One chapter left after this! I will have it for you next week. Also - still taking Lin/Tenzin requests. If you have any, send me a message here!
Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy!
Warrior Raging
Chapter 9
Della was waiting for her when she arrived at her office and the younger woman immediately descended, handing her the case file from her desk so she would not have to retrieve it herself. "We've brought them up," she said before Lin had even had a chance to greet her. She gave her chief a sloppy bow and pointed to the large interrogation room on that floor. "They've given their names as Tsu and Kofa, Mako is running background on them right now."
Lin nodded and started to walk toward the room, Della on her heels. "Get Hutou, have him watch from observation to transcribe the interview. I want you in there with him. Let me handle this."
Della nodded and dashed off in the other direction to find the secretary. Lin waited until she saw them both go into the room on the other side of the one she was about to enter before swiping the metal cell open with her bending and walking inside, face stormy and head held high. The two men were sitting shackled to the table across from one another. A guard was there with them and Lin dismissed him. He bowed and exited, closing the wall back behind him to leave her alone with the men she had fought. She set the file on the table.
They stared up at her, almost afraid now that they were the only three in the room.
"Which of you is Tsu?" she asked sharply. A sallow-faced young man attempted to raise his hand, but was stopped quickly by the restraint around his wrist. His shoulders slumped and he looked up at her like an animal headed for the knife. "And you," she said, turning to the other man, "are Kofa?" He nodded silently.
Lin crossed her arms, legs shoulder-width apart and feet solid against the floor. Intimidating and frightening and she gazed down her nose at them with narrowed, angry eyes.
"You are already being charged with the abduction of a citizen of Republic City and two counts of attempted murder," she said coldly. "A sentence that will keep you imprisoned for the rest of your lives. If you tell me everything – and I mean everything – you know about the Dragon Clan, I will speak with your trial council to have your sentences swayed to something perhaps a bit more palatable."
The two men nodded quickly, their heads bouncing up and down as they held to her every word.
"First," she asked, "what do you do inside this organization?"
Tsu spoke up quickly, hastening to give her any bit of information she wanted. "She calls us runners, ma'am! We just do whatever we're asked to do, no questions asked!"
"Do you get any compensation?"
"Yes," Kofa said with a nod. "Five hundred to two thousand yuan a run, depending on the job."
"These jobs," Lin asked, not bothering to slow her pace of questions. She knew Hutou was on the other side of that mirror writing down everything passing in this room, he could keep up with her flow regardless of how quickly she pressed them. "What are they?"
"Loads of different things," the first man said, looking to his companion for confirmation. He nodded again. "Just escorting someone new to town, I did that once. Picking up packages, finding good restaurants – she likes quiet places -"
"Yeah, she does business from a few, doesn't like to bother busy crowds -"
"I've done shopping before, too, gone to the apothecary for certain things, she always gives a list -"
"I picked up a delivery from the port once," Kofa added to the growing supply, "brought it directly to her bank for the safety deposit box, she didn't even need to see the contents."
"I fed her bear dog once."
"Okay," Lin interrupted, "so you do odds and ends. How did that lead you to abducting Master Tenzin and getting involved in that level of violence?"
Tsu fell silent, and it was Kofa who said, "We didn't know that's what we were doing last night, I swear it. Nasak is the one who usually does things like that, he rarely ever takes runners along. He prefers members from the upper ranks to join him for the – for the – the jobs where people die. I don't want to kill anyone," he whispered, horrified, eyes falling to the table. "I think he brought us because we were the only ones there when she gave the order, and we couldn't wait. A call came that his target was suddenly nearby and we needed to move."
"Nasak is the Waterbender," Lin said.
Tsu nodded his confirmation. "Did you really kill him?"
"Only because he was going to take my life if I didn't use force to stop him," she replied, looking at him clearly. "And the rest of you." They cowed under her glare, both lowering their gazes. She opened the file and found sketches from the coroner's office depicting the tiny red tattoos on the dead men's toes. "These," she asked, redirecting their attention, "are these marks of rank?"
"Yes," Tsu said. "We both only have one. Someone like Nasak, in the upper rank, he has five. I think there are – were – three of them."
"All like Nasak, who orchestrated murders?"
Kofa shook his head, his lips pulled down in a thin, sickened frown. "No, only Nasak and one other did – did those. The third is a lady, she's her advisor."
Lin shuffled quickly through the file again, locating photographs from the crime scene at the bar where Fen Tao and Puya had been murdered. "Why were these two people killed in their own bar?" She slid the gruesome pictures to the middle of the table. Kofa looked away, his face pale, and Tsu appeared as though he wanted to run from everything.
