A Cog in the Machine – Book Two, Intermission: Apart
Disclaimer: In case you haven't figured it out yet, I don't own The Legend of Korra. All Avatar-related characters, settings, etc. are the intellectual property of Viacom, Bryan Konietzko, and Michael Dante DiMartino.
[-]
"Did you know?!" thundered Asami.
Amon, sitting maskless in his office chair with his hands folded neatly together, took several seconds to offer a response.
Eventually, in tones of deliberate calm, he said, "You'll have to be more specific."
"Oh, come off it! Are you going to make me spell it out?" the younger Equalist demanded harshly. "Did you know Zaheer was going to run off with Korra!"
Again, he took a deep breath before saying anything, clearly wary of provoking any further eruptions from the volcano in front of him.
"I knew…" he muttered, frowning deeply. "That Zaheer alleged you were working with the Avatar behind my back. I didn't want to believe him…but I thought it best to verify."
"Well, great job of that!" she exclaimed, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "And did you also realize that this was apparently his plan from the start? That everything he's done with the Equalists was just a smokescreen, to get his hands on Korra?"
"We sort of figured it out when he left and never came back," said Sho, from the other side of the table. "Stealing a whole bunch our files and tech on the way out didn't help."
Asami tried not to wince as she saw her sifu trying and failing to reach for a cup of tea. Far from getting better, his nerve damage from that old battle seemed to be growing steadily worse. Gently, she placed the cup in his hands, but the fire in her eyes returned the instant she rounded back on Amon.
"I would never work against you. You know that. You're like a father to me," she told him sternly. "What I was doing with Korra…it had nothing to do with that. I…I can't tell you more. But please, believe me."
Amon narrowed his cold blue eyes at her. She and Sho were probably the only people alive who could withstand that glare without blinking.
"It wouldn't have anything to do with the reason you're apparently on a first-name basis with her, would it?" he asked.
Asami didn't offer a reply in so many words. But she sighed heavily and gave a quick nod, and both Amon and Sho seemed to glean a good deal of meaning from it.
"Well…regardless. I trusted that viper-bat, and he played us all for fools," said Amon after a little while. "We're going to teach him a lesson about what happens to people who screw with the Equalists."
"I'm in. One-hundred percent," Asami hissed. "Let's find that bastard. And make him pay."
And find Korra, her treacherous subconscious added. Assuming she's still alive.
[-]
It took Sho several weeks, and every last one of his connections and resources, but he finally tracked down what seemed like a concrete lead on Zaheer's whereabouts.
Amon and Asami undertook the mission alone. They didn't have enough Equalists to spare a contingent away from the city, especially this deep into the civil war, and in any event the two of them could move faster on their own than in a large team.
Sho's intel led them to the Misty Palms Oasis, right at the edge of the Si Wong Desert. Apparently, someone had seen a man who matched Zaheer's description check into an inn here the other night.
With their hoods up – for they were both just as wanted in the Earth Kingdom as they were in the United Republic – the pair walked up to the front desk and asked to rent a room for the night.
"Absolutely not!" the innkeeper said crankily. She was an elderly woman with a seemingly perpetual scowl. "I can't get a good look at you in those silly getups, but I can tell you're a teenager. I don't rent to teenagers. Not after the incident with the hog-monkey and all that blasting jelly."
Asami knew better than to ask. Instead she let Amon step forward, lowering his hood so she could see his adult face. All of his wanted posters had him in his mask, after all.
"My…niece and I just need a place to stay for the night. I promise she's very well-behaved," he told the woman. "You won't hear a peep out of us, I assure you."
And just to make certain, he accompanied these words by sliding over a handful of yuans. At least double what a night should have cost.
The innkeeper still seemed skeptical, but pocketed the bribe and handed over a room key nonetheless.
"What name do I put it under?" she asked with a sigh.
"Kurumu," answered Asami, before Amon could say anything. "And this is my Uncle…Tsukune."
"Charmed to meet you," drawled Amon, shooting a brief but pointed glare at his Lieutenant. It was clear he wasn't overly fond of his alias, even though there was nothing he could do about it at this point. A little bit of petty revenge for his role in Korra's kidnapping. "By the way, how busy is this inn right now? I see a lot of other keys missing from the wall."
The innkeeper shrugged. "Oh, we get by. Tourism's up with all that nonsense in the colonies. Si Wong's about as far from there as you can get," she said. The fact that she still referred to the United Republic as "the colonies" meant she was either very old, a Hou-Ting diehard, or both. "Now, will you get? I've got other customers."
Seeing they weren't going to get any more information out of the woman, Asami and Amon grabbed their bags and settled into their room. Even for just two people, she couldn't help but notice how cramped it was.
"Only one bed. If we were planning to sleep at all tonight, I'd be bothered," she remarked coolly. "When do you think it's safe to search this place for Zaheer?"
"Not until nightfall. He'll be watching out for us. Any reconnaissance during the day is bound to catch his attention," replied Amon. "He may sleep less than the average person, but he does need to. We just need to figure out which room he's in – assuming he hasn't already moved on."
"Doesn't seem like a place you'd want to keep a captive Avatar for long," Asami mused, tapping her finger to her chin. "How do you think he's keeping her from breaking free? A drug, or poison? Or maybe metal restraints…I'm pretty sure she can't metalbend."
"It depends on what he needs from her. And that's something we haven't even begun to figure out," he said. "What scheme could possibly be worth plunging another nation into civil war? Keeping up his ruse for months?"
"I don't know," Asami whispered, walking to the room's small, singular window and gazing upon the bustling market below. "But we're going to find out."
[-]
Asami had never felt a couple of hours drag on for so long, as they waited in that room for night to fall.
To pass the time, Asami found an old Pai Sho board in the room's storage chest. Remembering all the great times she'd had playing with her parents as a little girl, she challenged her leader to a few rounds. It was less awkward than idle chitchat.
It soon became clear, however, that while he knew the rules on a rudimentary level, Amon was a truly and utterly hopeless Pai Sho player. She was able to see his amateurish gambits coming at least five turns ahead, and routed him so effortlessly that she might as well have had her eyes closed.
After her eighth win in a row, Amon threw down his tiles and buried his face in his fingers.
"You're not going to tell anyone about this, are you?" he said, trying to keep his tone dry and indifferent. But she was pretty sure she could hear a hint of real concern there.
Asami was unable to resist teasing a bit. "Well, I suppose that depends," she responded, curling her lip. "Are you willing to take over my chore duties around the base for…oh, say, a month? And swap with me in the gift exchange too. I got Ping, by the way – you know how much he loves his miniature ceramic platypus-bears."
Amon let out a long, rattling sigh.
"I still can't believe Sho roped us all into that…nonsense," he groaned. "We're revolutionaries, not some after-school club."
"Hey, team-building exercises are no joke. Helps keep morale up," she declared, unable to keep herself from giggling any longer.
To her surprise, her leader joined in, his chuckles deep and resonant. Amon laughing happened about as often as snowfall in Caldera City.
But both of them quickly ceased in their mirth, once they realized what was happening. This was the most casually they'd spoken to one another since the…incident.
Asami looked toward the man she followed, suddenly and acutely aware of the awkward silence. He returned her gaze, clearly just as uncomfortable.
Finally, at the very same time, they each said, "I'm sorry."
