Korra woke up with a sore back from bad posture, her pillow salty from all the tears of the previous night. Her head was a little bit clearer now that the full moon was gone, but she kept on trying to believe that it was just a bad dream.
It wasn't a dream. I bloodbent Asami, Korra thought, and depression started to drape over her heart all over again. She felt stifled in her old room, and stood up to open the window. A chilly breeze washed in as she opened her shutters and gazed grimly at the old probending arena, and the rest of Republic City. It had risen from its night time slumber and looked so much better already than it had half a year ago when she looked at the portal during Verek and Zhu Li's wedding with Tenzin and Asami. She was on Air Temple Island for the first time in ages, having had no place to sleep last night and had trudged in at about 2am. No-one even knew she was there.
She felt like crying, but it was as if an emotional block was in her body now, not producing any more tears. She just stood there silently, going over the previous night's events. Her mind wandered from those to the day when Jinora had gotten her airbending tattoos and Asami had been fixing her up for a formal Avatar appearance. Her heart felt like shrivelling up but she was already so devoid of emotion that there was no more room for it to shrivel. She rested a hand on her stomach, which was clearly bigger now, as Asami had mentioned.
I should tell him, she debated mentally. He's the father, he at least has the right to know. But what if he calls me crazy? He didn't imply he remembered what happened when we went drinking. He might reject the baby entirely and genuinely think that it's not his.
She sat down on her bed, clutching her head, which was spinning despite the fresh air.
Mako wouldn't do that, would he? Would he? At this she buried her face in her pillow and fresh tears started flowing, her emotional block gone. Maybe I'll talk to Bolin. If I keep it vague, he won't assume that it was Mako. He'll find out eventually anyway.
At roughly midday, Korra heard footsteps outside her door stop. She was stilling feeling like shit, but wiped her puffy face and lay on the bed, trying to act nonchalant. A small figure slid the door open, and Pema looked at the Avatar lying unnaturally still on her bed.
"Korra!" she said, pleased. "I didn't know you were here! If I had I would've made you breakfast. Are you hungry? You look starving."
"I'm fine," Korra replied coldly, and turned her back to Pema. Pema frowned, and gently walked over to the foot of her bed, looking at Korra concerned.
"What's wrong, Korra?" she tried gently. "Did you have a fight with someone? You look like you had a rough night."
"I said I'm fine," Korra reiterated. "Nothing happened, can you please just leave me alone?"
"Korra, I know that isn't all there is to it," Pema said, not moving. "Did you have a fight with Asami? That would explain why you're sleeping here and not at hers."
Damn, she can read me like a book, Korra thought. "Pema, I know you I want to help, but I just need some alone time."
"Maybe I can relate to you somehow,' Pema offered. "I went through a lot of trauma myself when my family was kidnapped by the Equalists, and I thought that they would have their bending taken away. But you saved them. I at least owe you that favour."
Korra contemplated this. Pema had raised four children; she would know a thing or two about pregnancy. She opened her mouth to try and say something, but at that moment, two metalbending police officers appeared in the doorway.
"What are you doing here?!" Korra asked, startled. Did they know that she had bloodbent last night? How did they know? A gasp caught in her throat. Had Asami called them?
"You didn't answer the phone at Sato Mansion and an officer on a night shift said that he saw you coming here last night. Chief Beifong said that she needs you. Urgently." The officer spoke very clearly, as if he were reciting lines off of a manual.
"An officer on a night shift?" Korra asked sceptically. It sounded too convenient given what she had done last night.
"Apparently," the officer replied gruffly, his face unreadable.
"It sounds like you're lying," Korra tested.
"Listen, we didn't come all this way just to hear you say no," the second cop started. "Sorry if the Chief can't give you verbal confirmation every time you're needed. Our badges should be enough."
"Korra, I think it's best that you go with them," Pema said soothingly, laying a hand on Korra's shoulder. "It'll be fine, what do you have to worry about that would concern them?"
Korra cursed in her mind, Pema having unintentionally snookered her. "Yeah, you're right, I don't have anything to worry about," she told Pema clearly. She spotted her old glider, the one she used before her previous one got broken, standing all on its own in the corner. She grabbed it and started to walk out the door, but the first guy put a hand across her to stop her from going any further.
