Avatar: The Legend of Korra

Followers of the Black God

Chapter Four


Korra's first night at Air Temple Island had not been relaxing, simply due to the fact that she could scarcely contain her excitement even when she lay down in bed. She was going to be allowed to stay in Republic City, and learn airbending from the master himself! True, Tenzin had said that pro-bending matches were off-limits, but Korra would see about convincing him later. Once she had earned of his respect and trust, she was sure it wouldn't be hard to convince him to let her take a tiny little incognito trip to the arena.

But first she had to earn his respect and trust. And to do that, she had to impress him tomorrow with her will to learn airbending.

And to do that, she needed to sleep.

That thought finally calmed Korra's mind, and, at just a few minutes before two am, she was able to fall asleep.

But not for long.

Tenzin, his family, and the White Lotus garrison that protected them woke up before dawn, and it seemed that while Korra was staying at Air Temple Island, she wouldn't be exempt from this… strict regimen. Still, it wasn't too much worse than how it was at the South Pole; there, Korra was obligated to wake up just after noon and meet the day with calisthenics and bending exercises before she was allowed to have breakfast.

At least here, Korra would be able to wake up and relax, to a degree. She broke fast with Tenzin and his family and then spent some fifteen minutes exploring Air Temple Island with Naga. After that, she was told to meet Tenzin at a small sunroom set on a cliff-like outcropping not far from his house.

Korra arrived, dressed as an airbender, and found that the exercise she had apparently come to participate in had already began. Tenzin and his children were sitting quietly with their backs perfectly straight, and it didn't take long for Korra to guess what they were doing.

They were meditating. This sort of thing was extremely important to airbenders, and if Korra wanted to bend air, she'd have to do it, too.

As silently as she possibly could, Korra slipped into place next to Meelo. She imitated the posture each of the airbenders were in, and, after a moment, shut her eyes and…

…And just what was she supposed to do, exactly?

Korra had been sitting still for all of ten seconds when she realized that while she'd read about the theory of meditating—err, somewhat—throughout her years at the South Pole, no one had ever really shown her how to meditate. That was to say, some of her teachers had told her about the power of meditation; her late firebending master in particular has urged her to meditate on a number of occasions… but Korra had never actually attempted meditation before. It was, to her, just another part of the spiritual pantheon of mumbo-jumbo that she'd never understood.

But then again, Tenzin was Mr. Spiritual, so if there was something that she ought to know before meditating, she was sure that he'd tell him. Maybe she was supposed to simply sit still in silence, and it would just click.

So, for a few minutes, Korra did sit still. She didn't say a word, barely moved a muscle… and she felt nothing at all. She didn't calm down; if anything, she felt herself grow more and more bored and more and more eager to get up and hit something.

Korra glanced at the airbenders sitting next to her. Then, she let her posture fail and shook her head.

"I think I'm doing it wrong," she said.

"There's nothing to do," Tenzin said, and without opening his eyes, he managed to fix a stern glare on Korra. "Just… let your mind and your spirit be free, as air is the element of freedom."

Korra twitched. She then attempted to meditate again, allowing herself to slip into a state of consciousness that was not her own…

"Yeah, not working," she said some seconds later. "I'm going to go and get some lychee juice."

As Korra stood up to leave, she heard Ikki ask to join her, only to be curtly turned down by her father. That made Korra wonder why she was being allowed an exemption from meditation, but not for long.

She was allowed to get her lychee juice, all right. After that, though, the training Tenzin put her through made meditation seem like a vacation.


They trained from early in the morning to late in the afternoon without breaking for a meal. That didn't suit Korra; she had been forced to train hard and eat properly from a young age, but Tenzin had said that fasting was good for the kind of things they'd attempt to do. He had explained that when one fasted, it helped one realize just how different the body and the spirit were, and eased the separation of the two.

Korra hadn't understood it at the time. And now, as the Sun hung low in the sky, she still didn't understand it.

She was exhausted from the difficult day and the lack of food. Tenzin had put her through her paces in ways that she had never been pushed before. Rather than having her attempt feats of physical strength or endurance, he had had her focus on her balance and her agility. He'd had her walk on tightropes, dodge folded pieces of parchment he sent toward her with miniscule bursts of air, and then he'd had her attempt meditation again.

But this time, she'd attempted meditation in a squatting position with teacups carefully balanced on her head, shoulders, thighs, and her outstretched arms.

Tenzin had explained that by straining her body but allowing her mind to be calm and relaxed, she'd find it easier to realize the difference between the physical and the immaterial. What he hadn't anticipated was that Korra found it impossible to strain her body without at least taxing her mind.

The result was that, some ten minutes later, Korra lost her balance and fell, shattering the fine china into a million tiny pieces.

To his credit, Tenzin didn't get upset. He simply nodded, as if accepting that things were the way they were, and told Korra that they'd trained enough for that day, and, more importantly, there were a number of issues that he had to deal with. So, she was free for about two hours before she'd be expected for dinner, and after that, she would be free for another few hours before she'd have to go to sleep.

After all, Tenzin had said, this had just been their first day of training, and Korra had just gotten her feet wet. Tomorrow, the real work would begin.


Dinner helped Korra relax, at least to a degree. The training Tenzin had put her through had pushed her, and not in the ways that she was used to being pushed. She could fight, she could run, she could do any number of physical feats, but the careful combinations of agility, balance, and mental testing that Tenzin had put her through were entirely different from anything she'd ever had to do in her life until then.

Already, the sky was darkening. Korra was sitting with her back resting against Naga's side on a rocky outcropping some distance from the section of Tenzin's house that was reserved for her. That was one thing she could appreciate about Air Temple Island—it was luxurious and beautiful, and Korra's responsibilities towards its upkeep were essentially nonexistent. Back in the South Pole, she'd had to keep her room clean, but here, the small army of maids and servants that Tenzin employed took care of all that for her.

She didn't have to worry about security, either. And in that regard, Air Temple Island wasn't any different from the South Pole. In fact, Air Temple Island was starting to get even more secure than the South Pole.

Jinora had mentioned that White Lotus had always protected her and her family, but ever since Korra had come to join them, precautions had been increased, almost to the point of paranoia. There had always been 24/7 sentries and guards posted at Air Temple Island's port, and the garrison of guards that protected the area was housed near enough that they were essentially on-call every minute of every day.

Now, there were 24-hour guards posted everywhere, and at night, some of Oogi's brethren were appropriated by the White Lotus every hour to fly around the island, just in case.

The place was as impregnable as the South Pole had been, and the knowledge that she'd be watched closely again, from dawn until dusk until dawn again, made Korra feel very tired all at once. So, she stood up, turning away from the view of the city across the water, and made her way back to her quarters. As she did, she made sure to announce to some of the White Lotus guards nearby that she'd be turning in for the day. She then patted Naga on the haunch and retired to her room, where she stayed…

For about an hour.

Of all the majestic buildings in Republic City, the CIB's was one of the most… peculiar.

It wasn't built like most of them, with flowing contours and the pagoda-shaped roofs that had been the style preferred by Fire Nation architects for an eon. It also wasn't like the simple but bold castles that the Earth Kingdom had adored for centuries.

In some ways, it was similar to the militaristic blocks that defined fortresses in the North Pole. But in most ways, the CIB's headquarters, just a few blocks offset from the administrative center of Republic City, was in a class by itself.

It had been designed by a military man, a northern waterbender who had lost both of his legs and the use of an arm during the Hundred Year War. Etched into the massive pieces of stone and metal that formed the intimidating entrance to the headquarters were distant reminders of the pain the man had suffered, and Tenzin felt a chill every time he got close to the building, no matter how often he went there. It was a behemoth, a twenty-story building that covered a whole city block. It wasn't just the CIB's headquarters, it was its training area, its classrooms, and where it housed the several hundred men and women it employed.

In many ways, the CIB headquarters was a perfect example of putting all of one's eggs into one basket. In this case, though, Tenzin didn't see any problems with putting all of one's eggs into one basket, because that one basket was so heavily defended that to attempt to infiltrate it would be to demand death.

It was, quite possibly, the safest place on the planet.

It was also one of the creepiest.

For reasons that Tenzin couldn't fathom, CIB headquarters weren't fully lit. The lights that lined the winding, mysterious hallways were dim at best, and at worst, it was difficult to tell if one was in a hallway or simply in a black depth or empty space. Worse yet, CIB officials constantly changed rooms, as if to intentionally irritate or confuse their few visitors, so Tenzin was reduced to having an escort every time he came to see someone.

Maybe that was why they changed rooms so often—so that they had an excuse to have one of their members with him all the time.

