Players and Pawns
Prologue: Reasonable Doubt
The words hit Korra like they'd been spoken in a foreign language, and she did a double-take.
"I'm sorry, Chief Bei Fong?" the Avatar asked, thoroughly confused. "He wants to talk to me?"
"That's what I said, Avatar," the Head of Police answered briskly, her hard eyes giving away nothing. "Now hurry up and move; I haven't been able to get a peep out of this slimeball in two days, and I'm tired of wasting my time. If anyone could get through to him," Lin finished, not even trying to hide her disdain as she looked over at Korra, "it would seem be you, for some reason."
The Avatar nodded, meeting her erstwhile rival's eyes with an unflinching gaze of her own.
"I'll try my best, Chief," she said. "Anything that can help us get closer to taking down Amon."
"Then stop wasting your time prattling and go."
Korra nodded and left, making her way through the stark, steel-gray halls of Republic City's police headquarters. With each step, she tried to puzzle out the odd turn her life had just taken.
Why does he want to talk to me? Especially after what happened during that raid?
She had never seen a pair of eyes look that determined to kill before. Amon's cold glare had been the stuff of Korra's many recent nightmares, but even that had been detached; devoid of any emotion other than smug superiority.
These eyes had been as blue as her own, but they had bled with more seething hatred than Korra had ever known a Water Tribe citizen to be capable of.
It was my fault they looked like that. I lost control, and I… that girl was my age… she looked like she was in so much pain…
All my fault.
"Avatar Korra?" A probing voice broke into her thoughts, snapping the Avatar back into the present. "Are you lost?"
She blinked and looked up at the guard, who was standing watch over the cell belonging to the prisoner that had requested to speak to her.
Would he just try to finish what he'd started three nights ago?
"No," Korra answered with conviction, "I'm right where I need to be. Can you open that door for me, Ma'am?"
The guard looked at the Avatar, clearly thrown off by the request.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Didn't your boss tell you the situation?" Korra asked, and the guard shook her head. "He wants to talk to me. And just me, from the sound of it," the Avatar added, wary. "That was what the Chief said, anyway."
The guard paused for a moment to consider, before breaking out her keys with a reluctant sigh and inserting the biggest one on the ring into the lock.
"You sure you don't want any backup, kid?"
Korra shook her head, taking one last calming breath as the door swung open in front of her with a creak.
"I appreciate it," the Avatar said, "but I think I'll be all right. If he tries anything crazy, I won't hold back."
"Your call," the guard said with a shrug, stepping aside as Korra walked into the small room. "Just try not to tear the cell down, okay? They don't come cheap."
The Avatar heard the door close behind her, but she didn't look back at it.
Her eyes were focused forward, trained on the young man sitting cross-legged on the floor looking back up at her. He smiled sharply, his blue eyes gleaming cold and bright from behind messy, dark-brown hair.
"Avatar Korra," he said, the pale white bands of scar tissue running vertically down from his left temple to the bottom of his left jawbone gleaming in the dim light of the cell. "You came after all."
After a few moments passed in tense silence, Korra realized that the prisoner wasn't going to rise. She sat down across from him, never once breaking eye contact.
"Sarrak, was it?" she said at last. The young man's smile widened.
"You remembered my name," he said quietly, sounding amused. "I must have made an impression."
The Avatar gave a bitter chuckle.
"I don't think I'd forget the name of someone who tried to kill me."
Sarrak leaned back slightly, measuring his visitor with a searching look.
"Is that what you think?" he asked after a few heartbeats had gone between them. "That I was trying to kill you?"
Korra stared at him.
"Well, yeah," she said bluntly. "Isn't that usually why you attack people with a sword?"
Now it was Sarrak's turn to laugh, and it was equally as humorless a sound as Korra's had been.
"If I'd wanted to kill you, Avatar," he said, "I would have thrown a knife into your neck the moment you broke down that door and came bursting in to our little dojo. Maybe I should have; I'm sure Mira would be in much better shape right now."
There was unmistakable hatred in his last few words, and Korra had to fight back a flinch. She swallowed, pushing past the implication that she had been dead-to-rights and Sarrak had decided to let her live. She had been put at someone's mercy once before, and it was something she would never forget.
Never again.
"So why didn't you?"
"Because it's not my place to kill you, in case you've forgotten," Sarrak said, his smile returning as a smirk that played about the corners of his mouth as he spoke. "That duty belongs to someone else."
