The fight is far more subdued than day before. With Tenzin observing from the steps outside the ring, the training area clears for Korra's and Bolin's uninterrupted use. But the possibility of a new pilot team is always a cause for excitement in the post-glory days of the shatterdomes. Onlookers gather on all sides, but they are mostly silent, leaving the room to be filled only by the sound of Korra's and Bolin's grunts of exertion and the clack of wood on wood from their staffs. Tenzin and Lin call out occasionally with suggestions: each time Korra reacts visibly, her jaw becoming tighter and her eyebrows pulling further and further together.
She twirls her staff across her center, judging the short distance between herself and Bolin as they circle the ring. He has his right side at her, guarding his front with both hands on the staff as he takes each step with caution. He shifts to his left side as he passes the entrance, and as his foot is halfway to the ground, she leaps forward, lashing out in a strike so powerful it almost throws his weapon to the floor. Bolin adjusts himself from the blow, and she smiles.
Point for her.
"Dial it back, Ranger Grey," Tenzin calls. "Remember: fit your moves to match your partner."
The smile fades with the comment and she draws her shoulders up, tense and tight around her neck, turning away from Bolin. She faces around at the other end of the ring, lifting the staff at an angle beside her head while Bolin takes his place across from her, wiping the sweat from his eyes as he mimics her stance.
They begin again. The blows they exchange are small and quick, sharp jabs coming from all sides. Bolin keeps pace on defense, but every time she hears the snap of their staffs she's already moving for another place and driving him back with each blow. It's only until he's a step away from the crowd that he's able to keep her staff in place for a second longer to push her back over the ring.
He closes the distance with a bounding leap and swings down before she can strike again. Instead of dodging, Korra blocks his staff directly with hers, placing them in a deadlock as they struggle against the other. Korra sticks her foot to the floor, pushing with all her might so she can knock him back. But Bolin is stronger than she could have guessed, and with a burst of strength hidden in his arms, he pushes her staff down and brings her knees to the floor.
The point won for his favor, Bolin breathes hard as he places his staff to his side, offering her a hand and a smile in compensation for beating her that round. Breathing deep and even, Korra locks the tips of her fingers on his as she stands from the ground.
Lin is frowning. Barely glancing up from the clipboard held in front of her, shespeaks.
"Stop joking around, Rangers."
Korra groans, loudly, and her foot sweeps on the floor as she faces the fight master.
"I pushed him back straight across the ring," she says, motioning to Bolin with her staff. "Did that look like a joke to you?"
Lin hides the board behind her back, tilting her chin into her neck as she looks on the Rangers with steel-grey eyes.
"You could've ended that round long before he knocked you back," she says. "But you got the upper hand and kept going with it, you pushed him into the corner to see what he would do, and once he got away you chose offense over defense to compare your strengths. And you," Lin looks at Bolin. "You need to strike the second you see an opening. Don't let her push you around and give you one, because a kaiju won't."
"I'm striking hard and fighting back–that's what you trained me to do!" Korra snaps. "This isn't Bolin's fault."
"It is his fault," Lin says flatly. "He doesn't have the ability to pick up your slack."
Korra steps from her place beside Bolin, glaring at the official with a heated tinge in her cheeks. Her staff arm twitches, shaking with pent-up rage, and after a moment's hesitation she raises the end directly at Lin. The room fills with whispers, but Lin remains as still as the stone the shatterdome is carved from, not even shifting her eyes to the weapon aimed at her head.
"I've piloted that jaeger for years, and no matter how much you pick apart everything I do, you know I'm going to be in it when the next kaiju attacks. I'm the best ranger you've got in this shatterdome, so why don't one of you get in the ring and just tellme what to do while I'm fighting? It'll save you the trouble of correcting me when I do it all wrong!"
Her voice echoes off the walls, and the room is silent.
"You've had partners before, Ranger–you know exactly what this is. Every time you overstep, he lets you go. If he can't keep up with you in the ring, he'll never be able to keep up in the Drift."
Korra says nothing. Bolin–almost forgotten–glances around with a nervous tick to his hands and finally speaks.
"Um, if I may–"
But Korra barrels through him, suddenly recovered from her moment of shock, and pushes him aside to move toward Lin–but Tenzin steps between them
"That's enough, Korra!" Tenzin finally cuts in, his voice lancing loud and hard across the room. "It is not your responsibility to decide what is and isn't a good decision when there are millions of lives on the line."