Still, Tenzin trusted the CIB. Its members were often creepy, and sometimes, the ideas they posited to deal with the problems as defined by the Council were shocking, but they were neutral in every sense of the world. They were given problems and they tried to think of ways to solve them, and it was up to the Council to insert ethics into the equation. Just as long as the CIB obeyed the Council, Tenzin had no quarrel with them.

He kept this in mind as he entered the office of a man he'd always had problems with: the director of the CIB.

"Huang," Tenzin greeted him simply, "tell me about developments in the investigation into Quan So's assassination, and its relationship to the continuing investigation into the Followers of the Black God."

That was how Huang liked to be approached: with a brief, simple greeting, and an unambiguous explanation of what was to be discussed. He wasn't a tall man at all, and he was a nonbender, but there was a strange air of something very close to malice about him. He was, after all, the one responsible for ordering disappearances in the night, censorship, and some of the more sensitive security measures that Republic City and the rest of the United Republic of Nations had in place, and he was also a man who had had to struggle and fight for everything he had.

For that reason, he was an incredibly competent and qualified individual. He was just creepy—that was all.

"We haven't found anything else related to Quan So's assassination," Huang said. "No one has taken responsibility for it, and we have not ruled out the possibility that it was done by someone other than the Followers."

"Who else has the motive and means to kidnap and torture a police chief—and then dump him back into the street?" Tenzin asked. "Did Quan So have any enemies? Triad activity where he was stationed was not significant. Who else would have burned him and then left him in the street? Who else would send a message like that?"

"No one," Huang said, "that we know of. However, Quan So seems to have had a… difficult past, so we're investigating any potential criminal contacts he may have had. It seems that he has a history of being… unpleasant toward the Sarrakan community, and that may have led the Followers to attack him, but we cannot confirm that at this point."

Tenzin sighed. In far more words than were necessary, Huang had simply said, "We don't know that it was the Followers, but we have no other suspects and no reason to believe that there are any other suspects."

"Keep investigating Quan So," Tenzin said. "I assume there were no witnesses surrounding his capture, or his return? None at all?"

Huang shook his head. Then, after a pause, he spoke.

"None will come forward," he replied, "but the police station is surrounded by Sarrakan-owned properties. One of them may have seen something, but won't say anything. At your command, I could look into ways to loosen their tongues…"

"Out of the question," Tenzin said with a sudden hardness in his voice. "And do not speak of such things to me again. The Constitution of the United Republic of Nations explicitly forbids what you're talking about. If you try anything like that, it won't matter if you get any information or not—you'll be sentenced to death, and I assure you that there will be at least one Council member who will refuse to pardon you. You will be executed by your own colleagues, and there won't be anything anyone can do to stop it."

Tenzin paused. He took in a breath.

"Do not speak of such things to me again."

"Of course, Councilman Tenzin," Huang said after only the slightest pause. He simply sat at his desk with his back straight and his hands neatly folded before him. "I would never dream of violating your explicit orders, or our Constitution. The intelligence community of our city is incapable of such activity."

Tenzin's eyes narrowed, before he realized that the director of the CIB was far too serious and severe of a man to taunt anyone, let alone one of the very few people who had the power to knock him off of his high horse.

"Have CIB agents, or the Metalbending Police, been able to develop any contacts within the Sarrakan community?"

Tenzin asked that, but he knew what the answer was even before Huang started to shake his head.

"We haven't," the CIB director said. "Furthermore, passive forms of surveillance have been failing. We've sent undercover agents into Sarrakan communities, but we believe they're continually compromised within minutes. We've dressed them like waterbenders, earthbenders, firebenders, and even Sarrakans, but the moment they enter the streets, everyone seems to know who they are. Everyone seems to know that they don't belong there, so their efforts get nowhere. The Sarrakans are too exclusive and too united to be penetrated."

"What about community outreach programs?" Tenzin asked. "We've attempted those in the past, and they were met with more success, weren't they?"

This time, Huang nodded.

"We've organized a few gatherings around Sarrakan and other communities. Members of the older generation never show up, but we have had some young Sarrakans come and play games with Metalbending Police and some other government figures. The moment the regular police or the CIB get involved, however, is the moment that the Sarrakans stop showing up completely. They seem to be friendly enough to get along with some government figures on a day to day basis, but… years of mistreatment by the standard police, and my own organization, have made it difficult for them to trust anyone. At this stage, Sarrakans are even hesitant to trust common earthbenders—not even earthbenders, but common nonbenders from the Earth Kingdom. Fostering positive relations within that community will take years of work."

That was one thing that Tenzin liked about Huang—he was realistic, and held no delusions whatsoever about how continued pressure from the CIB and continued oppression by the regular police shaped the opinions of Sarrakans. He seemed to appreciate that whenever the CIB took new steps to fight against the Followers of the Black God, they were playing with fire—they had to work against the Followers, of course, but if the Sarrakan community felt attack, more of them would lend their support to the Followers.

It was a very difficult situation, and there were no obvious answers. Well… perhaps there were.

"Have you thought about cracking down on police brutality?" Tenzin asked. "The CIB and the Metalbending Police are charged with the responsibility of dealing with corruption in law enforcement, and there's no doubt that many members of the regular police force constantly mistreat Sarrakans."

"We are, that's true," Huang said, slowly brining a slim hand to his face. He thought, for a moment, before speaking again.

"The CIB is currently understaffed, however. We have a lot on our plates in addition to the Followers case—triads, ethnic gangs, Burning Dawn, investigations into white collar crime. May I respectfully suggest that you charge Chief Beifong with investigations into police brutality? Her organization is much more suited toward that kind of work, and it'll leave my agents free to continue to investigate the Followers, and the other groups we're interested in."

Tenzin nodded a few times.

"I understand," he said. "May I inform Lin that your organization will fully support her investigations in any way that she sees fit?

There was the briefest pause before Huang nodded.

"Certainly, Councilman Tenzin. The CIB will be proud to fight police brutality—"

"Police brutality? Who are you talking about such nonsense to, Huang—ah, Councilman Tenzin. I should have known."

The head of the United Republic Council had entered the room without a word of warning, and when he did, Huang stood up instantly. Tenzin remained seated, however, as Tarrlok, Chairman of the Council, approached the two men already in the room.

"Gentlemen," he said coolly with a broad smile that Tenzin had never been able to trust, "it's good to see you both again. Especially you, Tenzin—I thought that you'd be settling into the South Pole by now."

"You know that the situation demands that I remain here, Tarrlok," Tenzin replied. "Besides, now that the Avatar is in Republic City, there is no reason for me to be anywhere else."

"So it's true—the Avatar is in Republic City," Tarrlok repeated. "I never thought I'd hear those words so soon…"

He smiled, and this time, Tenzin trusted his smile. Tarrlok had long looked forward to the presence of Korra in Republic City, because he'd heard about how powerful she was for years. With her on his side, he believed that he could bring the Followers of the Black God to justice in a month, and get the whole Sarrakan community under control in a year.

"Anyway," Tarrlok said abruptly, "what are we talking about?"

"I have just updated Councilman Tenzin on our ongoing investigations into Quan So's assassination, and its likely relation to the Followers of the Black God," Huang said. "We briefly discussed our options in dealing with the Sarrakan community's… insular nature, and Councilman Tenzin suggested that the Metalbending Police be ordered to focus on ending brutality and abuse by the regular police force, with the complete support of the CIB."

Tarrlok flushed. He leaned back in his chair and brought his fingertips together, almost glaring at Huang.

"And your opinion about this is…?"

"It's a reasonable suggestion," Huang said. "The CIB and the Metalbending Police are charged with dealing with corruption in the regular police force, and if we're able to foster good relations with the Sarrakan community, we may be able to make develop contacts. We may even be able to defuse the entire Followers of the Black God movement, if it is indeed an expression of popular outrage and distrust toward the government. And we can do it all without passing any new laws or creating any more controversial programs that could turn the Sarrakan community against us."

"But the Sarrakan community is against us," Tarrlok said, looking at Huang with a strange expression on his face. "They always have been, from before the first one of them set foot in this city. They've historically been the enemies of civilization and progress in the world, just ask any other person of northern heritage. These are not people like us, and we can't expect for them to respond well to anything we do."

Tenzin felt himself twitch.

"Tarrlok, is it not true that after the first wave of the Followers of the Black God was defeated, the Metalbending Police charged several dozen police officers—not just officers, but local chiefs—with crimes against the Sarrakan community, such as murder, assault, and extortion? Is it not true that for a few years during the prosecution, the Sarrakan community caused no problems in Republic City?"