Another, even longer pause followed, as they both waited for the other one to continue. But Asami had expended all the courage she had on that single apology. She gestured nervously to Amon to continue, hoping he'd buy her enough time to gather up more.
"Very well…I'll start, then," he murmured, exhaling deeply again. "I should've trusted you. I've known you for almost your entire life, and you've never been anything other than steadfast and loyal. No matter what secrets you may or may not have been keeping, I'm certain you must've had a good reason. But I let Zaheer get into my head, needling at my vulnerable points – until it seemed like it was easier to just let him handle things."
"I mean…I'm the one who kept secrets in the first place. I gave Zaheer the opening to exploit," admitted Asami. "I…I just didn't know how you would react. I still don't, which is why I'm not coming right out and saying it. Even though I think you can probably guess."
She shifted around anxiously, her fingers fidgeting with the White Lotus tile she'd used to clinch the last game.
After few more moments, she added, "Just know – I would never, ever betray the Movement. What happened with Korra…it had nothing to do with that. It was just…just…"
"Just what?" asked Amon, very quietly.
"Look, I'm not proud of it. I know it was a mistake," Asami's voice was now no greater than a whisper. "But it was one I couldn't stop making. And if I had her in front of me right now…I know there's no way I could resist making it again."
Amon stared back at her, his expression still as unreadable as ever. Sometimes, she thought his mask to be redundant.
Finally, he said, "I know nothing of Avatar Korra. On principle, how can I do anything but hate her? She places my plans in ruin simply by existing. That being said…if it's for your sake…"
Then, Amon did something even rarer than laughing. He grasped her around the shoulders, and squeezed briefly.
"We will save her. That's a promise," he finished, in a voice that was reserved for her ears alone. "From the great and terrifying Amon…to his most loyal Lieutenant."
[-]
They waited until the innkeeper turned in, just after nine in the evening, before sneaking carefully out of their room.
From the number of missing keys at the reception desk, Asami estimated that approximately sixteen of the inn's twenty-two rooms were currently occupied. That left fifteen others to search within the space of a few hours.
Several could be discounted straight away simply by listening at keyholes. One had two old men, also playing Pai Sho, and – from the sounds of their angry shouting – cheating quite flagrantly. Another featured a gaggle of young girls giggling incessantly about something completely inane.
And a few were echoing sounds that indicated, quite clearly, that the occupants were engaged in…other activities. Ones which Asami wouldn't have been able to imagine Zaheer participating in, without copious amounts of bleach applied directly to her brain.
In the end, they narrowed the search down to three options; all of them clearly occupied, but equally silent. It was entirely possible the renters were simply elderly and, like the innkeeper, preferred an early nightcap.
But just in case…
Asami had picked a great number of locks in her life, and she was happy to say that the ones in the Misty Palms Inn were the crappiest locks she'd ever seen. Breaking into all three rooms barely took her more than a few seconds each.
The first two, as suspected, contained only sleeping occupants – though only one set could be called "elderly." The second room featured four men in their mid-twenties, passed out on top of each other in nothing but their underwear, and smelling intensely of bad alcohol.
"One more shot…" she said under her breath as she jiggled with the final lock.
The door swung open just as easily as the rest. Revealing the shaved head and battle-scarred face of Zaheer.
Asami almost jumped out of her skin, her electrified fists going up in preparation for a fight. It took her a beat to realize her enemy's eyes were closed, and his body was still.
"Seriously…he's asleep too?" she whispered aside to Amon. "Who sleeps sitting up like that?"
"He isn't sleeping. He's meditating," Amon told her, leaning down to scrutinize the scarred man up close. "If I had to hazard a guess? I believe he's in the Spirit World."
Spirits…Asami had never thought of them very much. Her whole life, she'd been far more focused on breaking ground in the nice, logical realms of science and engineering. Spirits were everything she didn't like in life – messy, chaotic, unpredictable.
All the things she really didn't need to deal with right now.
"If he feels comfortable enough to meditate…then Korra must be stashed somewhere nearby," said Asami, her eyes now searching over the room for possible hiding places.
"Unless he's already delivered her somewhere. Perhaps he left her in the custody of some hidden compatriots," Amon suggested, but Asami just shook her head.
"No…No, you didn't hear him talking about her. The look he had in his eyes when he had her in his clutches," she muttered, partly to herself. "This is personal to him. He wouldn't let her out of his sight now that he has her. Not for anything."
Of course, the room was small enough that it didn't take long to exhaust every possible place a foul-tempered Avatar could be hidden. There was nothing under the bed, and no obvious bulges in the floorboards where one might've been overturned.
That left only the storage chest in the corner. In their room, it'd contained only a Pai Sho board and some old newspapers. Here, though…
Asami nodded once to her leader. Then, she grasped the lid with both hands, and lifted.
That's when everything went dark.
[-]
When Asami's eyes opened again, they took in a sight utterly unlike anything she'd ever seen before.
At first glance, it appeared to be nothing more or less than a large, grassy field, surrounded by mountains on one side and a range of trees on the other. Beautiful, certainly, but ordinary enough.
Yet the more she studied the landscape, the stranger it seemed to become. The grass and other foliage, for one thing, weren't entirely green, but a multitude of other shades – and not even consistently the same shade, either. Every time she blinked or glanced away, the entire field shifted colors, going from blue to orange to an iridescent sort of purple.
The sky, too, didn't look quite right. Instead of clear blue punctuated by clouds of white billowy fluff, the colors were reversed; so that azure puffs floated lazily through a sea of white.
But the biggest sign that something was very, very wrong was that she wasn't alone. The field was absolutely teeming with creatures large and small. Creatures utterly unlike anything Asami had ever seen before.
There were toad-like beasts with eyes at the ends of tall stalks, their backs spotted like wild mushrooms. There were animals she might have mistaken for ordinary pig-moles, if not for the fact that they spat bursts of flame through a nose like a long nozzle.
There was even what could only be described as a frog made of semi-transparent liquid, attached to two cylindrical rocks and driving them like a steamroller.
"Damnable spirits," came the impatient voice of Amon, batting aside a swarm of ethereally glowing insects as he emerged from the line of trees. She wasn't sure whether he was swearing by the spirits, at the spirits, or both.
Regardless, the moment she heard his voice she ran over to embrace him. In this chaotic place, simply having something familiar was like coming up for air after nearly drowning.
"The Spirit World…I didn't want to believe it, but somehow we're actually in the Spirit World," said Asami, shaking her head in dismay. "But how?"
"It happened after the chest in his room was opened. I don't believe that is a coincidence," Amon responded, his frown matching hers. She could tell he suddenly felt very naked, stripped of his mask in this place. "But I fail to see the connection. Normally, entering the Spirit World should require either years of preparation, or a natural aptitude for spiritual attunement. Neither of which we possess."
You are correct. But there are…other paths.
The voice was unmistakably Zaheer's, but though Asami's head whipped around, trying to catch a glimpse of the treacherous man, he seemed to be nowhere in sight.
His words rang out again, as if appearing out of thin air.
Have you ever seen The Boy in the Iceberg? Many of the details are…we'll say, questionable. But something interesting happens toward the beginning.
Sokka is kidnapped by Hei Bai, the Black-and-White-Spirit. He, and numerous other villagers, are taken to be captives in the Spirit World.
