Chapter 3 The Brave (Pt. 1)
Year 2406
"How do you feel?" Mako asked running a sponge through the beads of sweat on Bolin's forehead. Bolin was still now. He wasn't grunting in pain. Or crying for mercy. He slumped forward in the chains around his wrists and murmured to himself something inaudible.
Asami watched the deflated young boy's eyes travel to the floor and stay there.
"Can you help him?" Mako asked stepping away from his brother and tossing the sponge into a bucket.
"I…" Asami hesitated, "I don't know."
"You don't know?" Mako bolstered, "You're the lead scientist when it comes to connates and you don't know?" Mako's voice had steadily risen to a shout.
It was Bolin who tried to reel him back in, "Come on Mako-,"
"No." Mako turned to Asami, each word pushing him across the room until he stood inches from her face, "No! You have to help him. You have to know how to help him! Think!"
"I am thinking!" Asami raised her own voice slightly, going toe-to-toe with him, "But I'm a scientist and there's only so much I can do. I didn't ask to be dragged out here!"
"It's okay." Bolin said shocking them both. The boy hung with the skin on his back puckering, gasping, and smoldering. No part of this was 'okay.'
"Bo-," Mako began.
"We shouldn't have forced her out here."
"Bolin, there is no other way to-,"
"We shouldn't have forced you out here." Bolin lifted his eyes to the woman, "I'm sorry,"
Asami stepped towards him, ignoring the unrestrained anger that rippled from Mako, "I can't help you not because I don't want to," Asami paused. That was true. Looking at this boy she wanted to help him, "But science isn't even at a level where I would know where to begin. I mean, a sedative will take the pain away but not the stress being put on your body. If we can't address all the damage stress is doing to you right now it's only a matter of time before your body starts shutting down to compensate."
"So what, shoot him full of steroids?" Mako asked, "Wouldn't that make him strong?"
"It's not that simple," Asami took a breath and covered her mouth and Mako bit his mouth shut. He could see the wheels turning behind her eyes, "But we could try suppressants."
"Suppressants?" Mako asked.
"Connates can take them to suppress their physiological abnormalities." Asami took Mako's dumb expression to mean he was already loss, "Connates have a few physiological differences that stand out when the right tests are run. Their hormone reserves are fundamentally different, their brains are capable of rewiring on the instant they make contact with their connate, even their skin can become porous to reveal the cells that glow when a connate experiences longing.
"These differences are so subtle that it took centuries to develop the technology to find them and even longer for us to even know we needed to be looking for them. But once connates knew the differences they were able to create suppressants that neutralize these differences and make them seem…" She resisted the urge for another scientific term, "Normal."
"Is that how you've managed to stay under the radar?" Mako asked. It was rhetorical. Meant mostly for Mako to allude to the fact that he knew Asami was a connate despite her having not told him. Not a hard guess, considering the only people bold enough to break into Kuvira's lab and steal information on connates was likely a connate themselves.
Asami only nodded confirmation.
Mako continued, "So if we use suppressants it'll block what's happening to him?"
"No."
Mako's eyebrows knit down. "No?"
"No. It'll help suppress the symptoms but not stop the burning. Think of it as a delay to the inevitable."
"The inevitable?" Bolin mumbled to himself, "You mean when my connate dies for good."
Mako gently smiled at his brother, "Bo, we can help you. That's all that matters."
"No. No it's not. When you feel a part of your soul die, then you tell me what matters."
Mako said nothing. Nor did Asami. How could they? They'd never met their connates. At least not in this lifetime.
But Asami hadn't been allowed to finish her thoughts, "When I said inevitable I was only partially referencing…" She trailed off, "I also meant that connates don't simply complete one another, they help one another develop. You've heard the tales about certain connates in history that have even developing and sharing supernatural abilities after having connected with one another. It's why Kuvira has been so hellbent on finding them. She controls this planet and the only real threat to her power are the connates who develop such abilities. If she kills them then no one can stand in her way.
"When I said inevitable I meant that the suppressants will eventually lose their effectiveness because a connate's physiology is constantly changing. Adapting and becoming stronger. If we get the suppressants Bolin's body might be driven to such a point where his ability could manifest and help his body cope with the trauma."
"But what if he doesn't have an ability?"
"Then we still created a good delay." Asami shrugged, "It's the best we can do for now."
Mako spoke only after a long thoughtful silence, "And what do you want in return?"
"If I'm going to go steal from Kuvira's labs and risk execution, I expect the same from you," She locked eyes with Mako, "You're going to help me find my connate."
"What are you going to do?" Kai asked his eyes on Korra's blank expression. Korra clenched her fists at her side. The smell of her father's burning body embed into her pores. She'd carry the weight of these ashes everywhere she went, she realized. Nothing will ever be the same.
Her mom stood at her side. They both wore traditional garb, breathing light blue fabric, skirts that fell to their calves at an angle and clung to each of their curves. Traditionally a connate would place anointed mineral on their burn. However Senna's burn had been on her eyes. The woman was blind.
