Chapter Text
The descent was silent and swift. Korra, leading the way, used her airbending to soften their landing on the brewery roof, their feet touching down on the ale-soaked surface with barely a ripple. They took cover behind a large ventilation unit, the smell of spilled beer and roasted pork thick in the air.
Peeking around the edge, Korra got a closer look at the bizarre scene. The orange-haired woman—clearly the ringleader—was now trying to teach the younger man how to balance a sausage on his nose. She was failing spectacularly, and her loud, booming laughter echoed across the rooftop. The auburn-haired man seemed completely detached, observing the city lights with a placid expression, as if he were enjoying a quiet evening in a park rather than sitting at the scene of a major felony.
“They have no idea we’re here." Mako whispered, crouching beside Korra. He peeked over her shoulder, his golden eyes narrowed. “Let’s take them out fast. I’ll go for the woman, Bolin, you take the kid. Asami, Korra, you handle the swordsman.”
“Hold on." Korra whispered back, holding up a hand. She was still trying to process the sheer absurdity of it all. “Let’s not just start blasting. I want to know who they are.”
“They’re thieves and vandals, Korra!” Mako hissed.
“And they’re having a suspiciously good time for wanted criminals." Korra retorted. She took a deep breath. “I’m going to talk to them.”
Before Mako could protest, Korra stood up and stepped out from behind the vent. She wiped the suds from the rooftop a path with a gust of air and strode forward, her arms crossed, her expression a mixture of amusement and authority.
“Party’s over." she announced, her voice cutting through the laughter.
The effect was instantaneous. The sausage fell from Gau’s nose. Elle stopped laughing, a half-eaten loaf of bread paused on its way to her mouth. Diaz’s head snapped around, his calm demeanor vanishing, replaced by a focused, predatory stillness. In a fraction of a second, all three were on their feet, falling into loose, ready stances.
Elle wiped her mouth, her blue eyes sizing Korra up and down. She noted the strange blue clothes, the armbands, the confident posture. “Well, look what we have here. Are you one of those metal-whip people? You’re not wearing the clunky armor.”
“I’m the Avatar." Korra said, letting the title hang in the air. “And you three are in a whole lot of trouble. I’m giving you one chance to surrender peacefully.”
Elle just stared at her blankly for a second, then looked at Gau. “What’s an Avatar?”
Gau shrugged, his mouth still full of sausage. “Dunno. Never heard of it.”
Diaz’s gaze was more analytical. He was watching Korra’s stance, the way she held herself. He could sense a coiled power in her, something fundamentally different from the soldiers they had fought earlier. “Her center of balance is perfect." he murmured, more to himself than to anyone else. “She is not an amateur.”
Korra’s eyebrow twitched. They didn't know who the Avatar was? Were they living under a rock? “Look, I don’t know where you’re from, but here in Republic City, we don’t take kindly to people who assault police officers and punch holes in our property.”
Elle’s face broke into a wide, challenging grin. “Oh, you mean the truck? That was fun! It made a great noise. But we were hungry! And thirsty! A city this big should have a welcome wagon, you know. With snacks.”
“We have a welcome wagon." Korra shot back. “It’s called the law. And you broke about a dozen of them.”
From behind the vent, Mako, Bolin, and Asami emerged, taking up positions behind Korra. Four against three. The odds looked good.
Elle’s grin widened as she saw the reinforcements. “Ooh, you brought friends! How polite! Are they here to fight, too?”
Mako took that as his cue. “That’s enough talk.” With a sharp motion, he shot a precise jet of fire, not at Elle, but at the ground right in front of her feet. It was a warning shot, a display of power.
The jet of flame exploded on the rooftop with a loud whoosh . Elle didn’t even flinch. She just looked down at the scorched spot, then back at Mako, her expression one of genuine curiosity.
“Fire?” she said. “You can make fire? Cool! Can you cook with it?”
The complete lack of fear or intimidation was unnerving. Mako scowled and fell into a fighting stance. “Last chance. Give up.”