So you see, the spirits themselves can bypass the normal restrictions against mortals passing between planes.
"You mean to tell us there was a spirit in that chest?" demanded Amon. "One capable of transporting us into the Spirit World?"
Only your souls. Your physical bodies remain unharmed in the Misty Palms Inn, taking a well-deserved nap.
Still…correct in essentials. The spirit's name is Ka Kureta.
He is a shy little thing, who likes to hide in small, enclosed spaces. When disturbed, his defense mechanism activates, fleeing back to the Spirit World – and dragging his would-be attacker along for the ride.
One of the many…unique spirits that were left in my care, after the untimely demise of my old friend Unalaq. He always had a way with spirits.
"Why am I not surprised you were best buddies with the monster who murdered my mother?" said Asami heatedly. "Just wait until I get my hands on you…!"
Ah, but therein lies the rub.
As I said, you are here only in spirit. Disconnected from your bodies, there's very little you can do to harm me.
Count your blessings that you aren't benders, at least. They would be rendered so much more distraught, cut off from their abilities like this.
There was a strange affectation in his tone, as if those last few words contained some hidden joke she just wasn't getting.
Regardless, they sparked something in Asami, who rounded on her companion.
"Your power comes from the spirits, doesn't it?" she asked. "Maybe you can use it to fight back somehow!"
But Amon was just staring at his hands, looking uncharacteristically flustered.
"No…No, I can feel it isn't working," was all he could say in explanation. "Maybe…it's like mixing types of energy. One spirit interfering with another."
Asami wasn't sure how much sense that made, but then again she was monstrously out of her depth here.
So instead, she turned her attention back to Zaheer. With no face to direct her vitriol toward, she settled for shouting into the sky.
"This is where you've been holding Korra, isn't it?" she cried out. "You brought her soul into the Spirit World, so she couldn't use her bending to escape!"
How very astute. Whatever your other faults, Miss Sato, I've always appreciated your brilliant analytical mind.
Yes, Avatar Korra is here with me. This was an ideal site to conduct our…experiments without interference. But you will never find us.
Not until it's too late.
"Watch me, bastard!" she exclaimed, following it up with a rude gesture in what she hoped was his general direction.
Then, she grabbed Amon by the shoulders, and began dragging him off. Neither knowing nor caring where they were going, so long as it wasn't here.
"Come on," she said to him quietly. "We need to start searching."
[-]
Unfortunately, the Spirit World turned out to be rather large, and rather difficult to search through efficiently.
It wasn't just the sheer size and scope of the search area that was a problem. This place just plain didn't operate according to the laws of physics. Something as simple as which direction was up and which was down might change from moment to moment; the very concept of "down" might even disappear for a little while, with objects instead falling sideways or backward or not at all.
All of this made it very difficult for Asami to hold onto her bearings, or to keep track of where they had and hadn't ventured yet. The only thing she could do was continue picking paths at random, and hoping against hope that they'd get lucky soon.
Amon, for his part, was being a remarkably good sport about all of this. Despite it being obvious that she had no clue where she was going, he dutifully followed wherever she led the way.
The two of them traversed so many different locations and landscapes that it was staggering even to contemplate. From volcanic islands to frigid tundras; from the bottom of the ocean to the edge of outer space. The Spirit World was everything wonderful and terrible about its material counterpart, and so many more things beyond.
If she wasn't in so much of a hurry, the researcher in her would've marveled at the sights. At one point, she was pretty sure they were walking on the surface of the moon, or at least something like it – one of the great pipedreams of modern science.
But instead, all of it just made her more and more frustrated. Every second they wasted in some strange spirit-den was another second Korra could be slipping away. Being subjected to…who-knew-what, at Zaheer's cruel hands.
Have to save her, was the constant refrain playing on in her mind, spurring her forward. Have to find her, have to save her. She'd do the same for me.
Eventually, though, even Amon's patience had to reach its limit. As Asami was about to step through a strange shimmering doorway, his hand caught on her shirt.
"Enough, Asami. We'll never find her this way," he said, calmly but firmly. "Stumbling around randomly is getting us nowhere. We've passed that collection of ice sculptures three times now."
"N…No we haven't," was her automatic answer, though she didn't have much conviction to place in it.
"You have, actually," a giant ice possum-chicken told them helpfully.
Asami let out a long, weary sigh. "Okay, so maybe we are hopelessly lost. But the only person we can really ask for directions is the same one who's hiding from us," she pointed out. "I just…there's gotta be some way we can find her. Something we haven't tried."
Amon's expression turned pensive. They remained there, standing at the threshold of some new spiritual realm, as he gradually puzzled things out.
"Zaheer told me something once," he murmured. "That the Spirit World doesn't operate under the principles of logic and reason."
"Yeah, sorta figured that part out myself," interjected Asami, more bitingly than she'd been intending. They were both more than a little on-edge.
"My point is, the actual foundations of the Spirit World are thought and emotion. The feelings of its denizens literally affect their surroundings," Amon continued, his arms crossed in front of his chest. "And he indicated that effect was even more pronounced when humans enter the Spirit World."
"Why would that be?" asked a confused Asami.
"Obviously, I'm no expert," said Amon, shrugging one shoulder. "But if I had to hazard a guess, it'd be because humans are more…complicated. Spirits seem to embody a singular concept above all else. Joy or rage or pain. A mortal soul, on the other hand, contains all those multitudes and more. Sometimes all at once."
"So…if I'm understanding you right…" Asami slowly whispered to herself. "To find Korra, I would need to…"
"Concentrate on your feelings for her," he finished for her. "The feelings that exist on a deeper level. Below the surface."
Asami gaped at her leader, scarcely able to comprehend what she was hearing. Who she was hearing it from.
Her first instinct was to protest, loudly, that she hadn't the slightest idea what he was talking about. It was a very tempting instinct, and she very nearly went for it.
Because…feelings? The very idea of it was absurd. Patently so!
Korra was just a girl who she…happened to enjoy spending time with. On occasion. Sometimes for hours at a time.
Sometimes with no clothes on.
But that didn't mean they were…
Unbidden, a wave of images and sensations flooded the non-bender's mind.
Korra's dazzling smile, whenever she saw Asami walk into a room.
Didn't mean they were…
The ugly little snort Korra's nose made when she laughed too hard.
They…were…
The warmth of Korra's hand in hers, their fingers laced together as they gazed down upon the city streets.
They were…just…
Korra's hot breath on her lips as they drew close, each kiss just a little bit hungrier than the last.
They were just…!
Korra's naked body, spread out across the sheets and hers for the taking – the most powerful woman in the world, letting herself be perfectly vulnerable, just for a few hours.
Asami wasn't sure when she'd fallen to her knees. Wasn't sure when she'd started crying. But the tears were flowing now, freely and unbidden, as her brain slowly but surely caught up with what her heart had always known.
This hadn't just been some silly infatuation. A shameful little flirtation she could bury in the past and forget, once it all inevitably crashed and burned.
This was that…that other thing. The thing she hadn't said to anyone since the day her mother was murdered.
"Asami," said Amon, nudging lightly at her shoulder. "Look there."
She followed his pointing finger, and looked upon the doorway she'd been about to step through. The strange glow surrounding its rim had changed hue, from yellow to deepest pink.
