This chapter has me so excited, it's a good one.
"Mistress Kai! Master Pyke!" The two stopped dead in their track as they turned to see who had called to them.
Running towards them, in his white lab coat, was the doctor. He had been Gatz's scientist. He had taught Kai about the brain and psychology. He could help them.
"Owl Eyes!" Pyke embraced the small man, calling him by his old nickname. Unlike Kai who had met with the bespectacled doctor, Pyke rarely saw their old friend. Despite the situation, it brough a smile to her lips to see Owl Eyes adjust his glasses as Pyke, grown strong and tall, set him back on the ground.
"So this is it," he said. Kai nodded. The professor sighed, "then I can help you." He pulled from the pocket of his coat a small slip of paper.
"A telegraph?" said Pyke as Kai took the note. Kai crushed it in her hands, fighting tears. Gatz had killed Lan's husband, staged it to look like an accident.
"Here's what you must do..." She listened to what Owl Eyes told her, her fury burning every word into her mind.
Bolin finished shackling the last of Gatz's men.
"Where is Kai?" Korra spun around.
Bolin immediately stood. Had Gatz taken her? Had their victory in the drawing room been for nothing?
"No, wait!" Asami bolted from under Iroh's arm to the bookshelf. "I saw Gatz come to this spot, then Kai and the other guy." She poited to the puddle of bloody champagne on the floor. "This must be a passage, like the one my father had." She squinted at the bookcase. "One of these-" she began. Bolin stomped the ground, the vibrations pushed all but one of the books off of the shelf.
"That one," he said. Asami pulled it back and the bookcase swung open.
"C'mon! There isn't much time!" Korra stormed down the stairs. Mako and Bolin followed while Iroh and Asami stayed behind to guard the thugs.
Kai and Pyke entered the laboratory where Gatz was tending to Lan.
"I knew you would follow." He faced them. "I admit you surprised me. Your escape was at the very least commendable and so quickly you established ties to the Avatar. You can imagine my shock when some of the best young benders stood against my men in the drawing room. Still, I knew you would come back to me."
Kai tensed, Pyke warned her not to be baited.
"You were always too soft for the world, too soft for your own bending ability."
"You killed him! You killed her husband!" Kai began to take hold of the flow of water in his nerve cells.
Gatz shook his head. "I freed her from her husband. Now, she can finally love me." Even though Kai was slowly gaining control of his mind, he walked towards her. Pyke stood ready to strike. "Now, you can save her from the pain by filling the dark chasm of grief in her heart with new love. You can give her child a father!"
"I will not bend to your will. I will not take away her past."
She took total control of his mind. Unfortunately, he knew the attack was coming and was able to resist. Also, with their minds together, she lost all of her advantage of surprise. He saw what she was going to do, what Owl Eyes had told her to do.
"No!" He gasped. He pulled water from a small faucet in the laboratory He slammed Kai with wave after wave, trying to break her concentration. She responded, knowing what he would do as soon as he decided. All the while, she gripped his consciousness tighter.
Then, he saw her weakness. She knew what he would do and it tore her heart apart, but she could not take her focus away from Gatz. She could only cry out as a blade of water lashed out not at Kai, but at Pyke. A scream of pain ripped through the lab, then everything went quiet.
As much as it hurt her not to run to Pyke's side, she still clung to his mind and she could feel all hope drain from him. Gatz had lost.
Korra recognized the hazy green lighting from her dream. The green lights of Gatz' underground had for so long haunted her nightmares. Remembering the bloody image of Bolin, she forced her legs to move faster down the dark hall. At the end of the corridor there was a door. She tried to open it but found it was locked.
From the other side, Kai screamed.
"NO!" shouted Bolin, launching himself at the door, bending the metal and blasting through.
Korra stared in amazement. Bolin had bent metal? The earthbender, however, didn't seem to notice this feat as he charged into the laboratory. He stopped
No one could figure out what was happening. The room was quiet. Kai stood, legs braced locked in a strange form of waterbending stance. Eyes closed, Gatz mirrored her. The Avatar realized the real battle was being fought within them.
The two waterbenders collapsed to the ground and Bolin tried to run to Kai's side.
"Don't," Korra told him.
Kai tried to reroute Gatz's brain, but he resisted and it became harder for her.
Like the first time she had tried to bend his mind, she was met by the pitiful remnants of Jaikko, destroyed by greed and a cruel, unloving world. She prepared to stomp it out, then hesitated.
If she were to slaughter this tiny shred of a decent human being, she would destroy all she believed in, she would be no better than Gatz himself. She remembered what Owl eyes had told her.
"The brain needs to feel compassion," he had gone off to explain the psychology, but that was all she needed. She changed her approach.
The tiny wretched weed that was Jaak Gatz shriveled and shrank back to the earth, back into its seed. Instead of lonliness and hatred, she then nurtured the seed with love and belonging. The weed grew again, this time a healthy plant. She let Jaikko go.
Opening her eyes, she found that she was on the wet ground of the laboratory.
"Ah!" She tried to stand, but her head throbbed. Bolin's arms were around her. Kai let him pull her to shaky legs, but pushed him away. She was not finished yet.
She crossed the room to Lan and quickly entered her mind as well as the mind of her child, filling it with Jaikko's voice, a kind voice from long ago.
A gurgling groan came from the floor a few yards away. Pyke!
She ran to him and knelt beside him. Korra was already there, trying to heal him.
"I can't," she tells Kai, "He's lost too much blood." Kai nods as the Avatar went to check on Gatz and Lan.
Kai looked into Pyke's bright grey eyes, a startling contrast to the dark puddle forming around him. Gatz's water whip had sliced deep gashes across his body. One of his ears was unrecognizable under the blood, a deep crimson stain spread from his belly, and his femoral artery continued to seep onto the floor. She ripped off a piece of her tunic to use as a bandage, but could not decide where to apply pressure and he was loosing blood too fast. So, she cradled his head in her lap. If there was nothing the Avatar could do to heal her friend, Kai knew she could not save him. At least, with her bending, she could make the going easier.
"Kai," he coughed, reaching a wet hand towards her. She held it in her hands and choked back the tears.
"Pyke. I'm so sorry. I never wanted this to-"
"Did you do it?" he cut her off.
"We did it."
He smiled before coughing up blood. "Good. Good. Kai?"
"Yeah?" She wiped the blood from his mouth.
"Thanks. For coming back. So I could see you." She only nodded. Words were too difficult.
And the bright eyes that had been fixed on her stared into the distance and lost their light.
She ran a finger over his eyelids, closing them forever.
For a moment, the tears would not come. There was anger and sadness and futility and guilt, but the tears would not release her from the pain. A sound beside her pulled her away from the sleeping face of who had, for most of her life, been her only friend. Bolin kneeled beside her. He held his arms open for her and though she was covered in Pyke's blood, Kai collapsed into him.
And the tears came...
Tears of frustration and loss. Tears of morality and finality. She cried for a long time in Bolin's arms beside the body of her friend. He rocked her and whispered little nothings, watching as Mako pulled away from Korra. The firebender took a blanket from one of the tables in the lab. Kai stopped her sobbing to watch in silent thanks as Mako draped the blanket over the broken form of Pyke.
Alas, poor Pyke, I really liked him. At least his sacrifice was a worthy one.
More to come this is not over yet! Lin and Tenzin in next Chapter. Pema after that! LEAVE A REVIEW LEAVE A REVIEW LEAVE A REVIEW LEAVE A REVIEW LEAVE A REVIEW LEAVE A REVIEW LEAVE A REVIEW!