"Amon," Korra grit out, her own blue eyes darkening with anger. "Now we're getting somewhere. Tell me where he is, Sarrak."
The Equalist didn't even pause for thought.
"No."
"Tell me."
"How did that feel," Sarrak said, his eyes glinting spitefully, "being beaten for the first time in your life?"
"Where is Amon?"
"The others were right about you, Korra," he continued, smiling viciously. "You really are a glutton for punishment."
The fire sprang to her hand without a second thought, and Sarrak hadn't even blinked before the Avatar was holding it just inches from his face.
"Give me an answer," she ground out. "Now. No more games."
"Or what?" the Equalist asked levelly. "You'll burn it out of me?"
"Try not to make it sound so appealing. Good men and women are in critical condition because of you Equalists."
"Then shut up and do it," Sarrak countered coldly. "Save your threats for men who aren't already dead, Avatar."
The flame faltered, sputtered and vanished as the weight of those words sunk into Korra.
"You don't mean…" she began as she backed off and sat down again, her eyes widening, and Sarrak nodded. "Amon's going to kill you just because you got captured? Why would you protect him, then? Tell me where he is, and I could cut you a deal with the Chief— what is it?" Korra asked, seeing the scornfully amused look in the Equalist's eyes and stalling out. "What's so funny?"
"Amon's not the one who wants me dead, Avatar," Sarrak replied. "It's Tarrlok. As soon as you're done here, he's going to send a guard in here to take me outside and into a back alley. After that, the guard is going to kill me. If I had to guess," he added musingly in the face of Korra's horrified stare, "they'll probably bring my head back to Tarrlok. I hear he likes his trophies."
"That's… we…" Korra choked out, before forcing herself to regain her composure. "We don't kill our prisoners! Stop screwing with me!"
Sarrak stared daggers at the Avatar, all of the humor seeping away from his eyes to leave only scorn.
"You say good men and women are in critical condition because of us Equalists," he said, "and yet you haven't even taken the time to get to know whom those men and women are. Some comrade you are, Avatar."
"What do you mean?"
Sarrak sighed, taking a breath as he closed his eyes.
"One of the people I fought three nights ago," he said, "was Tarrlok's brother-in-law. The only reason I'm still alive is because the noble Councilman wants me to suffer a little more before he has me butchered like a dog. Why do you think I got a cell all to my own?"
Korra could feel her stomach churning, and was suddenly glad that she'd skipped breakfast that morning.
"Tell me where Amon is," she said, her voice softer now than it had been during her earlier demands. "I can find a way to keep you safe."
Sarrak stared at her for a few moments, and then he burst out laughing.
"You really have no idea how this works," he said after he'd calmed down, "do you? It must have been nice, growing up in whatever fairy-tale land you come from."
"I'm being serious," Korra shot back, her anger spiking again. The Equalist smiled again, but this time there was pity in the gesture.
"And so am I," he said. "Tarrlok has more spies in this district than anywhere else in the city. If you try to move me somewhere else, he'll find me there and kill me in my sleep. That's what happened to his predecessor, Kyu—or did he not tell you that?" Sarrak asked, his pity giving way to spite once more. "Probably not; he was very careful not to leave anyone alive who might have been able to implicate him. I didn't ask you to come here to beg for mercy, Avatar," Sarrak finished, "or to ask you to make empty promises."
Korra frowned.
"Then why did you ask me here, exactly?"
The Equalist opened his mouth to speak, only to be cut off by the sound of a hard knock on the door.
"Avatar Korra," the guard's voice floated, muffled, through the door, "someone is here to question the prisoner. Councilman Tarrlok's orders."
Silence settled back between the pair for a few more moments, and Korra could feel the tension settling thickly over her shoulders. Realizing that there was nothing she could do to help Sarrak, she settled for the next best thing.
"I'm… I'm sorry," she said. "About what happened. To Mira."
"Don't," the Equalist cut her off, his voice for once bleeding with the pure anger Korra had seen in his eyes three nights ago.
"I didn't mean to—"
"But you did," Sarrak said darkly as the door opened behind Korra with another creak. "I don't want the last words I hear in my life to be empty ones, Avatar. Spare me. Just count yourself lucky that she still has one of her eyes, or I might be tempted to forget my promise to her."
"Well, well," a new voice broke into the conversation as Tarrlok's minion entered the cell; he seemed to be the same age as the two other occupants. "That sounds like a threat to me, Sarrak. Might want to hold off on those, or you won't even make it to questioning." The visitor looked over at Korra, his dark green eyes glinting in the dim light. "Mind if I take this piece of dirt-sucking scum off your hands, Avatar?"