"You won't need that," he said hurriedly, receiving a curious glance. "We used a boat to get here, you can come with us."
"No harm in having it with me," Korra retorted, tension rising between her and the two guards. They both gave her a look of contempt, but said nothing as she kept the glider and led her out to the motorboat. The short trip only took a few minutes, and Korra hopped in the back of a wagon as soon as they got off the boat. She felt like a prisoner, un-ironically.
"What does Beifong want me for?" Korra asked on the way there.
"Top secret," they both have replied in unison. Korra's suspicion was growing, but if she ran from the police it would look very bad. Probably newbies, Korra reasoned, even though they looked old enough, giving them the benefit of the doubt.
When they arrived, Korra couldn't help but shake the feeling that everyone was watching her. Where's Mako? she realised suddenly. I have to tell him before Asami does. She raised the question of his whereabouts to her escorts, who were still walking beside her even though she had been through there countless times.
"Why?" he asked back. "What business do you have with Commander Mako?"
"He's my friend," she snapped. These guys wouldn't relax at all. "I've barely seen him at all over the last seven months."
"Not my problem," he denied her.
"Prick," she muttered under her breath, but ignored his glare when looked at her. After a few minutes of leading the way through the building, Korra finally arrived at Beifong's office. Her mood was considerably lighter with the prospect of work to take her mind off of her other problems.
"What's up?" she greeted to a stiff Beifong as she walked in, who was sitting at her desk. Korra rested her glider by the door. She heard a click as the guard from the outside locked it. "What's this all about?"
"Sit down," Beifong ordered. Korra obliged slowly.
"So, what's so urgent?" Korra asked, a little bit of challenge in her question.
"I didn't bring you here for a job," Beifong revealed, getting straight to the point. "I need you to answer me in full honesty from here on out Korra, or else things could get very ugly."
"I've got nothing to hide," Korra accepted, her heart rate rising.
"Good, because there were very concerning testimonies from the Triple Threats you single-handedly brought down over a month ago."
Korra's heart skipped a beat. She knows. Does she? No, I'm a lot more reliable than the Triple Threats, they'd take my word over theirs' any day.
"They all claimed that you used bloodbending to subdue them, and our top truth see-ers have all reported that they were telling the truth," Beifong stated, still keeping up a piercing stare, which Korra avoided.
"That's nonsense!" Korra said, trying to laugh it off. She curled her hair around her index finger subconsciously. "I was never taught how to bloodbend, Katara went crazy the only time I asked her to teach me! Why would you believe them over me? And didn't you interrogate them ages ago?"
"We planned on dismissing it as a sign of faith and not bothering you with it despite my general opinion which is that no-one is above the law," Beifong continued, "but then when we were just about finishing up, an anonymous tip was sent that said you bloodbent them, and this was while they were still all in custody."
That rules out Asami, Korra thought, but she didn't think of why they had waited so long if that were the case. "And?" she asked, trying to sound impatient when she was in fact a nervous wreck.
"I just thought that I should bring it up to you," Beifong said, as if exasperated at being bothered to have to have this conversation at all.
"My final answer is no," Korra answered definitively.
"I obliged to ask you this next question," Beifong said. "Have you bloodbent anyone since then, or even before it?"
"Never," Korra replied with a slight hesitation, and her worst fears were amplified when Beifong slapped her forehead.
"God dammit Korra!" Beifong shouted, and pointed a finger at the water tribe woman. "We had surveillance on you last night, and my men say that you bloodbent Asami Sato! You're in deep shit!"
Korra tried to object, but couldn't find the right words to. "For how long-"
"We've been spying on you every full moon since the raid. Not only were you bloodbending, you lied about it to me!" Beifong stood up, her palms planted against the desk, towering over Korra.
"Do you know what we were fighting about?" Korra asked worriedly, wanting to know if Beifong's men had included her big secret in their report.
"I don't care about what it was, it would never justify a waterbender, nevertheless the Avatar, using bloodbending especially beside a body of water against a nonbender!" Beifong yelled, misinterpreting Korra's question as an excuse to get her out of her predicament. Korra didn't breathe a sigh of relief though.
