AN: Of course this is inspired by Atlantis the Lost Empire only I'm trying to go a step further than making this a normal crossover. Instead of taking the characters of Korra to the movie, I'll be bringing the core idea of the movie to the characters. This will be a nice and laughable little adventure for our heroes in their search of the Lost Southern Water Tribe, but be warned. This story is not as the history books tell it. Enjoy!

The Lost City of the South

Chapter 1 - She Came Down the Chimney

The fibre of the pages were rough and therefore somehow tantalising as Asami Sato ran her slender fingers along the bindings of her father's tome. He had left it her years ago, before his sudden and tragic demise to the menace that was cancer. Since then she had been alone, on her own in university studying archaeology for a reason lost to her because of her father's death. She didn't mind having her level of qualification in her field. What she did mind was being shifted to the basement of the museum to continue her theories and research, she was sharing an office with the boiler.

She had been in the Republic City Natural History Museum for months, developing her research into various fields and improving her methods of archaeology, however she was still no better than a preschooler with a bucket and spade. The one thing however she was more passionate about than anything in the entire world was the predicted location of the long lost 'City of the South' which had been believed to be consumed by some form of natural calamity over ten thousand years ago.

For years she had obsessed over the myths and legends of the place, what it might have been like, what the culture may have been, what the women may have looked like. The biggest question on her mind was constantly what would the city be like if it actually survived the calamity and was simply waiting for her young, emerald eyes to see thousands of miles away. That had become her life goal over the past years. She remembered her father fantasising about the city with her when she was a tween.

The board of investors for expeditions didn't understand her young yet brilliant mind, didn't understand how passionate she felt about her and her father's dream, and the book in front of her would hopefully supply her with the knowledge and the bargaining information she would need to convince the board to finally fund an expedition.

'In a single day and night of wrath and calamity, the City of the Southern Water Tribe disappeared into the depths of the abyss, doomed for eternity' - Wan Shi Tong.

Asami had always taken the famous excerpt as a challenge and as of late, it was becoming evermore closer to a real contradiction.

Her research had led her to a myth of a text, another tome of sorts collated from different sources all over multiple thousands of years. It had been believed to be passed down from generation to generation, from holder to receiver and holder again, each adding to it and each bringing new information to it on the supposed location of the City of the South. Because of this, Asami had arrived at the train of thought that the original location of the city had changed over the ten thousand years because of the constant rotation and movement of the planet and its tectonic plates. Until she could find this book she would be unable to make an accurate assumption of the general location of the city. Still she denied the urge to stop searching for answers.

Her 'office' space was taken up by the various maps and literature all discussing and circling on the City of the South. Her single blackboard was covered in a map of some island near the North Pole. It was here where her findings had made her believe this tome was hidden, the flip side of the board having some new sort of glyphs underscored by the words 'It lies in the West' written neatly in a clean white chalk. Towards the back of the room Ms Sato had carefully and meticulously laid out masks and helms to pose as filler for the board of investors.

This was a rehearsal of her roughly planned pitch to the board, and this time she would either secure her funding or leave the museum for good.

She closed the book, placing it on her podium in front of the blackboard and rolling up the sleeves of her blouse, she meant business. A sleek finger pushed her glasses the length of her equally slender and attractive nose.

"Good afternoon gentlemen," she began with her light and feathery tone, meaning to impress the inanimate and silent masks, "first off I would like to thank the board for taking time out from your 'busy' schedules to hear my proposal." Again. She thought, because this was the third time in as many years that had managed to secure a pitch. It wasn't because her evidence was fluid or because she was too young. It was because of the reputation of her father, Hiroshi.

He had been the CEO of Future Industries for decades and near the time of his death some were calling his practices into question, where his money was going and how the business was being procured. His almost tyrannical runnings of the business earned him infamy among the business scene and thus this transferred to Asami's wanting to start her expedition. Those with the money who had invested with Future Industries were those who would be dangling the money in front of her face and they believed that investing in the plucky and bubbly archaeologist meant investing in the legacy of Hiroshi Sato, the man who could have lost billions. Instead he was the man who only stole hundreds of the thousands. He spent his last week of life free from the cameras of the courtroom. Asami was so grateful for that above all else, that at least he didn't die in prison.

