Hey guys. In celebration of Korrasami (wedding ) week, I'm going to kick off my new fanfic Connate Spirits! I hope you guys enjoy! Please leave comments and kudos!
Year 2406
Asami placed the portable drive card in front of the computer's screen. Codes surged up the screen, numbers and letters scrolling past illegibly fast as information transferred from the larger computer to smaller drive.
She once again cast a cautious look into the office space from around the sectioned off area she stood in.
Reports was not where she belonged. She'd swiped a badge from one of Kuvira's faceless soldiers. That alone would be enough to land her in a dark hole for however long Kuvira deemed fit. But now she was accessing reports that were marked under 'CONFIDENTIAL' and scanning them to a remote server. Being caught wouldn't mean imprisonment; it would mean being taken out behind the shed.
Piles upon piles of reports stacked up neatly on the well used desks and chairs. She could see an out cove where a set of stairs lead to the floor below, and elevators were to its side. She could see Kuvira's dead eyes gazing from nearly every wall, mounted in picture frames next to the flags they'd all sworn allegiance to. An allegiance for the sake of survival more than sake of deference. But more than anything she could see her shadow, almost ominously hanging behind herself, as the screen kicked more information into the flat thin device she held in her hands.
"Commoncommoncommon." She chanted to the device, though technology didn't care about her impatience.
The files reached 80 percent. She glanced around at the darkness and then-
The screen went dark. The computers around her went dark, the coffee machine released bubbles into old coffee and the computers whirring came to an end.
She was plummeted into sinister silence.
A small measure came then before lights flooded in through the office windows and the high strung wailing of a distant alarm sounded.
Her heart sunk to her stomach and she took two horrified steps back as the search light careened the room, dipping with the rise and falls of desks and penetrating the very shadows she hid within.
As the light just reached the edge of her shoes, Asami thrust herself to the floor boards, the smell of spilled coffee and burned electronics in her nose as the light flooded over the counter tops of the dissected room. She scuttled backwards, watching the light sweep towards her feet, coming up just short before it swiveled aside. The cabinets her back rest against protecting her from that all seeing ray of light.
Bang! She jumped, her eyes shifting to the sound.
To her side she heard heavy footfalls and frantic breathing, "What do we do now." The woman speaking clung to the arm of a familiar face. Shaking with terror, Asami peered into the steel reflective surfaces of the computers around her; she could see Varrick grabbed hold of the woman's hand.
There came a light so brilliant that staring at it made Asami's eyes tingle and burn.
The radiance came from the identical tattoos encasing their intertwined fingers. They were connate spirits.
Varrick had been shot and the subsequent splatter had sprayed onto the younger woman's drafty prisoner uniform which stood in start contrast to Varrick's military uniform. The man doubled over, gritting his teeth and reaching for the wound. His connate's eyes filled with fear as she held him from behind, her arms wound around his body, "Varrick," She began with grievance, Varrick we have to keep running."
"I just need a moment." Varrick panted, his hand covering the wound in his shoulder, blood spilling between his fingers, "If I just had a bit more time-,"
The glass windows cratered inward, shattering into a thousand jagged pieces. Asami turned her head aside as glass rained down on her. The male connate thrust the young woman to the floor as bullets rocketed through the room. The deadly metals embed in computer screens, ripped through portraits of Kuvira and melted the plastic binding of office chairs.
Glass cylinder surrounding Asami's head puckered and exploded. A shrill of panic just barely escaped her lungs before she covered her mouth and bit back the scream.
She slammed her eyes shut and felt the glass press into her making violent marks in her wrists and legs. The bullets ceased just as the sound of purposeful footsteps, rushed up the staircases.
Asami scuttled across the floor quickly, glass erupting as the final shots came from rooftops of surrounding buildings.
Kuvira's soldiers, clad in deep green and black uniform, armed with metal batons and black semi-automatics, overcame the room just as Varrick wept, "Zhu Li?"
Asami could see now. She could see his hands encasing the face of his connate and the glow of their right hands. Varrick's cradling Zhu Li's face, Zhu Li's hand open and limp on the floor. How Zhu Li's began to dim, flickering as Zhu Li gave her all to hold to what little life hadn't drained from the bullet in her chest. She couldn't hold on. It was all too much.
Her head fell limp into Varrick's hands and the brilliant glow of his right hand dimmed. The instant Zhu-Li died the burn began.
Varrick gasped and fell to the side, the tattoos etched in his skin began puckering, swelling, and burning as if touched by branding iron. His back arched his gunshot to the arm nothing compared to the all consuming sear of the tattoo.
As Varrick released a howl of pain the doors opposite the stairs flooded aside.
