A/N: Hey guys. Long time, no see! AM I RIGHT?! Anyway, finally found some motivation to write. I apologize for not updating regularly. I know how frustrating that must be. Well, it isn't a much but it's something. I'm gonna finish this story, even if it kills me. PLEASE REVIEW! Love you all! I hope you all had wonderful holidays!

Revised: 8/4/15

A Terrible Synergy

Chapter 18

He marched toward the connecting kitchen. His footfalls remained slow and methodical despite the immense potency of his anger. Their tea cups from last night were still on the table, how long ago that felt. He only came into the room to calm his nerves and find something that would momentarily take the edge off. He knew it was too early to start drinking, but this was a special occasion. He opened the cabinet nearest the stove top. There was barely anything in it. He couldn't remember that last time he went to the market. Then again, he really only used this apartment to sleep and drink. Dust lay across the half empty bag of rice and a lone can of chicken stock. He searched the adjacent cupboard and found what he was searching for. He dusted off the bottle of the whiskey, opened it and took a generous swig. After the numbing burn subsided in his gut, he felt instantly better. He fetched two glasses. They were both cracked and unbefitting of a family reunion, but they weren't family anymore. He poured a generous helping of whiskey into both cups and returned to the living room.

Without a sound, Noatak extended his arm offering his brother the glass, who willingly accepted it. The orbital of the councilor's eye showed signs of bruising and a part of his cheek had split open from his blows. He hadn't left he didn't think he could've restrained himself. Even when he was little, his younger brother always had a way with words. He was quiet when he was younger, and his skill words didn't come as naturally. Tarrlok was always the talker and he had certainly perfected his talent. He could persuade anyone, he could provoke any reaction he wanted to and still have them clueless to his manipulation. Usually he was impervious to these types of verbal attacks, but Tarrlok would always remain a thorn in his side. The brothers lingered in silence for time bathing in the chill of alcohol. Tarrlok had taken off his heavy coat and was staring out the window, while Noatak watched him from the sofa. The only noise in the room was his brother's index finger tapping the top his glass.

It was strange to think that he was close to him once, that they once freely called either brother. For years he felt nothing when Tarrlok came to mind, when the idea of the revolution was only thing to elicit a reaction from him. Then he met Korra, and things changed. Suddenly he became aware of his lungs respiring and his heart beating, how renewed he felt, and how he had been fighting for all the wrong things. But his awakening couldn't change things: what has happened, happened. His eyes stopped their wandering and settled back onto the shoulders of his brother's infamous blue blazer; even after all that has happened, there was a part of him that still loved him, but he couldn't seem to grab hold of it. All he felt was anger. The alcohol did help some, but he could still feel the tension in body. All the muscles pressed rigidly again one another as if they were sparring.

He exhaled and tipped another mouthful of brown liquid down his throat. He recalled the day when Tarrlok first came to the city ten years ago. Out of twenty candidates, he was appointed by Chief Unalaq to serve as the Northern Watertribe representative on the United Republic of Nations Council becoming the youngest ever allotted. He never understood why Unalaq had chosen him. Despite him being a non-native of the city, he was well liked and popular with the city's Northern Watertribe faction. He was known for his many successes back at the homeland and was well liked due to his somewhat liberal stance, which was refreshing coming from the north where strictness and austerity were the norms. He remembered listening to his speeches on the radio in his office. He promised prosperity and peace for all types of people, bender or nonbender, regardless if you were of the watertribe heritage, that he would represent and fight for everyone, but it all was just a lie. It all was just rhetoric dressed up in hope and change to cover up his true objective: to gain power. Maybe there was light inside of them but he couldn't see it. They were fashioned from the same cloth. The flesh and human qualities of their exterior simply just hid the wicked, nefarious matter that lived beneath. They were bloodbenders. How could they change?

Through the window, just above his brother's shoulder, Noatak could make out another reinforcement of police cars parking outside on the frozen sidewalk. There had to be at least a team of forty individuals outside. He had no idea how many officers there were in the building, or even how long they had to talk before they were discovered; despite this lack of knowledge he stayed calmed, he was determined to uncover his brother's motives. If the councilman wanted to apprehend him he would have done it by now, and if he was, by chance, captured, the uncovering of their relationship would ruin everything his brother had built and worked for.

"How long are you going to keep this damn charade up?" his brother suddenly spoke. The councilman would not let his attention slip from what was occurring outside. The police had driven all the residents of the building into gated pens and separated them by floor and apartment number as if they were animals off to the slaughter house. In the numbered pens, the officers, strip searched suspicious individuals and checked for immigrant papers, while the ones in the building ripped apart every room in search for evidence. If one was found with faulty or expired papers they would shipped off immediately to be deported out of the country. If one was suspected of being involved with the equalists they would be arrested on site and detained indefinitely until proved not guilty. It was a gross display of power. The innocent people of his apartment building were woken from their sleep to stand in below zero temperatures without coats as their natural rights were being violated. It made him want to spit, and at that moment he didn't want to see any more of his 'brother'.