"You know I don't have an ounce of humor in my body. So I won't say any drivel about 'following your heart' or some nonsense," he added, offering a hand to help her back to her feet. "Nevertheless…I think it's time to see where your soul truly leads."
[-]
They emerged in a place that was as different from the rest of the Spirit World, as it was from its material cousin.
Asami's first thought, coming from plentiful experience with running both, was that it resembled some kind of laboratory or workshop. A tight space overflowing with tools and equipment, and abuzz with so much activity that it threatened to overload her senses.
But this equipment made her own research efforts look like a child playing make-pretend. There were beakers and flasks in every shape and size imaginable, containing strange liquids that bubbled or steamed in a multitude of shades. Devices that seemed halfway between advanced technology and ancient artifacts, twisting or whirring or giving off loud beeping noises. Even an enormous, suspended skeleton of what looked like a hydra-leviathan, with sensors placed at regular intervals along the perfectly preserved bones.
Her mind boggled at the wonders she might be able to accomplish with even a fraction of this stuff. But only for a moment, as she forcibly reminded herself why she was here in the first place.
"Zaheer did say he was conducting 'experiments' on the Avatar," Amon muttered. "I suppose he was being remarkably literal."
"I was indeed," said a very familiar, and very unwelcome voice. Asami turned in the direction it'd come from, and saw that her hated foe had seen fit to appear in-person this time.
Or at least…she thought it was him. He didn't look precisely like the Zaheer she'd known in the material world. Instead of his usual shaved head, his face was framed by a wildly untamed beard and hair, both reaching down well past his shoulders.
While that was the most pronounced physical difference, however, there was also something else about him that seemed…off. Something she couldn't quite put her finger on, or define in precise words.
And yet it terrified her, deep in her core. She suddenly got the sense that in all their time working together, she'd only ever seen one face of this man – one face among thousands.
Despite his unkempt appearance, he'd swapped his gray robes for a crisp white lab coat, which Asami had no problem saying he looked utterly ridiculous in.
Catching her staring, he added, "In the Spirit World, form follows thought. Something you must understand well, if you were able to make your way here so quickly. It seems I underestimated the strength of your connection with Korra."
His tones were absurdly, infuriatingly calm. Like they were casually discussing sports or the weather, rather than the fact that he'd kidnapped the Avatar.
"Where is she?" demanded Asami through gritted teeth. "Give her back!"
But Zaheer ignored her growls entirely, choosing instead to address the man standing next to her. As ever, his eyes showed nothing but cool, emotionless detachment.
"You're the one I'm truly surprised at," he said to Amon. "Coming all this way to rescue an enemy, Noatak?"
Asami's brow furrowed in confusion, but that was nothing compared to how her leader reacted. He backed away hastily, nearly sending a table full of instruments flying into the air. And his eyes…
She'd never seen such a look of pure fear in them.
"Whatever you may…think you know about me…" he gasped out, visibly fighting to keep control of his breathing. "You clearly don't understand one thing. The depths to which I will go, to see that girl over there smile."
His gaze flitted over to Asami, just for a moment. Despite the severity of the moment, she couldn't help but feel touched.
"You think I don't understand love? You couldn't be further from the truth," Zaheer told the Equalist leader. "But I also know when to set those feelings aside, for the sake of the greater good. I thought you understood the same. It's a pity to learn otherwise."
He turned away from them, walking over to a panel on the opposite wall.
"Avatar Korra is beyond your reach. I applaud you for making it this far, but you can no longer stop what I've set into motion," he continued in that same, toneless voice. "Still, I should really be getting back to check on her progress. I've no time to waste dealing with you."
Pulling the panel aside revealed something like a keypad – except that the "buttons" were all made of aged stone, and marked with inscrutable runes. Zaheer tapped several of them in sequence, causing them to glow a cold purple.
That glow traveled up the wall, and into the sensors lining the hydra-leviathan skeleton. It began to draw in numerous incorporeal shapes from the ambient air, which Asami soon realized were formless spirits.
The spirits suffused every one of the bones with that same purplish energy. Slowly, they began to twitch and vibrate.
Finally, the glow reached the hydra-leviathan's empty eyes. The sockets filled with sparks of light, burning like hot coals – all fifty of them.
Then with a sickening crack, its multitude of jaws unclenched, all at once.
And roared.
[-]
The hydra-leviathan. Thought to have been extinct for centuries, these days it was known primarily through myth and legend alone. Famously, Avatar Weng had supposedly battled and slain one, as part of his Eightfold Labors.
According to the stories, part of what made the titanic beast so deadly was its durability. Cutting off one head would only result in two more growing in its place.
And judging by the specimen before them, when it was alive it'd been beheaded many, many times.
The skeleton dropped unceremoniously to the ground, demolishing most of the laboratory into a great cloud of dust, glass, and other debris. It spread its massive fins and tail, its numerous heads flailing about and doing even greater damage.
"Perhaps it's a bit excessive to deploy such a beast against two bodiless souls. But I won't take any chances, this close to victory," said Zaheer. "Farewell, the both of you. Please know that none of this is personal."
And with that, he disappeared. Not through a door or other exit; between blinks he simply vanished. Asami supposed she shouldn't have expected anything else from this wretched world.
Regardless, that left her and Amon alone to fight an eighty-foot-long undead behemoth. In unfamiliar quarters, and with no weapons.
Asami let out a low, strained groan. This just wasn't her day.
Unfortunately, the creature's size turned out not to have a particularly detrimental effect on its speed or agility. It lunged at them with a dozen separate, snapping maws, and it was only thanks to Amon's reflexes that he was able to pull her out of the way in time.
"There's no way we can beat that thing," she muttered breathlessly, as they rolled out of the way of the skeleton's next charge. It ran straight into a shelf of musty old tomes, sending scraps of paper and binding flying everywhere. "Our only choice is to run."
"We won't get far. We haven't the slightest idea how to navigate this corner of the Spirit World," said Amon. "I wonder…as real as all these items may appear, they're still technically spiritual in nature. If we wield them as weapons…"
"Maybe they'll be able to hurt a spirit?" she finished for him. "Worth a try, I guess. Beats our only other plan: sit around and die."
Amon grabbed a lengthy shard of splintered wood and held it tentatively in his hands. Then, he ran up to the monster's side, and jabbed it into one of its rib bones.
Against all logic, the improvised spear went in cleanly, causing the bone to splinter from the point of impact. The hydra-leviathan bellowed in pain, its many mouths echoing the same cry until it was almost deafening.
Asami shared a look with Amon, which she swiftly followed up with a smirk. Wordlessly, they both began gathering the sharpest bits of debris they could find, and got to work.
The beast's sheer size made for a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it made for an enormous target, as even twenty-plus pairs of eyes found it difficult to track them from every angle.
On the other, it was all but impossible to tell if they were doing any real damage to the colossus. Even after Asami managed to hack off its flailing tail with a clockwork part repurposed as an axe – a wound that surely would've bled it to death, had it any blood left to spill – it still kept on going, apparently no worse for wear.
Which was in stark contrast to the other side of the equation. Asami knew that if just one of those vicious jaws managed to sink its fangs into them, they'd be dead in an instant. In this battle, there was no room for mistakes.