Korra flinches, her mouth twisting into a hard scowl as she slowly steps back. Her stance is less ready for a physical attack, but her staff still shakes in her grasp. Lin crosses her arms behind Tenzin's frame, the clipboard bouncing against her elbow.
Korra lowers her eyes to the floor. When she speaks, her voice is an angry mutter compared to the shouts that bounced on the walls moments before. "This isn't about anyone else," she says, lifting her eyes at Tenzin. "Admit it."
Tenzin frowns, but is otherwise unfazed by Korra's words. Instead his eyes scan over the room, only now seeming to notice their audience.
"All right," Tenzin barks at them. "That's enough for today. Everyone clear the room!"
Seconds pass, and the crowd begins to move and their murmured voices swell as they jostle along the walls toward the exit and milling around equipment racks and walls, still trying to watch the conflict before them. Korra remains fixed in her place, glaring at Tenzin and Lin both. Bolin, who has been standing silently, awkwardly, for most of the exchange, twists his hands around his staff and watches the room clear, clearly uncertain if he should go with the slow-moving masses or not.
"Well…" he says, looking between Korra and Lin. "This–this is a really great discussion and all, wow, but maybe it would be even better if I just–"
He takes a step toward the exit, but the hard wood of Korra's staff over his chest stops him in his path. She doesn't look at him.
"We're not done here," she says, still glaring at Tenzin and Lin.
"I think we are." Lin steps forward, the steel-heeled soles of her boots clicking loud against the concrete steps, the only other noise in the otherwise-crowded combat room where onlookers remained jostled against the walls. "I advise you get out of my training room until your head has cooled off for good, Ranger."
Lin turns to leave and Tenzin is quick on her heels behind her with nothing spared for Korra but a single, cold-eyed look.
Korra drops her head into her hands, curls her fingers into her hair and makes a muffled, low-pitched, wordless noise. The combat room hasn't completely emptied, and those who remain are quick to step away from her path as she paces blindly, hair covering her eyes. "You can't just–" She spins, following Lin's movement past her as she turns toward Bolin. "We'll–Bolin–"
Korra spins around and throws the red-painted staff hard across the room. Bolin flinches as it ricochets off the floor near him and clatters on the mat. The gesture helps her pent-up frustration, but only somewhat, and with a heavy sigh she crosses the room to retrieve it–only for a pair of feet laced in military-grade boots to step in front of her right when she's bending down to take it.
With the staff in her hand, she stands with a slowness to her shoulders as she lifts her head to face him. Arms crossed over his chest, Mako looks down at her with a stern expression that would rival even Tenzin's.
"You need to calm down," Mako says.
Korra scoffs and would have turned away but for a tug on her staff that makes her stop.
She bristles and whirls around once more to face Mako, staring a full head and shoulders above her into his eyes. Mako is glaring, holding her back, and though Korra's already forgotten his brother's presence behind her, her head is ringing with the thought that this has absolutely nothing to do with him. She tries to yank the staff out of his hands, but Mako doesn't budge, only the whitening around his knuckles an indication that he holds on even more tightly when she pulls.
Something in her snaps.
It's the buildup of months of inaction, of twiddling her thumbs while other people are sent to do the job she was raised to do, of criticism and lack of partners and now, worst of all, someone who's never even fought a kaiju in his life staring her down and telling her to be calm.
Time slows around the heat in Korra's face, the room blurring and narrowing so the only color that leaps is the red of her fingers wrapped around the painted wood of the weapon, the red of the mat where he stands still in his boots only inches away from her, and the painted writing on the wall that splatters halfway up and down the dirty brown concrete with every stroke. The center point is Mako. So Korra moves.
The shift of balance is sudden. She throws her weight against him and should have made him stumble, but Mako is still standing and holding, infuriatingly, onto the staff. Nobody takes it. But when Korra leans back to swing a well-placed kick below, using her double hold on the staff to keep her upright with Mako's weight as a counterbalance, Mako decides that he would rather not be kicked that morning—and for the first time she can remember, Korra feels the ground pulled out from under her and placed suddenly above her head instead. She finds herself flipped and thrown and sitting firmly on her rear with her hands still clutching the staff above her head.
