Chapter Two
Commercial District, United Republic of Nations
July 6th, 170 AG
Most of you were born to be Spartans, the guardians that will lead our people away from the darkness.
But some of you were born to be Headhunters, the predators who toil in the shadows like demons from hell.
Instructor Ambrose always knew that Cyrus was a Headhunter at heart, a soul able to easily detach himself from emotion and base his decisions on pure logic. He understands the concept of empathy, but in the grand scheme of his work to preserve humanity, it becomes…irrelevant.
That didn't mean Cyrus wasn't shaken by the improbable events that had taken control of his life.
ONI conditioning and instruction could not prepare him to face down something…supernatural. Reaper Team was en route to Paris IV in separate D82-LRT Condors for a three-month operation to destroy a Covenant refinery and harass Forerunner excavation teams.
Eliza and Casey were lost to Cyrus after his Condor's slipspace drive suffered a service haul out. The chain reaction should have torn his ship into pieces.
But something pulled him from the void…something powerful.
He could feel its captivating touch encompassing his armor and dragging him from the darkness that welcomed him with open arms.
It felt…good.
But he despised it nonetheless.
"Your duty is to humanity, is it not?" The entity questioned Cyrus when he refused to join her cause. "Mankind exists in a million different realities across the known universe, and I am asking you to preserve the human race in my reality."
"And how exactly do you want someone like me to save lives?"The entity's ever-present smile dimmed ever so subtly, but its floating eyes burned with hardened determination.
"By doing what you do best."
It must have been a truly dire situation for a spirit of light and peace to reach into the cosmos and drag a Demon from the long night.
Cyrus wanted to deny this…Raava his talents but a yearning to protect humanity burned within his heart. No matter the planet or dimension humanity resided on, his very being demanded he give everything to his people.
A Headhunter will always lay down their life for all Mankind.
No matter the cost.
And so Cyrus began his bloody work.
Cutting the tumors that infected this unique version of humanity from the darkness.
Raava provided him a list of anarchists, merciless killers, ruthless gangsters, and fanatic insurgents that all had a part to play in the carousel of chaos and corruption. Cleaning up these…deviants was his first of two major priorities given to him by Raava, and he executed this duty to perfection.
The second and explicitly clear objective was to protect the physical anchor that tied the mortal plane and the spiritual world.
The Avatar.
Cyrus wasn't keen on being a babysitter, but Raava made it abundantly clear that he could not be returned home if the Avatar died.
No exception, no excuses.
For an entire month, Cyrus had no reason to safeguard the Avatar while she was within the borders of the southern water tribe, allowing him to solely focus on the internal strifes plaguing Republic City. He terrorized the infamous Triple Threat Triads, destroying the gang's internal command structure and leaving them leaderless and directionless.
The Equalists were a far more…familiar issue.
They fashioned themselves into dispersed and well-coordinated cells similar in size and organization to the URF terrorists that roamed the outer colonies before the Great War.
Cyrus had more difficulty tracking down the Equalists officers after killing Amon's right-hand man. Unlike the Triads, the Equalists were far more adept in blending with the civilian population, and Republic City had close to four million citizens, of which more than half were potential suspects.
Raava wanted Cyrus to kill Amon straight out, but there was more to counter-insurgency than cutting the head off a snake.
Sure Amon's death would drive a significant number of his followers into hiding, but insurgents had a penchant for splintering off into radical and far more violent cells.
Killing Amon straight out would also turn him into a martyr, which was something Cyrus would not allow, so he diverted his attention to corroding the Equalists foundation.
One bullet at a time.
Steady your heartbeat and clear your mind. The measures words from his Spartan ll instructor Kurt Ambrose echoed to the front of Cyrus's thoughts.
His heart rate leveled out, and the background details of his target faded into obscurity. Cyrus didn't care that his soon-to-be victim was in the middle of lunch with his newlywed wife and two-year-old son.
Nisang Viddock was a dead man the moment he found out Viddock was trafficking people across the globe to help finance the Equalist movement.
His death would put an end to the human trafficking ring and deny the Equalists another avenue of profit.
No matter how much Raava disagreed.
Cyrus spent weeks tracking down every auction house and relocation center in Viddock's network, leading to a silent lull that put everyone in Republic City in an odd sense of limbo.
The metropolis had grown accustomed to finding dead Triads and Equalists all over town to the point it almost became routine.