Through the opened doors marched Kuvira herself, she moved towards Varrick with a deadly intent in each step. The man's face swam with tearful realization then.
Kuvira stopped just short of Varrick, who grit his teeth, clutched his hand and withheld the screams of agony that seemed to crawl just beneath his skin. Kuvira's soldiers moved in, taking steady aim of Varrick's skull, ready to pull their triggers at even the slightest sign of resistance.
"Hmm," Kuvira's jaw tightened as she crouched over Zhu Li's body, "Strange isn't it? How they look so much like us. So," she searched for the right word, "Human." She seemed to say to no one in particular.
"She," Varrick struggled, swallowed, his skin shifting between hues of red and orange and charred black, "She is more human than you'll ever be."
"Hm." Kuvira stood, "You're reports say there's an overcrowding in our prisons." She removed her own gun from its holster, "I have a solution for that."
She fired a round between Varrick's eyes. With a resolute pop Varrick's body stiffened and he fell to the floor. His mouth rest agape and his eyes opened wide. And when his body touched the floor his eyes seemed to stare directly at Asami from her hidden position.
Asami's back pressed against the counter tops, her hands covered her mouth with a trail of blood inching down her face, and she stared back into Varrick's dead eyes, incapable of looking anywhere else.
"Bataar, have Asami Sato come to my office in the morning. She'll be glad to know she's been promoted."
Asami shivered at the thought of ambitiously climbing to the top over Varrick's dead body.
Kuvira took a breath and searched the room, "Have sanitation cleanse the room and when they're done have them coordinate with Recruit Force. I want to know who this connate bribed to pass him on spinal testing and then I want to see that person swinging from the gallows."
Kuvira exited the room with no further word uttered beyond that untried death sentence.
The soldiers turned on their heels then and marched directly for the dissected half of the room Asami crouched in.
Panic had just barely filled her stomach when a hand came down on her shoulder.
She jumped, her scream swelling when she turned her head to the right and found a familiar face.
The handsome face of Kuvira's loyalist soldier named Mako. He wore his uniform better than most, he believed in everything the black and gold badge on his chest stood for. Now he crouched at her flank and pressed his fingers to his lips.
"Stay here." He stepped a few steps back before he rose to his feet and moved into view of approaching soldiers, "All clear." He lied to them.
Asami tried to make sense of why Mako would help her despite his resolute belief in the law.
Minutes ticked pass, the soldier's moved their search to the next floor, and soon all that surrounded them was that same sinister silence from before only now with shattered glass covering every surface.
Asami released the breath she'd been holding and stood to her feet slowly. Shards of glass fell free of her clothes, and with a trembling hand she gently touched a piece of glass that had dug into her cheek.
Her eyes never left the athletically built man before her and their silence ticked away at precious moments.
"I don't know why you're here," He said finally, his eyes lingering on the portable drive she still clutched in her hand, "And I don't want to know. What I do know is that I need your help." He took a breath and closed his eyes as he faced the truth in the next sentence, "My brother is dying."
Year 1942
The door pushed open and a cold draft rippled through the room. The hot bodies of the dancers tread fast steps to the upbeat tunes of the live band.
Asami's eyes trained on her ice melting quietly at the bottom of her glass. She only glanced up for a moment, more for the sake of curious boredom than anticipation. But what her eyes found reflected by the long wall of mirrors on the barkeepers wall cured her boredom.
She found a lopsided smile perched beneath the military issued hat of a tall broad shouldered woman. Her clothes were peppered in snow. Her group of friends all but taken with laughter by whatever wit she'd shared.
"I tell you! We'll have ourselves a Double Victory guys and gals!" As her friends let out high pitched laughs she flooded the bar with her presence. It was charisma, Asami told herself. That certain something that some people have that makes them turn heads.
And turning heads was this girl's pastime.
The soldiers without dates gawked, undressing the woman in uniform with their eyes; those with dates snuck their glances over long sips of alcohol.
Asami felt the touch of a cool glass against her skin. She swung her head to find a wide forced grin to cover up the lack of confidence.
His skin was dark as coal, his features so chiseled it was almost painful to watch such a beautiful massacre. But none the less the man was rendered sheepish as he made his approach, "Penny for your thoughts?" he asked.
Asami smiled and shook her head, "No thanks."
"Aw come on."
Korra scanned the faces in the room. It had been some time ago when she'd first seen the woman grace the stage. She had a voice that many would say didn't belong to her. The kind of voice that made stomachs fill with sorrow and friends into lovers.
She found the woman at the bar - between songs, Korra assumed. Taking a break as she usually did with a glass of white wine, a spiritless expression and a flower with its leaves plucked apart and laid on the counter.
