Camp Preston Cole, United Republic
"Commander, I did not get your report." A person in a black uniform said.
"Well I reckon that tending to my wounds was more important." Commander Keith said, sitting behind his desk. "Now, fancy seeing the Office of Naval Intelligence sending out officers to question us lowly non-spooks."
"The man that attacked you, the Freelancer, he is using stolen property and a stolen artifact." The ONI spook stated. "We want your full report, Commander."
"You'll get after I have spoken with Lord Hood and Captain Lasky, I have been told that our friends in the Fire Nation have given them transport." Keith responded.
"Commander, I don't think you understand..."
"No, I don't, agent. Now if you excuse me..." Keith said while standing up. "I have a base to tidy up."
The agent watched as Keith left the office, he took out his communicator, "What's the situation in Moonbase Alpha?" He asked.
"SPARTAN-IV teams have secured the base, sir. SPARTAN-II Blue Team aided them."
"Well, what about our second objective?"
"We have a team on premises, contact is being established."
"Good."
Air Temple Island
Zaheer sat in the middle of the training arena of the temple, thinking deeply into the plan put in place. The others were waiting for his word, the location of the Avatar was of upmost importance. Freedom was the end goal, and through the Avatar, they shall achieve it.
"Mister?" Ikki asked Zaheer. "Are you okay, you look sad."
"Oh, I am okay, thank you for asking young one." He replied, opening his eyes. "Ever since I got my new abilities, I have been looked down upon by my peers, by the people I called friends."
"Aw don't feel bad, mister, you're among airbenders now!" Ikki responded gleefully, "I am sure that once Korra finishes up looking for more, she will tell you how awesome it is to have bending!"
"Speaking of the Avatar, where has she gone to?" Zaheer asked. But before Ikki replied, Kya approached them.
"Time for dinner." She told them, Ikki ran quickly back inside. She turned to Zaheer, who was known as Yoro to the them, she was suspecious of this man. "Say, when did you get your powers?"
"Four days ago. Why?"
"Oh nothing. Come on in." Kya and Zaheer aka Yoro entered the temple.
"Would you excuse me, I have to use the restroom." Zaheer said, Kya nodded. Zaheer slowly walked away, entering a hallway, and waiting for Kya to leave the vicsinity. Zaheer explored the place, hoping to stumble into Master Tenzin's office and find documents about his trip with the Avatar.
Entering the office, he noticed a small shrine nearby. It was dedicated to the legendary Guru Laghima, the airbender who discovered the secret of weightlessness. He grabbed the small gold necklace ontop of a painting of the guru. He read it... Let go of your earthly tether. Enter the void. Empty and become wind.
He noticed Ikki, once again, along with Meelo this time, approaching them. "Hey mister Yoro, Aunt Kya sent us to look for you." Ikki said, "What are you doing in my dad's office?"
"Oh, I got lost in my way back, but then I stumbled into this. Have you kids heard of Guru Laghima?" Zaheer asked them, the kids shook their heads. "He was an ancient airbender who discovered a way to gain the abiliaty to fly. He did it by letting go of his earhtly attachments, much how normal airbenders meditate to free their minds."
"Oh wow, dad never said we could fly!" Meelo replied. "That's cool!"
Zaheer smiled at the kids' innocence, "Its more complicated than just regular meditation, but we all can obtain what Laghima obtained." Zaheer then noticed Kya's shadow in the doorway.
"Kids go back to the table with your mother and the others." Kya said, Ikki and Meelo ran back to the table not wanting to get in trouble. "For a novice, you seem to know a whole lot of airbender history."
"What can I say? I love history." Zaheer responded, feeling that his cover was blown. They were in a stand-off, looking at each other to see who would make the first move. Then one of the radios in Tenzin's office made a noise, static, and a voice came through. It was Tenzin.
"Kya, are you there? I wanted to check in since I had forgotten to do so, Korra and I are in Zaofu at the moment. Mark it on your map for future reference, you should see Lin's face. Anyway, we'll be back by next week." Then it felt silent once again.
Zaheer smirked. "Well then." He said, "I enjoyed my time here. See you later, Kya." Zaheer then spun his airbending staff, which had been given to him when he first arrived. The sheer force of the wind pushed Kya through the wooden wall of Tenzin's office, making the master waterbender land hard on the granite ground of the outside.
Zaheer stepped out, preparing to glide away and rejoin his team. But he was stopped by Kya, "Still standing?" Zaheer said feeling the ice on his right foot. He cracked it using his staff.