Elle just laughed. It was a loud, hearty sound, full of genuine amusement. “Give up? But we haven't even had dessert yet! Besides." her eyes locked onto Korra, a predatory fire igniting within them, “that auburn-haired guy said you were strong. I haven’t had a good fight in ages. So, no. I don’t think we’ll give up.” She cracked her knuckles. “I think I’m going to fight you .”
Korra smirked. “Fine by me. I’ve been wanting to see this famous truck-punching strength up close.”
The air crackled with tension. The rooftop party was officially over. The rumble was about to begin.
“Bolin, Mako, take the other two!” Korra yelled, stomping her foot. A slab of the roof, coated in ale, tore upwards. With a powerful kick, she sent it flying towards Elle.
Elle met the projectile with a roar of laughter. Instead of dodging, she cocked her fist back and punched it.
Her fist met the slab of rock and asphalt in mid-air. The result was explosive. The slab didn't just break; it disintegrated into a cloud of gravel and dust, which was quickly dampened by the surrounding beer.
Korra’s eyes widened. The raw power was even more shocking up close. There was no bending involved, no elemental manipulation. It was just pure, unadulterated physical force.
While Korra was momentarily stunned, Elle charged, closing the distance between them with terrifying speed. “My turn!”
Korra snapped out of her surprise, her instincts taking over. She sent a blast of air at Elle, a gale force wind designed to knock a person off their feet. Elle just lowered her shoulder and powered through it, her advance barely slowed. It was like trying to stop a charging rhino with a handheld fan.
Meanwhile, the others had engaged. Mako was locked in a firefight with Gau. He sent rapid-fire jabs of flame, forcing the boy to weave and dodge. But Gau was unnervingly agile, moving with a low, animalistic grace. He wasn’t just dodging; he was closing the distance with every move.
“Stand still!” Mako yelled, launching a larger plume of fire.
Gau didn’t retreat. Instead, he met the fire with an open-palmed strike. A wave of concussive force, invisible to the naked eye, erupted from his palm, disrupting the air in front of him. It didn't extinguish the fire, but it dissipated its core, the flames washing harmlessly around him. Mako stared in disbelief. How did he do that?
Bolin, meanwhile, was having his own problems with Diaz. He launched a series of earth discs at the swordsman, but Diaz was a phantom. He moved with an eerie, gliding economy of motion, dodging each disc by a hair’s breadth without ever looking rushed. He hadn’t even drawn his sword yet.
“Hold still, will ya?” Bolin grunted, stomping the ground and sending a shockwave of earth towards Diaz.
Diaz didn't dodge this time. At the last second, he leaped, his jump unnaturally high, and landed lightly on top of one of the brewery’s large copper smokestacks, looking down on the fight with his infuriatingly calm expression.
Asami, ever the tactician, saw an opening. While Diaz was focused on Bolin, she lunged, her electrified glove crackling with power. She swung at his legs, hoping to shock and incapacitate him.
Her attack never landed. Without even looking down, Diaz’s leg snapped out in a sharp, precise kick that struck Asami’s wrist. The blow was perfectly placed, hitting a nerve. Asami cried out as her hand went numb, the glove powering down. She stumbled back, shaking her hand, her eyes wide with shock at his speed and precision.
Back at the main event, Korra was on the defensive. Elle was a whirlwind of fists and feet. She wasn’t a bender, but her close-quarters combat was unlike anything Korra had ever faced. It was brutally direct, overwhelmingly powerful, and terrifyingly fast. Korra used her airbending to stay agile, dodging a haymaker that whistled past her ear with enough force to create its own gust of wind.
“You’re quick!” Elle complimented, grinning. “But can you take a hit?”
She feinted with a kick and then drove her fist forward in a straight, powerful punch aimed at Korra’s chest. Korra raised her arms to block, reinforcing them with earthbending, creating gauntlets of rock around her forearms.