"So it would seem," Tarrlok replied, slowly turning to face the other Council member. "But I think you're reading things wrong, Tenzin. The reason the Sarrakans calmed down after the first wave of the Followers was that they'd had their fun. That's as simple as it is."

Tenzin didn't respond to that. He just stared at Tarrlok to make it clear how strange he thought the other man's opinions were. Briefly, Tenzin glanced at Huang, and he was glad to see that the director of the CIB didn't find Tarrlok's explanation particularly convincing.

"It's simply a waste of time to shift Metalbending Police resources towards dealing with the nonexistent problem of police brutality," Tarrlok said calmly. "They should be focusing on real issues, like the Followers, triads, or Burning Dawn."

"Regardless of your opinion on how pressing the issue of police brutality is in this city," Tenzin said, "the Constitution of the United Republic of Nations makes it clear that it is the responsibility of the Metalbending Police and the CIB to deal with police brutality. So, I will formally instruct Head Chief Lin Beifong and Director Xiao Huang to do their duties. I will regard any attempts to stop me as attempts to engage in unconstitutional activity… and all that that implies."

Tarrlok's eyes narrowed, but he still managed to grin.

"The Constitution of the United Republic of Nations… why do you so revere that tattered piece of paper, Tenzin? It's decades out of date. If we want to live, we have to look at it as a living document, and interpret it to suit the needs of the modern world."

"That tattered piece of paper is the legacy of my father," Tenzin says, "and it has proven to be the only conceivable way in which people of every caste, creed, religion, race, and nation can live together in the same country. As I said, Chairman Tarrlok, I will regard any attempts to stop me from instructing the CIB and the Metalbending Police to do their job as unconstitutional, impeachable offenses. The Council will not look kindly on those who violate the Constitution, Chairman—you know that."

Tarrlok's eyes narrowed even further. And this time, he did not manage to grin.

"You can instruct the CIB and the Metalbending Police to do their jobs," Tarrlok finally said, "but so can I. And, as Chariman of the United Republic Council, I can tell the CIB and the Metalbending Police how to do their jobs. I can even tell them how to prioritize things, and that they are to ignore miniscule or nonexistent issues in order to focus their attention on real, serious problems… instead of wasting time and resources investigating unsubstantiated claims."

Tenzin didn't respond to that, because he couldn't. It was true that the Chairman of the Council had more power than the rest of the members, and apart from that… well, no one could seriously doubt that there were problems between the police and the Sarrakan community, but the other Council members were often swayed by Tarrlok's persuasive words. A few fiery speeches here, and few pleas and promises there, and they could well be convinced to close their eyes to the fact that Sarrakans sometimes responded with violence to police aggression—not the other way around.

"Huang," Tenzin said, although his eyes were fixed on Tarrlok's, "the Constitution is clear; you are to listen to and obey Chairman Tarrlok, given that you aren't ordered to do anything that would violate the law, your conscience, or your judgment as director of the CIB. With that said, I'd like your opinion—if we were to divert some resources away from lesser threats to Republic City, such as Burning Dawn, and use them to crack down on police brutality… would we see results in the Sarrakan community? Would we defuse the popular resentment that powers the Followers of the Black God?"

Huang was silent for a moment, but it wasn't because he was a political man. Certainly he was smart enough to realize that responding to Tenzin's question one way or the other would have ramifications for his career, and whatever kickbacks he got at the end of it, but for some reason—even Tenzin wasn't sure what it was—Huang simply didn't play that way. He did his job to the best of his ability, and if his opinions made him unpopular with politicians, that was just something that he dealt with. Any answer he gave to Tenzin and Tarrlok, then, would be the complete, unambiguous, total truth.

"I cannot be sure," he said after a few seconds, "but that's simply because we haven't tried anything like this since before I was with the CIB. So much can change in several generations, but if we are reading things correctly that Sarrakans are severely displeased with the police… then we do stand a good chance of taking the rug out from under the feet of the Followers if we can eliminate, or simply reduce police brutality.

"Chairman Tarrlok," Huang said after a pause, "I'd like to formally request your permission to investigate police brutality in Republic City. Please rest assured that the CIB will not scrutinize any departments where there doesn't seem to be a pattern of abuse, but know that we have every intention of doing our jobs."

Tenzin tried not to smile. He thought he'd won the round for sure until Tarrlok glared at Huang and spoke in such a dark tone that if Tenzin had had any hair on the back of his neck, it would have stood on end.

"Then do your job," Tarrlok growled, "and focus on real issues. The Followers. The triads. Burning Dawn. These are real threats, and concerns that you should be looking into, Director Huang. That is all."

Tarrlok stood up and moved to leave, but Tenzin stopped him.

"Tarrlok, you've heard what Huang said, and you know that no one can question his motives. We have a real chance to stave off the Followers strength without any more controversy or difficulty, and without a single further life lost. Do you really want to throw that chance away because it's not flashy enough to see you voted Chairman again next election?"

Tarrlok didn't respond to that. He simply looked at Tenzin with an expression on his face that couldn't be understood before leaving the room without any more ado.

Tenzin watched him leave, and knew that he could not let this stand. The Council would be hearing about what had happened in the CIB director's office for certain.


Although darkness had fallen, the level of near-paranoid vigilance that the White Lotus guards assigned to Air Temple Island maintained had not, and that made Korra's job difficult. Still, the obstacles she faced were far from insurmountable, given that the White Lotus was watching out for infiltration, not exfilitration. Getting back into Air Temple Island would take some acrobatics, but getting out of it was no more difficult than slipping into the bushes, waiting for a few moments, and then diving into the ocean.

From there, Korra had kept underwater, for some dozens of yards, before surfacing for air. She took the opportunity to check if she'd been spotted—she hadn't—so she set off toward Republic City at top speed.

And, given that she was a master waterbender, her top speed was quite a considerable speed indeed. By forcing the waves to propel her in a way that no nonbending swimmer could ever hope to move, she got closer and closer to her destination, faster and faster, before all at once she leaped out of the water and found herself on the doorsteps of one of the most famous, luxurious, and violent institutions in the city: the pro-bending arena.

Korra had been following pro-bending for some years, now, but there were no radio stations that served the South Pole. She read about pro-bending in newspapers, and the journalists that covered them were always careful to mention the injuries occasionally suffered by the contestants themselves. They were also careful to never mention that the fans suffered injuries with far greater frequency; in fact, matches often had to be delayed or even shut down due to rioting or brawling in the stands.

Even though Korra was still outside the arena, she could see how chaotic things were. Throngs of hundreds of people were collected outside to listen to what the announcer had to say; his voice was blasted out into the open air by a series of ultra-powerful megaphones set up around the arena. When he said something that they liked, they cheered, and when he said something they didn't like, they booed, and shouted, and swore with such hatred in their voices that it made Korra shiver.

And that was when she realized that the crowds were not on one side or the other, not exactly. Some of the crowds were for some teams, and other crowds were not. Like-minded fans stuck together, Korra observed, but now and then, little skirmishes would erupt—shouting matches that escalated into pushing—and sometimes, those little skirmishes would become brief but intense brawls before they were, thankfully, broken up.

As Korra made her way through the teeming masses, the filth, sweat, and excitement of the whole thing pressed in on her. Some men offered her drugs, some leered at her in a way that made her wince, and some of them were so heavily tattooed that Korra couldn't tell if they were smiling or leering or glaring or frowning when they looked at her. The whole thing was chaos defined and depravity in essence.

Korra loved every second of it.

She was glad, though, that she was so tall and well built. As a lone woman in such a crowd, a lot of unwanted attention was going her way, and it wasn't at all hard to imagine that some of the grimmer people in the crowd wouldn't hesitate to have their ways with her if they could. Some of them wouldn't hesitate to kill her and then have their ways with her, Korra realized, and that made her shiver before touching the shimmering black vest she wore under her clothes just to make sure it was still there.

Korra looked up when the crowds around her exploded in a series of jeers and swearwords, and that was when she realized that she was not the only one who was wearing that kind of a vest.

Perhaps twenty individuals were making their way through the crowd, and it was easy to tell by the way they walked that they were together. They were tightly grouped up as they made their way to the arena entrance, the taller, more muscular members of the group were on the outside of the pack whereas younger, smaller members of the group were on the inside. One or two women seemed to be with them, and whenever any insults or curses were thrown at them in particular, the group at large would seem to bristle and dare someone to attack them.

No one attacked them, though, despite the ferocity of the verbal spears hurled at them. Some members of the crowds outside of the arena didn't seem to care about these newcomers, but most were unhappy to see them. Some members of the crowd outright hated them and feigned attacks, pretending to lunge forward at the group as if begging to evoke a violent response.

Korra noticed little of this, though, and that was because she was too busy looking—no, staring at the newcomers.