"You won't be going anywhere soon, traitor." Kya respoded, bending a water whip from a nearby well. The strikes were avoided by Zaheer's superior agility, jumping and rolling out of their way. He threw a whirlwind at Kya, who wasn't able to see it coming, pushing her hard into the bay's waters, but Kya now being inside her element threw a wave of water at Zaheer. Within the waters, there were several ice spikes ready to pin Zaheer into the ground. Zaheer spinned his staff so rapidly creating a mini tornado, dispatting the incoming wave and spikes away from him. But he didn't catch Kya incoming with a fist surrounded with ice, hitting right square in the jaw. Zaheer stepped back, he had subestimated the waterbender by a large margin. He would not make a similar mistake again.
Zaheer used his airbending-enhanced speed to run up to Kya, evading all of her strikes and grabbig her with his staff by the neck and then flipping her into the ground, making a loud thud. He then made a current of air beneath Kya, making her spin in the air rapidly, and then throwing her back into the office. Kya crashed into the desk and radio equipment that was there, knocking her out and breaking some of her ribs.
The Red Lotus leader took this chance of getting away, using his new staff to glide into the air and leaving the temple with the information he and his team needed.
Zaofu
Fireteam Horus, the SPARTAN-IV team sent to Zaofu, patrolled the streets of the city. The citizens looked at the giants with awe, their grey/gold armor color pattern shining. Zaofu had long abandoned the tales of old about the Star-Lords and the Ancients, but these Spartans were the closest thing to demigods.
"Any news?" Spartan Jonesy asked the team leader.
"Nothing." Spartan Fireteam Leader Donar replied, the team was then joined by the Captain of the Guard of Zaofu, Kuvira. "Kuvira, we located several fault lines across the city."
Donar took out his tec-pad, "This is a map of the city, the question marks represent the areas that we found questionable."
"Thank you, Donar." Kuvira replied, looking at the map.
Spartan Andrews whispered to Jonesy, "They're on a first name basis now, isn't that out of character for him?"
"Does it matter?" Jonesy asked.
"It kinda does." Another member of the fireteam said, Spartan Wulf. "Our mission is to oversee the Avatar, not to mingle with the locals."
"There is a tunnel, here. I do not where it leads, but we noticed tire tracks leading away from it." Spartan Donar pointed at one particular area of interest.
"And there are no guard routes there. I don't like it." Kuvira replied, "I will check that area myself."
Korra had placed her armor away, and was back using her regular water tribe garb again. It looked like everything was going alright, nothing out of the ordinary. She was out in the backyard of Suyin's home where there were multiple metal statues and metallic stones laying around. Korra was practicing her earthbending and metalbending, which she seemed to be able to use only under the enhanced Avatar State.
She was able to levitate a piece of steel, but couldn't change its form. "Geh...!" Korra grutned as she tried to mold the metal alloy into something else.
"You're trying too hard." Suyin said walking towards the Avatar, accompanied by Opal. "You gotta feel the bits and pieces of earth within the metal, to tune your earthbending in the right way."
Bolin walked by, having been sent by Mako to get some food to the market, he saw the trio talking. He noticed Opal was there and immediately went to see what was going on.
Korra focused, looking at the piece of steel that floated in between her hands. She could feel the pieces of earth inside the steel, pieces that once were iron. She began to move them, and voila the metal begna to shift. "Wow!" Korra was surprised.
"Impressive, Korra. I've never seen anyone master metalbending in just ten seconds by just being told what to do. But I guess Avatars are more proficient than the average earthbender." Suyin congratulated Korra.
"Can you teach me?" Bolin approached them, "All my life I've wanted to be a metalbender! I'm already really good at earthbending too!"
"Alright Bolin, show me what you can do." Suyin said.
Bolin took his Pro Bending fighting pose and lifted a boulder off the ground, and with his bending, he ripped it in two and made four rocks off the big one. And then he crushed them turning them into several pebbles.
"Woah." Opal was in awe.
"Good job, Bolin!" Korra was surprised, she didn't know that Bolin had been practicing.
"Hm, you are quite the proficient earthbender." Suyin said. She grabbed the piece of steel from Korra's hand and threw at Bolin. He caught it. "Try to bend the steel."
Bolin was confident and nodded, he looked at the steel ball. He wiggled his fingers over the metal, but it remained still. Bolin tried again...nothing. He tried again, harder. Still motionless. He sighed.
"Don't worry Bolin, not every earthbender is born to be a metalbender." Su said taking the metal ball from Bolin. "But you're a superb earthbender, keep that up."
"Thanks!" Bolin thanked the older woman, who left walking with Korra to talk about other things about Opal's airbending training.