The impact was staggering.
Korra felt the shock of the blow rattle her down to her bones. Her rock gauntlets cracked and shattered under the force, and she was sent sliding backwards a good fifteen feet across the slippery roof, her boots carving grooves in the tile.
“What… is she made of?” Korra breathed, shaking her stinging arms.
She needed to end this. She needed more power.
Korra planted her feet, took a deep breath, and focused. The familiar, overwhelming sensation of cosmic energy flooded her being. Her eyes began to glow with a brilliant white light. The air around her swirled, and she lifted off the ground, fire, water, air, and earth whipping around her in a protective cyclone. She was in the Avatar State.
The change was not lost on the others.
“Whoa!” Bolin yelled. “Full-on Avatar State! She’s not messing around!”
Mako and Asami fell back, knowing better than to get in the way.
Elle, however, just looked up at the glowing, floating Korra, her head cocked to the side. Her manic grin was gone, replaced by an expression of intense, focused excitement.
“Now that ." Elle said, her voice full of awe, “is interesting.”
Diaz, from his perch on the smokestack, finally showed a change in expression. His eyes widened slightly, a flicker of genuine alarm crossing his face. This was a power beyond his comprehension, something that felt ancient and terrifying.
“Elle!” he shouted, his voice sharp and commanding. “Fall back! Now!”
But Elle wasn’t listening. She was a warrior, and a challenge like this was a siren’s call. “Don’t be silly, Diaz! This is just getting good!”
She crouched low and then launched herself into the air, aiming a flying kick directly at the epicentre of the elemental vortex.
It was a brave, reckless, and incredibly foolish move.
The Avatar State was the ultimate power. A confluence of a thousand lifetimes of experience and elemental mastery, all channeled through a single being. Against any normal foe, it was an overwhelming, decisive force.
Elle Ragu was not a normal foe.
As she soared towards the vortex, Korra reacted. She thrust her hands forward, and a massive torrent of fire—a roaring dragon of flame—erupted from the swirling elements, engulfing Elle in its path.
From the ground, Bolin and Mako shielded their eyes. “Oh, that’s gotta hurt." Bolin winced.
But through the flames, Elle was not screaming. She was yelling, a battle cry of defiance. Her body, conditioned by years of fighting and enduring impossible punishment, was wreathed in a faint, shimmering aura of her own fighting spirit—her Kiai. It wasn't a shield, but it was enough. She burst through the other side of the fire dragon, her clothes singed and smoking, her skin reddened, but her eyes were still burning with fierce determination.
Korra was shocked. No one just walked through a direct blast of Avatar-level firebending.
Elle was on her now, inside the protective cyclone. She twisted in mid-air, her leg lashing out in a spin kick. Korra met the blow with a wall of solid rock that materialized in front of her. The kick connected with a thunderous CRACK , and spiderweb fissures spread across the stone shield.
This woman was a force of nature all her own.
Diaz knew he had to intervene. Elle’s recklessness was going to get her killed. This glowing woman was on another level entirely, a tier of power their world had no equivalent for. He could not allow his sister to be annihilated.
He moved.
He leaped from the smokestack, his body a blur against the night sky. He wasn’t aiming for Korra. He was aiming for the space just beside her. He drew his sword—not the blade, but the hilt and scabbard together. He was a streak of silent, focused intent.
Mako saw him coming. “Korra, look out!” he yelled, sending a bolt of lightning at the descending swordsman.
Diaz, impossibly, adjusted his trajectory in mid-air. He twisted his body, and the lightning bolt sizzled past, missing him by inches. He was using Mako’s attack as a distraction.
Korra, her focus entirely on the relentless assault from Elle, didn’t register Mako’s warning in time. Diaz landed softly on the roof right next to her swirling vortex. He was inside her guard.
He didn’t strike with the blade. He used the sword in its scabbard like a quarterstaff. The movement was too fast to see, a flicker of motion. The pommel of his sword struck Korra once, a sharp, precise tap at the base of her neck. The scabbard then tapped a point on her lower back, just above the hip.
