l...l
Cover Song
Halo Wars - Spirit of Fire
For All Mankind
Chapter One
Raava is the spirit of light and peace.
She has existed since time immemorial, but her life has become waylaid by her rival, Vaatu.
He is everything she isn't.
Where she projects light, he permeates darkness.
Where he preaches chaos, she brings order.
They are opposites of the same coin, constantly struggling against one another in an endless battle.
A battle that she is slowly losing.
Vaatu's power grows in the shadows, feeding off the dark desires of mankind that have only blossomed in the last century of life on Earth. She feels his touch poisoning the minds of humanity's outcasts and dissidents, turning them against their people and convincing them that their actions would lead to a prosperous future.
She could hear the names of Vaatu's champions echoing in the darkness.
Amon. A revolutionary who seeks equality for all of mankind through a bloodstained uprising that will consume the planet.
Unalaq. A religious zealous who serves Vaaatu's will in a psychotic desire to forcefully restore spiritual balance to the Earth at any cost.
Zaheer. An anarchist seeking to destroy the Avatar and all foundations of order keeping humanity from the jaws of chaos.
Kuvira. A charismatic leader that will lead the greatest army ever seen on Earth into malediction for a shattered and famished people seeking salvation.
They believe themselves kings of their dominions, but they are merely pawns caught in Vaatu's web of corruption.
Each of them will fashion themselves as saviors of mankind.
Each of them will strike out from the darkness.
And each of them will fall to the Avatar's might.
But the cost will be tremendous.
Lives will be lost, history will be forgotten, blood will flow across the lands, and the darkness will consume all in its path.
This could not be allowed.
Raava could not allow these catastrophes to go unanswered once again. Her inaction during the Airbender genocides nearly cost the world everything, and she refused to remain a spectator any longer.
She needed an agent, a proxy who wasn't afraid to walk amongst the shadows and do whatever it takes to preserve humanity's light.
Even at the cost of their own.
Raava scoured the cosmos, piercing the heavens and all reality in search of this proxy.
And she found one in a universe where the stars were touched by humanity, but the heavens were consumed by fire. Her mind could not comprehend the machines of war that swam above the clouds, nor could she understand the genocide that covered entire planets.
But she found her champion, a soul that shouldered the burdens of his people with a sound mind and a stout heart.
Raava plucked her champion from his reality and gave him the task of protecting her humanity's future. He accepted this burden out of his innate sense of duty on the promise that she would send him back where he came from when the task is finished.
It will be one of many promises that Raava did not keep.
August 1st, 170 AG
Republic City, United Republic of Nations
Police Chief Lin Beifong has experienced much in her long service to Republic City. Her recent promotion came at the onset of violent territorial wars between gangs and insurgents.
Social tensions, ideological differences, and a host of other problems were just the tip of the iceberg that Lin had to contend with as police chief. Her biggest problem above all was the ever-expanding conflict between the Triple Threat Triads and the Equalists roaming the megacity. A day didn't go by without a body dropping or a skirmish breaking out between the two violent factions.
It didn't help that her officers were often caught in the crossfire responding to these violent clashes, and anytime she wanted to take a direct solution, the council interfered with their constant bickering.
Tenzin was too idealistic, and Tarrlock was a damned idiot that wanted to lock up half the city.
She hoped to start the month of August fresh without a single death after experiencing one of the highest murder rates in the city's history in July.
But as Lin ducked underneath a line of yellow caution tape sectioning off an entire city block, she realized that this month would be just as bad, if not worse.
"Son of a bitch." Captain Taral Saikhan stared at the grisly crime scene spread out before them. Ten bodies, all covered by a black tarp, littered the street, and Lin could see the fresh blood seeping into the pavement.
"Watch yourself, Captain." Lin didn't blame Saikhan for the lapse in discipline, but she couldn't have him acting unprofessionally around their equally disturbed subordinates.
It wouldn't exactly be good for morale to see a senior officer so visibly shaken.
"Sorry, Chief." The Captain schooled his features and began barking off orders to the patrol officers on the perimeter.