So she and Amon put all of their considerable skills into making sure they didn't make any. They dodged past one strike after another, taking advantage of the tight space to run up walls and vault over or under the massive creature.
Still…she knew they weren't going to be able to keep this up forever. Sure, they were separated from their bodies, so their physical stamina wasn't an issue – but mental exhaustion could set in just as easily as in a "real" battle. Indeed, she could already feel its tug at the edge of her brain, and it was showing in her reaction time.
It didn't help that she hadn't gone into this fight with her mind in the best state to begin with. Though she knew her entire focus needed to be on staying alive, it was hard to keep her thoughts from wandering to the reason they were there in the first place.
That doorway had brought her here, so Korra had to be nearby. You know…if you believed that whole "follow your feelings" spiel.
So where was she? And what was Zaheer doing to her, right at this very moment?
His sickening words echoed through her mind, like a pounding headache:
Avatar Korra is beyond your reach. I applaud you for making it this far, but you can no longer stop what I've set into motion.
At first, she'd been worried that he intended to kill her. Restart the Avatar Cycle, so she wouldn't be able to bother his mysterious plans – whatever they were – for another sixteen years.
But the way he said it…no. No, it sounded like he was up to something far worse.
Before Asami could ponder the subject any further, however, she was forced to duck under a destroyed desk, lest she be crushed between two of the hydra-leviathan's lunging heads. There, she found Amon, resting against the rubble and trying to catch his breath.
"I…I just need a minute…" he mumbled out, but she wasn't especially sure if she believed him. His face looked awfully pale.
"We have to finish this. One way or another," she said, briefly squeezing one of his bony hands. "The longer this goes on as a battle of attrition, the less chance we'll have."
"That skeleton is animated by spirits. We've seen we can harm it with objects native to the Spirit World, but it isn't a truly living thing – injuries to the body don't even slow it down," Amon reasoned out slowly. "Perhaps it has some equivalent to a brain. A sort of 'core' spirit that, if damaged, will shut it down completely."
"It has almost thirty heads," Asami pointed out. "That's a lot of brains to take out."
"Yes…" whispered Amon, now glaring at the creature's enormous torso. "But only one heart."
Asami peered where her leader was pointing. As the behemoth stomped around, roaring intermittently while it hunted down its prey, she realized she could just barely make out a mass of that same purplish energy, coalesced within its ribcage.
"We'll need something big. And extra-sharp," Asami told him, before her eyes alighted on an object a few feet away. She reached down, and grabbed one end. "I think this'll do."
It was another one of those same ribs, broken off at the base by one of their earlier attacks. Due to its size, though, there was no way she'd be able to wield it alone.
Amon inhaled a deep breath, forced himself back to his feet, and picked up the other end. "On three," he said.
Of course, since they were no longer in hiding, it didn't take long for one of the hydra-leviathan's wandering heads to locate them. The rest all turned to join it, synchronizing in one massive, furious hiss.
"One…" Asami breathed out, as they both hoisted the broken rib to chest-height.
The monster reared up, readying itself to charge.
"Two…" she muttered through gritted teeth, as she and Amon both prepared to do the same.
Now it was storming toward them at full speed, its multitude of heads whipping about so chaotically that it was almost blinding. To get through it all unscathed would take a miracle.
But they didn't have one of those. All they had was each other.
And the girl who was waiting for her on the other side.
"Three!"
[-]
When the smoke cleared, the once-pristine "spirit lab" was a broken-down ruin covered in dust, debris, and a thousand shattered bones of a very dead hydra-leviathan.
Asami still wasn't sure how they'd managed to dodge every single one of its snapping bites. Adrenaline – or the spiritual equivalent thereof – had blocked out everything else, until at last their improvised weapon struck true.
The two of them were collapsed against a pile of rubble, truly and completely exhausted by the experience. Indeed, Amon looked even more pallid than he did before, though she supposed it could've just been all the grime caking his skin.
But she knew there was no time to rest, much as every cell in her not-really-a-body was screaming at her to do so. She couldn't stop when they were so close to Korra.
"He didn't leave through a door, so I don't think Korra is nearby in a physical sense," she said, mostly to herself, as she walked around the room, patting at the frustratingly smooth walls. "But I can…I can feel her, if that makes any sense. The way you might be able to feel someone watching you, even if you can't see them."
"Trust me. I am…intimately familiar with the sensation," Amon replied, in a voice that both implied there was something more to his words, and forestalled any questions about them. "Regardless, please hurry. I think I…"
But before he could complete that thought, Asami let out a small yelp as a portion of the far wall yielded to her touch, and she nearly fell through it.
"What is it?" asked the Equalist leader, as he struggled back to his feet once again. "Some kind of secret passage?"
"Nothing so logical," Asami called back, touching her hand to the wall again. It shimmered and rippled like liquid. "I think I'm starting to understand how this place works. If I'm not thinking about Korra, this is just a wall. But if my emotions are strong enough…there's no obstacle Zaheer can put up, that I can't bring crashing down."
Amon joined her side, though she noticed it took him a bit more of an effort than usual. Gingerly, he reached out his fingers to touch the wall as well…
And found only hard stone.
"I think this is as far as I go," he said mutedly. "Best of luck, my Lieutenant."
Asami threw her arms around his shoulders. "Thank you for taking me this far," she muttered, meaning every word. "Are you sure you're going to be okay, waiting here?"
For the briefest of moments, she saw a flicker of something strange in his eyes. But it was gone so quickly that she figured she must've imagined it.
"I…" he answered evasively. "I will be fine. Because you are still here."
Asami was certain of it now – he was hiding something from her. But she couldn't for the life of her guess what it could be.
And they'd caused enough damage to this point, mistrusting each other. If he was sending her off with one of those rarest of smiles, then she had no choice but to put her faith in it.
"See you soon, Amon," she declared, placing one hesitant foot through the false wall. It went through just as easily as her fingers. "Once I've beaten the crap out of that wannabe monk."
Then, with a sharp inhalation of breath, she stepped her whole body through.
[-]
Over the past few hours – or at least, what felt like hours, time didn't seem to be altogether linear here – Asami had been to parts of the Spirit World that very much resembled her own, and parts that were just so much random nonsense.
But she'd never been to a place like this. A place where there wasn't much of…anything.
All around her was a deep, dark abyss, except that "dark" didn't really do it justice. Even in the dead of night, there was always some form of light – the moon, the stars, the electric lamps of some distant town. Growing up in Republic City at the height of its industrialization, Asami wasn't sure if she'd ever seen a truly lightless sky.
There was none of that here. Every direction her eyes stretched, they took in only more of the same pitch-black. The sensation was oppressive and suffocating, like her eyes were trying to take in oxygen at the bottom of the deepest ocean.
Suddenly, somewhere in the distance, a single spot of light appeared. It flickered in and out, like an old, dingy lamp that might run out of charge at any moment.
Nevertheless, Asami sprinted toward it. How could she not? If this was the ocean's depths then that light was a lifeline, and she grasped anxiously for it.
As she drew closer, she saw there was something at the center of the spotlight. It was a bed, barren and sheet-less, and lying upon it…
Asami's heart nearly stopped. It was Korra, wrapped in loose robes that blended light and dark.
And she wasn't breathing.
The non-bender stumbled toward the bed, desperate to prove to herself that her initial impression had been mistaken. She collapsed to her knees next to the bed, staring so hard at the other girl's chest that it almost made her feel self-conscious.
