even I know Korra's abuse of the Avatar State never really ended."
"That'd be 'sharpest tool' or 'brightest light', by the way, Bo." Mako corrected him.
"You know what I meant," Bolin elbowed him, a bit more confident now, "either way, Korra's got this in the bag. Soon that portal will be open and this will all go away!"
Korra traversed the forest with wild speed and fierce confidence, jumping from surface to surface as she plunged deeper and deeper into the icy storm.
"Afraid of me?" She taunted a few of the more aggressive spirits as they cowered away from her for one reason or another.
"...Maybe that's the Interregnum in me talking." she muttered with a contemplative pout for a moment before springing back into action and zigzagging through the forest. The spirits mostly left her alone the same way they had feared Senna—and perhaps even for a similar reason.
Not all spirits were hesitant to attack the Avatar though, and a rather large serpentine one nearly caught Korra off-guard. Korra turned her focus to it to prevent it from hindering her progress, but another one emerged, grabbing her by the ankles and pulling her backwards so that she fell forward, her face colliding with the ice.
"Damn that smarts…" she grunted, planting herself on her hands and kicking fierce bursts of flame from her feet to deter the snake. It was almost like being back in the probending arena again, what with how much fancy footwork Korra had to perform in order to avoid the spirits, who were able to phase through the ground and ice unlike Korra—or so she thought.
As she kicked one of them away and followed up with a wall of ice, she realized that the snake spirits had to slither over it rather than just phase through it the way the gremlin spirits that had destroyed their supplies had done. Fortunately it seemed that Korra's fierce Senna-like antics had scared most of those spirits off. The pair of snakes were persistent though. One of them shifted backwards as the other moved forward to pin her against the nearest wall of ice. Korra struggled, and the spirit's serpentine form managed to wrap itself around her left arm and both of her legs, pinning her to the ground instead—which proved just as effective as a wall for the spirits' desires.
The first one that had retreated for a moment returned with vigor, and swallowed Korra's right arm nearly to the shoulder. Growling fiercely, her eyes still glowing, she concentrated a blast of fire that made the snake's mouth expand and then explode. The second snake also recoiled for just enough time to allow Korra to sit herself up, plant herself on her freed hand, and blast the other snake away with a whirlwind of air. She flowed straight from this move into a corkscrew flip that put her back on her feet, although she was facing the spirits that were coming back at her with a vengeance.
Korra glanced around for a split-second before backflipping onto her hands and then back onto her feet, repeating this action no less than 4 times before launching herself several feet into the air and on top of an icy dome. She bent a hole in the ice, sealing it up as she jumped through and blocked the snake spirits from getting in. It was a bit of a fall, but Korra managed to roll as she hit the ground, reducing the impact of the fall and ultimately winding up unhurt.
She looked around and realized she was alone in a domed area of ice. The floor was icy as well, but there was a glow emanating from it.
"The spirit portal…" she whispered, and in the Avatar State still, she reached to touch it. She could feel the energy emanating from it into her hand, as if merely touching it while in the Avatar State would open it, but then her focus suddenly faltered as a loud crash was heard from above her. The snake spirits had broken through the ice, and fused into one much larger snake. Before Korra was able to touch the portal, she found herself zigzagging to dodge huge chunks of ice that would have smeared her across the icy floor of this forest if she allowed them to hit her.
The spirit split into dozens of smaller ones that wrapped their tendrils around her chest and legs, pinning her arms briefly and pulling her upward as if trying to drag her away from the portal. Korra growled, and was not having this. She flexed her arms and cut through the spirit bonds, but this only really freed her upper body, and unfortunately, no amount of bending seemed to be able to help her liberate herself from the waist down. They were slowly pulling her upwards, and Korra did not want to fathom what they intended to do with her, but what mattered to her was that they were pulling her away from the portal, which she was only mere meters away from opening.
Korra struggled with even more ferocity against the spirit bonds, but to no avail. She could shift only slightly, but the bonds were too firm around her waist and core.
"Fuck you for making me have to do this…" Korra growled, having exhausted all of her other choices. She loosened her belt, jerking her hips to try and give herself breathing room, and was frankly really glad no one was there to see what she was doing because the intense and world-changing event would have no doubt been diminished a bit if anyone watched the Avatar essentially wriggle out of her pants and skirt to pull herself free of her bonds. For good or ill, however, this endeavour was successful, and Korra fell forward just enough for her hands to make contact with the icy barrier of the portal.
The ice cracked in that moment, and suddenly it melted away, sending forth a burst of energy that didn't hurt Korra, but that pushed the spirits back. She was engulfed by the spirit portal, which pulled her out of the physical realm completely, but the results of her actions were seen all throughout the South.
Breathtaking green lights cut through the storm in the sky, and the dark unnatural clouds dissipated almost immediately. Bolin, Mako, and even Unalaq gazed up in awe.
"The spirits dancing in the sky…" he muttered approvingly.
"I can't believe it…" Mako's eyes shone with the dazzling reflections of the lights.
"It's beautiful… I can't believe she did it!" Bolin's eyes were shining even more than Mako's.
Even Tonraq and Senna, who by this point were hobbling back home, stopped when they heard the noise and when their backs were illuminated by a soft green light.
"She did it…" Tonraq gasped.
"She did it!" Senna actually squealed in delight as she threw her much smaller form around her husband's, "our baby girl actually did it!"
As much as they wanted to turn around though, they were a good ways away and nearly back at the tribe—but the Southern Lights were hard to miss, and they were both certain Korra would come to give them her report as soon as she was able.
Unalaq appeared to be waiting for her return as well, especially since the storm had dissipated, the angry spirits seemed to have disappeared, and the forest was no longer encased in ice. Several minutes of awkward silence passed by before Bolin finally spoke.
"Uhh… where's Korra?"
The answer to the question was fairly simple: Korra had been pulled into the spirit world, and while it only took a moment for her to collect her bearings, before she heard a familiar voice.
"Nice legs, Avatar…"
Korra sprung up and recoiled—not because of her state of dress, but because she knew who owned that voice even before she saw its owner, and it terrified her.
Korra found herself face to face with none other than Nakkoa.