CHAPTER THREE: VIGILANCE
Korra pulled her mask down past her chin to the base of her neck, ensuring that it was in place and would not move. It was a black, stuffy piece of fabric that wrapped entirely around her head. It lacked holes; it was thin enough that she could see and breathe through it. It was adorned with the head of a wolf pelt that descended to her shoulders, the paws tied around her neck like a necklace, giving her a fierce, intimidating look; her enemies couldn't make out even a hint of a human face in the darkness the wolf's head provided. She was clothed a thin black jacket lined with animal furs, tapered black cotton pants secured with a dark blue sash, and muffled black boots. Behind her, the Freedom Fighters were dressed similarly, though only she and Jet wore a wolf's pelt— it was symbolic of leadership, a commander in their ragtag outfit of makeshift sentinels. Korra leant around a corner and, sure that it was clear, signaled Jet. She watched as the boy tightened his grip on his twin hook swords and motioned for the Blue Ziyos, their team of fighters, to follow him down the corridor.
Their mission was relatively simple; invade the Agni Kai's hideout, steal a large portion of their stash and get out. They'd knock around a few of the gang members, should they cross them, but fighting was not a priority this time, much to Korra's disappointment— nothing gave her more satisfaction than giving a gang member the thrashing of their lifetime. They'd terrorized Republic City for far too long and the police were doing very little to loosen the gangs' tight grip on the city. By joining the Blue Ziyos, she was doing the world much more good than she was training on the compound all those years ago. She gritted her teeth at the memory as she sidled down a hallway; all of the stuffed-shirt White Lotus who thought they knew what the Avatar ought to be doing had driven her crazy. They were still looking for her— she knew for sure— but they had abandoned Republic City as a possibility. They had combed the entire city many, many times but had always turned up empty.
They must've moved on to the Fire Kingdom by now, Korra thought with a smirk.
She heard footsteps echoing down the hallway and pressed an arm against Jet's chest, giving him a gentle shove backwards as she tapped her nose twice to signal trouble. He nodded and retreated down the last corner with his fighters in tow. Korra tensed, prepared to strike as a hushed voice loomed into earshot.
"—I told Aki not to play Pai Sho with that stupid street kid. I can't believe he lost all that money," the voice growled, growing louder as it approached the corner Korra was pressed against.
Korra counted in her head, Three… two… one.
At her count, the man walked past her corner, not even noticing her. Korra rolled her eyes; this was going to be too easy. She crept silently behind the man and, once she was nearly on his heels, she leapt forward, wrapping an arm around his mouth as she dragged him to the ground. He pulled at the arm secured around his face but Korra was much stronger than he was. She bent thick blocks of ice around his ankles and wrists. His muffled shouts were silenced as Korra delivered a powerful blow to his temple, knocking him out and causing him to go limp in her grip. She bent more ice to cover his mouth and dragged him to the corner where Jet was hiding. He had already found a spot to store the unconscious body and opened the door quietly as Korra dragged the man into the room where he was quickly patted down. Jet pulled out a set of keys and wad of cash, which he handed to who Korra assumed was Longshot.
"These might come in handy," Jet murmured, jingling the keys
Korra nodded, whispering, "Just make sure they don't make too much noise. Come on."
They resumed their path down the hallway, turning several corners without coming across a single Agni Kai. When they arrived at their destination, Korra was unsurprised to see that the room was guarded by two firebenders, a man and very tall woman. The man was munching on some candy bar, while the woman had her arms crossed, her features pulled into a scowl. Korra watched as the man tried to offer the other a piece of his candy bar, only to receive and annoyed glare.
"You need to lighten up. No one is ever going to try to steal from us; why do you think the boss would only post two people to guard the stuff?" the man said around a mouthful of chocolate.
"We aren't the only two guarding, you moron. There are others posted in this hideout."
Yeah, and we've already taken them out, Korra thought smugly. She nodded at Jet who waved Longshot forward and pointed at the woman. The boy leaned around the corner to assess his target before he pulled a bow from his back, taking aim at the woman's crossed arms. In a split second, he twisted around the corner, shot his arrow, and ducked back to the safety of the group. He fired with deadly precision, the arrow having embedded itself through the spot where her crossed arms touched and effectively making her unable to bend with her hands.
At the fwip of the arrow and the woman's bloodcurdling cry, the man jumped with a start. He erratically shot fireballs down the hallway, calling out, "Show yourselves!"
Everything was quiet and still for a moment.
"Go!" Jet shouted at the Ziyos. With Korra in the lead, they charged down the hallway in a trained silence. The man kicked fire at them but Korra bent water to block it before pulling all of the remaining water from her large pouch and creating wall. Though her face was screwed up into a mixture of pain and anger, the firebending woman was using her legs to assist the man in deterring the intruders. Korra threw the water forward as she tensed and flexed her hands to turn it into solid ice, leaving air for them to breathe, and bit back a laugh as the firebenders' expressions morphed into mortification at the realization that they had lost to a team of teenagers. They gave muffled cries as Pipsqueak used his inhuman strength to push the ice blocks from in front of the door that led to the Agni Kai's stash. Jet came forward with the set of keys and tried each one, quickly finding that none of them fit the door.