It was time to put everyone back on notice.
*BANG!*
Cyrus's SRS-99 barked a familiar sound that echoed across the commercial districts towering structures, bouncing off the buildings and forcing civilians to instinctively duck their heads.
The anti-material round punched through the thin decorative glass of Kwong's Cuisine. Viddock's entire world blinked out of existence, unable to hear the screams of despair from his hysteric wife and his son's confused sobbing.
Nisang Viddock died on July 6th, 170 AG.
Republic City police rushed to the scene, but like always, they were too little too late. An hour after his death, they would uncover a treasure trove of evidence regarding his illegal human trafficking ring.
And once again, another Equalist supporter was dragged into the light.
But there was always more.
"Jobs done," Cyrus spoke softly as he slid down the side of a twelve-story office building. "Who's next?"
Raava manifested into a blue wisp of air and emerged from his blind side, hovering above his right shoulder. A wave of pure peace washed over the Spartan, but he paid no mind as she relayed his next target,
A single name was whispered into his ear that would send him on a crash course with the Avatar.
"Hiroshi Sato."
Republic City, United Republic of Nations
September 1st, 170 AG
Korra didn't consider herself the sharpest rock on the block, but she wasn't an idiot either. She expected her surprise visit to Republic City to be met with ridicule by Tenzin, but he was scared.
And it wasn't the kind of terror a child would experience but one that changed a person's very demeanor.
Tenzin was always a serious man, but from what she learned from Pema and Katara, his disposition had become far less pleasant than anything his loved ones had experienced.
Korra didn't have to look far to discover the root cause of Tenzin's changed demeanor. Not when it was constantly broadcasted on the Republic City's local radio stations.
After a month of inactivity, the Reaper strikes again, folks. Four Triads and six Equalists were killed overnight, and the police force is once again unable to locate the vigilante. The City is still reeling from the rumors that once-famous real estate mogul Nisang Viddock was a member of the Equalists before he was assassinated at Kwong's Cuisine. The police are tight-lipped on the subject, but if it's true, another terrorist has bit the dust. Wonder how Chief Beifomg will….
Korra didn't stay to hear the rest of the news report. She walked past the small crowd gathered around the radio and crossed the lengthy bridge leading to the Bending Arena.
She was late for pro-bending practice after sleeping well past her usual wake-up time. Tenzin's training regime turned up a considerable notch, but Korra adjusted nonetheless.
It was an honest surprise that Tenzin didn't immediately order her back to the southern water tribe after finding out she'd fallen in with the Fire Ferrets. Maybe Pema convinced him to lighten up, or he finally threw in the towel and let her do what she thought was best.
Either way, it worked out for Korra, at least until the Reaper returned from his brief absence with a vengeance.
Their re-emergence put the aged Airbender on edge, and now he was a breath away from sending everyone away from Republic City.
"You look tired," Mako stated as he watched her slip into her training gear. "Did you get any sleep last night?"
"No," Korra affirmed, sliding her helmet in place. "Tenzin was up last night arguing with Pema. He wants to take us back to the South Pole until this whole thing with the Reaper blows over."
"I can't believe he's back." Bolin chimed in with Pabu perched on his shoulder. "I used to think he was a myth."
"Used to?" The exuberant earth bender looked positively spooked, which didn't escape Korra's notice.
"Do you remember how we had money troubles until Mako started dating Asami?"
"How could I forget?" The memory wasn't one Korra relished to remember. It was one of the few times Mako bitterly threw her privileged life in her face while also leading to her…less than warm introduction to Asami.
"Right, sorry." Bolin acknowledged her discomfort with an uplifting smile. "Anyway, before my brother sold his soul to Asami, we considered doing a job for the Triple Threats."
A brief pause allowed both brothers to glimpse the Avatar's reaction even as they made themselves scarce. Mako wanted to keep this secret to themselves, but his silent gesturing for Bolin to keep his mouth shut was lost in translation.
Bolin, in his naivety, decided now was as good a time as any to come clean about their...attempt at scrounging money through less than legal means.
"You what!?" Korra's face erupted in indignation.
Mako had the decency to appear embarrassed, but he nonetheless attempted to defend their intended actions. "Korra, we were about to get kicked out of our house."
"So you go back to being criminals!?" She retorted in discontent, smacking the firebender upside the head with her palm and making him momentarily see stars. "I'm the Avatar, you morons! We have plenty of open rooms in the BIG. NICE. AIR TEMPLE!"
