Valkyrie

Fractured: Part Two

Despite the decades since the Hundred Year War, a Fire Nation airship landing in the Southern Water Tribe always brought with it a sense of tension. Even more so if it was unannounced.

The children, the elderly and the non-benders were all informed to take shelter immediately. They were a little ways off from civilisation, but there were still a few settlements in the immediate vicinity. In response, a small group of the village's more capable warriors stepped forward, the nervousness on their faces even visible amidst the frost.

As the vehicle came to ground with a rather ungraceful landing, the passenger compartment slowly opened. There a few moments of frigid silence, before the burning remnants of the young pilot were tossed out onto the snow. Her bone fragments soon scattered away in the icy wind.

Taking advantage of the landing party's shock, Azula let loose a shower of flames towards them while taking cover inside the ship's compartment. Much to her displeasure it only managed cut through two of them. She groaned as the cold conditions combined with the pain of her overexerted body caused her bending to fall below par.

Not one to be beaten, she dashed forward and tackled the first waterbender she came across, a rather beefy individual whose strength would have easily snapped her frail form, if she didn't happen to cough up a whole slew of flames and turn his skull into soup.

The remaining two were agile little things, and soon Azula found herself getting battered with what felt like an endless barrage of water and ice, the pressure sending her flying across the snow, her old bones close to cracking from the impact.

"Disgusting peasants!" she hissed.

Forcing herself to her feet, she raised a hand and began to channel all the remaining warmth in her body to her palm. This sensation, the power that came from splitting the atoms in the air, taking hold of the forces of nature, bending it to her will...

Oh yes, she had missed this.

With a murderous flare in her eyes, lightning poured forth from her fingertips.

***

Korra and Zuko had expected civilians to be fleeing in terror and a rapid-fire military response to the arrival of the former princess. Instead, all that was left to greet them upon their arrival to the Southern Water Tribe was a graveyard.

The frozen surroundings had just about managed to quell the flames that had soaked through the settlements, but no amount of snow could disguise the bodies that lay lifeless in the cold. Young and old, all looked like their bodies had been blown to pieces.

It was a sight Korra knew she would be seeing in her nightmares.

"So many snatched away...I think for a time I truly had forgotten just what she was capable of," Zuko lamented. Behind him, several of his personal guard came funnelling out of the zeppelin, scanning the devastation in hopes of survivors.

"We can't be thinking about that now," Korra choked out as she swallowed the lump in her throat. "We don't know if she's already at the portal, but even so we don't have a lot of time left."

"Go. We will spread out to the surrounding villages and set up defensive perimeters. If she's already made it to the portal...then it's up to" he said, placing his worn hands on her shoulders. "Hold nothing back, you cannot give her an inch, otherwise it will be the end of us all."

Korra nodded before letting out a whistle. Heavy thuds filled the cold night as out of the zeppelin appeared the beautiful white fur of Naga. A friend and asset that had quickly been gathered from her home on Air Temple Island. After all, when it came to terrain such as this, nothing was more capable than a polar bear dog. Skidding beside her beloved companion, Korra leaped onto the hybrid's back, eyes already set towards their destination.