Winding Legacies: A 'The Legend of Korra' Rewrite

Episode 6: The Battle of Zaofu Part 2

"Are you really ready to fight her?"

Korra tried not to let Jinora's voice sway her gaze away from Kuvira. Stull, the waver in her voice was clear as day and Korra had no choice but to acknowledge it. "Just stay back and let me handle this," she said quietly. "It's been a while, but I got a lot of pent-up rage."

Jinora chuckled at the joke, but Opal didn't find it funny at all. "Don't mess around. Kuvira is good and is going to try and get you to make mistakes, so just go into the Avatar state and get it over with."

"No, I'm only going to use that as a last result," Korra returned, giving Opal a firm stare. Though she was clearly not happy about it, Opal relented and started stepping back from the front lines. As Jinora moved to join her, she placed a hand on Korra's arm and told her to be careful.

Korra thanked her with a small smile.

"Enough talk." She rounded on Kuvira as soon as the two had gotten out of harm's way. Kuvira's brows shot up as if she wasn't expecting the outburst, but a chilling grin soon took the shock's place. "Let's do this."

Before her last words even left her tongue, Korra threw her hands forward. Two jets of fire spurred from her knuckles and leaped toward Kuvira's head. She sidestepped the first blast but had to duck beneath the second as it approached much faster than she had anticipated. Kuvira jutted herself backward as Korra jumped toward her, a ring of fire following her leg as it spun to her chest.

Korra clenched her jaw as Kuvira continued to dance effortlessly through her fire. So, she stamped her foot to the ground and kicked a brick of stone up at Kuvira's chin. She felt slightly satisfied as Kuvira barely managed to swivel her head away from the attack, but it wasn't enough. Korra forced herself even closer, bringing her hands up to her face and curling them into tight fists. As she punched forward, heat brimming against her skin, Kuvira's hands appeared before her face, pulling a slab of earth out of the ground to stall her attack.

Her knuckles stung as they dented the thick surface. The force of her punch lodged her right arm so deep into the slab that, as Kuvira pulled it even further from the ground, her arm was launched into the sky. Before she could readjust, Kuvira's foot moved past the side of the slab and struck her right in the side. The slab crumbled as Korra stumbled to the ground.

Kuvira flicked her wrists and two metal cuffs from her shoulders shackled themselves against Korra's arm. With a turn of her hand, she used the metal to fling Korra through the air and drop her in a messy heap before her army of soldiers. "Looks like the Avatar is a little off her game," Kuvira laughed as her soldiers erupted into a roar of cheers.

Korra's arms nearly buckled as she pushed herself to her feet. Her teeth grit together as she broke the platinum off her arm, the chilled feeling of the metal riling the darkest parts of her mind. As she stood to face Kuvira once more, she could practically feel Opal calling out to her, willing her to calm down. It took a lot of effort to push Opal's thoughts out of her head, but she couldn't have anything else clouding her thoughts.

Keeping her temper as level as she could manage, Korra raced forward, cracking up a wide fissure with her. As it curled toward Kuvira, Korra watched her knee buckle ever so slightly right and launched herself up into the sky. She threw her foot out so a gust of air would blast Kuvira off her feet as she tried to dodge the fissure and landed on her feet as Kuvira rolled to a stop.

Her hand gripping tightly to the earth for support and her hair shaking loose from her braid, Kuvira slowly raised her eyes to Korra. Clearly, the Avatar getting a hit in wasn't a part of her plan. Her army quieted as she lunged forward, weaving through Korra's flurry of air and fire. Swiping her left foot across the ground, Kuvira shifted Korra off-balance enough to knock her back down with a sheet of metal to her chest.