"Point taken." Mako knew when a battle was better left lost after a few arguments with Asami. "Now, can Bollin finish his story or not?"
"Continue." Korra relented after expunging a breath of hot air from her lungs.
"As Mako was saying, we were…considering our options." Bolin expressed some level of awareness and chose his words carefully even as his normally exuberant visage took on a sour note. "But our uh former boss in the Triple Threats suddenly…well."
"He died last month." Mako finished with a somber voice.
"How?" Korra inquired. The discontent boiling in her stomach faded into obscurity as she took in their downcasted expressions.
"Do I really need to spell it out for you?"
"The Reaper killed him?"
"Did more than that." A shiver of fear crawled down Mako's spine. "Damned psycho blasted a hole through his skull in the middle of lunch. I had nightmares for almost two weeks, and the cops kept calling us to the station to retake our statements."
"We've been around cops all our lives," Bolin began. "But I had never seen them so agitated before the Reaper showed up. That guy scares the living crap out of everyone in the City."
"Not everyone." Korra's confidence was infectious and endearing, but it did not affect either Mako or Bolin in this case. They'd seen far too much of the Reaper's handiwork to last a lifetime, and a few of his kills had been people they'd grown up with.
"Not everybody can be the Avatar and have an army of White Lotus guarding them when they sleep." It surprised everyone, including Bolin himself, to hear him speak something so jaded, but the Reaper is a sore subject.
"Right, sorry." The Avatar's downcasted look served to soften the sibling's attitudes.
"Don't worry about it," Bolin bumped shoulders with Korra. "We have the finals tomorrow, so we'll do a light workout and then eat lunch at Asami's."
"Do we have to?" Korra tried not to seem so aghast, but she and Asami were still working out their issues. All of which revolved around Mako, but Bolin was not about to touch that with a ten-foot pole, so he came at Korra from another angle.
Money.
"Do you want to front the bill on team lunch today?"
"No." The response was immediate and damn near instinctual, but it served to end any argument on the matter.
"Then we're going to her house."
If only they knew how the rest of their day would go.
Sato Estate, United Republic of Nations
Unlike Viddock, Cyrus was almost certain that Hiroshi was an Equalist masquerading as a harmless businessman. His wife's passing practicality made him the perfect follower of Amon's cause, and Sato had the power to keep his involvement quiet while secretly supporting the terrorists.
Cyrus's initial examination of Future Industries revealed a relatively clean ship even as the Spartan delved into the darkest corners of Republic City.
The corporation's finances were in order, their manufacturing facilities were without deviations, and Sato's contributions to Republic City's less fortunate made him a renowned figure throughout the continent.
But that's what drove Cyrus to dig even further into the conglomerate.
No corporation as big as Future Industries was without fault, but Sato's company was spotless in every city record and money book imaginable.
And that was cause for alarm.
There was no such thing as a clockwork profit increase at this level of corporate bureaucracy. Sato's company dealt in off-the-book profit margins and expenses that no one had picked up on.
Future Industry's manufacturing potential was more than capable of supplying the Equalist cause with weapons, gear, and vehicles. Their factories' automated nature and the fact that most of their workers were non-benders who'd been subject to a bending crime at one point in their life kept any loose lips from spilling Sato's true allegiance.
However, Cyrus wasn't looking to prosecute workers. He was far more interested in shutting down the company and bringing its founder in dead or alive.
For three weeks, he swept the mainline factory and adjacent office buildings clean and found no trace of an Equalist connection.
There was only one place in the entire City left to search.
And that was the Sato Estate.
If there was any record of Hiroshi's involvement with the Equalist cause, it would be tucked away in that nice little mansion of his.
"This place is fucking massive," Cyrus murmured as he panned his scope over the main house. He positioned himself on a cliff face due east of the mansion grounds, giving a perfect view of the Sato estate.
The place had everything, an indoor pool, a goddamned racing track, and pastures as far as the eye could see. But it amazed Cyrus how someone with Hiroshi Sato's past didn't install any perimeter defenses nor employ more than a hand full of security guards to patrol the estate grounds.
Cyrus magnetized his DMR to his back and descended the cliff face via a pre-installed rappel apparatus. His feet carried him across a kilometer's worth of ground in less than a minute. He drove his heels into the ground and cleared a fence by a meter before landing short of a pile of bushes.