"Are you kidding me?" Jet hissed, pounding his fist against the wooden barrier.
"You think they'd leave the keys here?" the woman sneered with a satisfied smirk, her voice warped through the ice.
Jet moved forward, swords drawn and ready to carve them from the ice when Korra placed a hand on his shoulder.
"I've got this," Korra said as she leant back, readying herself. She inhaled deeply as she raised her leg and exhaled sharply as she snapped it forward to strike the door. It quaked at the hit, but did not give. She kicked it several more times and watched as it began to crack before finally giving in to a hole. She reached a hand through and opened the door from the other side. The Blue Ziyos gave cries of victory and they burst into the safe room and began loading their bags with jewels and Yuans. The room was nearly cleared when they were filled.
The fighters began the trek out of the hideout, jumping and hopping gleefully at the success of their mission.
"You stupid brats aren't going to live to enjoy that cash! This is only one of our stashes— you've barely even dented our funds. What you just did was for nothing," the man shouted, laughing hysterically.
"The Agni Kais will find you and we will ruin you, kids or not!" the woman all but shrieked, clearly angry that she was still unable to move.
"Yeah? Tell your boss to come catch the Blue Ziyos if he can," Jet called back, his voice smug as he turned to face them, trotting backwards for a couple steps before whipping around to follow his team out.
"We aren't going to let you triad scum continue to terrorize this city. We'll be the ones in charge. Say goodbye to your stolen money," Korra added before mockingly saluting the gang members and turning to run from the building.
At the rundown, abandoned apartment complex that the fighters called home, Korra sat in the former lobby with her feet propped up on a desk, surrounded by the friends that had become her family. Jet stood at the top of a once-grand staircase, a triumphant smile plastered on his face and a glass of some liquid in his hand. He waved for Korra to join him. With a smile, the waterbender hopped up from the desk and headed up the stairs, taking her place next to Jet and looking down at the teenagers and kids below them. The strongest and most abled were part of the fighters, while the youngest mostly stayed at the hotel, protected by both Naga and the older teens that were not directly part of the Blue Ziyos. Korra stuck her fingers in her mouth, gave a sharp, two-part whistle and watched as the kids came together at the bottom step, grins extending nearly ear to ear.
"Brothers and sisters!" Jet began, his voice loud and clear. "Tonight, the Blue Ziyos executed our first successful raid on a triad hideout."
The crowd cheered.
"From now on, we won't just attack gang members on the streets or in some alleyway at night. We're bringing the fight to them!" Korra continued, smiling at the roar of approval from her family. "We'll take back what they've stolen from this city!"
"We're keeping half of what we took from the Agni Kai hideout and giving the rest to people who are hurting for it most; shopkeepers, homeless, and so on," Jet explained. The group clapped. "Today, we're going to dine well! Eat as much as you can!"
With that, Smellerbee and Duke, who were standing near the crowd, ripped the cloth from a table to reveal an enormous spread, filled with all sorts of foods that their group could normally never afford. The kids gave yips of glee before rushing to attack the table, piling plates high with food that they probably wouldn't be able to finish. Korra watched happily as the kids dug in and conversed. They felt safe and warm, some of them for the first time in a long time. The thought made her smile.
"We did something great tonight, Jet," Korra said, hopping up to take a seat on one of the rails lining the staircase.
"I think so, too. College and real life have already gotten old, but this? I could never get tired of this," he chuckled as he sat down on the topmost step.
Duke came up the stairs, bearing plates for them both. Korra thanked him as she began digging in.
As she chewed, she thought back to when she first met Jet six years ago; he had been so angry and full of hate. The Agni Kais had killed his parents only a year before he found her at age eleven sleeping next to a dumpster, wrapped up in newspapers. He'd told her of a place he had found that the adults had abandoned, where he and some of his friends were taking care of orphaned kids. He was only eleven then, but had taken on the responsibilities that most adults ran from. Korra liked him immediately and had gone with him to the forgotten building. It was dusty back then, Korra remembered, and all they had were some cots and a few scratchy blankets. A weak fire, started by one of the firebenders, burned in the middle of the hotel lobby, crowded by several kids aged from five to ten who were bundled up in thin sheets. Korra joined them and began helping; it was her idea to barricade the front entrance and set up secret entry points elsewhere. She had proposed that they used the large utility room on the main floor for stashing cash and emergency food. She even got the earthbenders organized to build an escape tunnel in the basement, should they ever need it.
Korra quickly won Jet's favor and they became dual leaders, building plans together and making sure the kids were safe and fed. They took in any kid that had lost a family member to one of the triads, had been given up, or had just run away from home. They were now a large group of teenagers taking care of a larger group of kids and doing a damned good job, if she said so herself. She knew that she was doing much more good with the Blue Ziyos than she ever would have if she'd continued down the path that the White Lotus had planned for her.