They'd placed Tonraq atop a bed of rock and stone, surrounded by sticks forming a pyramid shape. Igniting the body usually fell to the connate or surviving child. Korra had offered to do the task with a lump in her throat, but the blind woman had declined, "He's my connate. I have to release him or we may not meet in the next life."
Korra had nodded in understanding. But she truly didn't. She hadn't understood any of it. Not the tradition that told her to love someone she'd never met. Nor the tradition that said if a connate didn't burn their love then they wouldn't meet in the next lifetime. These were religious practices placed on something not even science could comprehend. If science fell short then surely religion did, right?
No. As she stared at her father's body she forced these thoughts away. It was wrong of her to question. She'd acted like a child just prior to his death. Arguing about things she couldn't possibly hope to understand without being a connate herself. Maybe if she hadn't...maybe things would have been different. If she hadn't charged off into the forest. If she had stayed by his side and awaited his orders. Maybe if she had listened instead of screaming to be heard…
Maybe her mother wouldn't be blind. And her girlfriend - no. Her friend, Opal, would be here. If she'd just listened to tradition.
It would all make sense once she'd bonded. Until then she needed to uphold tradition.
Her people, collected here at this memorial understood that. Tradition held them together. It kept their eyes dry and their resolve strong.
Now more than ever they needed faith in something higher. No. Someone higher. Whatever the divine was that made them connates. They had to believe in that divine. They had to believe they were sacred, not something Kuvira could snuff out.
That fact had spurred Kai's question: What would she do?
"We end this war. Starting tonight we count the final days of this war." She began, "We send her a message. We send the world a message that it's no longer a defensive." Korra understood then. Why trust varrick? Why put themselves so far out? Because her father had been searching for a way into the divine. A way to stop waiting and to start acting.
"The tide of war has changed. Defensive will get us all killed," she spoke the truth her father had wanted to but didn't want to frighten them all, "We go on the offensive." Korra watched the flames lick her father's feet, "The next body we burn will be the Great Uniter's herself."
Year 1942
"I've been trying to reach you," Kya said to the girl's back as she stuffed clothes inside of a suitcase. Kya huffed a sigh and ached for a fresh cigarette but the sign on the wall of the boarding house told her there was to be no smoking in the building.
And she couldn't blame them, the place looked like a fire hazard. The apartment had been made of whittled wood and painted in a thin layer of white paint. The rooms were filled with wholesome personality as you'd expect from all female tenants under the age of 20.
It was strange to imagine why someone like Asami, someone from money, would bed in a room with four other women separated by only thin hanging sheets. Fact was Asami could leave anytime she got ready and they couldn't. This fact separated them more than the hanging sheets.
Then again, it wasn't hard for Kya to imagine. She reminded herself that Asami was a homosexual and that's why she stood there, nervously watching the woman take a dress from outside the window and pull it inside from the clothing line.
"Did you hear me?" Kya asked.
Asami glanced at her, the fury in her eyes enough to make Kya hesitate. Asami threw the dress atop the things in her briefcase and attempted to close it shut. The suitcase didn't play along.. She'd sloppily thrown everything inside without bothering to fold.
Asami was coming unglued. Frail from not eating, puffy eyed from crying, and her eyes vacant of any good spirit she might have had before.
"I've been calling here, asking for you but the girls say you've been gone a lot lately and not coming home at night."
Asami said nothing but she abandoned her efforts to shut the suitcase and sat on the bed with her hands between her legs.
"I just wanted to say-,"
"Say what?" Asami's head snapped to the woman. Her eyes deranged. Asami's tattoo span half her face, it always glowed now. Not blinding, but there, below the surface, "I told you I didn't want that picture published but you went ahead and did it anyways." She turned her head aside in disgust, "You're just like them." She looked through the partitioning curtain that sectioned off her space from the other women. The other woman worked at a local factory, helping build Uncle Sam's war machines. It was late, they were all home, but no one spoke. Only listened to the deranged woman and her unwelcome guest.
In the distance a phone rang, "You talk a good game but you're empty and cruel. You force things on me just like they do. This idea that I'm supposed to be some kind of revolutionary woman is just as toxic as the idea that I'm supposed to want to be with-," she hid away the words and settled for something less, "With someone I can't love."
Asami stood then and set defiant eyes on the luggage, "When will anybody understand that all I want is to be me?" Violently, she emptied the contents of the case on the bed seizing a handful of clothes at random and schlepping them into the empty case then slammed it shut.
"Aiwei lead me to believe he'd convinced you. Asami, believe me if I'd known that wasn't the case," Kya watched the woman who began rushing past her, "I wouldn't have allowed it to be published. Asami," Kya grabbed the woman by the wrist as she came level with her. "You don't have to do this." She said, looking the woman in the eyes for a moment, searching for that fierce girl she'd met just seven short months ago. Now. Now she found something hollow like the stirring tattoo concealed the parasite eating away at Asami's courage.
That was what she found now in Asami's eyes. Fear. Fear that she'd feel the burn at any moment. Fear that in a world filled with so much hate she'd find herself alone and disfigured by a burn that she hadn't chosen.
