Hey guys, I'm here with the remastered edition of Edge of a Revolution. A few notes about this: first off, despite the similarities this is not a crossover with Marvel or DC or any kind of vigilante archer real or fictional. Sure there are a few names here and there, but they're just that, similarities. Secondly, as will be made clear shortly, this story is set in an AU where the Fire Nation won the Hundred Year War, so keep that in mind. With that, let's get on with it:

I do not own Legend of Korra.

The world is not as it should be.

It's been a hundred and seventy years since the Fire Nation began it's quest for a global empire. That dream became a reality with the fall of Ba Sing Se and the death of Avatar Aang at the hands of Fire Princess Azula. Despite a few setbacks and a few holdouts, the world is now dominated by a superstate known as the Phoenix Empire.

It's been seventy years since the Empire came into existence. Many of those who live under its rule are unhappy, but content, having never known anything else. Then, there are those who would defy their rulers. After seventy years, the Empire stands on the edge of Revolution.

The world is not as it should be, but there are those who seek to make it right.

Libertalia. Southern Coast.

Han looked down over the floating patchwork of wooden buildings in the gloom of the half moon hanging high above his head. He held his recurve bow at the ready, waiting for his signal to move. In the square below him was a line of people of Water Tribe origin standing on a stage, all of them bound in chains. Several people in a crowd were shouting bids to an auctioneer, who continued to raise the price with each bid.

Despite what it's name suggested, Libertalia was anything but a place of freedom. In fact, it was home to one of the largest slave markets in the Empire. It didn't matter where the slaves came from; one of the Water Tribes, the remnants of the Earth Kingdom huddled along the eastern coast of the continent, or even the Foggy Swamp. Sooner or later, a slave was bound to pass through this place.

The rundown nature of the town could also be attributed to the market as well. According to Imperial records, Libertalia nor it's slave market didn't actually exist. The town was actually little more then a junk buildings and shipwrecks stacked on top of each other that someone had decided to start selling slaves in one day. Corruption in the local governing body insured that it stayed that way, dedicating more to profit then to lively hood improvement.

Truth was, the mighty Phoenix Queen didn't concern herself with the daily on goings of her Empire anymore. She was well into her twilight years, and in fact hadn't actually made a public appearance in a few. Some people questioned if she was even still alive, although in a private setting so as not to draw the wrath of the state down upon them. So a place like Libertalia was allowed to continue to exist, despite any potential repercussions it may have had on the Empire.

Han continued to study both the crowd and the line of slaves at action with a keen eye. His partner was down there, somewhere, and he needed to be ready to play his part. The young man, aged about nineteen or so with black hair, green eyes, and a fair complexion, came from a small farm in a river valley in the heart of the Empire. His father, along with several other farmers in the area had been protesting against a raise in grain payouts by refusing to pay their taxes.

He had come home from a hunting trip to find his and several other farms in the valley burned to the ground by a detachment of Imperial soldiers. The troops had dragged his father and brother into the square of the nearby village, beaten them, and then crucified them as examples for all who would dare to defy Imperial rule. His mother and sister were no where to be found, most likely having been sold off into slavery.

Han had given up on trying to find them long ago. Once someone entered the system, the likelihood of a commoner being able to track them down was impossible. There were simply too many places to send them, too many positions to be filled. He could spend the rest of his life looking and still be no closer to finding them then the day he had started.

The reason Han was here was for revenge. His mother and sister may have been impossible for him to find, but the man responsible wasn't. He'd tracked the commander of the company of soldiers responsible across most of the Empire before finally the trail led here to Libertalia.

While here, he had met a young woman, a little older then him, hiding amongst the slaves. She went by the name of Nat, insisting that it was short for something although she never said what it was. Nat was an agent for the Earth Kingdom, here to assassinate the man who oversaw the entire market. Seeing a mutually beneficial situation, the two had created a temporary partnership in order to achieve what they wanted.

"Good luck, Hawkeye. Watch for my signal." Those had been the last words Nat had said to him before vanishing into the night, despite the fact that he had no idea what the signal was suppose to be. As for the nickname, she had given it to him when she'd noticed both his talent with the bow, and his knack for noticing little details no one else did. He kinda liked the nickname, feeling that it suited him.

So here he was, perched on a rooftop in the shadows of the night, looking down over the torch lit square. He'd taken the precaution of silencing the few guards that had been stationed on the rooftops to overlook the action. He didn't kill them. They were just local guys on a payroll trying to make a living, even if that living involved slavery.