But no. There was no rise, and no fall. Korra's body remained perfectly still.
Her fingers clenched clumsily around the Avatar's – so cold, so cold – feeling around until they reached her wrist. Praying frantically that she might detect even the slightest pulse.
Asami's entire body crumpled against the bed. She buried her face into Korra's stomach, dampening the strange robes with her tears.
"She isn't dead, you know."
Zaheer was very lucky that he'd kept his distance while approaching, because otherwise the kick Asami aimed behind herself would've taken off his head. Or maybe not. She didn't really know how this world worked well enough to be certain.
Regardless, she rounded on him, fury and hatred etched in every single line of her face.
"What're you talking about?" she demanded. "She's…!"
"Remember that this is merely her spirit. Her physical body remains unharmed, reposing upon a similar bed at the Misty Palms Inn. A pair of air spirits were rendering her invisible to your sight," said Zaheer, crossing his arms as he walked up beside them. "And in any event, her spirit shall only be in this state temporarily. Just long enough for me to complete my…"
"Experiments," Asami finished for him, speaking the word like it was a vicious curse. "I think it's about time you explain what you really mean by that."
"I don't believe I need to do anything of the sort. You overestimate how much power you have here, Miss Sato. Not to mention time," he responded coolly. "Still, I suppose your valor against my Akui spirits deserves some reward. So I will tell you this much: I am correcting an imbalance. Or at any rate…learning how to do so. This is more of a 'trial run' than anything else."
"I don't understand a single thing you're saying, you bastard," Asami snapped. "But I don't like how you're saying it. Korra is a person, not a…a…"
"She is the Avatar," Zaheer cut her off, glaring down at her. Since Asami was still kneeling at the other girl's bedside, he seemed to tower over her all the more. "Her singular life is not without value, no. But it pales in comparison to the magnitude of her role. If I must sacrifice a single girl to save trillions, then that's really no choice at all."
"Sacrifice…?" repeated Asami hollowly. "You can't mean…"
"Yes and no. That was certainly the intention, at least," he said. "But the polymerization didn't work quite right. I must have made a mistake somewhere in the process. A lesson learned for next time."
Asami glanced between the scarred man, his face perfectly impassive and emotionless, and then the girl on the bed, her body entirely still. Her eyes darted from one to the other, over and over again.
Finally, she growled out, "Quit talking in riddles! What did you do?"
"It no longer matters. This experiment was a failure. Though one that may still yield worthwhile dividends, a few years down the line," answered Zaheer. "All that's left is to wait for the fusion of energies to finish taking effect. She's been resisting it, unconsciously, for some time now…but that should end within a few hours."
Asami's spine chilled to ice at the change in his tone as he swiftly added, "Or…perhaps I could speed up the process."
Even though she knew she logically shouldn't – all her pain receptors were on her actual body – it certainly felt like it hurt as Zaheer's hand squeezed around her throat, and he lifted her into the air.
"As I said, this isn't personal. But your souls are clearly linked to a degree I didn't anticipate," he spoke, still just as dispassionate as ever even while he was committing cold-blooded murder. "Killing you would disrupt that connection, and potentially shock her into the next stage. Only one way to find out, I suppose."
Asami heard very little of this, being that she was presently more occupied with her windpipe being crushed. Somehow, he was actually inflicting physical damage through her spirit – which, she supposed, shouldn't have come as so much of a surprise. Zaheer clearly knew mountains more about how the Spirit World worked than they did.
"I know it will come as little comfort, but I am sorry. Truly," he continued, now adding a second hand to squeeze even harder. "I have great respect for you and your Movement, Asami Sato. But even your so-called 'revolution' seeks only to replace one calcified order with another. Only through the path of chaos can true equality ever be achieved. And furthermore…"
But she never got to hear the end of his polemic. Because in that moment, a hole almost a foot in diameter appeared in his torso.
Zaheer trembled on his feet for several seconds, the ghost of his final, zealous rant upon his face as his olive-green eyes went wide.
Then, he collapsed forward, Asami's body tumbling from his grip.
But unlike Zaheer, Asami didn't fall into the darkness with a dull thud. Instead, she was caught in the arms of the person who had just slain him.
Korra was sitting up now, though she still was not visibly breathing, and her skin remained cold as ice. She returned Asami's stunned gaze with eyes that glowed in the strangest, most haunting way she'd ever seen. Soon enough, that glow was all she could see.
Then, it all disappeared.
[-]
It took Asami several moments to realize she was back in her original body.
Her eyes darted around the room, taking everything in. This was unquestionably the same room at the Misty Palms Inn, though judging by the night sky outside the window, they'd been in the Spirit World for several hours of real-world time.
She was still standing in front of the open storage chest, its innards now revealed to be completely empty. Ka Kureta, it seemed, had fled.
Amon was also in the same position, unmoving. She'd need to find some way to wake him up as well. But first…
Asami's eyes glanced over to the bed, and there she saw them. The "air spirits" Zaheer had mentioned were gone as well, revealing the entire scene in its resplendent glory.
The scarred man's injuries, it seemed, had transferred to the material world – the way her own aching neck seemed to have. He was lying face-down in a great pool of blood, his body entirely still. She couldn't say the sight filled her with much dismay.
And as for Korra…
For all the world, she looked the same as she had in the Spirit World – lying in perfect repose. But thankfully, with one major difference.
Her chest was moving up and down in a steady rhythm, and when Asami felt her wrist, a wonderful heartbeat pulsed against her finger. Both seemed a little slower than normal, but their simple presence was nearly enough to make Asami fall to her knees and weep.
"That bastard's dead, and Korra is safe. This is more than I could've asked for," she said breathlessly. "Still…he could have allies lying in wait somewhere. We shouldn't linger."
She placed a firm hand on Amon's padded shoulder. "Come on, wake up," she added, shaking him a few times. "You need to get back to your body. Then we can grab Korra and…"
But her words stopped cold in her throat as Amon's body crumpled to the ground, slumping across the dirty floorboards.
Asami's brain froze completely, trying to deny what it was seeing. Her hands just kept shaking his limp arm, first gently and then frantically.
"This…This isn't funny…" the words spilled from her lips. "I know you're no jokester, you said it yourself. So…So come on…cut it out…"
That's when her frenzied movements caused his body to roll over, and she saw the small knife buried in the small of his back.
Instantly, with such speed that it bypassed any kind of deliberative thought, Asami understood. Zaheer, master of the spiritual arts, must've known a way to move his body while remaining in meditation. Or perhaps he'd simply summoned some minion to do it for him.
Either way, sometime during their battle with the hydra-leviathan, Amon had been stabbed in the physical world. Asami recalled with horror how his skin had grown steadily ashier as they fought; how he'd tried to hide from her that something was clearly wrong.
He knew, Asami realized, her chest tightening until it was physically painful. Or at least he'd suspected. Part of him had sensed his life getting slowly snuffed out, and still his only concern had been completing the mission.
Not even his mission. He'd died for a cause he didn't even believe in. Trading his life for that of a hated enemy.
All for her sake.
Asami blinked. Something else had fallen from Amon's cloak when his body collapsed. Her trembling fingers reached down, and picked up his treasured mask.