"I'm sorry," Korra confessed, and Beifong rolled her eyes. "I wasn't thinking straight, it was-"
"I'd think you knew exactly what you were saying to me a few moments ago!" Beifong berated even louder. "And to add to that, you've also got a charge of domestic abuse against your girlfriend!"
"What's my punishment?" Korra asked timidly. She knew that the punishments for bloodbending went from eight to twenty five years in prison, but she didn't want to be second-guessing.
"You've got a lot of good credit stored up," Beifong admitted. "But you're still facing time, and I'd say you'd be lucky to get under five years!"
"Was this all planned?" Korra asked, trying to change the subject somehow, even though that was Beifong's very first line. "You sent cops to escort me because you thought I'd run away?"
"I already told you that," Beifong answered, not falling for it, and she shot a cable at close range which wrapped around Korra's right wrist. Korra stood up and grabbed the cable with her right hand, pulling back.
"Let me explain!" she asked, her voice raising louder now too.
"Don't make this harder on yourself," Beifong ordered, and shot her other cable at Korra's left hand. Korra was expecting it though, and caught in cleanly. She felt the metal burning her flesh as she fought against Lin Beifong in a tug of war. Korra may have been the Avatar, but she was no more than a skilled metalbender, and Lin Beifong was one of the best in the world. Korra heard the door handle rattle as the guards outside unlocked it and began to come in. They'd clearly been expecting resistance.
"LET ME GO!" Korra yelled, and snapped the wires in half. Beifong stumbled back from putting all her weight in the tug of war, as Korra brought both her hands to the opposite ear, and cut downwards, unleashing two blunt slices of air. They collided with the Chief of Police and she flew into the wall, getting winded with the impact.
The door slammed open and the two cops took a second to take everything in, the one and only Lin Beifong slumped against the wall. This was one second too late though. Korra spun on her heel, reached out with her hands, and tugged them back. The two guards were blown in and Korra stepped out of their path just in time to hear them smash into Beifong. But she didn't bother admiring the view, and ran up to the now open door, grabbing her glider on the way out. She burst into the office where everyone had stood up, and had their fists up ready for a fight.
"Don't make this harder on yourself, Avatar!"
"Bloodbending scum!"
"Why do you have create a new problem every time you fix one?"
"It's just a big misunderstanding, trust me," Korra said generally, hoping for a dip in the hostility. She didn't get one.
"You don't run this city, Avatar!" a detective shouted, and threw a volley of water at her. Korra realised that she didn't have the time to convince them of her good will, and swiped her glider hard at everything in the room at once. A wall of air was let loose and everyone had their attack cancelled out as they were smacked back into the walls with all their desk and papers. Korra heard more men coming up the stairs, and cursed. The only exit was blocked, and she didn't have enough energy to fight a whole squad of metalbenders. A ray of light caught her eye from the window. An idea hit her.
"I guess I'll just have to make a new way out," she announced, and went over to the window. It was too small to squeeze through in a hurry even if she removed the glass. So instead, she punched the wall and a hole large enough for three people was blasted open with a mix of metal and firebending. She jumped through as a flurry of shouts followed her out and started flying on her glider.
She grimaced as pains started to flare up in her belly once again. Those few moves had already taken a lot out of her. Gliding was second nature for an experienced airbender though, so she flew up on top of a skyscraper across the station without any trouble. She glanced down at the street, where confusion was quickly starting to spread. And just as she took that in, ten metalbenders landed on the roof. She spun, put on a tough face and pointed her glider at them menacingly, daring them to make the first move.
"You're not helping yourself, Avatar," the leader said, pointing his finger in retaliation to her glider. "Turn yourself in!"
"Doesn't anything I've ever done in the past for Republic City count for me now?" Korra asked, trying to find sympathy.
"You ask the judge!" another man said, and shot his cable at Korra. The others joined in half a second later, and Korra raised a small semi-circle barrier of the roof to protect herself. Several chinks rang out at the same time as the granite was impaled, and most of it was ripped away from her on the pull-back. Korra used airbending to vault herself to the left-most cop, and landed a foot away from him.
"Damn you!" he condemned, and sliced his free cable at her. She ducked under it and bent the metal around his arms to behind his back. He let out a gasp and she brought the full force of her heel into his chest plate. He was engulfed his flames for a moment before being launched into the next three officers and throwing them off the edge. Korra knew they'd be okay, but she couldn't go easy on them.