"Hey Bolin, wanna have some lunch?" Opal asked him.
"Yeah!" He replied.
UNSC Infinity
The Master Chief and Blue Team were delivered to the Infinity, along with the last survivor of Fireteam Jaeger. Spartan Ackerman was taken elsewhere to be treated for her injuries, while the elder Spartans were taken directly to Captain Lasky who had been returned to the ship by the UNSC dispatch in the Fire Nation.
"Blue Team, what were you doing in Moonbase Alpha?" Lasky got to the point, the SPARTANs life sings were detected coming out of the blue. Out of thin air, and this worried the young captain.
"Captain, the Didact is still alive." Master Chief replied, "We followed known insurgents into a underground cavern in the Oden Mountains, close to the detention facility. We discovered a gate way that expanded throughout Requiem and other Forerunner installations nearby."
"This isn't good...you saw the Didact?"
"Affirmative, sir. He is in a unknown location. SPARTAN-II BLACK Team was there..." Chief took out the SPARTANs dog tags and gave them to Lasky. "Spartans never die."
Chief walked away, with Kelly following close behind. "As of now we don't know what's the Didact's next move, but he was being protected by Covenant Storm units and Insurgents, both from the Red Lotus and the local Insurrectionists." Fred said.
"Any word of Ilsa?" Lasky asked while putting the dog tags in one of his pockets.
"No word." Linda answered.
The Chief walked towards the mid area of the ship, where the enlisted and naval personnel basically went on their leaves. There was a holographic sky, and a huge area for recreation, it reminded the elder Spartan of the Cairo Station back on Earth but bigger.
In the middle of the pavillion, there were several statues. The tallest one was him, the Master Chief, to his right was NOBLE-Six, and to his left was Sergeant Avery Johnson. A SPARTAN-I, a SPARTAN-II and a SPARTAN-III. The trio representing the eras of Spartan Supersoldiers who had given up their lives in the line of duty. Chief was believed to be dead for many years, almost a decade of no word.
The Chief looked at the statues, their reflection adorning his golden visor. The marines and sailors on leave were on awe as soon as they heard the heavy footsteps of the Master Chief approaching the statues. On the base was a plaque, its said: HEROES NEVER DIE. THEY ARE JUST MISSING IN ACTION.
He took out Cortana's chip and looked at it...there will never be a statue made out of her. No one will remember her sacrifice, no one except a select few. The history books will forever ignore that an AI...saved the human race from annihilation. Multiple times. The Chief knew that his actions, his feats, would've been impossible without the help of his blue AI helper.
"We'll get him, Chief." Kelly said, appearing behind the Chief.
"We will." Chief responded putting the chip away. "Let's get down planetside and resume our search."
Zaofu, Earth Kingdom...three days later
Midnight. The moon shined over the protective layers over the city, pure metal that impeded any sort of invasion force that dared to siege Zaofu. No entrance and no exit, at night. The safest city in the entire world, not even the Fire Nation Capital came close to it.
Korra was fast asleep in her room, feeling secure that none of those Red Lotus terrorists would try anything on her life. Especially since she was busy finishing Opal's beginner airbending training.
Mako and Bolin shared a room, and slept on seperate beds. Pabu was sleeping over Bolin's chest, his tail tickling Bolin's nose. "Sigh, Pabu..." Bolin said in a tired voice moving the little creature off him. He shifted his view towards the window, but in his sleepy gaze he noticed shadowy figures moving outside. "Uh oh." He said, coming out of bed and shaking his brother to wake up.
"What do you want Bolin?" Mako said, annoyed that he was shaken out of his dreams.
"Shh..." Bolin placed his finger over his mouth signaling Mako to whisper. "I just saw people going towards Korra's room."
Mako quickly got off bed, and signaled Bolin to follow him outside.
Korra slowly opened her eyes upon hearing a noise coming out of her window, thinking it was Pabu or some squirrel, Korra got up to scare off whatever it was. But instead of a nighttime animal, she found four people standing in the shadows. Korra quickly went in the defensive, waking herself up essentially, but before she could attack or move into cover, several darts impacted her exposed skin. "Ah!" She yelled in pain as the sharp needles delivered a heavy dose of sedatives. The sedatives numbed her muscles and knocked her unconcious.
Zaheer came out of the shadows and quickly grabbed Korra and placed her over his shoulder. "Let's get out." He said. The group left the room, but as soon as they got through the alleyway they had entered they were stopped by the light of the patrolmen. "Security guards!" Ghazan said.