But there wasn't time right now to think through the implications of this piece of painted ceramic. There wasn't even time to grieve. If Amon had sacrificed himself in the course of a mission, then regardless of what that mission actually was…
She owed it to him to see it through.
Asami slipped the mask into her pocket, and tread carefully toward the sleeping Korra.
A brief, manic burst of paranoia seized her, and she rolled the teenaged Avatar over, checking for any more knife wounds. Thankfully, she found none. Korra had been too important to Zaheer's plans to dispose of like that.
Except those plans, in the terrorist's own words, had ended in "failure." What could that possibly mean?
Regardless, Asami knew she had to get the girl out of here. Carrying her without Amon's help would be difficult, but doable. Asami had built up a lot of muscle over the past five years.
With a great amount of effort, she managed to hoist Korra's limp body across her shoulder. Her eyes glanced regretfully toward Amon. There was no way she could carry them both herself. She'd have to come back for him – to make sure he received a proper burial.
Assuming no one realized before then that two of Republic City's most wanted were lying dead in this hotel room.
Her fists clenched so tight they nearly drew blood, Asami carried the unconscious Korra out into the night.
[-]
It didn't take Asami long to find a Satomobile sitting unattended in the streets, and even less time to hot wire it. She wasn't heiress to the family who'd invented them for nothing.
Any guilt she might've felt about the theft was overridden by extremity of circumstance. She couldn't shake the feeling that Zaheer hadn't been alone in kidnapping Korra to this secluded desert town. And she didn't want to chance finding out how his unseen allies might react to learning he was dead.
One way or another, they needed to get moving now.
Thankfully, this vehicle's tires had clearly been modified to operate over the desert sands. They'd be able to cut through the western Si Wong Desert, drastically cutting down the time it would take to return to Republic City.
Strapping Korra into the passenger seat and buckling her seatbelt while she was still out cold was more than a little…awkward. But hopefully the girl would appreciate it in the end. And if not…
Well, Asami owed her this much, at least. It didn't matter what happened once Avatar Korra returned home.
She just needed to get her there.
Asami drove through the entire night, stopping only once for a brief bathroom break. Her stomach growled and her throat was parched, but there wasn't time to take any detours to deal with that. This journey would get a lot harder once the hot desert sun rose in the sky, so she needed to make the most of the nighttime hours.
All along, the only sounds she heard were the rumbling of the vehicle, and the soft breaths of the girl next to her. Asami found the steady rhythm of both comforting.
But it was hard to keep her mind from wandering, as she drove past dune after identical dune. To ruminate over everything she'd lost that day.
To resolve that she wouldn't lose anything else. Anyone else.
Though she felt immensely guilty about it, she found that the majority of her thoughts were not with the friend she'd left behind in that dingy inn, but with the one sitting with her eyes closed a few feet away. She thought, primarily, about how she'd reacted when she found her spirit in that horrible place, apparently lifeless.
The pain had been excruciating. And utterly unlike any other pain she'd felt, across the course of her sad, miserable life.
With her father, her mother, and now Amon, there had always been some…distance to the agony, terrible as it was. She was losing a person she cherished beyond measure, but still ultimately another person.
With Korra, it'd felt like she was losing a piece of herself. Which she knew was ludicrous. She'd known the Water Tribe girl for less than a year, after all.
And yet…and yet…
But that very dangerous train of thought derailed quite abruptly, as the girl in question suddenly began to convulse.
Asami immediately slammed on the brakes, placing the Satomobile into park and unbuckling her seatbelt so she could lean over and examine Korra. The seizures were growing more and more violent by the second.
Her breaths quickening in alarm, Asami elected to unstrap the Avatar as well and lay her across the soft desert sands. Maybe a few minutes of fresh air would settle her down.
She might as well have been giving her sugar pills. Korra's muscles continued to shake and spasm in every direction, her teeth gritted so tightly that it looked like they might crack.
And that wasn't even the worst part. In time with her flailing movements, the sand beneath their feet began to move, first slowly and then fiercely. Within a few seconds, a sandstorm the size and intensity of a great tornado had appeared around them, with Korra and Asami at its eye. Their car was sent flying into the distance.
"Korra!" Asami exclaimed, grasping the girl around both shoulders and trying to hold her steady. "Come on, snap out of it! You need to wake up!"
The Avatar was making weak whimpering sounds, and her face was screwed up as if in turmoil, so perhaps some small part of her brain had heard her. But it was as if she was locked in a nightmare she couldn't wake up from.
Helpless to think of any other options, and with a head full of romantic spirit tales she'd secretly loved ever since she was a child, Asami did the only other thing she could think of.
She gripped onto Korra's twitching face, and kissed her full on the mouth.
For a little while, nothing happened. The sandstorm seemed to slow a bit in its intensity, but otherwise continued to swirl around them.
Then, suddenly, Avatar Korra opened her eyes.
A brief pang of elation almost immediately gave way to much bigger swells of concern. She'd been expecting to see the bright, clear ocean-blue of Korra's normal eyes. Or perhaps that overpowering glow she'd witnessed in the Spirit World, which Asami belatedly realized had been the Avatar State.
Korra's eyes were closer to the latter right now. But the glow was…wrong, somehow.
One eye glowed the same, shining white that Avatar Aang was always depicted with in illustrations of the Battle of Sozin's Comet. But the other, instead, burned a terrifying, fiery orange-red.
Then she blinked, and both were replaced by another set of colors entirely. Green and blue and yellow and pink, though a deep purple seemed to come up the most.
But soon enough, both eyes were a chaotic blend of every color – and even some shades Asami didn't have words to describe. They flickered and blended together, like a hundred different paints had been knocked over into the same, fathomless pools.
Korra's breaths were coming out ragged and strained, and her body was clearly in immeasurable agony. Not knowing what else to do, Asami her close, and kept up a steady stream of whispered encouragement.
"I'm begging you, Korra. Come back to me, please," she said, in a very tiny voice. "I…I need you…"
At these words, Korra's eyes fluttered closed once again. But when they reopened, they were human again – the very same azure seas she'd been missing so desperately.
"Keep…Keep talking…" the Avatar managed to choke out. Every single word was clearly taking an impossible toll on her body. "Hearing it…gives me…something to…hold on to. Like…Like an anchor…"
"Korra, what's happening to you?!" demanded Asami, her throat tight with fright. "Was this what that monster was trying to do?"
The Water Tribe girl's face twitched slightly, first in one direction and then the other, and it took Asami a few seconds to realized she'd meant to shake her head.
"He did…something. I don't…fully understand it…myself…" Korra murmured. "But he…he reached right…into my…Avatar Spirit. And he…he…"
She swallowed a great mouthful of phlegm, before forcing out, "He…tainted it…"
Asami had no idea what Korra was talking about now. All she knew was the sheer amount of distress it was causing the young woman she held in her arms. A woman who no longer looked like the most powerful being on the planet…
But simply a scared little girl.
"Her name…is Raava. We…We connected…while he tried…to corrupt her…" Korra continued to explain, despite the torture that talking was clearly putting her through. "I've been…holding it back…best I can. But…I can't…keep it up…much longer…"
"Korra, if this is hurting you, you can just rest," said Asami, desperate not to see this agonized expression any longer. "Whatever happened to you, we'll find a sage or spiritualist somewhere. They can fix you, and then we can go back to being…"
But Korra cut her off by pitching her head back, and screaming bloody murder.