"Because I don't see how you can be the father of your 'glorious' revolution if you can't even manage to keep your cock in your pants."

To his brother's astonishment, Noatak chuckled lowly and angled his glass back finishing the last of his whiskey.

"Why are you laughing?"

"Now that's good question isn't it," he half-smiled, but his body remained angular and tense with well-hidden ire, "Perhaps, I find some truth in your statement, but really I just find this whole damn situation inane. Why would you come here if you knew it was me? You how this would go."

"You were the one who opened the door, brother."

He scoffed, "Like I had a choice. You were going to knock down anyway."

"Don't play fool with me. We both know what you're capable of. If you truly wanted to avoid the situation you could have just knocked us out through the wall and left without being undetected, but you choose to expose yourself."

His brother had a point. He could've escaped easily but choose not to, "Maybe I'm just tired of hiding."

Tarrlok turned away from the window, "That doesn't sound like you, you know the one that preaches the destruction of benders and all of the old world."

"Maybe you're thinking about it the wrong way," he retorted lowly. It was a threat, and Tarrlok by now knew what he meant.

Silence once again took up the conversation. Their eyes were locked in a icy standoff. Noatak stood up and placing his empty cup on the table in front of him, "Why did you come here? There's nothing to gain from this."

"Did you ever think that I came here for other than political reasons?" the councilman answered bitterly.

"You are not the kind person to let personal feelings come in the way of your work," Noatak stated.

"Neither are you," he paused, "None of that accounts for this. I came here is because I wanted to know if it was you. I wanted to know if you were alive."

He waited to hear what he had to say.

"Because you were dead. For the past 26 years, I thought you were dead," he repeated again to make sure he heard it, to make sure it stung, "All this time I have lived with the weight of your death on my shoulders. I've tried to move on but it's always been there," Noatak hadn't anticipated this kind of emotion to come from his brother, "The day we returned without you was the day Mom's spirit died. You tore her heart out, you know; she was never the same after that. You promised me that you'd always be there but you abandoned me. All a long I thought it was my fault that you were dead, that it was because of me that I couldn't make her happy anymore," he hesitated as he battled his emotion to keep his composure, "After father died, I went off to study in the capital. Mom give me the money to study. It was all that was left from the small amount of savings we had. When I off for school at eighteen, which was the first time I had ever left the village, I remember hugging her tiny, frail frame. She told me that she loved me and to learn as much as I possibly could. Her voice was happy but all I could hear was her grief because she was losing her only remaining child."

"Why are you telling me this?" Noatak shouted wrathfully, "To make me feel guilty?" he paused closing his eyes to steady himself from his mounting rage, "I can't believe you, Tarrlok. You're telling me this bullshit while you exploit innocent people outside. Don't try to wretch at my humanity when it you don't have any."

"And you think you're any better?" Tarrlok laughed, "You don't think what you say is heartless?" His brother was a monster.

"I can't fix things for you, brother. What is done is done. I can't change what has happened and neither can you."

"I know," he concurred quietly. His light blue eyes fell to the floor as placed his empty glass down in front of his brother, "I always thought you'd come back someday but you never did."

Again, Noatak remained quiet, eyes intense and dark with a stoic gleam waiting again for what he had to say.

"I came to arrest Korra under the charges of treason, which is punishable by death. I will drop these charges if you surrender yourself to me now. You will dispose of any information about the equalist plot to us and I will see to it that your trial and execution be quick and painless. I'll even be generous and let your residents go free."

The bedroom door swung violently open, "You can't be serious, Tarrlok!" Both men looked up from the intense exchange. There she was, the Avatar, standing with arms crossed in the doorway of his bedroom. He didn't want to be alone with his brother anymore for fear of doing something he would regret and because of this he wasn't at all infuriated by her appearance. Despite the heaviness of the situation, he was having trouble containing his apparent amusement at the sight of his lover. She couldn't help but overhear their conversation and willingly sit by while Tarrlok used her as leverage, "You're going appended me? For what?! Treason? How do you think the public going to react to his?" she huffed in annoyance, "It's not going to look good on your spotless record, Tarrlok."

"Not when I reveal the truth," he eyed both of them, "Once I uncover your affair all your credibility will be shot out the window," he shook his head, "Who do you think you are? The mighty Avatar? No one gives shit about you. Take it from the words of the man standing next you: the world doesn't need you anymore."