And that was because the newcomers were the most beautiful people she had ever seen in her life.

They were fair of skin, but not in the same way upper-class members of the Earth Kingdom or Fire Nation were. These people were often extremely pale, ivory in complexion, even, and the darker-skinned members of their group had skin that was similar to an exotic mixture between the dark complexions Korra's own race had, and the subdued paleness of a upper-class Earth Kingdom noble.

And their facial features were like none Korra had ever seen in the past. They had powerful jaws, and some of the finest, most dainty noses Korra had ever seen in her life. Many had told her, in her life, that she was an attractive young lady, but Korra knew that even the least striking member of the group walking past her was far more beautiful than she ever would be.

Their hair was again rare, exotic, different, beautiful, like a unique gem in a sea of rocks and sand. It was straight but thick and it was red, a color Korra had never expected to see in hair ever before. Some of the men had darker hair that wasn't so very different from the very deep auburn one occasionally saw among members of hyperborean Fire Nation races; a rich, coppery umber that seemed to shimmer due to the dim lights leading up to the arena. But some of the more fair-haired men, and the women, had hair that Korra couldn't have compared to anything else but a fiery broth that served for the base of many soups commonly eaten by the Southern Water Tribe, and it was so remarkably different from anything else Korra had seen in her life that for more than a few seconds, she was struck.

And then someone shoved past her to throw a bottle at these beautiful people.

Korra was too surprised by the sudden act of violence that she couldn't stop the perpetrator, or pursue him before he disappeared into the crowds. That one thrown bottle, however, changed the situation from a tense standoff to something that was so close to an all-out battle in about a second.

The red-haired people bunched up and assumed fighting stances, and from the way they stood and moved Korra could see that they were preparing to use chi blocking techniques. She could also tell from their body language that while they had no particular desire to fight, they were fully prepared to use force to defend themselves—even the women, who until then had been carefully guarded, stepped forward and grimly surveyed the crowds before them.

No more bottles were thrown, but the ferocity of the insults hurled at the newcomers simply increased. People began to press closer and closer to them, and it seemed that things would certainly come to blows when, all at once, the situation was defused.

Burly men—older men, not young people or teenagers like the newcomers seemed to be—suddenly approached from the arena in a group of perhaps three dozen. These were tough men with scarred faces and fists the size of ham hocks, and they were mixed in race, appearance, and bending ability. Korra watched as they intimidated the crowd into giving them, and the red-haired people some space with shows of force that included fire blasts, earthbending techniques, and one or two water whips, before they circled around the red-haired young people and rapidly ushered them toward the arena.

It had taken minutes to build up and it had taken seconds to be calmed down. And seconds after that, the crowds returned to the drug dealing, swearing, cheering, and fighting that they had been doing until them.

Korra had never seen such hate rise so quickly out of nowhere, for no reason before, and she was shocked that people picked it up and left it behind so quickly that it was as if it was a natural response. The red-haired people had… had done nothing except for being beautiful, and being there, so why…?

It was then that Korra realized who the red-haired people were and why they were hated. They were Sarrakans, and if there had been any doubt about that in Korra's mind, it was destroyed when she realized that some of the taunts the crowd had shouted at them had included the name of their race, twisted and contorted so that it fit into cruel rhymes and chants.

Come to think of it, she had seen several of them wearing black garments under their coats that shimmered and flowed in a way that nothing else in the world did… nothing besides her own vest.

That made her brow furrow. She fingered that weightless, shimmering undershirt for a moment and thought about who had given it to her, as well as how strange he looked for someone who she had only ever thought of as being completely, 100% part of the Fire Nation's dominant ethnic group. He had been old, it was true, but in his face was evidence that decades ago, he'd been good looking. Maybe even more than good looking. Apart from that, his hair had been somewhat fair, and in certain lights, it had appeared to be fairer still than the deep brown it generally appeared to be.

Sometime soon, Korra would have to ask a few pointed questions about Zhao. She'd have to ask about his life, where he was from, and what his family's history was.

For now, though, there was a pro-bending match that she simply had to see. On the lips of every member in the crowd were the names of the next teams to compete: the Sea Devils and the Fire Ferrets.

Korra had heard a little about the Sea Devils, but she'd been following the Fire Ferrets for some time and knew that while they were greenhorns, each of their members were skilled fighters with a lot of potential. The chance to see them fighting life was that she couldn't pass up period, no matter that she didn't have a ticket to get into the arena.

She was the Avatar, and she'd just passed her firebending examination. She knew that where there was the will to do a task, there was the will to find a way that the task could be done.


It was surprising that despite the security precautions that the arena had taken to prevent any unauthorized entry, sneaking in hadn't been at all difficult for Korra. All she'd had to do was to swim a little bit and then perform a simple waterspout technique to make her way into a second floor window on the far side of the arena, and that was that.

She supposed that there were so few waterbenders in Republic City, and those who were there were so wealthy and well-connected that getting to a pro-bending match wasn't difficult at all. It therefore followed that any security precautions that were taken at the arena were geared toward, well, anything but the efforts of a skilled waterbender.

Regardless, though—she was in the arena. After years of dreaming and hours of wishing, she was actually inside the Republic City arena, where the best pro-bending teams in the world battled with one another almost every night. Better yet, she had arrived just in time to see the Fire Ferrets fight!... if only she could find her way to the stadium itself.

Korra was in a hallway, of some sort, and how clean and quiet it was suggested that it was rarely used, and even then, that it wasn't used by the general public. That concerned her, somewhat, because if someone found here there, she was likely to be stopped, questioned, and asked for her ticket stub. If that happened… she tried not to think about it and immediately began to move.

She made her way to where the roar of the crowd in the arena seemed the loudest, and that seemed to work. Within minutes she had slipped through a doorway that it didn't seem most people were supposed to past, but once she had she entered the crowds just outside it too quickly for anyone to notice, let alone inform security.

From there, it was a simple matter to find a door that led to the stadium itself. She knew which door it was, because it was vibrating on its hinges thanks to the sheer amount of noise that seemed to be waiting behind it.

Once Korra was in, she was almost overwhelmed by the sensory overload. The noise was, of course, so significant that too much exposure to it was certain to lead to permanent hearing damage, but apart from that, there was so much to see that Korra almost had to shut her eyes for a moment. There were so many people—thousands of them—and although the actual field was some distance from the stand, it was so isolated in the center of the stadium that it was easy to see what was going on. At the moment, however, no fight was actually taking place, so members of the audience were talking, eating, drinking, smoking, and, most importantly of all, fighting.

Korra seemed to have made her way into a more expensive section of seats, because the people near where she was were noticeably—well, cleaner than everyone else in the arena. Members of the Northern Water Tribe were common in that section of seats, so Korra didn't look out of place, and indeed was nodded to politely by several of the people she passed as she made her way to a vacant seat. There was an increased security presence in the area, and Korra knew that it wasn't because the people in these seats were likely to start fights with each other. Security was there to stop them from being mugged or mobbed by the rest of the audience.

And the rest of the audience was pretty rowdy. Even though they were between matches, just then, it seemed that lines between factions of different fans were almost battle zones. Bottles were thrown and insults were hurled constantly, and the whole stadium seemed to constantly be on the edge of brawling at any time. Security had a full-time job; even as Korra watched she could see the big men in their uniforms haul off the more violent, drunk members of the audience for formal arrest by police, or simply to back rooms in the stadium where they might be slapped around a bit before being thrown into the street.

One thing that Korra wasn't surprised to notice was that there were some Sarrakans in the stadium. She could pick them out of the crowds with ease, thanks to their hair, and also thanks to the fact that they were all sitting with one another, in the worst, dingiest part of the stadium, farthest from the playing field. She could see them all sitting down quietly and speaking to one another, even as the crowds around them howled insults and worse with startling frequency.

They were still doing nothing wrong, at least as far as Korra could see. They were just… sitting there and waiting for the match to start, and that itself seemed to offend their peers.

It was saddening to watch, and concerning, considering how outnumbered the Sarrakans were. Korra had seen that they seemed to be at least somewhat proficient with chi blocking, but the fact was that for every one of them, there were ten members of the crowd who might go at them. Add bending, chaos, and no obvious escape routes to the mix, and Korra was starting to feel that it was really irresponsible for them to even be in the arena. They were so hated that they really ought to leave...

That would have been the practical solution, Korra realized, but it would have been morally unacceptable. From a young age, Korra had had a very strong sense of right and wrong, and the idea of letting thugs and racists tell one how to live one's life made her grit her teeth.