She doesn't hear the sudden sound that rises and falls among the lingering onlookers in the room.
Korra is frozen in shock only for a moment. Her recovery is quick and instantaneous, and with one sharp yell she throws the whole of her body weight on the staff toward the ground. This time Mako is the one who isn't ready. He stumbles, giving Korra enough time to haul herself to her feet and rush toward him, linking a hold she'll use to throw him to the ground this time. But instead of resisting, Mako falls–rolls onto his back and brings Korra with him, so that in the moment that she curls her hands around his upper arms he twists his legs with hers and flips them both.
Korra takes a breath as Mako presses down, sinking into the floor with him before she rises up with one palm flat against his chest. Mako lets out his own breath and she snakes her free hand around his shoulders, grabs his hair, and pulls.
At Mako's yell, Lin and Tenzin reappear at the doorway, doubling back at the sound of a fight. Lin assesses the situation and starts forward; but Tenzin holds out an arm to stop her path.
"Wait," he says, not taking his wide eyes from the scene in the room below. "Just wait."
Pain and pressure on Mako's scalp yanks his head back, giving Korra the opportunity to shove him away and flip herself upright. She doesn't wait for him to recover and is back on the attack, not just trying to pin him down but ready to hit. Mako barely rolls over in time. He holds out an arm to guard his face, blocking Korra's blows while he kicks her in the stomach. She falls back, and he takes the split second to right himself before they're a mix of blows and blocks.
His rhythm is similar to Bolin's–short, quick, and rarely steady–but unlike his brother, Mako does not get overeager at a moment's opening, and Korra is harder pressed to break through his own defenses. He controls his breath and watches Korra's arms and stomach tense and flex before she strikes. Still, she picks up on his movements, on the close-fisted jabs and the position of his arms, and finds herself calculating how to break and disrupt him. A few more moves (catch his fist when he strikes–there, twist and hold his arm–duck and rise, through the shield he makes in front of his chest) and she will have him, his dog tags swinging over his shoulder onto hers, hot against her bare skin as she wraps her arms around him. She is perfect in the shape and curve of his torso so he cannot wiggle from her grasp, her own breathing modulated to the rise and fall of his chest–and this time, she doesn't let him fall.
Korra shifts her weight with Mako's, and for just a moment, her stance is not steady. She hangs against his weight, against the height he carries to his advantage, and as she ducks to flip him over her shoulder, Mako thinks about moving. He can have her on her back.
The moment passes, and suddenly Mako finds the breath knocked out of his lungs when he lands on his back instead. Korra shoves him down all the way, his head bumping against the mat, and sits on his legs with a hand pressed firmly against his chest.
"You're not so great, after all," she gasps, chest heaving for air as she pushes her weight into her arms to hold him down.
"And neither are you," Mako says, forcing his voice through his contorted position as he cranes his neck to look at her. "This isn't just your fight."
For a moment Korra looks as though she's going to hit him.
"At least I can drift," she says finally—and there it is. "You know which one of us is out there at every attack, risking her life in the very machine that's built to protect it? You know which one of us has climbed into every cockpit, stood her ground to every kaiju that's tried to take us down? So don't lecture me, hot-shot—you're the one who's so damn scared of a handshake that he can't even drift with his own brother."
She tosses the staff away from her, not even looking to see where it lands; it clatters and rolls on the concrete floor. Mako doesn't move as she rolls off him and stands, turning her back and passing through the silent, onlooking crowd. He's too busy biting his tongue, his jaw clenched so tight he can already feel dull pains along his skull.
Bolin kneels to help his brother up, but Mako's attention to him is at a minimum. He's looking forward instead–watching the back of Tenzin's blue coat as he follows Korra through the door, the color stark against the dull browns of Kwoon.
Nobody stops to tell her she's wrong.
She knows he's following her.
"I don't need to hear it, Tenzin," Korra snaps over her shoulder, not stopping or slowing as she storms as far from the combat room as she can manage. "I already know I broke regulation."
She's still barefoot, her boots left behind on the practice mats, but Tenzin's own shoes are loud and sharp against the concrete as he speeds his own pace to match hers. She quickens her step, too, but he grabs her shoulder and turns her around before she can get any further.