She always had a flower. Always pulled it's petals off. One of the many mysteries about the white woman that liked to sing in the negro bars.
Korra looked away. Her eyes landing back on Opal and the two men they'd entered with.
Kinto, a slender faced well kempt man gleamed at her, "What do you know about victory?"
"I know it changes things," Korra said absentmindedly her feet carrying her to the bar. Closer to the woman.
"Oh yeah? Like what?"
Korra angled herself a mere few feet from the singer. She positioned her elbow on the counter top and rest her weight there, "My father was a surgeon in the Great War."
"That right?" Kinto mocked.
Korra turned and curtly remarked, "That's right."
"Dog surgeons don't count," Kinto laughed.
"We call those veterinarians you jackass." Korra turned to the bartender hovering nearby, "Scotch sour." As the bartender smiled warmly at the popular woman Korra added, "Might as well leave the bottle."
Those within earshot laughed at Korra's forwardness before Kinto grumbled, "What's that got to do with victory?"
"Well, it's the logistics," Korra said her eyes trailing to the green eyed wonder once more, "We win the war overseas, we win the war on prejudice at home. We prove our courage-,"
"And they still find a way to call us cowards." Kinto cut her short.
"You have no faith in nothing do you?"
"We can't all afford to have our heads in the clouds."
Their eyes met and Korra waited. She knew Asami was the kind of woman most men didn't look in the eyes for too long, most women simply avoided because they found her not relatable. Korra paused because she knew Asami waited for her to look away first. But she didn't. And when that happened Asami's expression, as spiritless as it was, turned a shade redder. The man passing at the woman took her attention back and he said, "You come in here every night like clockwork."
Asami's shoulders raised ever the slightest with disinterest at the man's observation, "This is the only place that let's me sing the music I want to sing. Hear the music I want to hear."
Korra continued to steamroll over Kinto's protests, "In the Great War negro soldiers would come in with their faces melting off, limbs blown to hell and my dad was expected to practice triage on all of them."
"That right?" Kinto asked preparing an insult.
Without breaking stride in her own conversation, Korra took another step in Asami's direction. She felt Asami's eyes rake over her body. Her hands were calloused. Her uniform pressed and clean. Her hair neat in a ponytail. Her jaw long and firm. And finally she met Korra's eyes. They brimmed with jubilance.
Korra's mouth moved to address her friends, but she didn't bother passing her eyes from the singer, "Do you know what the first rule of triage is?"
"Try not to kill nobody is my guess?" Due chimed in.
"Save as many lives as you can s fast as you can?" Opal asked, genuinely curious.
Kinto sniffed, "Get on with it already."
"Nope. First rule of triage is to use your resources effectively. Rank. Relatives. Comradery. All of it is secondary to resources." The bartender returned and began passing out drinks. He shook his head and slid Korra the bottle with a brief remark on its price. Korra ignored her single serve drink and took the bottle by its neck in her hands, "So my question to all of you is if I were to crack this bottle over Kinto's head would ya'll consider that an effective use of resources?"
The crowd laughed at the magnetic woman as Kinto downed a shot of scotch and stomped away irritated. "Awe! Come on," Korra called after the man, "Don't be such a sour puss!"
Asami and her suitor looked at the crowd of laughing faces for a moment. His nerves too much to keep him from laughing. He touched her gently on the arm and extended an open palm invitation, "You know they say the music takes on a whole other meaning when you're dancing to it with someone?"
As her friends collected their drinks Korra inched a few steps closer to the dark haired knockout beauty. She leaned just inches from Asami's smooth skin. Her eyes working over the exposed arms, the way her back stretched flat as a board in perfect posture. Her striking red dress that fit every curve of her body. She felt her teeth bite down on her lip as she came to rest her eyes on Asami's glorious hair. The suitor who had made no headway with the woman and Korra had just opened her mouth to send him away when Asami spoke for herself.
"So why don't you ask someone who wants to dance with you?"
Korra's eyebrow shot skyward, the man's mouth hung agape, Asami placed the glass to her lips and took a graceful sip and said nothing more as the deflated man slunk away.
Her friends called out to her, Korra waved them off.
"You've got quite a bite." Korra noted, "I wouldn't have pegged you the kind to shut a man down so hard."
"Simple 'no's' don't pass with most men. And what 'kind' did you figure me for?" Asami extended her fingers to the bartender for a fresh drink.
Korra shrugged, down her single shot and continued, "The kind that looks to be protected and not the protector."
"And now?"
"Now?" Korra eyed Asami's red dress. How vibrant it was. How she made mental note not to stare to long at each curve. "Well you're the kind the Devil sends to tempt God's most devout."
