Upon their return, Tai Lung had declared his intent to stay longer in the south pole.
"I'm heading deeper into the south," Tai Lung declared, "There's a strange chi I've been sensing there. I intend to see what it is before leaving."
He turned to Azula. "Keep training your firebending, as we did the past three days." Without waiting for a reply, he leapt from the deck and took flight into the horizon.
Ty Lee tilted her head, watching him disappear. "Is he always like this?" she asked Han, the ship's vice captain.
Han gave a short nod. "The captain often moves off to explore places difficult to reach. It isn't strange for him to vanish for days at a time."
Ty Lee frowned sympathetically. "That must be rough on you guys, waiting like that."
Han shrugged, his tone calm. "We just remain in the same location for a while. It's not that bad. It's a little boring sometimes."
Ty Lee nodded in understanding, while Mai shifted her gaze toward Azula. "So… did anything interesting happen?"
Azula's lips curved faintly. She nodded and began recounting their encounter with the old water master during the Day of Black Sun. The crew listened, their faces forming into a surprise the more they heard.
——————
Far away from the ship, Tai Lung soared southward at full speed, his body cutting through the cold winds. An entire hour passed until the air thickened, and a blizzard storm rose like a wall before him. The storm forced him down. He landed in the deep snow, pulling his cloak tight, yet pressed forward undeterred.
The blizzard clawed at him, but it was not enough to stop him. With relentless strides, he advanced deeper and deeper until, after hours of grueling progress, the storm suddenly ceased.
Before him lay a place untouched by the raging winds: a frozen forest. A towering mountain of vibrant ice rose from the land, its surface shimmering with hues of blue. Encased within the ice were trees, their branches preserved in crystalline prisons.
Tai Lung walked slowly toward the mountain, the chi he had been following pulsed strongly here, it was inside.
He soon discovered a narrow path carved into the frozen forest. Moving through the icy walls, he marveled at the glimmering trees frozen beyond them. At last, he reached the center. The ground beneath him glowed with a calm, blue light.
There, resting within the ice, was a massive glowing sphere. Tai Lung stared at it for long moments before unleashing a wave of fire. The flames melted the ice around it, Tai Lung was careful not to damage what lay within.
Now free of its icy casing, the sphere shimmered with a soft, ethereal glow. Tai Lung narrowed his eyes. Its chi was unlike anything he had felt, gentle yet vast, as if it held the essence of countless beings. But among them, one stood above the rest: the Avatar. The chi was identical to the one he had felt when the Avatar entered the Avatar State.
He reached out and touched it. His hand met not light, but solidity, pure and condensed chi.
He frowned. Such a thing should not exist. After a pause, Tai Lung clenched his fist and drove a punch into it. The strike echoed across the cavern, but the light did not shatter. He unleashed fire next, yet still, the sphere remained untouched.
His thoughts turned, sharp and calculating. If he could not break it, perhaps he could connect with it.
Closing his eyes, Tai Lung let his chi flow outward. His body began to glow faintly, a soft golden aura pulsing from within. As his energy poured into the sphere, for the first time, it reacted. The sphere's blue glow flared brighter and brighter until the cavern was swallowed in blinding radiance.
When the light faded, Tai Lung blinked and found himself standing elsewhere.
A barren land stretched around him, spiky rocks jagged against a dark sky, streams of water trickling like veins through the cracked earth. The blue sphere stood silently beside him, unchanged, but in the distance another sphere glowed, this one radiant with a deep, pulsing purple light.
And at the center of this desolate world stood an ancient weathering tree, its roots buried deep in the rock.
He knew where he stood before his senses even fully registered it. This place was the Spirit World, the air tasted different here, it was full of chi. It felt uncannily like the Spirit Realm from the life he'd left behind; familiar, and yet not quite the same. The glowing sphere at his side now made sense, it must be a gateway into this place.
He moved toward the weathered tree at the center of the desolate land. The presence that radiated from it was unmistakable and strange at once: like the Avatar's chi in cadence, but twisted, darker, chaotic, as if it had never known light. It was the most alien sensation Tai Lung had ever encountered.
Up close, the tree's trunk gaped with a cavernous wound. Inside that hollow something slithered in shadow, an entity marked with red, glowing patterns. The dark chi he'd felt was emanating from it in waves; faint blue light pulsed around the hollow, like a barrier holding something at bay. Tai Lung's instincts told him this entity was not to be messed with.
A voice rose from the hole "A human in the Spirit World. I have not seen one in ten thousand years." It sounded amused and oddly delighted. "Strange, the portals remain closed. How did you cross with your physical body?"
"The glowing spheres," Tai Lung said without hesitation. "They're the portals, right?"
"Yes" the entity answered
Tai Lung kept his posture deliberate, his voice even. "I don't know how I crossed, only that I did. Who are you? Why do you feel so much like the Avatar?"
The entity answered with cold curiosity. "I am a spirit called Vaatu. Who is the Avatar?"
Tai Lung frowned. "I believe he is the one who imprisoned you. The chi blocking the trunk bears the same signature as the Avatar's."
Silence thickened for a heartbeat, then Vaatu's tone shifted, almost angry. "Is that how Raava and her dear human pet go by in this era?"
Tai Lung's mind raced with the implications. "It seems we are onto something. The Avatar is the bridge between the human and spirit worlds, the only one who can bend all four elements and be reborn."
Vaatu's voice softened, amused and bitter all at once. "Yes. The Avatar is Raava and her human pet."
"What can you tell me about Raava?" Tai Lung asked.
"I can tell you everything you want to know," Vaatu offered, "but in return, free me from this prison."
Tai Lung looked at the pulsing blue barrier and at the dark thing within. He sensed the likeness to the Avatar but also the yawning absence of light. He replied "You are similar to the Avatar in nature and chi, but where the Avatar gives light you give darkness. I am no fool to release you."
Vaatu's tone clipped, impassive. "Then you will never have answers."
"That's fine," Tai Lung replied. "I am sure someone else in the Spirit Realm will answer my questions." He started to turn away.
"Human, wait," Vaatu called, urgency sharpening the voice. "Let us make a deal. Free me, and I will lend you my power, just as Raava lent hers to Wan. Become a new Avatar. You will have the power to surpass and defeat the old one."
Tai Lung paused, then looked back calmly. "My name is Tai Lung. I do not need your power." He allowed a faint smile. "I have already defeated the Avatar twice along the spirit you call Raava."
Vaatu's disbelief flared. "There is no way a human can defeat Raava."
"Believe what you want," Tai Lung said.
The spirit changed tack, a narrower offer. "Then a different bargain. I will tell you the origin of the Avatar and of Raava. In return, you will tell me about the human world and how you defeated Raava."
Tai Lung raised an eyebrow at the sudden hunger for stories. "Why the change to storytelling?"
Vaatu's voice carried a new, weary loneliness. "I have been here ten thousand years. You are the first to speak to me in that span. No spirits dare to approach this place."
Tai Lung considered the dark trunk, the blue barrier, the purple-pulsing sphere in the distance. He nodded once, a curt, decisive motion. "Fine. You have a deal. I am all ears. Tell me what you know."
Vaatu began telling him the story of the battle between balance and chaos, between himself and Raava; how he was the one who first connected the Spirit World to the human world. He spoke of how spirits roamed the human world once, how humans received the power to bend from the Lion Turtles, how the Avatar was born, and how the portals were eventually closed.
Vaatu revealed to Tai Lung the true story of the Avatar and the meaning of the so-called bridge between the two worlds.
In return, Tai Lung told him about his battles with the Avatar.