"Come on, this group is excellent stock, fresh from the South! Do I hear twenty thousand?" the auctioneer yelled. Someone from the crowd answered with a bid, prompting the auctioneer to raise the price to twenty five thousand. Han looked over the line of people in chains, five men and five women, all wearing brown rags and standing side by side looking solemn. There was even a little girl of about seven or eight among them. He fought the urge to raise his bow and send an arrow through the man's windpipe.

Even if he killed the auctioneer, which was a fairly easy and tempting shot from where he was standing, what good would it have accomplished? Sure he'd be dead, but the slaves would be no where even close to being free, and his cover would have been blown. The smart move was to wait and watch like his part of the plan said.

"Thirty thousand!"

"Thirty thousand, do I hear thirty five?"

"Thirty Five!"

"Thirty Five, do I hear Forty thousand?" A dull murmur fell over the crowd as no one was willing to raise the bid again.

"Thirty five thousand going once! Twice! So..."

WHOOM!

The explosion tore through the square, decimating the crowd and the slave line up indiscriminately. Han was knocked backwards by the shock wave before he was blasted with heat. The sudden flare of light left him temporary blinded, and the momentum sent him tumbling down the roof and smashing onto a balcony over looking a canal a few floors below.

He lay there for what felt like an eternity, stunned being the least of how he felt. No where in their plan had explosives been called for. Pulling himself to his feet, Han climbed back up to his original perch, although he moved at a much slower pace this time considering he'd shattered a small table with his ungraceful landing.

The square was aglow with several of the surrounding buildings now being on fire. Along with the crackle of the flames were the screams of the terrified, and the agonized cries of the wounded and dying. The stage where the slaves had been standing was gone, erased from existence. There wasn't a doubt that every last person who had been standing on that platform was dead.

Against his better judgment, Han found himself heading toward the ground to try and help where he could. Logic told him to run, put as much distance between himself and what had just happened. The local garrison would be all over this in no time, and if they caught him here with his bow, he'd be accused of the crime in an instant. His heart, his mind, his entire being told him to run toward the flames, to save what innocents he could.

There was almost no one to save. The closer he got to the center of the blast, the fewer survivors there were. The ones he did find were already on the verge of death, and the only thing he could do for them was insure that they were comfortable as they passed on into the afterlife.

"Hey, you! A little help?" Han was drawn to the sound of the voice coming from his left. It was a young woman, locked in a small cage in what had once been the storage area of the auction. Now the place was utterly demolished by the blast. The cage the young woman was in had several wooden beams that had come down on top of it. No doubt the means of her imprisonment had saved her life.

"You alright?" Han asked, frowning as he heard his own voice. His ears had been ringing since the explosion, but that had slowly faded away. Now everything sounded faint, like it was far off. Even his own voice sounded off.

"Peachy, all things considered," the young woman replied. Her voice sounded faint, and Han found that he had to rely on a combination of listening to her and reading her lips in order to understand what she was saying.

"I don't suppose you could find the key to this thing?" she asked. Han glanced up at the stack of timber laying on top of the cage. The fire from the buildings was starting to spread to the pile. In a few minutes, this young woman would be at the bottom of a rather large bonfire. Drawing an arrow, Han took aim and shot the padlock on the cage door. It didn't break the lock entirely, but it did knock it loose enough for him to stomp on it and break it entirely.

"Thank you," she said as the door swung open and she quickly climbed free of her captivity.

"Come on, the garrison will be here soon," he replied as he turned to run off into the night. A hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Wait, what's your name?" she asked.

"Han. You?

"Korra. I'm Korra."

"Nice to meet you, Korra. Now come on!" he said before taking her by the hand and leading her away from this hellscape. The two managed to avoid the incoming garrison and slipped back to the small inn where Han and Nat had set up their base of operations. As they went, the archer found that his hearing was slipping further and further. Whenever Korra asked a question, he'd have to be facing her and strain himself just to try and understand what she had said.

To make matters worse, it was evident that Nat was long gone. All of her stuff was missing, and there was a single note sitting on the table in the room. All the note did was leave him angrier and more confused then he had been, which was already a lot to say the least.

'Hawkeye,'

'I'm sorry, but the mission comes first.'

'-Nat'

She'd used him as a means to an end, and she hadn't cared one bit about who got in the way of her goal. People were dead, innocent people, a little girl, all of them dead because Nat had wanted to kill one guy. Granted, Han had only wanted to kill one guy as well, but he wasn't willing to sacrifice others in order to see that goal fulfilled.

A tap on his shoulder caused him to return his attention to Korra. In the proper, yet dim light of the room he was able to get a good look at her for the first time. Her skin was a light mocha color, her eyes a cyan blue, and her dark hair was pulled back into a single pony tail which hung down her back. She was wearing the brown rags that all slaves wore, which was only a couple of shades darker then her skin.