She had promised to him at his funeral that she would find the city for him. To prove that his judgement wasn't as bad as the press made it out to be, for the memories that she loved of him when she was a mere child and for the name of Future Industries, which was now in the hands of scrupulous bastards who loved the smell of yuans more than their wives.

She exhaled her thoughts, coming back to the pitch she had worked weeks on preparing. "Now we have all heard, one way or another, of the lost City of the Southern Water Tribe" she states somewhat monotonously, bringing a pile of papers and books from her source pile to the podium; a few sheets and laminations of historical portraits and carvings from the many peoples of the world. Most of them were of the Air Nomads in the Southern and Eastern Air Temples. Some others were the obviously brutish craftsmanship of the Earth Kingdom of old and only a few were the intelligent and majestic patterns of the Fire Nation. Surprisingly none of the accounts showed the flow and ebb of the Northern Water Tribe, which Asami had always found odd and somewhat disrespectful, especially if the North did have a sister tribe millennia ago. It intrigued her to ask more, to find out everything and take all the marbles if she ever got her expedition off the ground.

"Now the City of the Southern Water Tribe was arguably home to a somewhat excluded yet very spiritualistic civilisation over ten thousand years ago," she began to explain, pressing her glasses up to the bridge of her nose again and standing up the pictures of the various carvings. "According to one of the texts in the library of Wan Shi Tong, the City was suddenly struck by a cataclysmic event that caused the entire city to sink far beneath the Southern Ocean" she gestured to another map of the Four Nations that made up the planet off to the side, keeping her professional and stiff posture that occasionally made her back hurt from the straightness.

She had chosen her outfit meticulously for the day; a complimenting slightly pinkish blouse with a darker and more crimson waistcoat to accompany the shade of the same colour in her black hair, matching her reddish eyeshadow and lips. Her pencil skirt had been replaced by her long business pants of the same colour as her waistcoat with her full coat waiting on the back of her desk chair off to the side. She had decided to ignore the tie, it was too much for her relatively busty torso with the blouse.

"Now some of you gentlemen may ask, why the Southern Water Tribe?" She had really been asking herself the same question for the past few months, really thinking about if it was worth the cost or the manpower or even the nerve of asking for a third time. But the memory of her father was too strong a reason to carry on with the dedication. "Well gentlemen," now the pictures and sketches were coming out for her faux audience, "ten thousand years before the Earth Government was formed, before the Rise and Fall of the Equalists even, the Southern Tribe, possessed an immense power source of some kind" she was flicking through different pictures of what seemed to be carvings of a people, surrounded by an energy field of sorts and praying to a sun like object in the sky. "This power source was more advanced than electricity It allowed them to create advanced healing methods, medicines, even the power of flight." Her glasses were beginning to fall once again from the excessive shaking motions her head was making.

Her head was brought down to the level of the pictures, stopping on one which looked like some technical machine drawing of a battery. "Now some of you may say this impossible but no, not for the people of the South" she stamped, continuing to flick through the pictures of the carvings. "Most of the ancient cultures of the world agreed that this power source the people possessed was more powerful than steam, or coal, even more powerful than our modern combustion engine." She took a gap to breathe and collect her thoughts, thinking of what was coming next in her prepared speech.

"Gentlemen. I propose, that we find the Southern Tribe, find this so called 'power source' and return to the United Republic with it in hand" she gestured triumphantly towards the ceiling with her right fist as she finished. She usually never got carried away with her thoughts or her passions outside of tinkering with what she could, usually her stove back at her apartment. This was a whole new kind of different. This was the Southern Water Tribe, something that could well and truly exist and be waiting for her to gaze upon with her bright and intelligent young eyes. And she wanted to so deeply. To see her father's passion and her passion be real, to be there, to be waiting.