The guards patrolling the estate's east side had no idea he'd given them the slip. By the time they'd even turned in his direction, Cyrus was already making his way towards the front porch.
He followed the winding path up the front porch to the main building, dodging patrols where possible and discarding isolated guards at opportune moments. The exposed walkway was difficult to traverse unseen, but he benefitted from an active camouflage module enabling him to cross without any concerns.
Inevitably the Spartan reached the estate's entrance and banged his fist against the chrome-tinted doors.
A bespectacled butler answered his summons, jamming the door just enough to catch a glimpse of a black-tinted visor. Before he could scream his lungs out, Cyrus stuck his hand through the small gap and seized the man by his throat.
He applied a vice-like pressure to the butler's trachea, ignoring the hands flailing at his forearms and feeling the strength recede from his limbs. The door closed with a resounding thud, and Cyrus deposited the unconscious attendant into an unoccupied room before locking the door behind him.
His crimson gaze swept over the mansion's interior, and he began a thorough search of the estate's first floor. Like most lodgings the size of small towns, there were whole sections of the mansion empty of all life and consumed by expensive art and ornaments.
Cyrus used to toss places like this when he was a kid, but times have changed, and so has he. The first floor yielded no actionable results, but he was fortunate to avoid exposing himself to the boisterous child running past his camouflaged form with an assortment of beverages in hand.
"Mako, don't you dare start the movie!" Cyrus barely avoided shoulder-checking the blockhead by pressing his frame into the corridor's barely lit corners, but the moron wasn't alone.
He had company.
Dark brown hair drawn up in a bun framed a radiant visage containing a pair of cyan orbs set perfectly in their sockets. A smooth bronze complexion complimented the sleeveless blue turtleneck, perfectly emphasizing the solid and lean physique underneath.
The Avatar paced past him with light footsteps and an easygoing smile that Cyrus had seen on plenty of kids her age.
Those grins never lasted long.
"Korra." Raava's voice echoed in the front of his mind, putting a name to the face of this planet's supposed savior.
"Don't care," Cyrus whispered to the spirit, banishing her words and influence to the farthest corners of his mind as he searched for Sato's main office. He was forced to ascend another flight of stairs, but he located the office within a few minutes of encountering the Avatar.
A cursory peek at his motion tracker revealed nothing but empty space, but he'd be a fool to take it at face value.
Instructor Ambrose taught him better.
His training kicked, and he panned the doorway with his DMR, waiting for someone to strike out of the chamber. Only when he was certain the room was empty did he let his guard down and scour the office for evidence.
Corporate files littered the main desk, and his hands ruffled over a pile of laminated folders with a random mix of names and dates. There were personal effects such as jewelry, family pictures, and other miscellaneous items that Cyrus swept off the desk in his search for an Equalist connection.
Much like his corporation, Hiroshi Sato kept his office clean of any deliberate aberrations, but Cyrus did find a correspondence from a Mr. Hanza thanking Hiroshi for the new 'prototypes,' and he looked forward to mass production within a week.
Whatever this Hanza was receiving, it most certainly wasn't a new set of wheels. Cyrus spent a few minutes putting together a list of addresses that received large quantities of these 'prototypes' and marked them on his TACMAP for future sabotage.
Satisfied with his gathered intelligence, Cyrus moved to depart Sato's office, not caring to pick up his mess since time was of the essence. The crack of glass drew his attention, and he glanced at the shattered family portrait buried underneath his right foot.
Hiroshi Sato's grin held none of the strained smiles Cyrus had grown accustomed to seeing in the city newspaper. The industrialist hand his hand wrapped someone's shoulders, and in between the presumed wife was a younger Asami Sato with the tiniest grin blessing her visage.
Cyrus felt his eyes narrow as he reconciled the girl's features in an almost reminiscence fashion. He'd never met Asami Sato in his life, but she looked so strikingly familiar that it stung his mind trying to recall where he'd seen her before.
Then he lifted his boot.
And doubt was replaced by sorrow.
He snatched the portrait and gazed not at Hiroshi nor Asami but at the woman grinning a beaming smile and a pair of sparkling red eyes that were so reminiscent of his own.
Cyrus could never forget the radiant visage that brought tranquility to everyone blessed enough to enjoy its presence, nor could he forget the affectionate way she stared at a young boy trying everything to garner her attention.