Tenzin looks at her with the same stern, narrow-eyed look she'd come to know from him over the years and her mouth is already open, ready with retort, her eyes slitted and nose scrunched, but his next words catch her off guard.
"I'm not here to talk about that."
Korra's face relaxes just enough so she can raise one brow in response, her shoulders tense and drawn as his hand remains curled around her arm. She casts her eyes at the wall, refusing to look him in the eyes and Tenzin sighs–hesitates for a moment–and lets her go. She jerks her shoulder back as soon as he does, angling her body away so that she's half twisted toward the end of the hall. She looks down it with a narrow scope, as though to track out her escape route; but she stays as Tenzin continues to speak.
"We'll get this sorted out, Korra," he says. "We just want to make sure it's what's right for you and for all of us. If you would just have a little more patience, you'd remember that."
She whirls around at him.
"I have been patient! I've been patient for eight years!" she yells. "If you'd bring in some decent pilots instead of greenhorns from Tokyo, we wouldn't even be in this mess!"
Tenzin's mouth snaps open to respond before quickly thinking better of it. He composes himself, taking in a deep, long breath before letting it out in an airy hiss.
"Korra–"
"Marshal!"
Korra and Tenzin turn, looking down the hall where one of the J-Tech engineers is hunched over a few feet from them, hands on his knees as he tries to catch his breath from what must have been an all-out run. Tenzin straightens, pulling himself up to full height as he steps toward the technician.
"What is it?"
"The Lepus Himalaya…." the engineer gasps. "…They've returned from Urumqi."
Tenzin's brow snaps together. "They were scheduled to stay another four days for repairs. Who authorized their transfer?"
"I don't know, sir," he says, throwing a thumb over his shoulder. "But they're docking in the launch bay right now."
Tenzin spares Korra a moment's glance, who's still stuck halfway between her own anger and desire to meet the jaeger team's early return. She hesitates; he does not, and drops his gaze to hurry to the hangar without another word.
The hangar is the largest room in the shatterdome, built to house five jaegers and is always filled with people, but beneath its roof the Lepus Himalaya casts a shadow and a presence that makes even the hangar seem to be bursting at its seams. Even as she follows fast on Tenzin's heels, Korra can still see jagged pieces of grey beneath Himalaya's otherwise dark blue paint, torn under its right arm where the kaiju landed a hit. At its feet, as the crowd parts for Tenzin's approach, Korra's attention draws down to the excited chatter of a familiar voice: Bolin is looking positively giddy with awe, gesturing excitedly at the jaeger with his brother at his side, and Korra can almost hear his "Look, that's–" even through the noise of the crowd. She deliberately turns away before either of them can look in her direction. They've had plenty of pilots come and go before with only minor fanfare, so Korra doesn't know why so many people are flocking.
As she and Tenzin walk through the parted crowd she can see Wei and Wing Beifong, the newest successors to Lepus Himalaya's helm, and Lin's own nephews–both clearly alive and well. Korra scoffs as the group bends around them, leaning over one another to get a better view. Despite capability in their role as pilots and a well-established family history in the PPDC, they are new to the force with only three drops and three kills to their name. Nothing compared to her own record. They warrant none of this attention.
"Well done on the drop in Urumqi, Rangers," Tenzin says, greeting the pilots with a small nod. "Despite the head start Biantai had on the coastline, you managed to bring it down with minimal casualty to the civilian population."
"All in a day's work," Wing says with a grin, sending a quick wink at Korra while Wei brings his hands together, bowing to the commander.
"I'm sorry for the early return, Marshal," Wei says. "The Brass pushed our transfer early to have us bring public relations."
Tenzin sighs, bringing a hand to his head. "So that's what this is all about…"
"Really?" Korra groans. "They bring in reporters now?"
Wing lifts his hands in a shrug. "Hey, we didn't want them tagging along either. It's bad enough that they called in no-good rat to lead them around."
Korra raises her brow.
"A rat?" she asks. "Who?"
"That would be me," someone cuts in from the side and Korra–recognizing the voice–immediately feels a surge of irritation so strong she could swear it was the sensation of her stomach turning itself inside out. Her head snaps in his direction, and she meets his eyes on point. It's been years since she'd seen him, but he still carried himself with the same arrogant posture she'd come to expect: his hair greased to the side and his arms akimbo as though asking her for a hug.