Lin sharpened her, disregarding the grisly scene in favor of engaging the senior Detective on sight. "Gall, what do you have for me?"
Detective Hizeka Gall is the premier investigator for the department's gang unit. He's spent most of his time as Lin's point man in everything regarding the Triads.
If Gall was here, that meant the Triple Threats were involved.
"Respectfully, Chief. It's a fucking mess." Lin always liked Gall's direct approach. "I got ten bodies, and most of our witnesses are too scared to say anything more than, 'I didn't see anything.'"
"Civilians have always been tight-lipped whenever the Triads are involved." The Chief replied off-handedly. "Do the bodies have any identification? We need to inform next of kin.|
"We didn't need to look for an ID tonight, ma'am." The Detective gripped the black tarp. "We know these guys better than most."
"What do you-" Gall pulled back the canvas revealing a face frozen in terror and a gaping hole through his throat.
"I-Is that who I think it is?" Saikhan's features morphed into surprise, a sentiment subtly shared by Lin.
"'Lightning Bolt' Zolt." Gall's tone was stuck between incredulous and morbid satisfaction. His history with the now-deceased gang leader was filled with corpses and shattered families. He'd spent the last half-decade trying to bring Zolt down, but now he was dead on some random night in a backstreet that Gall barely knew.
Fate truly was a mysterious mistress.
"Who are the rest?" Lin Beifong surveyed the corpses surrounding Zolt's body in an almost protective circle.
"Mostly small timers with one of Zolt's Lieutenants mixed in." Gall gestured toward a body leaning against a flickering light pole.
The city wasn't going to be the same after tonight, and Lin had half a mind to declare martial law in preparation for a Triad retaliation. The reprisals wouldn't be focused on any singular group in Republic city, and every major party was about to get a
Criminals loved their reputation, and the only way for Lin to get ahead of the oncoming storm was if she brought the perpetrator to justice.
"You said most of the witnesses were uncooperative." Lin inquired with a pensive gaze.
"One of the Triads survived, barely, I might add." Gall motioned towards a pullout table where crime scene investigators were collecting evidence. "Paramedics managed to stop the bleeding, but they couldn't figure out what the hell caused his trauma…."
"That was until one of our officers detected something…metallic lodged in the wound." The Detective grasped a small plastic bag with specks of blood marring its clear surface. A singular elongated object no larger than Lin's forefinger hovered within the bag's confines. "They pulled this out of his upper cavity, but no one has any idea how something so small was capable of inflicting that much trauma."
"Could it have been a metal bender?" Captain Saikhan asked.
"No," Gall replied. "This object is tipped with a lead material, far too pure for our officers or any metal bender to manipulate. There are traces of steel at its base, but I can't imagine any bender able to inflict this amount of trauma by themselves."
Lin's scrutinized the small object and glared at the specks of black soot lining its base. "Do we know what these markings are?"
"No, I'm sending it back to the crime lab for analysis, but I don't know how long that will take."
"Was this the only one you could find?" Saikhan asked, his eyes glimpsing over the bloodstained evidence.
"We found a dozen more similar objects spread across the crime scene." The Detective relayed. "It's half the reason we shut down the entire city block, but this object was the only one that wasn't crumpled in half, which honestly is far more terrifying."
"What do you mean?" Saikhan was confused by Gall's statement, but Lin wasn't as puzzled.
"It means that this thing is designed to pierce flesh." The Beifong took the evidence bag and weighed it on her palm. "It's made to kill people."
A sobering sentiment seeped into the peace officer's thoughts, and the full gravity of what she held in her grasp began to weigh on her mind heavily.
"It could have been the equalist." Saikhan searched for a perpetrator to focus on, but Lin wasn't as quick to start throwing around accusations.
"They've never had the capability to bring down ten triads, let alone, Zolt, all by themselves before, and I doubt this…sudden uptick in carnage was their work," Lin informed. "This was something else…something…dangerous."
"Personally," Saikhan began. "I think it's the equalists. Who else benefits from the dead Triads besides them?"
"Technically, everyone does." The Detective replied. "A few gangsters, especially one as brutal as Zolt, getting killed is good for many people around here…."
