Breaking the Wheel

Chapter 3

"No!" Korra yelled, grabbing a wall as the earth around them shook.

The hot smoke that curled down from the ventilation shaft smelled of melting rock and sulphur, catching painfully in her throat and making her cough.

"What was that?" Zaheer asked. His voice didn't betray anything beyond simple curiosity, but his brows were furrowed as he looked up at the ceiling of his prison.

"Kuvira," Korra ground out. "She built a superweapon... she's using the spirit vines."

She planted her feet in a wide earthbending stance. She couldn't sense Asami or Mako through the earth, but she couldn't sense much beyond the chamber. Everything that Kuvira's weapon had touched felt broken, as if all the spirit energy had been torn from it. If she dug her way out of the complex, she could look for them from above.

"You're not going to leave me here to die," said Zaheer, quietly.

"Maybe I should," Korra growled, but Zaheer simply looked at her. He'd made his pronouncement with an infuriating confidence, and what was worse was that he was right. Korra stamped her foot, loosing all but one of the chains round Zaheer's ankles and wrists, and bent the final chain round her own arm. "There," she snapped, looking up at the ceiling, where an orange glow was beginning to show through in cracks. "But once this is over, I'm putting you right back down here, in the deepest pit the White Lotus can dig for you."

- - -

"I would expect nothing less, from the Avatar." Zaheer floated to his feet, bending the smoke away from them with a flowing gesture.

The White Lotus' records had said that the previous Avatars had shown great lavabending potency. Roku had used lava to trigger many volcanic eruptions. Kyoshi had used it to split her home from the continent. But Korra seemed to struggle, clutching at the stuff as it flowed and resorting to earthbending to trap it in place. Did her affinity with her native element prevent her from performing the same feats?

"You need to enter the Avatar state," he prompted.

"No!" Korra shouted, stamping another earth barrier into place. "I can do this-"

"You're still afraid of me," Zaheer called. The Avatar froze, her shoulders tense, confirming the truth of his guess.

"Well, you still want to break the avatar cycle!" she shouted. The barriers she had made against the lava now nearly filled the room, leaving the two of them barely room to bend.

Zaheer pulled the last of the breathable air around them. The heat was unbearable, as if he were holding his hand above an open flame, and the walls were cracking already, more heat radiating from them. "Do you think that I would sacrifice my own life to do so?"

Korra frowned at him, but turned away, putting her fist against her palm. Her eyes glowed white.

Zaheer had seen the state only a handful of times before, once Aang, from afar, and then Korra, directing it against him. The power of it had never failed to impress him. Not just the bending of the elements, which sent air, earth, and fire spinning around them, but the spiritual potency, too. The energy was incredible, as if all the power in the spirit world were condensed down, to a single, incandescent point.

The Avatar seemed to float before him, filling their small chamber with her light, and the spiritual power was with them, infusing Korra, close enough to make Zaheer's hair stand on end.

No. Something was wrong. Zaheer felt the Avatar's energy waver, and flicker, her aura returning to normal for a split second before the Avatar state reurned to her.

With a grunt, the Avatar pulled her hands apart, and the earth around them trembled as she tore the mountain open, a fissure that opened both above and below. Zaheer caught a glimpse of light from above, an opening, but the Avatar faltered again, her eyes flickering to blue. The ground lurched, and the Avatar gave a pained grunt as she resumed the Avatar state. She was struggling now, though, her composure abandoned.

The lava the Avatar had restrained ruptured from the walls of the chasm, and their glimpse of sky was gone. Korra worked frantically to get it under control, but all her earthbending achieved was pushing it around, her barriers melting away as fast as she could bend them, showering them with burning debris.

The Avatar state faded again, and Korra stumbled back, bending away the falling material with a wave of fire. Zaheer joined her, deflecting more debris with an airbending shield, and she looked at him, her blue eyes clouded with uncertainty. She hesitated, her bending failing for a second, and Zaheer moved to compensate, his fingers outstretched, but the power of his airbending alone wasn't great enough.

A glowing fragment of rock struck the Avatar's face and she screamed, all too human. Zaheer grabbed her by the shoulders, feeling her go limp. Clutching her, he leapt down into the chasm she had opened in the earth, the air burning hot around them.