She crosses her arms as she turns to him, tilting her chin up in a sharp glare even though he stands a good couple of inches above her.
"Whose bright idea was it to let you back in here, Tahno?"
"Hold on to your jaeger, squirt," he says, sending a lazy salute in her direction as he walks passed. "I gotta talk to the bossman first before I can stop and chat."
She grinds her teeth so hard her jaw pops.
"You no good–"
"Korra, please,"Tenzin says, placing a hand on her shoulder as he steps closer to the new arrival. Tahno's lips curl into a smile, but to her it looks more like a smirk, and she rolls her eyes away from him and her mentor, trying to focus her attention to the group of civilians clustered around the jaeger's foot. But she can still feel his eyes flicker at her one more time before he gives Tenzin his full attention.
"Ranger Aleyev, this is certainly a surprise," Tenzin says. "I never thought we'd see you back here after all these years."
"Well, you know what they say; 'you can take the Ranger out of the jaeger, but you can't take the jaeger out of the Ranger.'"
Korra scoffs beneath her breath. If Tahno hears, he makes no indication of it.
"Besides," he continues. "The Brass needs someone to show these reporters around. Give 'em the grand tour while they get some footage of the Shatterdome. The public needs to make sure the tax dollars funding this little adventure aren't going to waste now that it's all that's left of the Defense Corps."
"We have other people to do that," Korra says, the words spitting from her throat. "More qualified, too. You haven't been to a Shatterdome in years, why'd they pickyou?"
Tahno points a thumb at his face. "Poster-boy, remember? Someone's got to put a pretty face to this operation."
Korra balls her hands into fists inside her elbows, and Tenzin places another hand on her shoulder. She raises her brow at him, and he holds her look for a moment before looking back to Tahno.
"So long as they don't interfere with our work, I don't see any reason not to allow it," Tenzin says. "Welcome back, Ranger, and good luck."
Tenzin looks at the command station above them and nods. For a second, everything continues as it had been. Then, the speakers them screech with life, Lin's voice erupting through the entire room.
"Alright, that's enough dillydallying!" she says. "Back to your stations, all of you, or we'll have you working till the next kaiju drops!"
With that, the clustered crowd around them bursts into a swarm as everyone moves to get back to their posts. Tenzin turns and places a hand on each of the Himalaya Rangers, leading them through to the command center to be debriefed on their mission. He looks at her over his shoulder with a stern glance–a warning of some kind, but she rolls it off as he disappears between the rows of technicians and mechanics alike. With nothing important to do, Korra stays by the jaeger's foot, waiting for the room to clear.
Unfortunately, so does Tahno.
Even with streams of people running between them, he's hard to ignore. His voice carries over the noise of the room, calling a floor tech over to get rooms ready for the reporters while he turns to the bunch and tells them they'll begin the tour tomorrow morning. She turns away as the civilians leave, but with the room thinning, she can hear the clack clack clack of his heeled shoes beating on the floor as he heads back toward her. Taking a deep breath through her mouth, she prepares herself for whatever else he has to say. She won't let it get to her–she's the one saving the world now. Not him.
But before Tahno can open his mouth, Bolin's voice bursts beside them like an old waterpipe: "I know you! You're Tahno!"
The former-pilot smirks at her, and runs a hand through his hair, facing the two brothers as they approach.
"Yeah, that's me," he says. "Good to hear my face still gets around after all these years. Of course, being one of the best jaeger pilots in history would do that…"
Some would beg to differ, Korra thinks.
"You must be the Iwamoto brothers," Tahno says, taking a long look at them. "I heard about your transfer in the news. Shame about Japan… But I guess they had it coming, eh? Couldn't even turn out two simple rangers who could work together. Guess there was some lousy leadership going on over there. You boys are lucky you got here in one piece."
Bolin, star-struck and oblivious at the implications of his words, looks at Tahno as though he'd laid a golden egg, but Mako leans back with his arms crossed, staring into Tahno's face–eyes narrowed and searching, boring into his.
"We did what we had to do," he says shortly, "and what Marshal Bogdanovic ordered. He made the call that was best for everyone."
Bolin looks up at Mako with some surprise, his eyes wide and questioning. "I thought you didn't–" he begins, but Tahno cuts him off with a wave of his hand.