A block of granite clipped her left shoulder and she grunted, not giving them anymore appreciation than that. She jumped, glided over to the man who had just attacked her and pointed her toes. She then brought her toes up to her chest, legs straight, a column of fire forming after her foot. It brushed away his wires which were heading for Korra and smashed into him.
Another wire snagged her ankle, catching Korra off guard momentarily. She managed to hang onto her glider and dragged the metal covered cop across the roof with her foot using metalbending. He didn't reel it back though, and she was brought down abruptly. She snapped the cable with her hands, and then thrust an inferno his direction. He barely had enough time to raise a wall to protect himself, and was blown off the roof by the explosion of his wall in front of him.
"You're in trouble Avatar!" one of the remaining cops yelled at her. She floated her glider into her hands using airbending, which she'd dropped a few feet away, and doggedly watched for their next move.
Suddenly, the siren of an airship sounded around the area, and Korra spotted one heading towards them. She also noticed the amount of cops pouring out of the station. It was too far up to see faces, so she couldn't see if Mako was there. That number would be too much for her to handle. Maybe in full health, and with the Avatar State, she might have been able to ward them off, but if this fight continued, she'd be defeated in a matter of minutes. She was already feeling tired from her current exertion. There was only one place left she could escape to.
"Give yourself in and we might remove resisting arrest from your report," another one bluffed, but Korra saw through it immediately. She couldn't hand herself in now, when she'd assaulted countless officers.
"I don't have the time for this!" she announced, and inhaled deeply, knowing she'd need a lot of energy for this next stunt. She launched three strong air jabs at her three closest enemies – no, opponents - and a huge fireball at the closest. It covered the entire rooftop, and the guards erected walls from the roof to protect themselves. But when the smoke cleared, Korra was gone.
She flew away as fast as she could, which was nearly as quick as a hard pace would be for her usually. She flew alongside Kyoshi Bridge as wagons trailed after her, but themselves and the airship were no match. She reached the entrance of the spirit portal after seven minutes, and landed in a heap.
"What's the issue, Avatar?" a moose-eel spirit with a creaky tone asked, landing beside her.
"I'm being hunted," she replied after a few moments. "By the law enforcement."
"Do you plan to head to the spirit world in evade them?" it asked, its voice making Korra want to clear her own throat even though she was speaking just fine.
"Yeah," she answered truthfully.
"I will not stand for any more humans casually wandering into the spirit world like they own it!" it lectured her, and she groaned. Whenever she found a solution to a problem, it was generally followed by a problem specifically because of her solution. The universe hated her.
"What do you suggest I do then?" she retorted.
"Close the portal for good!" the spirit demanded, and Korra blinked.
"Close it? But that would create even more issues, and this time with the airbenders, the only group of people that don't hate me," she responded. "No! That's crazy! Why would I ever-"
She was cut off by a speaker blaring across the vines, and she diverted her attention to the ten wagons that had just pulled up outside the vines' reach. Dozens of officers poured out. In there, she spotted Mako. Her heart dropped, remembering that she still hadn't told him that he was to be a father.
"Avatar Korra, you are under arrest for numerous charges," a high-ranking officer's voice sounded. "Nobody, not even the Avatar, is above the law. Come silently before you make this any worse."
"What do you value more, Avatar?" the moose-eel prodded, and Korra dug her heel into a vine in frustration. She was beaten.
"I'm closing the portal," she announced.
"Perfect," the moose-eel spirit said, and vanished, probably back to the spirit world. It was a good thing that they didn't need to portal to come and go as they wanted.
Korra jumped through. When she emerged on the other side a few moments later, she drew in all the spiritual energy she could, which very strong given the fact she was next to a portal, and placed her palm flat on the semi-sphere. She felt an enormous rush of power plough through her chi network, and nearly fell over, but she gritted her teeth, and continued the sealing. The Avatar State, which had been inaccessible ever since fight Triple Threat fight, rose into action and helped her stay focused. She nearly blacked out as the beacon going up into the sky slowly got smaller.
After about ten seconds, it snapped shut, along with the Avatar State, and she collapsed, on the ground, her energy wiped clean. She didn't even have enough time to register that she was falling, as a welcome slumber swallowed her up.