They weren't powerful blows. They felt like little more than pebbles being tossed against her. But they were struck with surgical precision on critical nexus points of chi flow. It was a technique from his own world, a swordsman’s art designed to disrupt an opponent’s energy, to sever the connection between mind and body.
For Korra, the effect was jarring and instantaneous.
The torrent of cosmic energy flowing through her faltered. The connection to her past lives flickered like a dying candle. The overwhelming power that sustained her flight and her elemental shield sputtered.
The glowing light in her eyes died.
The vortex of elements collapsed, dissipating into nothing. Korra fell the last few feet to the roof with a grunt, stumbling, a wave of dizziness and confusion washing over her. The Avatar State was gone, snuffed out not by overwhelming force, but by two precise, unnerving taps.
“What… what did you do?” she stammered, shaking her head to clear it.
Diaz didn't answer. He grabbed Elle by the collar of her tunic as she landed from her last failed kick. “We are leaving." he stated, his voice cold and absolute.
“But I was just getting started!” Elle protested, even as he began to drag her towards the edge of the roof.
“The fight is over." Diaz said. He glanced at Gau. “Gau! Now!”
Gau, who had been keeping Bolin and Asami at bay with his unpredictable movements, needed no further encouragement. He saw the look on his brother’s face—a rare look of genuine urgency. With a final, powerful palm strike that sent a gust of wind at Bolin, he disengaged and sprinted towards his siblings.
“Hey! Get back here!” Mako yelled, launching another volley of fireballs at the retreating trio.
Diaz, still dragging a complaining Elle, didn’t even look back. He drew his sword—just an inch. The sliver of exposed steel caught the moonlight. With a flick of his wrist, he sent a wave of compressed air—a blade of wind—that intercepted the fireballs, extinguishing them in mid-flight.
Mako skidded to a halt, his jaw agape. “Did he just… airbend?”
“No." Korra said, pushing herself to her feet, her voice weak. “That wasn't bending. That was… something else.”
By now, the trio had reached the edge of the roof. Without a moment’s hesitation, they leaped. They didn't climb down. They jumped into the dark abyss of the alleyway below, a fall of at least five stories.
“They’re gonna be street pizza!” Bolin yelled, rushing to the edge with the rest of Team Avatar.
They peered over the side, expecting to see three crumpled forms on the pavement. Instead, they saw nothing. The alley was empty. It was as if they had vanished into thin air.
Silence descended on the rooftop, broken only by the crackling of the few remaining fires and the distant sound of sirens. The feast lay abandoned, the ale still pooling on the roof.
Asami rushed to Korra’s side. “Korra, are you alright? What happened? The Avatar State just… stopped.”
Korra was rubbing the back of her neck where Diaz had struck her. A dull ache was forming. “The swordsman." she said, her voice a mixture of awe and frustration. “He hit me. It didn’t hurt, but it… it felt like he unplugged me. He cut me off from the Avatar State.”
Mako looked grim. “And he cut through my fire. These people are more dangerous than we thought. Strength that rivals an earthbender, speed that rivals an airbender, and techniques that can counter firebending and even the Avatar State itself.”
Bolin, for once, wasn't making a joke. “That auburn-haired guy… he was scary." he said quietly. “He wasn’t even trying for most of the fight. He was just… watching.”
Korra stared out at the glittering lights of Republic City, a city she was sworn to protect. A city that now housed three impossible fugitives who had not only matched her, but had found a way to neutralize her greatest power.
They had beaten her. Not through brute force, but with skill and tactics she couldn't comprehend. They had made a fool of her, and then they had simply run away.
A slow anger began to burn in her gut, replacing the shock.
“They’re not going to get away with this." she vowed, her fists clenching. “I don’t care who they are or where they’re from. I will find them. And next time." her eyes narrowed with determination, “there won’t be any surprises.”