The Gathering Storm Chapter 1, a legend of korra fanfic

Warning: Some scenes or words depicted in this story are for mature readers only, and might offend some people who are not generally attuned to such topics. Please read at your own risk. This is an explicit work and it will contain adult oriented material.

Synopsis: Six months after the battle of Republic City, a mysterious corpse washes up on the city's shores. As Mako is slowly drawn in on the case, Asami and Korra are about to start a life together. Unbeknownst to them, a war from a distant world is about to spill over into the world of the Avatar.

Chapter 1 - New Beginnings

It was an unusually cold crisp morning in Republic City, as deep grey clouds hovered thickly over the grand metropolis. The great sea that stretches far out into the horizon mixes in against the backdrop of relative calm. It had been raining the night before, and with it came a coldness that seeped into the very skin. Detective Mako looked over at his watch furtively, waiting. It was half an hour past noon. He should be somewhere else by now. Specifically at Kwong's Cuisine, where he was supposed to have a lunch date with his friend Asami. Looking up at the sky, the clouds moved slowly, and in between gaps showed rays from the warm sun. It had been a while since the two of them had a talk. A real one. And it was just like Asami to make the first move. Mako knew in himself that he wasn't the type that made first moves when dealing with awkward situations. He just wasn't built for it. And from the way Asami's voice crackled over the phone, it sounded just like that.

"I need to tell you something," her voice slightly cracked over the line. "It's about me and Korra. I think you should just know, okay."

"Can't you just tell me right now?" Mako asked. "No, it has to be face to face," she persisted. There was an urgency in her voice but also a hesitancy, as if she were still mulling over the words that she was supposed to say.

In any case, it seemed as if Asami had to wait for just a little bit.

A call to his apartment that morning came at an awkward moment. It was Beifong. He had just agreed to Asami's invite the day before. It figures, since today was supposed to be his day off. Ever the insistent chief, Lin just had to make Mako take this assignment, since nobody else was around. After all, the city had just seen the devastation of urban warfare very recently, and everybody had to pull his own weight in it. Unfortunately, that didn't mean that the Police Force had to loosen its grip on the vestiges of law and order, and as Mako knew very well, crime never sleeps. He had to cancel on Asami.

Or maybe not? Disregarding common sense, Mako decided against cancelling and just trying to speed things up once he gets to the scene. But lo and behold, there he was all of a sudden, on probably one of the strangest cases he'd ever seen.

Parked next to his bike were two police motorcars, from which five other officers were barricading the area near the docks. Lying face down on the beach was a corpse of a man. It was slightly bloated, probably from floating around for hours by the sea. In and of itself it was nothing short of the usual. But this was not a usual type of corpse. The body had white skin, almost like porcelain, and its hair yellowish like barley. The head was turned to its right side, eyes were well rounded, like almonds, staring deathly pale to whatever distance. It wore a strange set of clothes, grayish looking, with multiple symbols, like some form of insignias, and a long black boot in one foot, while the other free of any footwear.

For the life of Mako, he had never seen anyone—or anything—like it.

Another car pulled up by the path after ten minutes of waiting. It was the police surgeon.

"Afternoon, Doctor Kwan," saluted Mako as he walked up to the man. "Detective," nodded the surgeon as they shook hands, simultaneously taking a draw on his cigarette. "So what have we got here?"

"We got a dead body for 'ya doc. It ain't pretty. Two locals fished it out of the pond at around 8 this morning. And let me tell 'ya, they freaked when they saw it!"

"Well, what about it?" asked Kwan. "Anything particularly gruesome about it?" he said with crooked grin. "Head missing? Gut disemboweled?"

"Well, nothing like that, no," said Mako uneasily clearing his throat. "But I think you'll be more interested by… well, it has something more to do with his skin… and hair… and eyes. They don't seem… normal," he punctuated the word with a heavy sense of foreboding.

Mako led Doctor Kwan to the scene. A cold wind from the east suddenly blew by, blowing away the cigarette from the surgeon's fingertips. "Damn it!" he cursed under his breath, feeling around his jacket as if trying to find another one.

Mako ignored this and continued on to the beach, where the body had lain with a large piece of cloth covering it over. Two officers stood over it while another person, the police photographer prepared to replace his bulb.

Mako removed the cloth to reveal the body. Kwan looked it over, seemingly unperturbed before slowly remarking, "Holy shit".

"Well, this is indeed interesting!" he said crouching down for a closer look.

"The men who found the body are already calling it the 'Grey Phantom'. Lu and Gang are taking their statements now as we speak. What do you think it is?"

"Well from what I can tell, it's a dead body," said the doctor dryly.

"No, I mean, where'd you reckon he came from?" asked Mako trying to hide his annoyance.

"Hm, no clue," said the doctor. "I know of no country in the world that has such a people. Help me turn him over."

Mako tried to hold back his stomach in disgust at having to touch a bloated corpse and helped the coroner to turn it over. He got a good look at the man's face. He looked rather young, from what Mako could tell, but he wasn't sure. The long sleeved tunic had markings on the shoulder area, as well as on the collar, where there were strange looking symbols embroidered on them.

"Look at these markings," said Kwan, more to himself than anyone else. "I've never seen these symbols before". He pushed down at the skin, which was rubbery. "Death stiffness… been dead for probably around twelve hours or less." Mako wrote down the man's words onto his note book. A brilliant flash came from his side, signaling the photographer's rounds taking pictures of the corpse.

"So what do you think killed him? Think it's a homicide?" asked Mako, his face strained with deep curiosity and apprehension. It doesn't seem like this was going to be a quick assignment. The doctor gave a sigh and started examining the body again. "It's a possibility. We'll need to take it in. The damn ambulance won't be here for a little while longer. You'll have to ask me that again after the official autopsy."