The Sarrakans had every right to be in the arena. If they were attacked, they'd have every right to defend themselves—and for that matter, they'd have every right to Korra's assistance, because even though she had only barely heard of them for the first time a few days ago, and even though she had never met a Sarrakan in her life, she was their Avatar too.


"Korra is the Avatar," Tenzin said to himself, "and she's everybody's Avatar, even the Sarrakans'."

For that reason, maybe Korra was a rather spiritual being after all, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Maybe when she spoke, it wasn't just her speaking, but the collective wisdom of a thousand generations speaking through her. Maybe that was why she'd been able to convince Tenzin to let her stay and train with him at Air Temple Island, because it hadn't just been her convincing him, but the will of the Spirits themselves convincing him.

Maybe it was fated that Korra would learn airbending from him. Tenzin couldn't be sure of that, of course, but there was no doubt that he was growing to support Korra's presence in the Republic City. If nothing else, he knew that it would force the Followers of the Black God between a rock and a hard place, as they struggled to survive the greatest efforts of Republic City's intelligence and law enforcement services while engaging in guerilla activity designed to scare Korra out of the city.

They'd start to panic when they realized that Korra was still in the city. When they did, they'd be bold and hasty, and many people would die. But the Followers would be so bold and so hasty that they'd make mistakes, and the CIB would use these to rout the organization from whatever direction they were able to.

Or, alternatively, the Followers were much more powerful than anyone had anticipated and Korra's presence in the city would simply force them to speed up their plans. And that was bad, not just because Tenzin didn't know what their plans were, he didn't know what their endgame was.

Years ago, it had been clear that the various Followers of the Black God groups wanted for Sarrakans to be treated fairly by the city. Now, what the Followers wanted was less clear. They still wanted fair treatment for Sarrakans, but the CIB had contacts in the low-income neighborhoods surrounding Sarrakan communities. There were disturbing rumors, recently, of an increasing sentiment among Sarrakans that bending itself was evil and not only were Sarrakans entitled to equal treatment by the city, they were entitled to independence from the city.

That was nationalism, the antithesis to everything Republic City stood for.

Worse yet, that brand of nationalism was starting to gain a foothold in the rest of Republic City, too. There was Burning Dawn, of course, and there were several earthbending triads in the city who were starting to become less criminal and more political. The waterbenders kept to themselves by nature, and there were many parts of the city that were effectively miniature North Poles… and, of course, the only airbenders in the world lived alone, together, on their private little island.

Korra had been right when she'd said that the situation wasn't going to fix itself. If anything, the situation was getting worse… more dangerous, more complicated, more unknowable, and more unpredictable by the day. Something was coming soon, Tenzin thought with a grim sense of anticipation, or maybe it was several somethings. Whatever it was, or whatever they were, they would shake Republic City to its core and test the limits of the Constitution written to govern it not so very long before.

And Tenzin was supposed to know what to do and act on his conscience. The problem was that his conscience was being yanked in a million different directions at the same time.

The only solution in the short term, then, was to meditate. Maybe if he meditated for long enough, he could understand the Followers—and not just the Followers, but Burning Dawn, the city's underclass, the triads, and maybe even the Sarrakans themselves. After all, they had…

Actually, when Tenzin thought about it, he realized that the Sarrakan community had never exactly proven itself to be insular or exclusive. Sure, Sarrakans only married one another, but that was because no one married them. Apart from that, people of other nationalities walked through their neighborhoods without fear all the time, and Sarrakan culture itself placed a high value on courtesy, politeness, and hospitality.

Tenzin didn't know what he would do, but he knew what his father would have done in a situation like this. He would have gone to the nearest Sarrakan neighborhood then and there and he would have talked to anyone who would listen to him, but more importantly, he would listen to anyone who wanted to talk to him.

It was almost unbelievable that a situation so complicated and so tense could be defused or even destroyed just with dialogue. But no one had ever really tried to talk to the Sarrakans, not really. Sure, there were a few community outreach programs here and there, and sure, after the first wave of the Followers, the CIB and the Metalbending Police had cracked down on abuse and brutality, but no one had ever really spoken to the Sarrakans. They had precisely zero representation in the government—they were the one nation that didn't have a seat on the Council, even. They had no representatives with whom to voice their complaints, they had no police, they had no courts willing to sort out disagreements peacefully—they lived in Republic City, but they enjoyed none of the benefits of doing so. They barely even enjoyed the benefits of civilization, in many ways.

Maybe Tenzin really would go to the Sarrakan community someday. Aang would have gone alone and unarmed, and Tenzin would go unarmed… but he would have White Lotus bodyguards with him, because although he was willing to trust that the Sarrakan community wouldn't kill him on sight, he wasn't willing to trust that the Followers wouldn't do something violent to him at the first opportunity.

And maybe… maybe he'd bring Korra with him. She was the Avatar, after all, and she was their Avatar too. She was one of the very few people in the city who bore no prejudices against Sarrakans, and besides that, there was a legend, an old legend from the isolated communities of Sarrakans and Fire Nation tribes who lived in the far north of the Fire Nation. That legend said that there was a person from several worlds who would become the protector and leader of Sarrakans and at last give them a place in the world… a home, just for them, where no one would harass or kill them because of who they were.

Maybe Korra was that fated individual. Maybe it wasn't just fated that Korra was to stay with Tenzin in Republic City—maybe it was also fated that she was to be the one who gave Sarrakans their own country.


At last, the match was starting. At last, Korra would be able to see the Fire Ferrets live, in person, as they took on another pro-bending team.

It wasn't a moment too soon that the announcer bellowed that the match was on, either. The crowd was starting to get antsy, and as alcohol was drunk and drugs were smoked, Korra sensed a strange aura of uneasiness descend around the arena. She wasn't sure what it was, but it was making the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, and it was making her think that something bad was going to happen soon.

She must have been mistaken, though, because when it became clear that the match was on, the crowds rose as one and cheered. Benders, nonbenders, every race in the world and even Sarrakans took to their feet all at once and shouted to express their appreciation—and then the competitors themselves appeared.

Korra didn't recognize the Fire Ferrets' opponents, but the Ferrets themselves were unmistakable. The firebender, Mako, was a tall, brown-haired youth who had no eyes for the crowds, or the numerous women in the stands exposing themselves to him, but that was just his style. The newspapers had made it clear, a few times, that he was a stoic, quiet type, who responded to interviewers' questions with monosyllables or silence.

The waterbender was less sullen but every bit as intimidating. He didn't look very different from Korra at all, and that was because he was one of the very few Southern Water Tribe people to exist in Republic City.

The earthbender was the member of the team Korra was least familiar with, and that was because he was new. He'd only joined the Fire Ferrets a few months ago, after the original earthbender—Mako's brother, if Korra recalled correctly—had let pro-bending for some reason. The new earthbender was named… Jin, or something like that, and he was a big, broad-shouldered man who looked like he knew what he was doing. He also looked like he knew what he liked, because he bathed in the crowd's attention. He loved it, he craved it, and when he winked at some of the women trying to catch his eye, they swooned.

Korra paid little attention to this; the silly rituals leading up to the match held no allure for her, but the match itself did. And when it started, it was exciting, amazing, fast-paced and incredible. It was a hundred times better than what Korra could have expected, and a thousand times better than reading about a match in a newspaper.

Unfortunately for the Fire Ferrets, their enemies were veteran pro-benders. They were quick and agile, and for that reason, it was only a few moments before a one-two combo and then a well-timed earthbending attack knocked each of the Ferrets out of zone one.

Although the upper-class citizens around Korra maintained their composure, Korra stood up and shouted a loud, "Come on, Ferrets!" she hoped would inspire the team to fight back and win the round. However, the Tigerdillos knew how to find and exploit weaknesses, because when the Ferrets' waterbender moved too slowly or seemed off-guard, their earthbender struck him hard and knocked him all the way back into zone three.

A moment later, he was swept and then knocked off the field entirely.

The two remaining members of the Fire Ferrets were outnumbered, and though they attempted to defend themselves, there was only so much they could do to stave off the Tigerdillos' onslaught. The announcer enumerated each one of the powerful offensive maneuvers the Dillos used to force the remaining Ferrets into zone three, which gave them victory in round one.

There was a brief pause, then, as the teams reset and huddled to discuss their strategies for the second round. The Dillos only gathered briefly, and Korra guessed that they simply agreed to keep doing as they were doing, whereas the Ferrets seemed rather upset with their waterbender, and Korra could see why. In the past, he'd been a powerful member of the team, according to the articles she'd read, but that night… he just didn't have his mind in the game.

A chant to support the Fire Ferrets echoed from a distant part of the arena, and after a few moments, Korra joined in. She even got some of the audience member sitting near her to join in, until they realized who had initiated that tribal call.

