Korra punched the metal wall in front of her, an angry well of emotion springing from her lips in the form of a shout. She nearly threw her voice from how raw her scream was.

The wall did not submit to her strength.

She punched again, this time with her opposite fist. It ended up hurting more than the first attempt.

"Tarlokk!" her voice cracked at the end, desparation threatening to seep into it.

She threw more strikes at the wall, each successive one more ineffectual than the last. At this point, her 'punches' were no more than mere taps, the explosive energy from before all but gone. She began to collapse to the floor down to her knees, the metal cage just barely wide enough to accomodate her kneeling position.

Tarlokk really left her in this box. After all of that work put in in shutting down the Equalists. The raids, the warehouse ambushes. She was seen as nothing but a tool to be locked away, the key thrown away and forgotten the moment she stepped out of line. Mako and Lin were right...she shouldn't have so readily trusted the slimy politician.

It seemed to her that she was a natural at making bad calls.

"Don't leave me in here..." Korra whispered, ashamed at how pathetic she sounded. Her eyes were shut, forcing back angry tears that threatened to spill. She swung her fists at the wall again.

She could barely hear the light tap taps anymore from her hands.

"rra..."

...

"Korra."

Korra hadn't known how much time had passed. It felt like it might have been hours, but it could have easily been much longer than that. She had folded in on herself as much as she could to try to get some rest, and time slipped away from her.

"Korra."

Korra only exhaled tiredly as a sign of acknowledgement. Perhaps she was growing delirious and was now hearing voices.

"Korra," the voice repeated. It sounded like it came from someone she should know. "This is no delusion."

"Tenzin..?" Korra ventured. She still had her eyes closed, something in the back of her mind keeping her from opening them. Maybe, she thought, if she opened her eyes, she'd be yanked from her escape fantasy of talking to voices in her head. She tried to settle back into merciful sleep.

Oddly enough, the voice seemed to sigh.

"Even my own figments of my imagination are tired of me," she whispered to herself.

Then she felt a hand on her shoulder.

Flinching violently, she bolted upright, eyes snapping open.

"What the..." Korra was at a loss for words as she looked around herself.

The cage was gone. Perhaps she had gone insane.

Her surroundings were nothing but a mish-mash of pale bluish and white colors seeming to meld together into no real discernible pattern.

What was all this?

The Avatar slowly stood up, her arms outstretched, as if afraid her head would collide with some invisible barrier and shatter the illusion. To her confusion, no resistance came.

Was this real? Korra was uncomfortable with the fact that she wasn't sure. She took cautious steps in randkm directions, testing the space in front of her.

"I've finally been able to contact you," a voice said from behind her.

"..!" She whirled around, arms raised. Her right arm was cocked backwards, ready to unleash a torrent of flame. Then she hesitated.

The figure in front of her had his arms at rest at his sides. He was standing non-aggressively, patiently waiting for something. Korra took a tentative two steps backwards.

"Who are you? How did I get here? What is here?" Her questions came rapid fire, and she was thrown off by the fact that she couldn't make out the stranger's face, or his attire for that matter. Not the 'I don't recognize you' can't make out your face. It was the 'Your face looks just blurry enough' can't make out your face. Every time.e Korra tried to squint, the man's face would go out of focus, as if she were trying to look past him and not at him.

The stranger noticed her straining. "It's okay, my face isn't important right now," the man explained. "It might be that you aren't attuned enough to the Spirit World yet."

"It's like i'm trying to look at you while cross eyed," Korra replied, rubbing her temple. "It's annoying." The sensation wouldn't go away, and no matter what she did, the man always looked blurry. She paused.

"Did you say 'Spirit World'?"

The stranger nodded. "Korra, I need your help."

The man's tone was suddenly more urgent than before. "A malevolent entity is sowing chaos in the Spirit World. He's managed to somehow manipulate the flow of time-."

"How can I trust you" Korra interrupted, again attempting to strain her eyes to see who she was talking to. She shook her head. "Manipulating time," she nearly snorted. "The type of stories I'd expect from mad scientists."

A pause. "I don't expect you to believe me. I would not insult your intelligence like that. But the problem is all too real."

He walked forward, coming to a stop once he'd just stepped past her, encouraging Korra to turn around to keep him in view.

"The Spirit of the Chaotic Attack is attempting to end the Avatar cycle permanently."

Korra had no retort, except to run the name in her head.

Sounded like a sports team, or a Pro-bending technique.

"They go by many names..."

Korra raised a brow. "They?"

Her acquaintance only nodded. "It's not really one person. "Even I don't have all the details...Anyway," he shook his head, getting back on topic. "Their most common name is Hundun. You need to stop them from manipulating time to end the Avatar Cycle. By tampering with the flow of history..." the stranger paused. "Well, I'm sure you could guess the ramifications."