Mako flipped over his notebook and placed it in his pack. "Oh, we also found this," he said pulling out another small booklet. On the cover was another strange looking symbol, almost an emblem of some institution or other. Kwan gave it a look over then said, "What is that? Some kind of bird?"

"It looks almost 'Fire Nation-ny'," interjected the photographer, who received a gruff look from Mako before proceeding with his duties. He turned to look at Kwan. "It does look like a phoenix, or a messenger hawk," he said. "But I don't know what that symbol is at the bottom." He reached over to Kwan who gave it a closer look. Kwan took the booklet and flipped it open to see what was in it. For the most part it was blank. Some pages had strange looking scripts on it and what looked like stamps. Finally, he found a page of interest.

"It has a photograph," he pointed out to Mako. "I'm assuming it's him". Mako wanted to slap himself in the face for overlooking it. Rookie mistake. He had flipped over the book before but hadn't noticed that particular page. It did have a photograph of a stern looking young man; the same one who was lying down on the dirt.

"I think it's some sort of ID pass or something," said Mako finally. "But I can't read anything on it."

"That symbol on the bottom of the front page," said Kwan, "That's a swastika."

Mako gave him a sideways glance then looked at the cover again, "And what is a swastika?"

"It's a holy symbol. The air nomads used to say it was a symbol of "eternity", said Kwan all of a sudden.

"Where'd you get that?" asked Mako.

"Yeah, my brother knows a lot of garbage," said Kwan, scratching his head. "He teaches history at the University down town. The man just talks and talks and talks, it's almost infuriating at times. But hey, he's family. And inevitably, stuff just sticks to your head and you remember them."

"Don't I know it," Mako rolled his eyes as he is reminded of Bolin and the way his brother can spout stats about his favorite pro-benders.

"Well, anyway, that's still a good place to start looking for answers. I might have to go for some help at Air Temple Island. If this is an Air Nomad symbol, the acolytes might know a thing or two about it." Mako placed the book back into his pack.

"That's a thought," said Kwan. "We'll have the body moved to headquarters where we can start the autopsy." He rummaged around his coat again and finally found his pack of cigarettes. Placing it between his lips, he said, "It looks like it's gonna rain again."

Mako looked up at the greying sky once more. Asami, he thought.

"Ain't you supposed to be someplace else?" said Kwan, his lips turning into a crooked smile as he took a drag from his newly lit cigarette. "I thought I heard you weren't supposed to be here today?"

Earlier that morning, Asami Sato found herself lost in thought as she laid on her bed staring blankly at the ceiling, her fingers absentmindedly twirling her hair in small circles. Her mind wandered between words that seem to resist forming into proper thought, as she found herself caught between a rock and a hard place. She had just invited Mako over for lunch today, and yet still she couldn't find the words she needed to fill the already growing void between them. She needed to tell him what's been happening to her life. It was only fair that he knew. But as she thought about it, she couldn't help but fear what his reaction would be. Years of friendship didn't make things easier to discuss with Mako, especially when it came to things that would untangle the past. Mako seemed to have a natural resistance to it, and she feared he might do the same. She gave a deep sigh, turning her head to her side before remembering why she even called him in the first place. She could feel herself suddenly smiling, her heartbeat slightly quickening its pace. Lying next to her was all the reason she had to be happy.

The young tycoon and the young Avatar had found in each other a source of happiness, out of the depths of despair. They have travailed the path of greatest danger in order to save the world together, holding each other's hands in friendship, ultimately finding much more after having felt the hammer blows of destiny strike them time and again. Asami had lost her father and mother from differing circumstances, and that left in her the greatest wound she could ever bear. She wished she could've changed things in her life a bit to have them back. But as she laid there next to Korra, she found that she didn't need to. The Universe has given her enough reason to want nothing more.

Korra was sleeping, her light snores tickling Asami's ear as she listened closely to them. She traced her fingers across her back, lightly touching her shoulder blade. The Avatar's body bore the bruises and cuts of long ago battles that still haunt them both. Asami could barely stand the thought whenever she would remember Zaheer's attempt to murder the Avatar as part of some insane quest to create "Order through Disorder". She banished the thought and continued smoothing her fingers over the Avatar's skin, relishing each moment as if she were holding some kind of jewel—which Korra indeed was.

She looked up at the time. It was already half past 10 in the morning. Remembering the night before, Asami knew that it would still be a little while before Korra would wake up. She had found that the other girl had another "gift" beyond that of being the bridge between the Two Worlds. She kissed the Avatar lightly on the cheek and chuckled to herself as she thought "the gift of explosive orgasms" before turning over to rise.

The hot shower offered the relief her body had been yearning for hours for. As the water fell onto her skin, she could feel the sweat from last night's nocturnal activities wash away. She wished she could share that moment with Korra again, as she did every other moment in her new life. But today was going to mark something new. Once she tells Mako about what's been happening in her life, she could finally be free to do as she liked, regardless of what others might think. She just needed Mako to know that their friendship still mattered to her.

Today's going to be the beginning of the rest of her life.

—end of chapter 01

AN: This is my first attempt at a multi-chapter fanfiction. I'm still working things through my head as to which direction this story is headed. I would like to apologize to any reader who might find the contents of this piece to be offensive at any given point. This may not be a story meant to be read by you. In any event, if you happen to have enjoyed this, please do remember to review and tell me what you think about it. Also, I'm not above taking any tips from more experienced writers here, so don't be shy. Thanks in advance for giving this one a chance.