A/N: I do not own Avatar: Legend of Korra.
This is my second foray into fanfiction, and my first oneshot. Just fair warning. I should also warn that this is a fairly dark piece. But when I see a huge fallacy in an argument I can't help but hammer it hard. I might also have a vindictive streak.
NOTE: I do not in any way endorse the views or positions depicted in this oneshot.
A Song in the Night
When Hayato found his daughter, she had been missing for three days. Ayako had been hanging about one of those boys Hayato knew was in the Triple Threats Triad. Hayato and his only daughter from his only marriage, had lived on the very edge of the Dragon Flats District. Though Ayako had inherited her mother's waterbending skills, she only used it to accompany her dancing and chase off the odd mugger.
For three nights Hayato and a few of his buddies from the local tea house had searched the streets. For a moment he had thought of the black lacquered case he kept hidden in secret compartment beneath his bed, but quickly shook the thought away. After the state he had found Ayako he was uncertain of leaving the box and its contents alone. It was nearing dawn when Hayato saw his daughter leaning against a streetlamp. With joy and relief Hayato ran to Ayako, but his steps slowed as took in his daughter's state. The streetlamp seemed to be the only thing holding his daughter up, a girl who had also inherited her mother's confidence and grace, neither of which showed in the shell standing before him. Hayato reached for his daughter, speaking soothing words in a voice he had not used since some girls had made fun of her when she was seven. She cringed at first but upon recognizing the voice she looked up and Hayato's blood went cold. Those strong, beautiful blue eyes that had given him joy for sixteen years, looked broken and empty, sunken and without focus. "Daddy?"
"Shh, shhh. Daddy's here." Hayato gathered her in his arms, "It's going to be alright. Everything's going to be alright." Hayato held back the questions he wanted to ask and focused on bringing his daughter home. As he lifted Ayako on his back he noticed a pamphlet clutched in her hands. The girl was so tired it was easy to pull it out of her grasp and she gave no reaction when he did. Under the lights of Republic City he could just make out the image of a masked man and the words "Equality."
When Hayato returned to his home, two days after bringing Ayako home, little more than a day after finding out Amon, the Equalists' leader had somehow taken his daughter's bending away, he found his daughter sleeping in her bed. He put down the bag filled with her favorite dumplings and tried to wake her, only to notice that she was very still, and very pale, very similar to a sight he had seen on so many others. Then Hayato noticed the empty little jar on her bedside, and the note.
When Hayato returned to his home after the funeral, he immediately went to his room. For how many hours Hayato laid in bed wearing those mourning clothes he did not know. The sun had already set when Hayato moved off his bed with a lithe power and grace his body had not used in over sixteen years. His muscles were still strong from working the docks, so pulling out the planks from beneath his futon was a simple matter. Removing the planks revealed a long, black, lacquered box no longer than a meter in length. Hayato opened the box to reveal a set of dark clothes, a brown short-jacket, and an unstrung recurved bow. Tied to the lid of the box were a few other tools and devices best used in the dark and for dark purposes.
When Shin entered the warehouse, over a week after Amon's Revelation, he was thinking on the recent crop of recruits and the promise some of them showed. He gave a sidelong salute to his superior Cheng, who for the moment had foregone the mask worn by Amon's elite chi-blockers so as to clean it. The salute had barely dropped before an arrow bloomed out of Cheng's throat. The elite chi-blocker's body dropped to the floor just as the lights went out. The Equalists reverted to the basics of their combat training and scattered throughout the building, the harder for a single elemental blasts to take them all out. Opposite to Shin, on the other side of the warehouse, he saw the flair of an explosion behind a pair of Equalist. As Shin's eyes adjusted he could make out their forms twisted by force and shrapnel. A chi-blocker, one of those who had not earned the mask and uniform, tried to rush the door only for an arrow to skewer his head. Where in Koh's Lair were those coming from!
One of the elites turned, light reflecting off his goggles, started to shout an order but an arrow pierced his head, sprouting through the mouthpiece. That came from inside the building, Shin realized. The lights returned thanks to the backup generators, revealing a new addition to the warehouse on top of the largest pile of crates. The new intruder wore a darker version of what Shin recalled to be a Yu Yan Archer's uniform out of the history books. The archer even wore the traditional red face-paint and headband. Shen met the archer's eyes and froze. Gray eyes, as cold and unforgiving as stone. Shen wanted to shout at this archer, clearly a nonbender, wanting to know he would so turn on his own kind when an arrow went through his throat.
The man known first and foremost as Amon's Lieutenant surveyed the scene from a distant rooftop, watching as the metalbenders maintained a cordon over the warehouse that had once housed a training center. He and two of Amon's personal elite had arrived with the purpose of checking on the progress of the new recruits only to find milling crowds, metalbender airships, and bodies being carted out of the warehouse. One of the elites returned to the Lieutenant, wearing civilian garb. "Report." The Lieutenant barked.
"Someone out in the street hear an explosion in the building. Some noises, yelling, then silence. Metalbenders were called, arrived fifteen minutes ago and they've been carting out bodies since."
"Triple-Threat remnants wanting revenge?" queried the other elite. The scout turned, "That's the thing, most of the bodies they were carrying out had arrows in them." "Arrows?" "Well, one arrow to a body, kill-shots all. And I've never heard of the Triple Threats hiring non-bender for this kind of work, even at their height."
The Lieutenant turned back to the unfolding aftermath, "Get back out there, dig out whatever can however you can. Find out what in Koh's Lair happened here." "Yes sir." "Wait." "Sir?" "How many did they pull out of there?" "Ten sir." "There were eleven total at that training center, trainers and recruits, so where's the eleventh?"
Hours later, at dawn the eleventh was found, hanging from a lamp-post in the park next to the Equalists' pundit stage. The body had been flayed, the Equalists' sigil carved into the head, and a chi-blocker's uniform neatly folded on the ground below. A note was pinned to corpse with an arrow:
To Amon and all Equalists,
I have read your pamphlets and listened to your rallies. You speak of bending as the source of evil and suffering in the world. You are naïve.
You say that bending is the source of pain in this world, that bending of any and all kinds allows for the subjugation of the weak by the strong. I will prove this to be false. I am not a bender. I am but a man whose daughter's death can be laid at your feet. She was an innocent who only used her bending to bring joy and beauty to the lives of others. For this evil I will answer with evil. I will be cruel to your people. Your people will die at my arrows and suffer at my knives. And when every Equalist lies dead, flayed, or disemboweled, I will come for you Amon.
Signed,
Captain Hayato, Imperial Fire Nation Army Yu Yan Corps 4th Co.