"Whatever, I've never heard of brothers who can't drift with each other…" he says, keeping his eyes on Mako. "It's easy for me to let someone in: my partner always knew I could take care of whatever punches those kaiju threw. They were there just for support, help keeping those scraps of steel moving."
Tahno breaks his gaze on Mako to lean toward Bolin, the corner of his mouth curled into a smirk.
"I brought some of my old reels to show everyone here," he says. "You should watch them, baby Ranger, you might actually get an idea of what it's like to pilot a jaeger…"
Mako tenses toward Bolin, but before he can say anything Korra grabs hold of Tahno's shoulder and pushes him to face her.
"They don't want any of your self-congratulating bullshit, Tahno," she says. "Bolin and Mako have actual talent and strength–and unlike you, I'd rather you not take that away from them just so you can remember what it was like to feel successful for a brief moment in your life."
Tahno's smirk sinks into a scowl, but he bounces back straight away, sweeping his hair back again as he turns to the brothers.
"Better get a hold of those vids quick, cause you won't get anything out of watching hers," he says, jerking his thumb at Korra. Her teeth clench together when he faces back at her, slipping his hands into his pockets as he leans close to her face.
"As for you, Ranger Grey… I think I'll reserve the best ones just for you. If you're nice, maybe I could even give you a private viewing…"
Korra puts her head back, narrowing her eyes. Behind him, Mako and Bolin both stare at the old pilot's exchange. The silence lasts a little too long to be natural, but Tahno stands up as if nothing had happened, taking a long look around the room before settling back on Korra.
"Speaking of success," he finally says. "or a lack of… what's changed since I was last here? I assume if you're in a position to talk to me about that sort of thing, you've found yourself another co-pilot by now, yes?"
"That's none of your business," she snaps.
"I'll take that as a 'no,'" Tahno says, and his smile grows. Stepping to her side on his heel, he throws up a hand as he walks away, wiggling his fingers in a goodbye over his shoulder. "Don't worry, I'm sure they'll find you a new playmate by the time the war's over."
A low noise escapes her throat, and the brothers flank at her side, an uneasy tension hanging in the air as they watch the ex-pilot walk away. Korra stares until he disappears into the great doors of the hangar bay, and catches Mako's eye as she turns to the right. His mouth opens as if to say something, but neither of them have a chance to speak as a loud, heavy bang reverberates through the wide atrium of the Shatterdome.
The three turn their attention on the workers unloading cargo surrounding Lepus Himalaya. A ways off from the pile of crates and tanks filled with fleshy goo stands a ring of men gathered around a wooden box that's been dropped clean on the ground. Two men, both tall and brown-skinned, walk from the cargo pile in great strides to the group.
"Be careful with that!" one of the men barks, dark hair swinging over his neck while the other man stops silently at his side, his presence an added intimidation. The handlers, dressed in jackets with the word K-SCIENCE inscribed on the back, mumble their apologies, eyes cast down on their work as they scramble to put the box right side up.
"Who are they?" Bolin asks.
"Kaiju scientists and bio-harvesters," Korra explains, looking as the two older men walk back to their place along the cargo pile. "Those two are the heads of the science and research division–Tarrlok and Noatak Okpik. If the kaiju is killed during a drop the body and organs are taken in by the K-Science Division to study for research."
"How helpful is that if the kaiju have different defenses?" Mako asks. "No two are exactly alike."
Korra shrugs. "Beats me. All I know is they're the reason we know what we do about the kaiju. But with how things have been changing lately, there's a lot of people who aren't sure how helpful that is anymore."
"There's a lot of that going around," Mako mutters, and the three of them all cast their eyes to the jaeger standing tall and still above them. It's a long moment they're staring, and Korra can tell they're all thinking the same thing. It's the same line of facts she'd been trying to run from, the one she'd been avoiding for weeks and months.
The Jaeger Program is dying–and they are some of the last ones around with a chance at keeping it alive.
Footage of Tahno's fights and victories against the kaiju are uploaded to the Shatterdome's mainframe within hours after his arrival. The media station swarms with people gathered around fifteen-inch screens, erupting in cheers and chants as they look at the old brawls, memories of the glory days that have long passed them by.