Right?
Korra awoke before the sun the next morning. A warm fire was burning near her cot and the room was filled with the gentle snores of the sleeping boys and girls. She rose and stretched, yawning as she scratched her back. She thought back to the success of their raid two days prior and smiled before frowning as she remembered that they had gotten two new arrivals the day before, sixteen-year-old twins Poi and Ping. Poi was an earthbender and Ping was a nonbending street-fighter—they could definitely join the Ziyos after honing their skills and training. She was going to have to help train them, she thought with a grimace as she began heading into the kitchen. She grabbed an apple and a bottle of water as she did a quick count in her head, determining that they had eighteen teenagers (aged fourteen to eighteen) and nineteen children under their care for thirty-seven total, thirty-eight if she included herself. Of those thirty-eight, fifteen were part of the fighters, soon to be seventeen once the twins were trained. She smiled, realizing that their numbers were finally rising again. Sure, it was more mouths to feed and bodies to clothe but she knew it was no big deal if it meant one less kid scraping for food or turning to the gangs.
Korra made her way to the roof of the building, where the hidden entrance lied. She used her ice bending to form a slide to the base of the hotel before whistling for Naga, who greeted her by knocking her over. With a laugh, Korra mounted her dog and rode off to the Sato Mansion.
"Asami! Wake up!"
With a start, Asami jumped up from her bed, nearly blind with sleep and completely dazed.
"What? What is it?" she inquired, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She saw her father standing before her, fuming. His angry expression was almost comical; his nostrils flared and his eyes were nearly bulging, framed by eyebrows drown sharply downward. She would have laughed if his anger had not been clearly directed towards her.
"I told you an hour ago to get up!" he said, his face growing redder. "You were drinking again last night, weren't you?"
"I was not! You can't take the fact that I slept in an extra hour and draw from that that I was drinking!" Asami retorted, now fully awake and glaring at her father. She really hadn't been drunk the night before, but something somewhat similar. Of course, she still wasn't going to let her father know.
Hiroshi's anger seemed to ebb a bit, his features softening and his face paling.
"You've made your trainer wait again, Asami," he sighed through gritted teeth.
Asami rolled her eyes as she rose from her plush comforters, tying her hair into a ponytail as she murmured, "She'll be fine. It's not like she has anything better to do."
"First you're falling behind on your studies, then you become lazier overall, and now you're being unnecessarily bratty. You were raised better than this, Asami," Hiroshi murmured, shaking his head as he turned and exited his daughter's room.
His words struck Asami harder than he had meant. She'd noticed herself slipping lately, noticed that she was worsening as a person. She hardly knew why. There was a kind of emptiness inside of her, which she thought was strange because she knew that she could quite literally have anything or anyone she wanted. She had considered that perhaps she was too immersed into her studies, leading her to become increasingly negligent of them. She went to more parties, partook in more questionable activities, all the while telling herself that she had everything under control. She had passed her classes but not with the straight A's that were expected of her. Her grade reports had been dappled with B's, much to her father's disapproval. She had told herself that it didn't matter. She was still in line to run a company and still more than capable of doing so.
Asami supposed that that was where her recent brattiness had begun stemming from. She realized that her future was secured and, still looking to fill that odd void within her, she spent her money frivolously, leading her to acquire a sort of "holier-than-thou" disposition.
She had become exactly the kind of person she hated most.
She combed her fingers through her hair, wiped the tears that had started forming in her eyes, and began applying her makeup. She grabbed her lipstick and had it hovering near her lips when she paused for a moment to gaze at the picture of her mother she kept tucked within the mirror frame. She looked into the woman's eyes, so similar to her own, and knew that she would be as disappointed as her father. The thought cut Asami deeply and she wiped away fresh tears, scowling as her eye makeup was smeared all over her face and arm. She let out an angry, frustrated noise as she threw down her bottle of makeup and watched the glass shatter. The black liquid burst out and quickly covered a portion of the hardwood floor. More tears fell from Asami's eyes. She stared at the makeup, watching though tired, bleary eyes as it filled the thin gaps in between the wooden planks, and considered staying in her room all day.
She fervently shook the thought from her head— she wouldn't let a fit ruin her entire day. With a sigh, she hoisted herself to her feet and returned to the mirror before opening a drawer and pulling out a new bottle of makeup.
Asami Sato was beautiful. Asami Sato was smart. Asami Sato was a prodigy. Great things were expected of Asami Sato. Asami Sato would be as brilliant as Hiroshi Sato.
Her lips pulled back, sneering at her reflection. So what if she wasn't exactly what her mother and father had imagined? She was grown up, with her own person with her own life and her own thoughts and goals and ambitions.
Right?
She glared at herself, and then at the picture of her mother.
Asami Sato could be cold, too.