There was a look of concern on her face. She waged her index finger back and forth a few times by her ear, and Han realized that she was asking about his hearing.

"What?" he asked. He could still hear himself speak just fine, but when Korra moved her lips to speak, little sound came out. It was like she was whispering everything under her breath, and he was struggling just to comprehend that she was speaking, much less what she was saying. Based on what he could decipher by reading her lips, she was asking if his hearing was alight.

"I think the blast did a number on me. Can you write?" he asked. Korra nodded in the affirmative. Han quickly grabbed a pin and turned Nat's note over before patting on the paper with his palm.

"Write down what you're saying so I can understand you," he instructed. Again, she nodded in the affirmative before picking up the pen. She quickly scribbled out a few sentences before handing him the paper.

'Mother was on platform during explosion, do you know who's responsible?'

"I'm sorry about your mom. Yeah, I know who did it. It's this Nat chick," he said, pointing to the original note. Korra took it and looked it over before scribbling again.

'Do you know where she's going?'

"That's a question both you and I would like to know the answer to." Korra sat the pen down and placed her hands on her head as she leaned forward onto the table. She looked like she was on the verge of tears. Han felt bad for her, but knew they didn't have much time. Nat had probably set it up so that he would take the fall for setting off the blast, and Korra was now an escaped slave. Neither one of them were safe in this town anymore.

Still, there was a question or two that needed to be addressed before anything could be done. Han gently tapped her on the shoulder in order to get her attention. He really didn't want to cause her anymore pain, but there was still information he needed before he could form a plan.

"Where's your dad?" he asked hesitantly. He didn't know if her father was out there free somewhere, or if he had been killed in one of the raids the Empire conducted on her homeland. Korra managed to get herself together enough so she could pen a response.

'We were separated. Overheard the traders say he was being sent to the games in Imperial City.' Han felt his blood run cold as he read the words she had written. The games she referred to were the gladiatorial games that were held all across the Empire. More often then not, if the Empire captured you in battle, your fate was the games in order to entertain the bloodthirsty masses.

The largest and most sought after of these games were held in Imperial City, a port which the Empire had built along the northwestern coast of the continent in its early days in order to quickly ship supplies and other values back to the homeland. It had grown into a virtual powerhouse since then, rivaling both Ba Sing Se and the Capital in size alone.

If Korra's father had been sent to the games, in Imperial City no less, that meant he had to have been a great warrior. Fighters who gained the amount of respect required to fight in Imperial City stood a chance of being noticed by royalty and then being sponsored. From what Han had heard, petty political squabbles often lead to the fighters being left bloodied and more often then not dead.

"What are you going to do now?" he asked. Korra looked down at the table, clearly exhausted both mentally and physically. She tiredly shrugged, not having a single clue of what she was going to do next. Han looked down at the note. He felt similar to her, unsure of what to do next, unsure of the future.

There was no point in looking for the commander anymore. Assuming he had survived the blast, he could have fled in any direction. The trail had gone cold. Then, Han thought about what he had seen in the square. All those mangled bodies, the blood of the innocent spilled just to kill one guy. Just like that, he had a purpose again, a new target to hunt.

Imperial City was the choke point, the heart of the Empire. Everything going between the continent and the homeland, trade, travel, you name it, it was all funneled thru that city. If half of what Nat had told him was true, at some point she'd have to go there. Of course, he had no way of knowing if anything she had told him was the truth. But still, Imperial City was better then nothing.

However, the city was a big place, and there was no way he would be able to investigate it all. Not by himself anyway. He looked at Korra again. There was a small tattoo on the inside of her left forearm, a circle with a swirl of wavy lines, the symbol of the Water Tribe. He'd seen the mark before, slavers often slapped it on slaves that were waterbenders. So the slave girl he'd saved tonight wasn't completely helpless.

"I have a proposition for you," he said, gaining her attention. She looked up at him curiously, despite the tears that still shinned in her eyes.

"Your father is in Imperial City, and quite possibly the woman who set off the bomb who killed your mother. If we work together, we stand a good chance of finding both," he said. Korra cocked her eyebrow at him before picking up the pen again.

'You want to go to Imperial City, just you and me?'

"A hunter and a slave girl against an Empire. What do you say?" Korra looked unsure about the whole thing.

'You really think we can find my dad?'

"There can't be that many Water Tribe fighters in the Arena," he said. Again, she sat in silence, although the look on her face made it clear she was debating the situation in her head.

'Oh why not?' she finally wrote.

And that it, the first installment of this newly remastered series. Hopefully you guys enjoyed it. What did you all think? Let me know, review, or leave a PM, feel free to ask as many questions as you want, and I'll see you all next time.