"Mom." The word assailed his throat with a vice-like grip, and his mind fell back to a conversation with Instructor Ambrose not weeks before graduating from the Headhunter Initiative.
"Did you know she was pregnant?" Cyrus whirled on the Spartan-II with a confused disposition.
"Who?"
"Your mother." Ambrose clarified. "Did you know she was expecting a second child?"
He remembered a wave of frozen air slamming into his gut and snuffing out his confusion with a cold bitterness.
He never answered the question, but Ambrose didn't need a verbal response. The silent vitriol and grinding teeth were enough of an indicator for the Spartan-II to pick up on.
Cyrus didn't know.
And to this day, he longed for a time when such knowledge was forever lost to ignorance.
It hurt less.
"Dad?" A voice echoed in the corridor just outside the office, and Cyrus felt his Spartan impulses take hold of his entire frame. He pocketed the picture without a second thought and activated his active camouflage. "Are you home?"
The door creaked open to reveal a stunned Asami Sato. Her eyes caught sight of his shimmering frame, but a hand roughly slammed onto a shoulder and pulled her into the office.
"Wha-" Asami's exclaim of surprise was silenced by an armored hand enveloping her mouth. Her eyes grew wide with pure terror as her gaze trailed the offending limb towards a visor as the dark as the night sky.
There was a moment of pure silence as they exchanged contrasting stares. Cyrus was taken aback at how similar Asami was to his long-deceased mother while trying her best to put on a challenging look amid Republic City's most terrifying boogeyman.
She would have screamed to the heavens already if Cyrus hadn't leaned in and made his point clear.
"Be. Quiet." The Heiress shook with a pale expression, but she nodded her compliance nonetheless.
Cyrus let his fingers slip from her mouth, but he maintained a steady grip on the base of Asami's neck to keep her relatively docile. "Do you know who I am?"
"You're a sociopath." It was a curt statement that managed to spark Cyrus's distaste, if only because her face briefly morphed into his mother's visage.
"Sociopaths are prone to emotional outbursts." Cyrus retorted with an amused scoff.
"Doesn't matter what you. I know what you are, and if I were you, I'd tread lightly." He observed a misplaced sense of confidence spark within Asami's eyes. "The Avatar is in the next room after all."
"Do I look like someone who cares?" His shadowy frame loomed over Asami. "If things were different, I could kill everyone in that room before they could even blink, but I'm not here to kill your friends or the Avatar."
"Then what are you here for?"
"Your father."
"Touch him, and I swear I will-" Her confidence was…amusing.
"Do what?" Cyrus rarely elevated his voice past an even tone, but his condescending retort was justified in this matter. "A girl like you couldn't hurt someone like me in your wildest dreams. My priorities are clear, and there isn't a damn thing you could do to stop me."
"Korra will." It truly amazed him how much faith these people had in a child who barely escaped her cage.
"Blind hope is a dangerous thing, Ms. Sato." Cyrus felt a foreign sense of disdain infect his thoughts, and he whispered a voice full of contempt for the Avatar. "I wouldn't be here if she could be trusted to do her damn job."
Raava took exception to his cutting words and inflicted a mild burning sensation upon his mind.
He didn't regret it.
"What?" Asami inquired with a raised brow.
"Hmmm." Cyrus masked his grunt of pain with a dismissive drone. "Nothing to concern yourself over, Ms. Sato, but I have one question if you would allow me?"
Asami silently weighed her options, but the only real choice she had was averse capitulation. "I'll only answer if you agree to get the hell out of my house."
"I will." Cyrus didn't mention that this agreement would only last for the night.
"What do you want to know?"
"Where's your mother buried?" Asami gazed at Cyrus in utter disbelief, but it didn't take long for her eyes to quickly shift into barely held suspicion.
"What do you want with her?"
"To say goodbye." Asami's visage shifted into momentary surprise.
"Why?" Yasuko had been dead for years, and few people truly knew the woman that married Hiroshi Sato.
"Just answer the question." Cyrus wasn't in the mood to explain himself, but Asami's inquisitive nature beckoned her onward. His voice and mannerisms were so even-tempered that she couldn't distinguish an ounce of deception
"Her grave is in the gardens." Asami searched his helm for any glimpse of emotion, but he gave nothing away. The girl who'd spent her childhood reading people and their body language had finally met her match in a mane that may as well have been an impenetrable wall of darkness. "Why do you need to see her."