Asami smiled at that, "Do you call all the girls you just meet demons?"
"Well most girls get accustomed to being called angels."
Asami laughed breathily, shortly, an odd tune that wasn't a laugh but still made Korra smile, "And are you amongst these… devout?"
Korra took a step away, spread her arms and grinned at her dark green uniform. A grin brought on by the fact that the broad shouldered woman knew she looked good in a uniform, "Can't you tell by my uniform? I've sold my soul to Uncle Sam."
Asami nodded, "Army Nurse Corps?"
"Closest I could get to the frontlines as a woman. Without, you know, dressing up like a man, which I tried."
Asami choked on her drink. That was a laugh. A real damned laugh from this beautiful woman and it put Korra on the moon. "How did that work out?" Asami asked.
"Apparently I'm too pretty to be a man." Korra shrugged. Asami's eyes widened at the lack of cordiality, "I take that as a compliment."
Asami chuckled shaking her head back and forth, "You're crazy."
Korra smiled, tipped back her glass of scotch and let it burn down her throat. When her cup hit the hard wood she announced, "Dance with me."
The man from earlier became stricken with a look of disbelief.
The dark haired woman didn't bother entertaining the grandiose display. She frowned around the rim of her glass, "Are you asking or telling?"
Korra flashed a sloppy smile then and Asami would have been a liar to say her heart didn't stutter at the sight, "We're not the kind of women anyone tells to do anything." Asami's eyes trailed over Korra. Her uniform. Her skin. Her charisma. Her smile. That damned smile. The Allies could learn a thing or two about invading when it came to Korra's smile. Just a simple flash of it and her heart had surrendered.
Her hand reached for Korra's palm up invitation. Now a real smile, all consuming stretched over Korra's face, "I bet your feet still move like the fires of hell are at them."
That was when Asami's bare skin purchased against Korra's outstretched hand.
The touch hit her hard enough that both they faltered and swayed. The euphoria that instantly shot through their bodies became animated by the light that erupted. Gazing at the pretty woman in front of her, Asami watched the dark black marks begin to ease over the beautiful dark skinned face. Thin, wiring lines, intricate in design, winsome in their spirals and curves, and arches. As they imprint into Korra's skin they began to glow. Their swirls ignited the room with a conspicuous luminescent glow that went unnoticed by no one.
As Asami witnessed the tattoo spread over Korra's face she felt the euphoric etching as it marked against her own.
Euphoria. She'd had it described to her a thousand times. In the time of the Second World War she'd never imagined it could present itself to her. She'd imagined the tragedy that might befall her and her connate spirit if they were to meet in a world at war. But all of that was pushed away. Euphoria did that. It alienated and exiled all other emotions except pure joy.
The band had slowed to a disjointed stop. The marks on their faces were impossible to hide. Impossible to denounce. They were bound, not simply by the tattoos that lay across their most noticeably exposed skin, but by that euphoria. She knew what came next. The longing. It had already started. It had already commanded she caress the other woman's cheek, "It's beautiful." She watched the luminescent glow of Korra's tattoo fade to shifting speckles of blue tented light.
Korra smiled, "I don't know your name."
The women laughed then with heavy belly laughs that were more from the emotions pushing through them than from humor. They slumped further into one another, their tattoos glowing like embers in a simmering fire. Longing demanded they touch. Asami knew that. But still she felt compelled by something greater; perhaps her own desire to touch.
"Asami," Asami breathed imagining a life in which she never had to stop touching her connate spirit.
Korra inhaled Asami's scent deeply, "Korra."
Then reality struck Asami and she remembered.
The music had stopped.
The dancing had stopped.
The friends Korra had come in with now stare with their mouths agape. In fact there was many of mouths agape.
They had bonded in public.
This bond had been formed between a white and a negro. Worse it was between two women.
And these two identically tattooed faces made this bond something that would get them both killed.
Year 2406
Asami had forgotten what the stars looked like outside of the city. How the planet they lived on was vast wasteland. How endless stars lay on the other side of a glass dome.
Mako's motorcycle ripped over the land, crossing city limits and into an unknown. What seemed like hours of silence passed until a new city came into sight.
"Where are we?" Asami asked over the quiet hum of Mako's motorcycle.
"One of Kuvira's failed prisoner camp experiments."
Asami had heard rumors of Kuvira running human test trials that resulted in more death and destruction than even numerically measurable. But now rushing through the monotonous buildings the realities of Kuvira's dictatorship became all too real.
"We had to shut down a few years ago because of a contamination breach." Mako said. Asami's face filled with panic, Mako felt her stiffen with her arms wound around his waist, "Don't worry, levels are within normal. No one has been out here in years."