The Sarrakans had, and they were still chanting in support of the Fire Ferrets then. Every last one of the red-haired young people in that distant corner of the arena was on his or her feet and calling for the Fire Ferrets to rally together and win the next rounds, and the match. Tigerdillo supporters didn't like that, of course, but Korra was surprised to see that Fire Ferrets supporters didn't seem to like it either. Legions of fans wearing red began to boo at the Sarrakans and tell them to shut up.

Korra was starting to realize just how much Republic City hated Sarrakans. She'd seen the expressions on the faces of the men and women sitting next to her when they realized that they were chanting along with Sarrakans; they were glares of pure disgust.

Fortunately, the Fire Ferrets seemed to be above the disgusting racism that the rest of the city, and even their fans, held so dear. Mako and the earthbender extended their fisted hands toward the Sarrakans in a sort of salute, and after a moment of prompting, the waterbender nodded at them in an impressively neutral manner. When he did that, in open defiance of the hundreds of years of hatred that his people felt toward Sarrakans, Korra felt an incredible sense of respect for him.

The second round of the match opened up with a sudden offensive that the Fire Ferrets couldn't respond to, and for that reason, they were each knocked back into zone two. They began to fight back as the Dillos advanced, however, and managed to beat them each into zone three with just seconds remaining in the round.

Now, the match was tied up and the audience was starting to get rowdy again. Although fans of different teams were separated by convention and security, the empty seats between them were starting to become battlezones. At the beginning of the match, bottles and insults had been hurled, but things were starting to get far more dangerous quickly. Now, particularly rambunctious fans were starting to use bending to lash out at opposing fans, and brawlers would attack one another with fists and feet every few moments.

Security was really doing a good job by keeping things from exploding into all out chaos. The match had to be delayed for them to be able to subdue the crowds with a sudden wave of arrests and threats, but now, almost every guard on duty was working on holding the line between Tigerdillo supporters and Fire Ferret supporters. Even the security detail assigned to the upper-class members of the audience had been reduced in order for additional manpower to be sent to the likely friction points, and as Korra looked on, she could see that every last security guard that had been posted near the Sarrakans had been called away.

She worried about that, but not for long. Her attention, and everyone else's attention, was now back on the match.

Again, the Tigerdillos opened things up with a salvo of mixed bending. The Ferrets had learned from the past two rounds, however, and each managed to dodge the initial attacks. The waterbender stumbled, however, and after being chased by a blast of fire from the opposing team, fell right into his own earthbender. Knocked down by the unexpected blow, the earthbender fell along with the waterbender, and each were helpless to defend or dodge the powerful earth striker that sent them both flying into the water.

Now, only the firebender was left, and even the most loyal Ferret fan was feeling dismayed. Mako was a great fighter, but even he had his limits and one of the Tigerdillos' attacks was bound to hit him—

Or perhaps not.

Despite the ferocity of the attacks directed at him, Mako remained untouched. He had room to move around and dodge, so he took advantage of it, ducking, dodging, rolling, and diving in all directions to evade the Tigerdillos' efforts. He didn't get a chance to counter any of their attempts, but the Dillos were tiring themselves out and wasting their ammunition.

And when they were sufficiently winded and low on ammo, Mako struck with all the force of a lightning bolt.

A jab. A cross punch. A wide, sweeping roundhouse kick.

Three Tigerdillos stumbled backward, off balance. Then, they were knocked back when Mako leaped into the air and struck downward with three rapid-fire punches. Unable to keep on their feet, they fell into zone two—

The bell signaling the end of the round sounded. Since Mako had gained territory and the Tigerdillos had not, he'd won the round…

Which meant that the Fire Ferrets had won the match.

A thunderous roar rose from the audience, and Korra rose with it. Mako had managed to win in the face overwhelming odds with a combination of incredible technical skill and the shrewd, strategizing mind that had allowed him to strike back just before the round was over. He'd pushed the Dillos back before they could respond and in doing so, he'd secured victory for himself and the Fire Ferrets.

It was the most incredible victory Korra had ever heard of. And that she'd been able to see it in person was making her, and the rest of the Fire Ferrets' fans ecstatic. They were all on their feet, shouting and chanting to celebrate the victory, and even the stoic, wealthy members of the crowd Korra was next to participated in the merrymaking. It had been a superb match, and that the Fire Ferrets had won had made it even better.

The Fire Ferrets supporters were happy, naturally. The Tigerdillos supporters, on the other hand, were not.

They shouted at the ref, insisting that Mako had attacked the Tigerdillos before the bell had gone off, or that he had cheated, but the uniformed observer said nothing in response to these accusations. He simply shook his head, indicating that his judgment would not be questioned, and that was when the Tigerdillos supporters got really mad.

Now, there weren't just occasional brawls on the fault lines between the opposing teams' fans. Now, the Tigerdillos' supporters went on an all-out offensive on the Fire Ferrets' supporters, and although the security guards were competent, professional individuals, they could only do so much when they were caught in the middle of everything. They were very nearly overwhelmed, and Korra could see several of the guards still protecting the wealthy fans around her shouting for someone to call the police before the whole arena was consumed in combat.

Korra needed to help. It was her duty as the Avatar, and she could tell just by looking at the blasts of water, fire, and earth emanating from the meager lines of security guards between the struggling masses that she was a better bender than all of them. If she got involved, she could help to defuse the situation…

Or she could escalate it and make it a hundred times worse. Already, a few individuals unlucky enough to have been grabbed by the crowds were being beaten, and that was bad, but if Korra entered the fray as apparently just another combatant, someone might well get killed. In a strange way, the whole thing was a game—a game in which people might get knocked around and even beaten unconscious, but a game nonetheless. Benders weren't using their powers so far, except for security, so it seemed that no one really wanted to cross the black and white line that separated normal people from killers.

Maybe the best thing to do, then, was to stand down and let the professionals handle it.

When Korra had that thought, she blinked and shook her head. Such a line of thought would never have occurred to her even a few weeks ago, before her fateful, final conversation with her firebending master. Back then, she hadn't known the mark of the Black God and the horror that it was to behold, and she hadn't known that despite how violent people appeared to be, most of them were simply not willing to unleash the power of the Black God onto other human beings.

Korra was about to allow herself to be ushered by security into a safer area when she saw fifteen or twenty earthbenders and waterbenders launch themselves into the air, bypassing a line of security guards entirely. As quickly as they could, they made their way to the one section of the audience behaving rationally just then: the Sarrakans.

And when Korra saw the hateful glints in their eyes, she knew that they were among the rare few members of society who were willing to kill. They were also among the rarer still members of society who wanted to kill.

They cast the first stones and took the Sarrakans by surprise with a vicious but unsynchronized onslaught of earth and water. Some of the red-haired youth closest to the benders were knocked back, bleeding and bruised, but then, they began to fight back. And they were good.

They were quick, they were agile, they were light on their feet and although they were nonbenders without any weapons, they managed to hold their own. They got in close to their enemies and struck them with bare fists and feet, putting bending skills and even entire limbs out of commission. They operated as a team and when some of the smaller, younger members of their group were knocked down, the more proficient fighters rallied around them and broke bones.

The Sarrakans were able to hold their own against an equal number of benders, but when the rest of the crowd saw what was going on, things went from chaotic to Hellish. Taking the melee as an invitation to beat or kill as many Sarrakans as possible, Fire Ferrets supporters leaped into the brawl, and the Sarrakans began to fall.

That was when Korra knew that she had to act.

She dashed down from the high stands where she'd been sitting and dived out of the seating area. She struck the water around the playing field at thirty miles per hour but launched herself out of it at forty, and so she came to her feet again amidst the Sarrakans.

For the briefest fraction of a moment, they almost set upon her. Then, she fought alongside them with earth and fire alike, beating back the racist attackers with brutal force and deadly efficiency.

Well… perhaps "deadly" wasn't the right word. Korra was violent and forceful, no doubt about that—she scorched skin and struck people with rock hard enough to knock the wind out of them, but she restrained herself. She restrained herself because no one had died yet, and she didn't want that to change—not that night, or any other night when she could do something to stop the Black God inexorable quest for human blood.

But she was a powerful enough bender that even with one hand metaphorically tied behind her back, she tipped the scales in the battle and secured the safety of the Sarrakans. She took a few blows of her own in the melee, but her own clothes—and the ultralight vest underneath them—protected her from serious injury. Korra had just beaten off a group of earthbenders when she saw a flash of water in the corner of her eye—

Then she went down, gasping from a terrible pain emanating from her lower rib.