"Is it wrong for a son to say goodbye to his mother?"
Emerald orbs widened in easily perceived shock and confusion. Cyrus knew exactly what he was alluding to, but Asami couldn't quite believe what she was hearing.
Her breath caught, and before she could press the Spartan further, his hurling frame disappeared from sight. Something was pressed into Asami's hand, and her fingers grasped the object with uncertainty.
It was a portrait torn in half and missing a vital part of any family.
The mother.
"Asami?" Korra's voice filtered into the room.
"In here."
"We've been waiting for-." The Avatar stopped short of clearing the doorway, and her cyan eyes widened in disbelief. "What happened?!"
The Heiress stayed silent, her thoughts whirled with uncertainty, and her focus remained solely on the ripped portrait. Asami slowly pocketed the picture and turned toward an anxious Korra. "We have company."
Minutes later, Team Avatar would encounter the Reaper for the very first time within the gardens of Sato Estate.
It would not be the last time they crossed paths, and Korra would never forget the lessons Cyrus taught her amongst those green pastures.
Bending is a beautiful art.
But so is killing.
And Cyrus is an exceptional killer.
HERE LIES MY LOVELY YASUKO
WIFE TO A LOYAL HUSBAND
MOTHER TO A MAGNIFICENT ANGEL
October 4th, 126 AG – August, 17th 158 AG
It sickened Cyrus to know that his mother died on his birthday not once but twice, and as he gazed at the finely crafted marble statue that complemented the woman that married Hiroshi Sato.
Yasuko may have been her name in this plane of reality, but Cyrus still remembered her name despite the decades worth of pain and suffering since her passing.
Leandra.
"Hi, mother." He could almost see the statue's brilliant smile curl into an amused grin. "I don't have much time, but I just wanted to…say a few words…."
"…You'll be unhappy to know that life became…." Fatal. Merciless. "…Difficult after your passing. I know dad did his best to pay off the mortgage, but it wasn't enough. I got thrown out of the house, and some other middle-class family moved in. I tried to save some of your jewelry, but it didn't last long. Some of it I lost, some of it was stolen, and…well, I sold most by the end of my first year…."
Impossibly his mother's smile shifted into a sorrow-filled frown. "I didn't want to, but I was hungry and didn't know what else to do…."
"…I jumped from shelter to shelter for a few years before taking refuge in a Vagrant camp run by a mean old hag called Tara." Cyrus felt the smallest of grins bless his face. "You would have liked her. Calm, collected, and a helluva right cross…."
"…I didn't get to stay with her long, though." A flash of a lanky well-dressed man with slick-backed hair came to mind. "I was a good thief, but I was reckless, and it both saved me and damned me to an uncertain future…."
The summer wind picked up, scattering drops of sapphire blossoms across the garden terrace. "…I never believed in gods, but recent events have…altered my reasoning…."
"…But if there is a god, then there has to be an afterlife as well…." Her smile came to life once more, and he could feel a soothing wave of peace impact his hardened exterior.
"…If you've been out there watching me grow all this time…." Cyrus hesitated, his throat choked up with shame. The crimes he'd committed in those early days under Colonel Anderson's tutelage still haunted him. "…I just want to say I'm sorry and I miss you… I miss you so much."
"…I know you wanted me to be a pilot or a lawyer, but that wasn't in the cards." Waves of grief rolled off the statue and washed over Cyrus, but he pressed on nonetheless. "I'm something else now, something I know you would have never approved of, but we don't always get what we want…."
"This…Raava." He spat out with barely held contempt. "Isn't finished with me, and I need to get back home.
Footsteps in the distance drew his attention, and a group of figures appeared on the edge of his periphery.
Time was up.
"…I have to go now, mom." Cyrus fished the torn photo from his waist compartment and laid it at the statue's base. "Whatever happens…please don't think less of me."
"Korra, wait!" A rush of water shot toward the Spartan just as he disappeared from view. The Avatar prepared to unleash a second onslaught, but as she broke through the clearing, she found wet grass and a puddle of water.
"Where'd he go?" Mako brought up her left flank with flames flowing in between his fingers while Bolin took up a position to her right.
Korra dug her feet into the ground, searching for the Reaper's heartbeat with her seismic sense, but she heard nothing but four racing heartbeats belonging to her team.