Now her pictures had ceased, coming to the last and most important image. A page from a text with the image of a Northern Triber with another book in his possession. "Now this gentleman," she referred to the picture, placing her index finger near the brown tome clutched in the man's arms, "is a page from a text out of the Northern Tribe talking about a book called the Fisherman's Account."

The Holy Grail when it came to the lost City of the South. She had obsessed over the very idea of finding the book for decades. Instead of finding the right girl for her in university she instead scoured every source she could to find a mere mention of the tome, of where it might be or how it might look. And now she was certain she'd found the location.

"Now the Fisherman's Account is believed to contain various sources, including a first person account, regarding the location of the Lost Tribe." At this time she shifted from behind the podium to in front of her blackboard, stretching to flip the top of the board back to the text and the translation, again showing the words, 'It lies in the West'.

She retrieves her yardstick again, to point to the glyphs at the top of the rather large board since it stood almost a foot taller than she. "According to this millennia old series of Fire Nation lettering we always believed that the Fisherman's Account lied towards the West of the known world, presumably within the Fire Nation itself but." She moved to the right side of the room, closer to the exit to grab a small plank of ancient wood, rather misplaced in her room full of paper and maps and dioramas.

She held the plank of aged and stained wood to the audience. "As you can see gentlemen from the small text on this piece of Air Nation wood. One of the words on the board, had been mistranslated" she said with a smile. Although she hadn't studied in languages in university she still retained a natural talent for solving the little equations that letters provided. The different glyphs were much like math to her and her genius for it carried over most efficiently. This latest assumed victory over the ten thousand year language barrier had really left her pleased.

"So, gentlemen, by replacing the incorrect word with the correct we can now discover that the Account does not reside in the West of the world" at this time she rubbed out the last word with her bare fast and picked up the chalk from the table behind the board, writing in the correct word 'East'. "But it resides in the East of the world."

Pause for dramatic effect Sato. You got them eating out of your hands. At least she would have, if the phone hadn't have started to ring at that exact moment, causing her to drop the chalk and the plank of hundred year old wood right on her foot, resulting in a quick yet harsh whince leaving her lips.

The presentation was called to a close and she was back on the clock, throwing herself over the board to answer the telephone on her desk.

"This is the Office of Asami Sato Phd, Asami Sato speaking" she answered enthusiastically. She always enjoyed answering her own personal office telephone with her correct title and name. It was one of the little quirks that made her smile whenever she announced it. However much to her disappointment the caller was simply requesting her to fix the boiler at the back of her room due to the heating in one of the more higher up professor's' office being a 'little low'. Over a year in this dump and I'm still down here.

Nevertheless, she was a slave to the institution still, and that required that she work her magic on the boiler and aid her fellow intellectuals and academics.

In a flash she was suddenly on the other side of the room with the burst of triumphant wind in her breast gone and replaced with a flat series of low notes charging from her chest to her ears, reminding her of her position and her reputation; the daughter of Hiroshi Sato and the laughing stock of the archaeological world. For now.

She spinned the valves and twisted the pipes, ending her magic tough with the rough whack of a wrench on anything really, usually the biggest of the pipes to allow the air to flow more fluidly towards the higher levels. It was the only time her extensive knowledge of automobiles transferred into the world of learning and higher thinking, in which she really had no part in. She was just there, among the crowd and begging for one moment to show the world that she could contribute, not take away from it. But the truth was that nobody wanted to listen. She was a woman shouting in a locked and sound proofed room, where nobody would ever make contact. And she despised it to extent of her heart burning at hot as the boiler she walked away from.

She leaped back over the blackboard to the scatty woman assistant on the other end of the line, waiting for the 'boiler girl' to accomplish her mediocre task.

"How's that? Yeah. Bye" she finished flatly, ending her breath with a sigh. She wished so for the expedition, if not for the chance to find the City then for the chance to leave the museum, at least for a few months, to catch herself and forged her identity anew. Only today her dreams would be crushed by those who owned her, owned her destiny.