She'd been struck with an icicle launched with such force that if it hadn't been for her vest, Korra would've been skewered. As it was, she'd been badly bruised and winded, and a stunned reflex prevented her from getting back to her feet immediately. As such, she was unable to defend herself—or, rather, she would have been if the Sarrakans hadn't stepped in front of her to stand against the waterbenders follow up attacks.

Korra was just starting to get to her feet when she saw one red-haired boy manage to sneak behind the violent waterbender. Once he was there, he tackled the waterbender to the ground, grabbed his head… and turned it in a direction that it simply wasn't designed to turn.

Korra shouted in horror and was about to launch herself to do something, do anything to save the waterbender, but it was too late. He was dead, and the Sarrakan who had killed him was interspersed in the crowd of his friends. And now that the Black God had shown its mark once, any final vestiges of restraint and playfulness had vanished from the combatants faces. They weren't going to hold back any longer—now, they were fighting to kill.

It was at this point that security members set themselves upon the Sarrakans and the final benders who continued to stand against them. They managed to pull apart the few remaining brawlers, and when the Sarrakans realized that the time for fighting was no more, they rallied together and allowed themselves to be ushered out of the stadium with Korra still in their midst.

Some of them were bleeding. Many of them were bruised. All of them, however, were alive, and this was despite that some of them had been attacked with knives or sharpened bits of earth. Korra could see that some of them had been stabbed and slashed so viciously that their clothes had come apart in some places, leaving only their skin to protect them—

Along with their vests. They were all wearing scaled black vests that shimmered in the light like only one other vest Korra had seen in the world, and she was wearing that vest. As she staggered along into the hallways outside of the stadium with one hand on her midsection, she realized that their vests and her vest were one and the same. Zhao, the legendary, master firebender, had been in the possession of a Sarrakan vest for all of his life—and before that, his ancestors had; he'd told Korra as much.

Did that mean that… could it be that Zhao had been part Sarrakan?

He was, Korra decided, because there was simply no other way he could have known about the Black God and respected the Black God as if the Sarrakan religion was his own. He was only partially Sarrakan by blood, but by faith, it was clear where his allegiances had lain.

Korra realized, then, that she and the Sarrakans were being taken by security to the hallway not for medical treatment or evacuation, but for arrest. Police were waiting for them there, police in full riot gear, with backup from elite Metalbending Police one fistfight away.

This was absurd. This was ridiculous. This was outrageous. It was so incredibly clear that the Sarrakans had been the victims of the brawl, not the instigators, and while some of them had gone a bit far in defending themselves, they had been defending themselves. Korra was just about to raise her voice in protest of what was going on when the garbled voice of a police chief cackled out from a loudspeaker.

"Everybody is to kneel with their hands behind their heads. Do not move and do not resist arrest, or we will hurt you. Your rights to remain silent and to consult with a lawyer have been suspended until further notice as per the UNITED Act, and if we suspect your involvement in further wrongdoing, we may at our discretion detain you indefinitely."

The red-haired teenagers around Korra were practically snarling at the police, but against such force, they had no options. So, they took to their knees, and those of them who were too hurt to safely descend were helped by those who were not. Korra, however, remained on her feet and was about to give the police a piece of her mind when she felt a hand on her skirt firmly tug her downward.

"Be quiet and do what they say," a voice said. "It'll be the worse for you if you don't."

Korra wanted to scream, but something told her to calm down. So, eventually, she managed to slow her breath. A few moments after that, she was able to stop her eyes from darting this way and that, and then she was able to actually take inventory of what had gone on and where she was.

She was in a hallway adjacent to the seats, one that was exposed to the cold night air. In the hallway were police, of course, but hovering just behind them in miniature blimps were the elite Metalbenders. The arena's private security—Korra could tell who they were thanks to the fact that each of them was wearing a tunic with a dark green logo on it—was also a presence in the area as they helped the police keep watch over the Sarrakans, always prepared to let loose with a salvo of earth, fire, and water at the slightest provocation.

Korra was on her knees, she realized, and a moment later, she placed her hands on atop the other behind her head. She looked around, searching for an escape—or, at least, someone who looked reasonable enough to talk to—but the police were all grim-faced and cold, and the Sarrakans were all panting, bleeding, and angry. The only one who seemed to be remotely calm was sitting right next to her.

He was the one who had tugged her skirt and forced her down, and, in doing so, kept the police from using force to arrest her. Korra looked at him and saw that he was roughly her age and roughly her build as well, for that matter. He had an inch or two on her, but that was all, and while he wasn't quite as lean and vascular as a trained pro-bender, there wasn't an excess pound of fat on his frame, either. He looked strong… no, more than strong, he looked tough. Korra realized that she'd seen him fight in the chaos at several points, when he'd taken on two waterbenders at once, or when he'd swept the legs out from under an earthbender beating on a younger Sarrakan and then pummeled them into submission with his fists.

His hair wasn't vibrantly red; instead, it was a deep copper that was only a few shades fairer than the deep auburn one sometime saw among people of the Fire Nation. Just then, it was cut rather short, yet it still managed to nicely frame his face. His eyes were halfway between green and blue, and he was slightly tanned—just dark enough to set himself apart from the rest of his race, but fair enough that no one could have mistaken him for a member of the Water Tribe.

He was, by far, the most strikingly attractive man that Korra had ever seen. For a second, her breath caught in her throat—and then she remembered where she was and what was going on.

"What do you mean, be quiet and do what they say?!" Korra demanded. "This is wrong—how can you just let them arrest you like this?"

"What do you expect us to do?" the Sarrakan replied. "If we fight, they'll kill us all, may the Black God prevent that. We can't do anything right now except for accepting this."

"But it's wrong!" Korra protested.

"Right or wrong, that's how it is," the Sarrakan said.

His voice was lowered, unlike Korra's, but the damage had been done. The police had taken an interest in the two of them and were striding toward them fast, batons in hand.

As Korra watched, they shoved him face-first onto the ground and began to cuff him.

That was when she couldn't take it anymore. She stood up and stormed over to the officers, and she would have shoved them off of the Sarrakan if a warning glare from a Metalbender behind them hadn't stopped her.

"What are you doing?" Korra demanded. "These people didn't do anything wrong; they were just defending themselves! They were the ones who were attacked, not the other way around!"

"They incited violence by being at the arena, miss," one of the cops said stiffly. He half-glared at her, but when the Sarrakan he was cuffing fidgeted the smallest amount, he shouted at him and placed the full weight of his body onto his back.

"As a member of the Northern Water Tribe, you know what the Sarrakans are like. They didn't defend themselves tonight; they've never been about defending themselves. Why are you trying to defend them? They grabbed you and beat you up, didn't they?" the officer went on. And when he looked at Korra again, she could see that he was dark-skinned and blue-eyed, just like her.

He was a member of the Northern Water Tribe. That was why he was so prejudiced against the Sarrakans and so hesitant to be firm with her.

Korra could accept his gentleness towards her, despite her obvious belligerence and the way she postured up to him, but she couldn't accept his prejudice. Yet, his prejudice against the Sarrakans was shared by the rest of the police, even those who were of fire, or earth, or mixed heritage. Even the Metalbending Police, who were supposed to be a neutral branch of law enforcement, looked at the Sarrakans with a certain amount of disdain.

And the Sarrakans were still being arrested. The dark-haired boy in particular was cuffed and dragged to his feet, and when that happened, Korra shouted again.

"I'm not a member of the Northern Water Tribe!" she bellowed. "I'm a member of the Southern Water Tribe—hey, stop!"

The dark-haired boy Korra had spoken to was still being led away by the police, so she blocked their path with a spike of earth that rose from the floor just in front of them.

And that caused a reaction.

Security forces were nearest to her, so they were the ones to jump on top of Korra and tackle her to the ground. In her tired, injured state, she had no chance of defending herself from such an unexpected attack from such an unexpected angle, so she went down and felt her arms get pinned behind her back. After that, a Metalbending Police officer cuffed her with a single, deft move, and—

"You're a member of the Southern Water Tribe… and you just bent earth," the police chief said.

Korra looked up and glared at him, watching as comprehension slowly came across his face.

"You're the Avatar."

Everybody present reacted to that. The police all stood extra straight and tall, and the security officers pinning Korra to the ground took some of their considerable weight off of her body. The Sarrakans reacted to the news too, and their responses concerned Korra. Some of them simply looked surprised, but others of them looked angry, or even disgusted, as if she'd insulted them somehow by stepping in on their behalf.

That was strange, especially considering the significant risks Korra had taken by fighting alongside them. In the heat of battle, they seemed to have no problem accepting a bender among their ranks, but now, it seemed that some of them were hardening toward her.