Korra glanced around the white-blue space of nothingness. Of course she could guess. Things would happen that shouldn't, people supposed to be alive would be dead, things that didn't exist, would, vice versa...

"This sounds utterly ridiculous," Korra admitted aloud.

"I know."

Korra watched him warily. The man did nothing but turn around to regard her.

"Why can't you stop this Hundun?"

"I've tried," the stranger conceded, some unexplained pain evident in his voice. "But I am tethered to the Spirit World. After Harmonic Convergence, they are able to travel freely between both the Spirit and Physical planes."

"Any time I am able to confront them, they'd always slip away from me."

Korra blinked at the unfamiliar terminology. "What's a harmonic convergence?"

The stranger turned around again, head low. "You weren't supposed to know about that yet..." he admitted after a pregnant pause. He turned his head in her direction. "Just know that it will take two living Avatars to take him down. Seek out the Last Airbender. The both of you together stand more than a chance."

Korra shook her head. Last airbender? Two Avatars? She was more confused than ever. "Are you talking about Tenzin? I mean he's not the only Airbender-"

"It's time for you to wake up," the man interrupted.

"Wait-"

Suddenly the space they were standing in seemed to fade out of existence, however possible that was for what already looked like a vast expanse of nothingness.

"How do I contact you again?!" she managed to ask. Her surroundings were beginning to fade, distort, and blur all at once.

The man seemed to vanish with the space, but his voice persisted.

"I'll be easier to find than you think."

Korra swore she could imagine hkm winking.

Korra opened her eyes, half expecting to be back in the cage, and that the past few moments were the result of a manic episode born from depression.

She was on her back, sprawled on grass and dirt. Thankfully, it wasn't wet, sparing her of any serious stains on her ocean blue top and her parka that was tied around her waist.

Slowly, she attempted to get up, a groan escaping from her at the feeling of soreness in her left shoulder. It felt like she'd crashed into it. She looked up from the ground, only for a gasp to escape frk. her.

"Woah..." Nevermind the odd discovery of laying on grass. What waited to meet her eyes were structures of varying sizes...Houses, towers, shops...

There were people everywhere and the sheer scale of the city seemed to dwarf Republic City. What struck her as odd was the clothing everyone she saw were wearing. Everything looked...traditional, for lack of a better word. There were even old-looking carriages being pulled by horses. And they were everywhere.

"Ba Sing Se..." she murmured, looking in every direction, amazement evident on her features. Everything was too derailed and...authentic to be some imagination of her mind. And people were starting to stare.

Clearing her throat, she stood up, dusting herself off.

"So this is probably real," Korra said to herself. She stepped to the side as a horse passed by, pulling a large cart full of cabbages. The horse's rider looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place where. She shook her head of the notion. If she was indeed in what she guessed was the past, she needed to find this Hundun character. The guy had said he or she or it or whatever could travel through the Spirit World at will, though.

And she had no idea how to get to the Spirit World!

"Some help that hack was!" she scoffed. She decided it was time to start walking and figure something out. She figured shock hadn't set in yet and she could worry about spazzing out later. She had no method to getting home, but she had a goal now, no matter how unreachable it was at the moment. It was something.

Anything to take her mind away from that metal box.

On a whim, she opened her palm, and fire burst to life in her hand. She snuffed it out as quickly as she'd formed it.

Good, her bending still worked. That was a good start as any.

So what would her first stop be? She was out of her element, figuratively speaking. She had no leads, and right now, no allies. Her thoughts briefly turned to Mako and Bolin, wishing one of them were here right now.

"I still feel like I'm going to wake up and this is all some elaborate fever dream," she sighed, briefly examining each house she passed by. Civillians paid her no mind, and she soon realized the crowd was beginning to thin as she entered into what seemed to be a residential district. She almost hoped all this was real. Anything to keep her mindnoff of things.

Really dark thoughts concerning Tarlokk flitted through her mind, but she squashed them. She needed to focus on the here and now.

At this point, the road seemed to be abandoned. Although it might have been a bit unwarranted, she felt uneasy, as if someone was watching her every move. She stopped briefly to look behind her, but noticed nothing. She shrugged and moved on.

She'd been walking for nearly twenty minutes now, and she seriously contemplated collapsing and going back to sleep when she heard muffles shouting.

It probably wouldn't lead to anything, but it was better than nothing, right?

Jogging down another block, she turned a corner just in time to see some lady catchjng an earful from some person she couldn't see.

"You should just stay out of our way!" came the disembodied voice. The door slammed heavily and with finality in front of the woman's face. The lady quickly turned and headed into the inner city, passing by Korra. The poor woman looked on the verge of tears.

"Nice neighborhood..." Korra watched the person's retreating form, debating whether she should knock on the recently slammed door. They might have some idea of where to find a store or shop that could give her some leads.

"Well, here goes..." she approached the house, hoping this step could help begin to make sense of everything that was happening.