The phone rang again, another woman on the line. This time Asami didn't even bother to announce herself, not that she needed to.

"This is Asami Sato Phd?" The woman asked over the phone. Asami only graced her with a grunt of confirmation. The woman sounded as fake as Sato's faux audience in the back of the room, with bad news on her breath and the most annoying voice imaginable to accompany it. "Great. I'm calling from the office of Mr Raiko informing you that your meeting with the board of investors has been moved from three thirty to two."

Asami looked at the clock. Two fifteen. What the hell? She asked herself in the space it took for the assistant to take a quick sip of her tea, voicing her slurp over the phone. "Um?" Was Asami's response, until the woman cut her off.

"And since you missed your meeting the board has had no choice but to deny your request to funding for," she takes a break to read the note in front of her, "the Search for the Lost Southern Water Tribe." Asami took another sighed breath, her blood temperature rising at the shattering of her one chance, her better chance. Before she could even form a curse by way of reply the woman ended the call rather abruptly.

What the actual hell? They cannot do this to me!

The drive home was just plain depressing. The radio wasn't turned on; she was too crushed to be bothered with the joyous sound of the normal jive that came on every day and night. Her work shift was dull and dry and just as sad as every other day was without direction. She thought about Hiroshi far more than any other day after the phone call. Dad wouldn't give up. Hell he'd fund the thing himself. Except there was no rational way she could ever afford to find the Account on her own, forget about the tribe. She was defeated, done, caput.

The key entered the door of its own free will, Asami consciously ignoring the note from her landlord on the crappy woodwork of the door. Something about there being no electricity because she had forgotten a payment. Like she hardly cared an ounce. She had downed a full bottle of whiskey before climbing the stairs to her apartment and by now was really feeling it.

She entered completely out of her mind, even flicking the light switch and then remembering there would be no light waiting for her. It had started to rain now and the occasional strike of lightning gave her a brief moment of light to see an out of place sight sitting on her armchair near the far window.

"Asami Sato, Phd, I presume?" The slender and seductive woman teased from the chair. She was dressed rather scandalously with a black dress covering her various curves and her rather nice chest. Not that Asami was sober enough to look anywhere she may have wanted to.

She stood directly underneath her ceiling fan, shocked as to how the hell this woman was sitting in her apartment without a key to enter. All other methods of breaking and entering were lost to her drunkenness.

"Who the hell are you? How did you even get in here?" Asami asked, progressively more into a mild drunk and more angry as she continued. Her briefcase now dropped from her hand onto the floor as the woman flicked her fringe of brownish black hair away from her dark green eyes.

She inhaled a puff of cool air, Asami noticed a long cigarette in her gloved hand. "I came down the chimney" she said sarcastically, Sato not even registering it. "Ho, ho, ho." Asami cringed at the seductive pass. She was too drunk and depressed for any flirting and more so from a complete stranger, even if she was wearing a weak black dress.

"My name is Kuvira" she finally divulged, flicking the ash from the tip of her cigarette and then immediately taking another drag. Again she flicked her hair away as Asami checked her glasses to ensure that the woman was indeed real and it wasn't just the whiskey talking. "I'm acting on behalf of my prestigious employer. He has recently taken a keen, well shall we say interest, in your research" she explained, finishing with another drag of her cigarette.

Asami was completely gobsmacked. Who? What? By now she wished she hadn't downed the whiskey; she had no clue what was going yet she still heard a little of what Kuvira was telling her. An employer with an interest in Asami Sato, Phd. That never happened to her so this was already tantalising enough to peak her particular interest.

She walked a little closer towards the mysterious Kuvira, placing her hands on the arms of the red leather armchair, causing the intruder to smile slightly at her forward nerve.

"Who's your employer Miss Kuvira?"

She smiled more intently, she had Asami hook, line and sinker. It was precisely as Mr Varrick had instructed her.