"Go to hell, you prick!" the female roared.

Her slight bounced off him like rain. He rolled his eyes and returned his focus on his brother, "Why don't you muzzle your bitch, Noatak? She's been doing all your talking for you, or did she suck all your virility away?"

The Avatar glanced at him. She could see that his lips were pressed in a thin line, but everything else about his expression was unclear to her. She couldn't understand why he had stopped defending himself or her honor. She huffed in annoyance, she was really starting to get pissed off. She snapped her head back towards the councilor.

Her blue eyes narrowed and she growled out, "Go fuck yourself."

She didn't receive the reaction she wanted, but it's not like her words were affecting the councilman anyway. Instead of rolling his eyes, he chuckled, which further infuriated her, "I have always admired your fight, Korra, because it truly is indomitable, but there's a point where you have to realize that you cannot win. You can't always get your way."

"And how is it that I've lost? No one will believe you with what lack of evidence you have. And what if your nasty little secret gets out?"

"I'm sorry to say but my word trumps yours," he stepped closer towards her, "I am taking a risk with this assumption because how can anyone's word surpass the Avatar's? I'll tell you how: you decided to go wonder into this pig's apartment and let him fuck you instead of showing up at my office like you promised. Once I unmask him as Amon you will be finished."

"And what keeps me quiet about your relation to him? No one will believe your estranged brother story. People will believe you've been in cahoots with him since the beginning."

"I am aware of this, but all your credibility will be lost. People won't care either way because I was the one who put Amon behind bars, not you. Every person in the United Republic will know that you betrayed the country…" the man continued explaining his checkmate, who was made blind to the holes in it through his gain in power. Noatak had stopped speaking because there was no use to. The feelings Tarrlok had shown to him during his confession in the beginning of the exchange were all but gone. He was ashamed, not of his brother but of himself. It was his job to protect his little brother, but he couldn't recognize the man that stood in front of him as once being his own. Was this the real person Tarrlok had become? Was he totally lost to him? It scared him to think about this. They both had given so much up, even their humanity.

"Fine, Tarrlok. Do it, my word over yours!" Korra's words briefly muffled his train of thought.

The councilman glowered in dissatisfaction, "You leave me no choice then," Tarrlok's tone had changed from a smug mantra into a bitter declaration, which shook him fully from his thoughts. They indicated something of notice, "It has come to my attention that you have a sister, Avatar," he strolled back to the window with his back turned away from the couple, "It would be an awful shame if anything were to happen to her."

"No you wouldn't... You son of a bitch!" Korra spat through clutched teeth as she advanced toward the councilman but was stopped by Noatak's sudden hold on her wrist, "Let go of me!" she lashed back trying to rip away from his grip.

"Korra, relax. He's just baiting you," he attempted to console, but he knew that his brother wasn't lying. He could tell that he was telling the truth because his heart rate didn't accelerate and his breathing remained normal. He didn't want Korra to let her emotions get the better of her.

"How do you know? All you've been doing is standing around doing nothing."

"Patience, Korra," he whispered.

Tarrlork had't heard to their conversation too wrapped out with the scene unfolding outside to pay notice. It was imperative Tarrlok not know what he was planning, "Poor girl, really, she has to suffer over someone that she never even meet," now the Avatar was livid. She ripped her wrist from his grasp and closed the distance between the councilmen in two steps hoping over the passed-out officers on the floor as if it were a game of hopscotch. Her fist lit up in flames aimed towards his head, but as her arm began to swing forward toward the back of his skull it froze unnaturally, "What?!" she shouted in panic as a wave of unfathomable pain washed over her body, "AHhhhh," her arm twisted backward; she could feel the tendons pull inside her skin against her volition.

Tarrlok turned around with a single fist clutched. He was bloodbending her. Korra began to jolt backward against her own will, but as fast as the foreign control washed over her body it was gone.

"Don't make me kill you, Tarrlok," Noatak hadn't moved. His hands were in his pockets, his face dark. His brother had stepped over the line. The Avatar coughed for air from below looking on at the spectacle from the position on her knees. She was frightened at what she saw. Tarrlok looked dazed, eyes budging out of his skull. She could see his veins pulse naturally in the whites of his eyes. Every single muscle was rigid and shaking as if was holding his breath.

The councilman teeth gritted together as he fought the invisible force strangling him, "Do it," he choked out, "Do it." Suddenly, his limbs went slack and his lungs took up air. He lurched over. Sweat dropped from the tip of his nose.

It was hard to tell if Noatak was bloodbending him at all. It looked as if he were doing nothing, "I wish it was different between us, Tarrlok, I really do, but we have made it impossible," he paused. His brother's eyes were paralyzed with uncommon fear, "I'm sorry, brother," Korra didn't know what was going on. Was he going to kill him? But as she rushed over to stop him, she was too late. The councilman's body already laid unresponsive on the ground.