The dark-haired boy who had spoken to Korra, however, simply took in the knowledge that she was the Avatar and didn't react to it. He simply blinked, and nodded, and then tried to adjust the way he was laying on the ground so that his head would be pushed in less of an awkward angle.

Korra drew her eyes away from him and glared at the police chief.

"I am the Avatar," she affirmed, "and I'm everybody's Avatar… even the Sarrakans. I swear that they're not the ones who started the fight—they were attacked, so I jumped in to defend them. Why would they attack anyone—especially benders! Half of their enemies were benders, and you know they can't bend anything. Why would they attack benders?"

"Because they're not just Sarrakans," said the dark-skinned officer, the member of the Northern Water Tribe. He deferred somewhat to Korra's newly revealed identity by bowing to her at the waist before continuing.

"They're the Followers," he positively hissed. "Attacking benders is what they do."

"In public?" Korra said incredulously. "Where everyone can see them? Without the element of surprise? When they're outnumbered ten to one with security and police on site and Metalbending Police on call?"

The officer couldn't easily respond to that, so he looked away from Korra's gaze and fell silent.

Still, no one moved to release any of the Sarrakans who had been arrested, and the dark-haired boy was still in a stress position. He was apparently starting to get terribly uncomfortable, because now he was fidgeting constantly and struggling to breathe properly.

With a shout of frustration, Korra launched a blast of fire over the heads of the police as a display of power, and a threat. It was foolish insofar that if things did come to a fight, Korra barely had a chance of escaping, let alone winning. Yet her daring show made it clear to the police that she was deadly serious.

"They're all Fire Ferrets supporters!" Korra shouted. "Their team had just won; why would they make trouble after that? Does that even make sense to you—"

"They're all Fire Ferrets supporters?" the police chief said. He looked at Korra condescendingly, but not with the outright disdain and lack of regard the police officers of Northern Water Tribe heritage were starting to employ. "All of them? You, boy," he said, suddenly addressing a lanky Sarrakan already in custody, "which team were you supporting?"

The suddenness of the question and the corresponding suddenness of the answer made it clear that the Sarrakan was telling the truth when he said that he was a Fire Ferrets supporter.

Still, the chief looked unconvinced. So, he asked another Sarrakan, and another, but both also affirmed that they were supporting the Fire Ferrets.

"We couldn't support anyone else if we wanted to, sir," the last Sarrakan the chief asked said. "The Fire Ferrets are the only team in the league that accept us as fans."

"How convenient," the chief said. "Unfortunately, since no members of the Fire Ferrets are present, it's your word against common sense. And, frankly, I don't hold your word in very high esteem, so—"

"But I am here, sir."

Korra turned to the doorway leading from the stadium just in time to see him enter: Mako, the firebender and the founding member of the Fire Ferrets. He was still dressed in his protective gear, so there was no mistaking the logo emblazoned on his shoulder and chest pads. Apart from that, there was no mistaking his distinctive hairstyle, nor the thin red scarf he seemed to wear all the time, everywhere.

His eyes were as piercing off the field as they were on the field, it seemed, and just then he was fixing the unflinching glare he had become famous for on the police chief. At the same time, he fearlessly made his way into the midst of the Sarrakans and put his hand on their shoulders without flinching in disgust, as the Northern Water Tribe members did.

"They're right," Mako said. "The Fire Ferrets are the only team in the pro-bending league who accept non-bending fans. We're proud to have anyone's support, whether they're a bender or nonbender, or a Sarrakan, or a Water Tribe member, or an Earth subject, or a Fire national. And as far as what the Avatar said… she's telling you the truth. My fans were viciously set upon by a group of benders for no reason at all, sir."

"Even if I were to believe you," the police chief replied, "the facts are the facts. Two benders were killed tonight, and their wounds are consistent with Sarrakan hand-to-hand techniques."

Korra was chilled by the reminder that the Black God had marked the world that night, but Mako was not. He simply shrugged with such a horrible emptiness about him that Korra shivered.

"My fans were within their rights to defend himself. It's terrible that some people were killed," Mako said in a way was not entirely sincere, "but these things can happen to you if you're part of a racist mob."

The police chief stared at Mako and Korra. Mako and Korra stared back, and eventually, the police chief nodded.

"Deputies," he addressed his subordinates, "release the suspects. We've got the wrong guys."

"What?!"

The Northern Water Tribe officer who had spoken to Korra looked up, shocked, but the police chief simply froze him with a glare.

"Follow your orders, deputy. Release the Sarrakans."

For a moment, the dark-skinned officer, and some of his colleagues seemed as if they were on the very edge of disobeying their orders. Then, they complied—begrudgingly and angrily, but the complied. The Sarrakans were allowed to stand and the ones who had already been cuffed were released and allowed to move about freely again.

Immediately, they all swarmed around Mako and shook his hands to thank him. At least, the boys did—the several female Sarrakans Korra had noticed shied away from Mako and averted their eyes when he looked at them. Instead, they thanked him with their words alone, from a distance, with several male members of their people between them and the pro-bender.

Few of the Sarrakans said a word to Korra. Some of them tried to smile at her before moving away as if they were frightened of her—as if she'd hurt them. She'd just gotten herself badly hurt trying to protect them.

For some reason, they were wary of her, and Korra didn't think it was just because her dark skin and facial features reminded them of the Northern Water Tribe members they'd come to fear and loathe so much over the centuries. She believed that when she had made it clear that she was the Avatar, she had made it clear that somehow, Sarrakans were not to trust her. Barely any of them would even look at her.

The exception was the dark-haired boy who had spoken to Korra. He walked right up to her, bowed, and spoke while looking her in the eye.

"May the Black God never harm you, Avatar," he said. "Thank you for protecting my people this evening, miss…?"

Korra realized he was asking for her name. So, he told her, blushing just a little bit the whole while—he was, after all, an incredibly attractive boy, no matter that he was sweaty and still bleeding from a minor wound on his cheek.

"Korra," she said. "I'm Korra."

"Avatar Korra, it's a pleasure to meet you," the Sarrakan said almost mechanically. He smiled at her suddenly and with such vibrancy that Korra felt herself flush.

"My name is Zaidan."


Korra was shocked by Tenzin's initial reaction when he'd found out about what she'd done the night before. She was even more shocked by his reaction when he calmed down and had a chance to think about it, because not only was Tenzin not entirely surprised that she'd slipped off to the arena, when she told him that she had made at least one contact in the Sarrakan community, he was both impressed and pleased.

For that reason, he let her go back to the arena the next day, after her training and after she'd been healed. She was going to get a chance to talk to Mako and Zaidan about pro-bending and how it could be used to reach out to the Sarrakan community and defuse the Followers of the Black God situation.

So, Korra made her way to the arena that afternoon in the guise of a janitor. Once she was in, she discovered that Zaidan and Mako were already there, waiting for her in the gym pro-benders used to train for their matches.

The former looked sad. The latter looked absolutely enraged. And they both answered when Korra stepped closer, before she could even ask the question on her lips.

"Jin and Hasook went out to party after the match," Mako positively barked. "I don't know the details yet, but apparently, they were killed by Tigerdillos fans."

"Oh no," Korra said immediately.

Zaidan nodded in response to that, but Mako just sneered and looked away.

"What am I going to do now?" he demanded. "If I don't find new teammates soon, the Fire Ferrets will be out of the tournament this year, and I swore that I'd win the tournament for Bo-Lin. That's my brother," Mako said. "He was killed a few months ago, so I swore to win the tournament in his name. But without teammates… I'm sunk."

When Mako said that, his voice cracked and the seriousness and anger on his face broke. He looked away from Korra in such a dismal, hopeless manner that it made her wince.

"I-I can help," Korra offered. "I'm the Avatar, so I can bend earth, fire, and water—I'd be glad to be a Fire Ferret. It would be a dream come true for me."

Mako looked up, slowly, as if his spirits were somewhat lifted by the offer. He sighed, however, and shook his head.

"Even if you take water or earth, that still leaves one spot I need to fill. How can I find a good waterbender before the Fire Ferrets' next match, which is next week?"

It was intended to be a rhetorical question, but then, Korra and Mako were distracted from the conversation by activity going on not far away. Zaidan, it seemed, had moved away from the two of them and toward two large cauldrons of water used for bending practice…

And there, somehow, he was toying with water in a way that only a bender could.


(Now this fanfiction is really starting to move. The next chapter will involve more interaction between the new Fire Ferrets, and also Korra and Tenzin's increasing interactions with the Sarrakan community. Of course, none of this is likely to escape the notice of the Followers of the Black God, or Tarrlok.

Please review and tell me about your reactions to this chapter, and your hopes for the rest of the fanfiction. Remember, the better a reception I get, the quicker I will write.)