Korra stared down the newcomer, rising to her feet as Sarrak did the same. The Avatar knew now beyond a shadow of a doubt what would happen if Tarrlok got a hold of this particular prisoner… and her earlier hesitation vanished as if it had never been. She wasn't about to just let someone get executed on her watch; not if she could help it.
"Actually, yeah," she said with an edge to her words, "I do mind. You can run along and go tell Councilman Tarrlok that if he wants to question Sarrak here," Korra finished, jerking her thumb over to the prisoner, "he can do it himself."
"I'm afraid that's not possible, Avatar," Tarrlok's messenger replied, his tone turning decidedly threatening. "The Councilman has many duties to attend to, and can't spare the time to get his hands dirty consorting with murderous Equalists like this one here."
"Korra," Sarrak broke in evenly, giving her a pointed sidelong glance, "Let it go. Just remember what I told you about Tarrlok."
The Avatar opened her mouth to argue, but the continued pressure of Sarrak's blue eyes forced her to keep her silence. She nodded, and the green-eyed lackey slapped a pair of handcuffs on the Equalist's wrists and led him from the cell.
On the way out of the station, Tarrlok's messenger stopped by the main desk and retrieved the pair of katana he'd been forced to surrender upon entry. The pair of young men were almost to the door when a stern voice called out from behind them, stopping them in their tracks.
"Where did you get those swords?"
The green-eyed minion turned back around to regard Chief Bei Fong, his expression perfectly level.
"I bought them," he answered calmly, "at a very high price. They were antiques."
The Chief smiled, but it was an acidic sliver of a gesture that didn't come close to her eyes.
"Hardly," she shot back, her tone as cutting as the substance she was famous for bending. "I'd recognize that craftsmanship anywhere; I knew the man who forged those personally."
"You did?" Tarrlok's messenger said, arching an eyebrow in genuine curiosity. The Chief nodded.
"I knew him," she reiterated, before her pale green eyes hardened, "and I killed him myself."
The young man's expression stayed neutral, but the tension in the air was palpable.
"I'm sure that was quite a duel," he said, before bowing. "Goodbye, Chief Bei Fong. The Councilman sends his regards."
"I'm sure he does."
Tarrlok's messenger nodded, turned back to face the door, and walked through it without another word.
The pair of young men were well-clear of the police station and deep into the network of Republic City's back alleys when the green-eyed swordsman finally took the handcuffs off of Sarrak. The blue-eyed Equalist rubbed his wrists and frowned, glaring over at the Councilman's envoy.
"You're late, Hanzo," he said lowly. "I've been rotting in that damn cell for two days."
"Hey, don't get pissy with me," Hanzo replied defensively. "Those were the boss's orders. Amon wanted to make sure you got to Korra. It's your own damn fault that it took two days." He took one of the katana from his waist, offering it to Sarrak. "You can use this one until you get a replacement."
"Are you sure?" the other Equalist asked, surprised. "Those're—"
"Just shut up and take it," Hanzo cut his friend off, his voice far more tense than Sarrak had heard it in months.
"Thanks," he said after a moment, taking the offered weapon. He shrugged. "I got the Avatar to start doubting Tarrlok, I know that much… and she certainly blames herself for what she did to Mira. Mission accomplished, then, I guess," Sarrak finished hollowly, forcing down the knotted feeling in his stomach.
Hanzo nodded.
"Yeah." The green-eyed Equalist paused for a moment, before continuing in a gentler tone. "Mira's doing fine, Sarrak. She'll be back in the field in no time."
"I hope that's true," Sarrak said, melancholy creeping into his voice as the two friends continued to walk down the alley.
"Let's go home."
…
…
A/N: And so it begins! From here on out is where things get nuts; this chapter acts mainly as a primer for the OCs that will show up later on, and to give Korra and Lin some time to shine. Because they're cool like that.
And just as a note for my frequent readers, this 'Hanzo' is a different, Korra-fied version of my 'Twist of Fate' OC. So he's 17, and not 87. Gotta love alternate continuities!
Hope you enjoyed it!
P.S. - Thanks must be given to Valbrandr, the one who suggested I combine all of these related one-shots into a single, over-arching story. She was also one of the three people to review Genesis (the next chapter) in its stand-alone form, which deserves a merit badge all on its own as far as I'm concerned.