The buildings were at most three stories high. All made of the identical white and gray stone, glassless windows, and silver drainage pipes cakes with dirt snaking down the occasional wall. Some walls were peppered in bullets, other's in blood.
The buildings were dissected by the main road Mako and Asami traveled down. It had many roads splitting and each tire produced a billow of smoke from its wheels as they rubbed against the gravel surface.
Not too far off in the distance was a mound of the white powdery earth that seemed to encrust this desolate planet. Asami didn't have to guess what lay beneath the dirt.
"This is it." Mako neatly parked the motorcycle in front of one of the many ambiguous buildings. Asami looked behind herself. Once again she questioned her decision to go with Mako. Once again she remembered the portable drive in her hand. It was the most important thing.
She took a breath and followed him inside the building.
Each footstep echoed in the hollow room. They passed an abandoned reception desk. Her eyes trailed over the discarded blank paper. The more important pieces rest as ashes in a metal bin beside the desk. The filing cabinets drawers left open. She approached the cabinet with curiosity for this place. As if she expected Kuvira's dirty laundry to lie around in the abandoned building.
"This way." Mako instructed from a staircase.
She followed him up the stairs. Her eyes watching the white shifting dust and dirt part with each step until she final stepped into the second story of the building.
A wide space composed by whitish grey walls. On one end of the room lay stacks of thin mattresses. On the other end of the room lay stacks of metal bed frames. And in the center a shivering young boy had been chained to the floor.
Asami's eyes lurched to Mako. She took two frightened steps away from the boys. The boy on the floor shifted, he groaned and he let out a quiet moan.
"What's-,"
"You think I wanted to chain up my brother?" Mako asked, "If I hadn't…" he trailed off shaking his head and looked back at the boy. His arms were spread apart. The chains had been anchored to opposite walls. His body could lay awkwardly on a mattress but nothing else. His head couldn't touch the mattress. He wore no shirt. His bare chest exposed.
Then there was the smell. Mixing with the hard smell of asphalt was the smell of burning flesh.
She's just barely smelled it earlier that night. When Zhu Li had died and Varrick's tattoo had burned. But this. This was thicker. It hung in the air and made Asami swallow hard to keep back her own vile. She covered her nose with her arm and approached the boy slowly.
Casting a distrustful glance to Mako she inched across the room to the young boy.
She crouched beneath his chains and moved to examine his back.
The boy whimpered. His face stained with tears.
"Mako," he mumbled. "Mako is that you?" he asked.
"Yeah," Mako stepped closer to his brother.
Asami watched the older brother move to the younger for only a moment more before stepping fully around to see Bolin's back.
She instantly knew what the smell had come from.
The boy's tattoo was massive. Covering the expanse of his entire back and dipping beneath his pants loop.
Intricate. Delicate. And just as resoundingly beautiful as all the other's she'd seen.
The stench had been the stench of the impressive tattoo burning.
The skin blistering, puckering, and gasping as it was pulled and ripped by the burn. It shined a vibrant red and orange as if a hot coal had been cooked inside the boys flesh.
"How long has-,"
"Three days."
Asami's mouth hung on its hinges, her eyes trailed to the chains binding the boy to the walls. It all made sense then. She'd have done the same.
"My god." She murmured, "His connate has been dying for the last three days. That could only mean…"
"She's being tortured. Killed over and over and over again. Each time she's being revived."
Mako nodded and his fists clenched, "He's never met her but he still has to feel her dying. How is that fair?"
Asami swallowed. She knew euphoria. She knew his contact of a connate spirit was addictive. How it filled someone with absolute joy.
She knew when that same connate died it filled their counterpart with pure unending hopelessness. Her eyes made their way back to the chains.
Mako guiltily examined the chains as well, "It's the euphoria. It made him so hopeless. Chain him was the only way I could keep him from-,"
Hearing the pain in his voice Asami cut him short, "I know."
Asami's hand trailed to her pocket where the portable drive rest concealed. Now more than ever she realized its importance. They were being hunted and soon she may very well be chained to the walls in unrelenting agony.
It's been a long time since I published anything. And what I last published involved zombies XD. Though this fic won't involve zombies it will involve another chapter in WWII (to finish this chapter), Grimm Brothers fairy-tales, clones, black/white hat hackers, and (my favorite) intergalactic space explorers. I hope you guys stick with me through this history of Korra and Asami falling in love time and time again throughout history. Please leave a comment. I love comments and they make me want to write more! Also if you see grammatical errors let me know! I love feedback! Positive and negative so don't hesitate to comment!
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