The room empties as dinner and night shifts begin, but Korra stays, pressed against the cold concrete of the wall as she stands and watches the reels play over and over again across the room. Once alone, she shuts the door and turns down the lights, leaving the videos alone to light the room in a flickering blue. For all Tahno makes Korra want to punch him in the mouth with every word he speaks, there can, unfortunately, be no mistaking that out of all the remaining jaeger pilots alive, his drop and kill count is the highest. Even civilians know it, overloaded with news of his heroics in the media: simply mentioning his name or the his jaeger would be the start of a conversation that could continue for hours.
She mutes the video and sits on the floor, legs drawn to her chest and arms wrapped around her shins. Resting her chin on her knees, Korra studies each video and immerses herself in studying the flow of the battle: the movement of each opponent, when the kaiju strikes, when the jaeger seems at its weakest, and the strongest.
Eight videos go by before someone opens the door at her back, the light spilling over the threshold interrupting her concentration. Korra squints until the door shuts and the lights raise, not looking up as a pair of thin heeled boots click across the floor.
"Hey," Asami says, pulling out a chair beside her. "I was looking for you all day."
"I've been busy," Korra replies, motioning to the screen. Asami sighs and leans back in her chair.
"You can't let him get to you, you know," she says. "You know what happened last time. It'll only make your focus worse."
"He's not getting to me," Korra grumbles into her knees. "And he won't. I just want to study it. Something works for him, and I want to know what it is. I need to know what it is if I ever want a chance at beating one when the time comes. If ever."
"You'll get your chance," Asami says, and her voice is almost urgent. She leans forward and puts a hand on Korra's shoulder so that Korra looks up to meet her gaze. "Once we find you a co-pilot, you'll be–"
Korra scoffs.
"As if Tenzin will let me in after all the mess-ups I've made," she says, waving her hand through the air. "I don't even have a partner, Asami. I can't fight alone."
"You'll find one," Asami assures her. "You're one of the best pilots I know."
Korra rolls her shoulders in a shrug and turns back to the video. Asami says nothing further and, after a moment, sits back with a sigh. On the screen Tahno and his partner Shaozu fight the final moments of their last battle with a category three kaiju, dubbed Ground Driver. When Ground Driver tries ramming the jaeger for the fifth time that fight, the jaeger team already have their plasma blaster pressed against the kaiju's neck. Shooting it directly, the beast explodes in an impressive flash of blue flesh, and Ground Driver slumps to the ground, its mouth open in a silent scream.
"Maybe I should have tried harder," Korra mutters, suddenly and quietly, and Asami looks over at her, one eyebrow raised. "Maybe the others–if I'd known my last fight was really going to be the last, I would've…"
She trails off. Asami continues to watch her, and the silence continues for a few awkward minutes before they're interrupted–thankfully–by the sound of the metal door sliding on the floor. Both women turn to see a uniformed LOCCENT official standing in the doorway, clipboard in hand.
"Ranger Grey," the official calls. "Marshal Gyaltsen requests your presence in conference room one, right away."
After exchanging a questioning look with Asami, Korra heaves herself out of the chair and follows the LOCCENT officer out the door. She knows where the conference room is and scowls at his back as they walk: not only has she walked past the room in question a thousand times before, but the officer's pace is akin to an elephant at best, leisurely strolling along and checking the folds of his clipboard every fifteen steps.
To her surprise it isn't Tenzin standing outside the conference room when she turns a corner into the hallway; it isn't even Lin. It's Mako. He catches sight of her a second after she sees him, raising his brow with the same questioning look she'd exchanged with Asami minutes before. Korra returns with a shrug. He looks just as puzzled as she feels: confused to why she's been summoned in such a regulated way, and even more than that–why was Mako has as well? Are they still in trouble from their fight that morning, she wonders?
Maybe, Korra thinks dryly, Tenzin has called us in personally to finally give us both the boot.
After studying her for a moment longer, Mako lets out a sigh through his nose and pushes the door open. Inside Tenzin and Lin stand hunched over the width of the table, a mess of papers spread out at their fingers. Noting the new arrivals, Tenzin straightens up from the table, stepping toward them with his hands clasped around the front of his jacket.
"Ah. Good," he says. "You're both here."
"Let's cut to the chase." Lin pushes her way in front of Tenzin, a steely look in her eye as she turns from Korra to Mako and back again. "Rangers Grey, Iwamoto. Meet your new co-pilot."