"Take them out!" Zaheer ordered. Ghazan turned the metallic floor into lava, super heating the metal. The guards had to jump out of the way before they were burned to a crisp. Ghazan then used a piece of rock big enough for them to quickly move through the lava. They reached the middle of the area, and as soon as they did they were surrounded by the security force, commanded by Captain Kuvira who had been woken up.
"Give up, Zaheer." She said appearing before them, taking a fighting pose. "You have no where else to go." Spartan Fireteam Horus took formation around her, aiming their weapons at the Red Lotus.
"Your space dogs don't scare us." Ming Hua hissed. Zaheer looked at Ghazan, and Ghazan nodded. In a swoop of his right foot a circle of lava came into existance around them. Kuvira and the Spartans backed away, so did the security officers. Ghazan then raised a rock wall, preventing the Spartans from bringing them down.
One of the members of team Horus prepared to throw a grenade over the wall, but was quickly stopped by Kuvira. "Stop! The Avatar is being held hostage in there." She told Spartan Donar, he looked at her and agreed. "Bring down the wall!"
The metalbenders, who are expert earthbenders, prepared to crush Ghazan's wall and create a bridge in between the lava river that had formed around them. But as soon as they tried to nudge the rock wall, P'Li shot several combustion shots at the guards. The precision of each shot was incredible, the compacted air exploding in front of the guards who were knocked, burned or evascirated by the attacks.
Tenzin, Bolin, Mako, Asami and Lin joined Kuvira and her team. "Where's Korra!?" Tenzin asked worryingly.
"She is in there." Kuvira said, "The Red Lotus infiltrated us."
Tenzin looked at the protected terrorists, they couldn't do anything with that combustion woman in there taking shots at everyone. Several combustion shots came out and flew directly at Kuvira, hoping in taking her out. Donar pushed her out of the way and the shot hit the Spartan hard, pushing him several feet away, with his shields flashing and hist feet making two trails in the ground. "I'm fine, get to cover!" He yelled.
Team Avatar and Kuvira took cover under an improvised rock dome made by Lin, "Alright, we gotta get Korra out of there!" Mako said.
"How?!" Bolin asked.
"There is a hole in the top of the metal dome over us, its directly over them." Kuvira said, "We could send someone up there to quickly come down and snatch Korra."
"That could work if that combustion woman wasn't there!" Lin responded. "We have to take her out first."
Su joined them, taking cover below the rock shield dome. "I might have a way to help." She said. "Kuvira, distract them, tell your teams to keep the preassure."
"Understood." Kuvira got out and joined the others.
"Lin, follow me to the top. Bolin, listen and listen carefully, the combustion woman is the tallest of them all. I need you to, as soon as she sees Lin and I coming down over them, to throw a rock directly onto her forehead." Su said.
"How do you know it'll work?" Mako asked.
"I see what you're doing. Its just like how Uncle Sokka took down the Combustion Man..." Tenzin said.
"Impressive." Lin added.
"Yeah. I'm counting on you Bolin." Su and Lin left the dome. Bolin peeked over the dome and saw how the combustion woman was blowing the guards away. The Spartans' bullets being repelled by Ming Hua's water whip. It was up to him now.
Kuvira came under the rock dome again, this time she had a radio with her. "Take this, Su will tell you when she's ready." She said before going out into the fight once more.
A couple of minutes later, Korra began to gain conciousness. She saw the Red Lotus, she was on the floor while the terrorists were being besieged by her friends. She didn't move, instead she remained motionless, not wanting to draw attention to herself. Korra saw Lin and Su above, high in the point of the city's metal cover. They were ready to descend.
Suyin told Bolin through the radio that she was going to jump, Bolin prepared. He was a bit nervous, what if he failed? He had bragged about being a superb earthbender in front of Su and Opal so much that Su had placed all of her hopes on him. Bolin swept the sweat off his forehead, "Ready."
Lin and Su jumped off, being held by metal ropes similar to that of the metalbenders in Republic City. P'Li noticed them coming, she prepared to fire at them...time slowed down. Bolin bended a small rock and threw it. The rock flew through the air, passing by Zaheer himself, he felt the air of the rock passing by him.
The air condensed around P'Li's forehead symbol preparing for the shot. The rock hit her, blocking her chi path, the shot exploded near her. The explosion knocked the Red Lotus off their feet allowing Lin to grab Korra who was fully awake. Su knocked the barrier down before she was pulled back up. The smoke cleared, the Spartans and guards ready to bring down the terrorists. No one, there was no one. They had left. The Spartans hadn't detected them. "Damn." Kuvira said while pulling the bangs of her hair back and sighing.