Gall felt his old muscles begin to ache at the mere thought of another 60-plus hour work week. "…Spirits…I can already see the amount of overtime everyone will have to put in over the next few weeks."
"You and me both, detective." Lin slowly let her hands drop, and she heaved a heavy exhale. "Clean this place up and get that Triad talking. If my suspicions are correct, then this is only the begin-"
*BANG!*
Lin felt her bones shiver at the colossal roar echoing across the city. The civilians standing just outside the police cordon scattered in all directions in a mass of pure confusion. Her officers were equally perplexed by reverberating clap of thunder, and their frames shook as another pair of strikes bounced off the surrounding structures.
She rushed over to a nearby police cruiser and activated its two-way radio beacon. The communication channel was cluttered by the overlapping voices of dispatch officers and patrolmen trying to get a handle on the situation.
"What the hell is that!?"
"Anyone got a twenty on that blast?!"
*BANG!*
Another crack sent people ducking their heads on instinct and scattering from the streets in a panic. Officers moved to contain the crowds and prevent a human crush event by forcibly using their metal whips to keep people separated.
"Civilians are running scared all over the damn place. I can't tell what's going on!"
The voices were so distorting that Lin almost missed a patrolman trying to relay critical information.
"This is Baker-12! I have multiple fatalities at my location. I need immediate assistance over!"
"This is Chief Beifong." The communication line went silent at Lin's insertion, and she immediately latched onto the previous call sign. "Baker-12, I need your location."
"Koja avenue." The patrolman relayed. "Just outside the Dragon Flat Boroughs."
"All available units converge on Koja Avenue." Lin slid into the driver seat and slammed her foot onto the gas pedal. Several police cruisers activated their sirens and followed the Police Chief through the winding streets of Republic City.
Koja avenue was a handful of city blocks from Hama Boulevard, where Zolt and his cronies were killed. Her mind raced with assumptions that the Triads were in no mood for patience and were already seeking out their pound of flesh.
The Dragon Flat Boroughs was a hotbed for Equalists supporters and fanatics, but the insurgents never gathered there in force or responded to any police raids. Amon was smart enough to know that his followers would never show their allegiances so close to home.
Lin and her responding officers arrived on scene to find a mass of civilians crowded around a pair of officers trying to keep them back. Behind the visibly strained officers was a team of paramedics trying to revive a single middle-aged man with a gaping hole in his sternum.
"Backup! Backup!" The officers gathered in force and pushed the crowds away, but Lin's eyes did not stray from the dying man. Her gaze remained rooted on a well-known piece of Equalist equipment that lay not inches away from the man's fingertips.
"He's an equalist," Lin muttered underneath her breath and came to a crouch next to the senior paramedic.
"Clear!" A jolt of lighting from the paramedic's fingertips shocked the Equalist's body, but nothing roused the man's heart rate.
After a few tense moments and a dozen attempts at resuscitation, the later identified Gyzo Hanan was pronounced dead at 12:03 am on August 2nd, 170 AG.
A day later, Lin would find out that Gyzo was Amon's chief lieutenant, and his death would echo a shift in Republic City.
There was a hunter on the prowl.
Lin would not know their motivations or the full scale of their capabilities for what seemed like an eternity.
But one thing was clear.
The Hunter had a list, and they would not stop until every name was crossed off.
Bodies would continue to pile well into the night as Equalist, and Triple Threat Triads alike were indiscriminately hunted.
By the end of the month, the casualty count reached almost two hundred known fatalities.
Forever marking August of 170 AG as the Long Night.
On September 2nd Republic City was visited by one of the most important figures on the planet.
The Avatar.
It was only a matter of time before Korra got involved.
This is a story I've had in storage for a while now. It's a Legend of Korra and Halo crossover with our favorite Spartan acting as an agent of Raava. In terms of my usual stories, this one is going to be a bit more violent because Cyrus will be hunting the main villains of the franchise and all their lackeys.
It will receive updates in frequency to my other none priority stories such as Heir to the Crown and Sins of our Fathers but tell me your thoughts overall.