"Us in the lower ranks, we only hear what's rumored," Tsu almost wailed. "But – but it's pretty well known that she's been trying to import more than just expensive fabric and inks and stuff the last few months. She found a contact somewhere in the Earth Kingdom who has access to these – these plants -"
"She's making poisons to sell on the black market," Kofa interjected, unable to keep still. He was so pale now Lin was slightly worried he might vomit, but truthfully she didn't care much just then. "Poisons and toxins, and some kind of drugs for personal use. She wanted these people to -" He finally broke out a stifled sob. "She wanted this lady to get more illegal plants through a family member, and for her husband to import them with the wares for his bar. They refused, so she – she -"
"She killed them," Lin finished softly. Finding a bit of sympathy, she gathered the photographs back into the file and closed the top. "Who is she, then, this woman you're referring to?"
"Milau," Tsu whispered, the name off his tongue making his face lose its expression. "She lives in a mansion just inside the city, off Upper Common Street. The big white house with the green roof, number eleven."
"She does the majority of her business from there," Kofa added softly, head bowed. "A lot of us wait there during the day, too, for a call or order from her."
"Why," Lin murmured, her voice dropped considerably, "did she order you to take Master Tenzin?" It was a question that had been weighing on her heavily, and her heart beat quickly as the words came from her mouth.
Kofa answered again, taking a moment to look at her and away as he found his train of thought. "Nasak – Nasak said on the drive over it was to shake you up. Milau was getting – I don't know, she was getting mad that you were on her trail all the time, and she wanted to make you stop. Nasak didn't think you'd be there to…to… He was going to send a ransom in the next day, I think."
"Was Nasak going to take Tenzin's life if I did not cooperate with this ransom demand?"
Both Tsu and his friend shook their heads, mumbling varying degrees of "I don't know" under their breaths. Lin nodded, done with her questions, and picked up the file. She turned to leave, inhaling quickly to steady herself with the information she'd gathered as she raised her hand to open the metal door.
"Chief Beifong?"
She turned again at Kofa's call to find him staring at her sadly. "Is Master Tenzin all right? When I realized it was him we – I've always liked him very much – I wanted to leave, but Nasak…" He couldn't finish his sentence and lowered his head in shame.
"Master Tenzin is just fine," Lin told him, her answer sharp but still not nearly as harsh as it could have been considering her rising anger.
Immediately upon leaving the room, Lin rammed her fist into the wall so hard it broke through the lacquered wooden panel to the stone underneath. "Our ships pass her house once every two hours in their standard route," she snarled at a very startled Mako, who just happened to be standing there when she emerged. "She was right under our fucking noses this entire fucking time! Tell the next patrol to look for that specific house, I want to know the second they find it. I want to know everything down to the number of tiles on that spirit damned roof!" she snapped at him, and he quickly leapt to obey.
xXx
Only an hour later there was a very soft knock on the door, and Lin raised her head from her hands just as Jinora slowly looked inside to find her. The girl's face was drawn and tears reddened her eyes the moment they met Lin's. "Your secretary wasn't at his desk," she said after a beat of hesitation. "May I come in?"
Lin stood, gesturing for her to have a seat. Jinora, though, just came all the way in and closed the door, stopping there, and Lin took a few steps around her desk to come closer, quickly growing concerned when the tears leaked over her face. "What's the matter? Did something happen?"
Jinora shook her head, but she bit her lip and lowered her eyes from Lin's intense gaze. "My dad - " She broke off, jumping slightly when Lin grasped her arm to urge her to continue. "I think my dad is leaving Mom."
"What?"
Of all things Jinora may have told her, that was absolutely the furthest from her mind as one that might potentially happen. Lin's hand shook and she removed it quickly from the girl's arm, wrapping it around herself and recoiling as her heart spasmed in her chest. This was too much, far too much, to deal with right now. "What are you talking about, how do you know this?"
The teenage Airbender began to cry in earnest, looking at Lin with a lost expression that only made the chasm in her chest widen. "I overheard them arguing a few minutes ago. They still are," she said, the words hitching through her throat. "They weren't really arguing, though, just – just talking. They were both so sad. They were in Dad's study, they didn't know I was there. Is he leaving us for you?" she asked through her tears, still coherent enough to sound angry.
"No, oh, Jinora – no, I never asked him to do anything of the sort, I promise you."
All of a sudden, Lin felt her world changing, shifting, and falling in around her. When she and Tenzin had parted that morning, never on her life would she have imagined he was going home to speak to his wife. Part of her was thrilled beyond belief, but the other part – the part she felt right then, with his daughter and at the prospect of the fallout as it so quickly unfolded – was terrified at what was happening, so far out of her control. And now, right now, with everything going on…
Jinora's face was heartbroken, and she knew her own was quite alarmed.
"I thought he loved her," Jinora whispered.
"He does!" Lin told her quickly, falling to her knees to come closer to her height and taking her hands into her own. "Jinora, he does. Just as he loves you and your sister and your brothers. His ability to love is incredible, and that is never, ever going to change, do you understand?" She waited for her to nod before continuing. "There are just so many different types of love in the world."
"But Mom - " Jinora hiccupped and blinked, looking away. "Mom always says Dad is her soulmate. How can she be wrong?"