The Avatar scrambled to her feet toward his fallen brother, "What why'd you do that? He didn't need to die! You didn't need to kill him!" She rolled the councilor's heavy head onto her lap. His ponytails splayed over her knees. It astonished him that she still showed him empathy, even after what had conspired and everything he had put her through since her arrival in the city.

"He was you brother, dammit, he was your goddamn brother," she yelled as she searched for his pulse. Her manic shouts subsided when steady throb was felt under her fingertips. She sighed heavily as if she were releasing the weight of the world from her shoulders. The way that her body trembled he could tell that she was crying, but she would turn and face him. She didn't want him to see her weakness. Never had she been that close to witnessing a man die before.

"I didn't kill him."

She nodded. The words didn't seem to sink in. She sniffled and wiped her nose and stood up. Everything was becoming real. This is what was going to happen if they wanted to be together. This was a part of who he was, she couldn't separate the two anymore.

"It sure looked like you were gonna kill him," she abruptly stated.

"I was," he stated honestly. He had thought about it, even flicked his heart off for a brief moment, but chose against it because he didn't know what that meant for Korra's sister, "It made me angry that he bloodbent you."

"It doesn't matter, Noatak, he's your brother… you just can't do that."

"Why is this bothering you so much?"

"Because it isn't bothering you."

"I… It-" a knock sounded at the door, "Tarrlok? Are you in there? Have you even moved from this room yet?" the voice was Chief Saikhan's, "Can we get this show on the road? I'm freezing my ass off outside and I told my wife I'd be home by two."

The pair eyed each other awareness. They needed to escape before anyone could come in to point fingers and ask questions. He ran into his closet, "We'll talk about this later," he handed her some clothes, "Put this on," he handed her a dark green, equalist uniform. While she changed, he raced back to retrieve his mask under the kitchen sink.

"Tarrlok?" the chief shouted again. The door clicked open and the chief stepped into the enclosure, "What the hell?"

Fuck. He stooped behind the small island in the kitchen. He didn't want to have to deal with this idiot. He wedged his mask in the back of his pants between the hem and his bare back. He needed to cover his tracks now because there were valuable documents located in his apartment that were now unreachable due to the dwindling amount of time. The chief was checking if the unconscious men were alive. No new officers had moved into the apartment.

He went through his options. He did not want to knock him out in front of the open door and decided it was best to delay. He prayed that the chief moved to search the kitchen first instead of the bedroom because finding the Avatar in an equalist uniform would not be good. He heard his footsteps grow louder. He had chosen the kitchen.

"Police!" he shouted, "Come out," Noatak waited in silence as he watched the chief's leading foot break the threshold of the door. The second followed and just as he was about to turn and take in the sight of the room, Noatak lunged at him. Bloodbending as throttled him the wall, the older man's head snapped back and chief's eyes drooped shut.

Noatak let go of his chest and man slumped down to the ground, "Idiot, now I have to burn everything." He spun on his heel and opened one of the cabinets adjacent to the sink. He pulled out container of gasoline. He opened it and spread its contents all over the ground. H fished out a set of matches from one of the drawers. He lit one and dropped it on the spilled liquid, which instantly combusted in to a mountain of hot, licking flames.

He hauled the chief's body into the main room and sprinted back into the bedroom. Korra had just finished dressing. The smoke started to invade the living room.

He face was maddened, "Starting digging a tunnel!"

"What?"

"Nobody can spot us," he grabbed her arm, "We don't have much time now, Korra. You need to start digging now, Korra, NOW!"

She saw the black smoke creep into the ceiling, "What the hell did you do now?" The door jolted open again. Multiple officers flooded into the tiny apartment. They must've saw the bodies or the bellowing smoke clouds.

"Fire!" one of them roared, "Put out this- Chief? Councilman Tarrlok?" The fire had spread rapidly across the front room, "Get Councilman Tarrlok and those officers out of here! You call the fire department! You three come with me to check if anyone is in the back room!" Making their way through the smoke and debris, they made it to the back room, but nobody was found. The policeman were clueless to what had occurred, and only as the smolder of the fire was extinguished would they be able to find any answers.

They extracted the unconscious from the building but were unable to put out the flames until the building was but a pile of ash. Its inhabitants watched to home collapse from their pens. All their possessions and keepsakes gone, nothing remained. The Fire Trucks were notified too late. Their sirens could be heard blocks away. A photo once existed of a family. It was laid out on a counter, and had stayed in the fire burning until ash was the only thing recognizable.