"I can't-." Korra was interrupted by the slightest shift in movement to her right, and her eyes widened in shock as Bolin was dragged into the bushes by his feet.
"Bolin!" Mako was the first to act, grabbing his flaying brother by his arms and pulling him against the tide. Korra kicked her front foot into the ground and sent a slab of hardened rock soaring above Bolin's head. The rubble missed its invisible target, but it did free the young earthbender.
"Get up!" Mako pulled Bolin to his feet and pushed him closer to Korra so they could close ranks. "We need to get out of here! We can't fight him like this!"
Before anyone could move, a metal object rolled towards them and came to a complete stop mere inches from the Avatar. Korra sought to crush the object with her foot, but a series of beeps stilled her advance.
"What the hell is-"
*BANG!*
A blinding flash consumed the Avatar's vision, and a riveting blast scrambled her hearing. Korra's hands shot to her ears as she tried to will the harsh ringing away, but someone stumbled into her side and knocked her off balance.
Her eyes blinked open, and she found Mako lying on his back with a nasty welt on his left eye. Bolin was lying on his stomach, and the only solace Korra felt was the slow-paced rise of his sternum. She tried to find her balance, but an armored foot crossed her vision and slammed into her ribs.
"Argh!" Korra tried to summon whatever element she could find, but a knee itself dug into the middle of her esophagus and siphoned the air from her throat. An ugly wheezing noise sputtered out into short needy gasps of oxygen as Korra fought to remove the offending joint.
"Cyrus, stop!" Raava begged and pleaded for the Spartan to halt his transgression, but he paid the spirit no mind.
Cyrus wanted to drive home a message for Korra to remember the next time they met, and she decided to get his way. He couldn't afford her interference in his mission, but he also couldn't remove her from the board entirely without earning Raava's wrath.
The only choice he had left was to make the Avatar hesitate.
"Do you feel that?" Cyrus whispered as he stared at Korra's pain-stricken face. "That's death, crawling up your lungs one gasping breath at a time but don't worry, you'll survive…I don't have a reason to kill you, and I won't if I ever want to see home again…."
The Spartan removed his knee and snatched the Avatar by her throat before raising her high in the air. "…But I didn't have to go easy on you. I want you to remember to stay out of my way because next time, I will not be so gentle."
He was seconds away from tossing her to the side when a vibrating hum caught his attention.
He recognized the quiet tremble of an approaching airship as it broke through the clouds and cast beams of light onto the estate grounds. A stream of figures rappelled from the airship's main compartment, and he easily recognized their black and gold armor.
"Metalbenders." Cyrus sneered with mild distaste. He didn't expect to come across Republic City's finest out here, and he was ever wary of their Special Tactics Division. He didn't know nor care how any of these mooks could bend steel at their leisure but avoiding direct confrontation was a necessity.
His motion tracker picked up a sizeable group approaching from the west, and he spared the Avatar a final glance. Cyrus let Korra fall from his grip and stepped past her indisposed form as she battled to catch her breath.
"See ya around, Avatar." The water-tribe native called upon her ancestral power to retaliate, but she struggled to find her feet.
"Korra!" Asami's frantic voice called out as she wrapped an arm around Avatar.
"I'm-hack-hack!" Korra's wheezing lungs betrayed her. "I'm ok. Check on Mako and Bolin."
Asami fussed over Korra for a brief moment before passing her off to a stone-faced Lin Beifong. The Chief turned the Avatar towards her and glanced about her form, searching for any lingering injuries.
"Nasty bruise on your throat." The Beifong noted. "Your lucky to be alive right now, Korra."
"I don't feel like it." Korra glanced toward the unconscious twins as a pair of officers tried their best to render aid. "Are they ok?"
"They'll be fine." Lin began, helping Korra to her feet. "Where did he go?"
The Avatar shook her head in despair. "I don't know."
"Story of my fucking life." The Chief muttered under her breath before turning towards Captain Saikhan. "Search the grounds and find him!"
But even as the order fell from her lips and Lin watched dozens of officers scatter in all directions, there was no hope of success. What happened here was little more than another failed attempt to capture the Reaper. As she watched a visibly shaken Korra grasping Asami's shoulder as they hovered over the unconscious siblings, one thing became abundantly clear to the Beifong.
If Korra couldn't stop him.
Who could?
Chapter two...
That is all. Enjoy...