Lin was silent for a moment, aching and terribly afraid of saying the wrong thing. She squeezed the girl's hands tightly in hers, wetting her lips with her tongue before speaking and choosing her words carefully. "I've always had this opinion on soulmates," she said softly. "All of us, you, me, your mother and father – we have soulmates everywhere, many of them. Who is your best friend?"
"Kai," she answered immediately, only growing confused after she realized what she had responded to.
"Don't you feel as though you've known him forever, even though he has only been in your life for a few years?" Jinora nodded again, extracting a hand to wipe across her cheeks. "He is a soulmate, a person always fated to come to you from a previous lifetime. Your sister, she and Meelo are definitely soulmates, I'd bet my family fortune they've been siblings before." Lin paused for just a moment, gathering herself through her running thoughts. "Your mother and father – they are soulmates, your mother is not wrong. They just…I suppose they were just not meant to be bonded the way she initially thought, but that does not mean she was ever wrong about Tenzin being one of her soulmates."
This seemed to sink in and Jinora relaxed a bit, swallowing and wiping her face again. She wasn't angry now even if she was still very upset and she took a deep breath, meeting Lin's concerned eyes. "He does love you, though, doesn't he? That's why all this is happening."
"It's so complicated," Lin began, though seeing the irate look come back over her face as an argument formed, she frowned and sighed. "We never really spoke about it, but perhaps. Jinora, believe me when I say I never asked him to – and he never intended to. Life has a way of running away from you. Sometimes you can get it back under control…and sometimes you can't."
There was not a chance to expound on this any further, though, as the door to Lin's office flew open again and Della ran inside with a piece of parchment in her hand. "They've found the house, Chief!" she cried, looking to her desk in momentary confusion before finding her kneeling on the floor with Jinora. She blushed fiercely and immediately dropped into a low bow, realizing then she had barged inside without knocking, but Lin stood and took the report from her anyway.
Jinora backed away, watching the exchange hesitantly. "Should I just come back later, then?"
"I'll come to you," Lin said, giving the girl her full attention, "I promise. We'll talk about this as much as you want."
Jinora gave her a thin smile and left the room.
"Chief, I apologize, I was out of line," Della said, genuine anxiety in her voice. Lin just waved her hand dismissively and looked at the paper again, trying very hard to push everything she had just learned from her mind to think about when she could actually focus. There was a map of the upper quadrant of the city printed with a notation marked in red – Milau's home.
"Call the squads together," Lin said. "We're taking everyone available. Let's shut the Clan down for good."
xXx
The raid happened very quickly. When the airship passed for its standard rotation over the upper quadrant, another three came with it along with fifteen automobiles through the streets. Lin made the order, and her police squads descended on the house from sky and ground, covering every inch of the property before a single person could flee. She led the push inside herself.
The house was beautiful, filled with glossy bamboo floors and high arched ceilings that reached the second story. It oozed opulence and wealth. Clan members scattered as the door was shattered, but they were quickly overrun by officers and dragged out to the vans. A woman wearing a rich sapphire-colored gown to set off her blue eyes and dark hair appeared at the top open landing of the stairs, looking down in fury over the railing.
"Milau," Lin called up to her, already making for the stairs, "by the authorities of Republic City, you are under arrest."
She allowed herself to be taken and marched down into the entryway to join several of her recruits. Her expression, however, was almost smug, and she shifted her weight from foot to foot as Lin grasped her arm to shackle her wrists. Lin was grudgingly forced to move with her, almost waddling together, until Lin's back was to the wall and she finally got her to stop by bending shackles onto her ankles as well.
"Let's get them out of here," Lin said, jerking Milau forward. The woman glared at her angrily, her eyes darting over the other officers swarming through her home until finding something specific and snapping back to Lin's face.
"Brave," she spat, resisting for only a moment when Della came forward to take her arm. "Brave and stupid. You would have let us be, Chief."
"If you thought for one second I was going to allow your little group to keep infesting my city the way you have been," Lin growled, her gaze narrowing furiously, "you are the one who has been stupid. Della, take her to the ship for transport. Jaluu, get your team together and search the house."
"The coiled serpent will not die!" Milau yelled, voice carrying though the crowd.
A panel in the wall opened at Lin's back. She spun quickly but, before she could do more than see a Metalbender she recognized as a man she had fired several years ago, he had broken her armor with his bending and shoved a large steel blade through her stomach. She felt it pinching her front and heard the clang of it penetrating the back of her hauberk against the mechanism holding her cables, and it was only then she felt blinding pain sear through her body. He smirked cruelly at her, blood already staining his fingers, and sprinted back through the passage. She fell to her knees in vague shock, eyes rolling up to the high ceiling as shouts broke out around her, already dim in her ringing ears. Arms caught under her shoulders before she collapsed completely.
All she could think about as consciousness flitted away beyond her reach was Tenzin, somewhere very far from her.