"There's…no fixing this…anymore. He…He won…" Korra told her, once she managed to regain enough control to speak again. "But I think…there's one other…option. Raava…Raava said that…"
Her head lolled over, and driblets of blood fell out of it. Asami quickly readjusted her position, so that Korra's airway wasn't obstructed.
"She said…if I can…keep control…when she…passes on…" the Water Tribe girl continued, once she'd coughed up enough blood to drown a small animal. "That she…can leave my body…untainted. The corruption…would die…with me…"
Asami's eyes went wide as saucers.
"You…You can't mean…" she gasped out, her heart beating a mile a minute. "You can't be asking me to…"
"I'm…so sorry. To put this…on you…" said Korra, her voice so heartbreakingly weak now. "But I can't…hold it back…and do it…at the same time…"
Then, her face screwed up in concentration. It took all the effort she could muster, but she managed to reform the pool of her own blood into a new shape: a dagger made of crimson ice.
Apart from its shade, the very same weapon – though Korra couldn't have known it – that had claimed her mother's life.
"Please…Please, Asami…" the Avatar begged, tears streaming down her face. "If you don't…I'll become something…awful. I…I'll hurt people. So many…so many…"
Without thinking about it, without even really meaning to, Asami found that her fingers had closed around the frozen weapon.
"If…it has…to be this way…" Korra whispered, and despite everything, the ghost of a smile was playing across her lips. "Then…I'm glad…it was you. So that…your arms…will be…the last thing…I feel…"
Asami's own tears were flowing freely now. She wasn't sure when they'd started; wasn't sure if they would ever stop.
"Wait…one more thing…" added the other girl, before she could move. Asami could tell, from the way she forced the words out, that they were of utmost importance. "Check my…left pocket…"
The non-bender did so, her fingers fumbling with the strange straps and furs that adorned her Water Tribe clothing. Finally, she managed to extract a small object from the fabric.
A golden, heart-shaped locket.
"You need…to pull out…the pin…" Korra said, for the locking mechanism appeared to be an elaborate puzzle. "Then…a quarter turn…"
But Asami's fingers were already solving the device, as if in a daze. She didn't need to have it explained. Somehow, she just knew.
Finally, the locket clicked open.
It was a tiny photograph. They'd taken it in a booth during their date at the Glacier Spirits Festival, what seemed like a lifetime ago.
Korra was leaning over, kissing her on the cheek. And Asami, despite herself, was laughing with such sincere and honest joyfulness that it looked utterly foreign upon her own face.
"I was…gonna give it…to you…for our…anniversary…" Korra continued to breath out, between more bloody coughs. "You…You know that's…next week…? A year just…flies by…"
Asami's fist closed around the locket, hiding it from the world. Then, she leaned down, and pressed her lips against Korra's once more.
"I love you," she said, for the first and last time. Hot tears fell onto Korra's soft brown cheeks, to mix with her own. "I love you so much."
"I…love you…too…" Korra mumbled into her lips. "And Asami…can you honor…one last…request…?"
"Anything," Asami choked out, her voice cracking halfway through the word.
"Please…don't…" the words came out so feebly that they were barely audible anymore. "Forget…about…me…"
With great effort, Asami swallowed, and then nodded. Korra's beautiful lips contorted into a small, accepting smile.
Then, before she could lose her nerve, the Equalist's Lieutenant raised the blood-dagger high into the desert sky…
And brought it down.
That night, a number of nomadic sandbenders were startled awake by what sounded like a bloodcurdling shriek. But surely, it couldn't be. It had to be the cries of some strange beast.
For what human could scream at the top of their lungs for over ten minutes straight?
[-]
It took Asami a very long time to return to any semblance of rational thought. Even after her lungs gave out completely, she just remained in place, kneeling before Korra's corpse until the first rays of sunshine began to poke over the sand dunes.
Slowly, feeling like her body was being piloted by another person, Asami held Korra's locket in her left hand. With her right, she removed Amon's mask from her pocket.
She closed the locket shut, then slipped it around her own neck and let it fall between her breasts, hidden from view. It held a secret that would be seen by no one's eyes but hers.
But she hesitated before doing the same with the mask. Even though she was pretty certain it was what he would've wanted. It didn't feel…right. Not yet.
Asami forced herself to look back at the lifeless body before her. Its soul fled away, hopefully purified by the experience – soon to reincarnate as some poor Earth Kingdom child.
Finally, it clicked. Amon and Korra had both paid the ultimate price today. She had paid nothing. She was about to return to Republic City, completely unscathed by this horrible night.
That wasn't right.
Feeling a certainty gripping her that defied description, Asami reached down to Korra's chest, and wrenched out the dagger she'd stabbed into it. More blood poured out of the wound, coating her hands.
Asami lifted the frozen weapon to her face, marveling that it had remained in this state even after death. Korra truly had been an incredible waterbender.
Then, she turned its blade around, and plunged it into her right eye.
[-]
"Asami!" exclaimed Sho Gan-Lan as Asami limped into his office, his eyes bulging at the bloody bandages covering half of her face. "What in the world happened to you? And where's Amon?"
It had been a harrowing journey to get back to the city, including bribing a sandbender band to get her to Omashu and then stealing three more cars to make it the rest of the way. But she wasn't going to share those details right now.
Maybe someday. But today, there were more important things to take care of.
"It's a long story. But this isn't the time for stories. This…is a time for action," was what she chose to say. "Gather all of our forces, Sho. They need to hear that Amon's death isn't the end of our Movement. That we're ready to make the United Republic a haven for all lost souls without bender blood."
"Amon is dead?!" Sho repeated, sounding more alarmed than she'd ever heard him before. He would've tried to grab her by the shoulders, but had to settle with swiveling his chair closer. "Asami, talk to me!"
But the teenaged girl just rebuffed her once-sifu. From now on, she couldn't be the same sweet little girl who'd clung onto her mother's knee.
And she definitely couldn't be the young woman who the Avatar, against all possible logic and reason, had chosen to love.
She would be as cold as the man whose mask she held. Because her fellow Equalists deserved no less.
"And if anyone opposes my position as leader, let them know this," she declared. "That I have achieved my honor and my destiny. The dream of any self-respecting member of the Equalist Movement."
For the first time, Asami slipped Amon's mask across her own face. And for the first time in what seemed like forever, things finally felt right.
"I have murdered the Avatar."
[-]
Asami Sato fell to her knees, weeping openly before the ghostly figures. The four past lovers of the Avatar's soul.
She'd never felt more wrong.
"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry," she said between sobs. "She's so much like her…but I betrayed her anyway. Please, I didn't have a choice."
As her tale wound to an end, Asami clutched at her face, desperately trying to stem the flow of phantom tears.
"If I fade away…the last trace of my Korra will be gone," she whispered. "And I'll have broken the last promise I ever made to her."
The four women looked upon her dispassionately. She couldn't blame them for hating her. To Kuruk, Kyoshi, Roku, then Aang, all had been perfect partners and wives. Lifting their respective Avatar up, and helping them to fly…
Whereas all Asami had ever done was drag hers through the mud.
"I have to live. It's the only thing I can still do for her," the last, broken words tumbled from her lips. "No…No matter what it takes."