"I do have to do this." Asami reached inside her jacket's pocket and produced a copy of the magazine cover, her embrace with Korra on it's cover, it had been clipped to an official document notifying her of her eviction, "My father made sure of that when he sent a stack of your magazines to every apartment on the floor. It's a notice saying that I've violated multiple codes of ethic and to vacate the premises immediately. I guess he hoped it would force me to come home." Asami refused the tears that brim in her eyes, "He made sure I'd have nowhere to go." She hated to hear her voice crack, "You made sure of that."
She'd just crossed the threshold of her room and found heads sweep in her direction. They all watched her for a moment from the safety of their room doors. Some turned away , shutting their doors behind them in disgust but most. Most stood and gazed.
She'd wished she'd worn makeup. Wished she'd washed her hair. Wished she didn't give them the satisfaction of seeing her at her lowest.
But she had done none of those things.
"She use to be prettier." One of them whispered as she passed them by.
"I heard her father kicked her out."
"Can you blame him? If my daughter were a freak, I'd drop her off on the church steps and never look back."
As she approached the end of the haul a woman stood at the only phone on the floor. The building manager, with hairy arms, thick lips, and a round belly looked her up and down before his face settled into a hard frown.
The woman extended the mouthpiece of the phone in her hand towards Asami, "It's for you."
Asami took the phone in her hand and left her suitcase at her feet. Kya's eyes had found the building attendant. They locked eyes. She could hear his thoughts, they were written on his forehead. She wasn't welcome here. Not just as a half colored woman, but as a woman wearing men's trousers and cologne. Kya's hands slid into her pockets side pockets, her jacket bunching on her arms. Her jacket so loose she could feel the firearm she carried as it hung from its holster.
"Yes, this is she." Asami said into the receiver. Her face became more grim with each word, her grip of the phone tightening. A long pause carried as the voice on the other end of the phone explained their reason for calling.
After a certain point Asami's tattoo began to glow, and a tear ran from Asami's eye, "She's coming home?"
Year 2406
Asami had never felt at ease working as a scientist in Kuvira's labs. She'd always felt the eyes of a thousand cameras boring into her back, and even in classified parts of the facility where cameras conveniently disappeared and screams echoed from the darkest hallways, she still felt Kuvira's watchful gaze.
But going into Kuvira's labs with a shopping list of materials she'd need to engineer a suppressant for Bolin - well she was a little more than skittish.
She approached a cabinet full of syringes where a lab tech stocked the needles. In most cases, using any material required a swipe of her badge. She edged up to the young boy. She didn't recognize him, he had a small stature and seemed fresh from training as he had difficulty finding the right place to put materials.
Glancing around she noted a soldier in the far corner over the top of tables. A few co-workers in lab coats filling out paperwork and examining test results. A steady roar of machinery played like a soundtrack.
Asami smiled small at the young man, suddenly glad she'd stopped by her office to change into a spare change of clothes and freshen her makeup, "Long day?" She asked the boy warmly.
He glanced at her only momentarily but then realized how attractive the woman in a white lab coat was. He gulped and nodded affirmatively before dropping his eyes to his feet and shuffling syringes into his hands, "All hail the Great Uniter," he mumbled. A standard reply. Complaining was often met by being sent to a Re-Education Center.
Asami looked to the box he pulled the supplies from, she then glanced to the cabinet full of drugs. If this went south and Kuvira found out drugs were missing, the last thing Asami wanted was a record of her taking out the drugs. So she made a decision then.
Her hand smacked into the box of supplies. As they clattered about her both she and the boy looked surprised.
"Oh!" She exclaimed. They both went to the floor then. From here the soldiers couldn't see over the tops of the tables. She reached above her just enough to grab three clear vials in plastic containers. Her hands then went to her lab coat pocket where she stashed the drugs and immediately went to collecting syringes. She pocketed two and was ready to pocket a third when the boy glanced up and saw her motion. She smiled apologetically and extended the few in her hand to the boy.
As they both climbed back to their feet Asami uttered an apology, her cheeks flaming more with nerves than embarrassment, "I can be such a clutz."
The young boy shook his head, his heart in his throat as he accepted the apology, "N-no problem," he stuttered watching Asami's hand come to her face and a flush of red fill her cheeks, the boy was mesmerized. He cleared his throat repeatedly, "I should be more careful with where I rest these things."
Asami agreed.
The boy glanced at Asami nervously and began to find flirtatious words but Asami was already making a speedy retreat. She raced towards the double doors that would leave the labs behind her. Now she just had to go back to her desk and finish the day as if nothing had-
"Ms. Sato," The voice sent a shiver up her spine. cold calculated. Hard. Forced with warmth and dripping with a certain amount of condescending nature.
Asami turned slowly, oh so very slowly and came face to face with the Great Uniter.
"Do you have a moment?" She asked like a shark smelling blood.
Kai had worked quickly, collecting the council of connate and civilian leaders alike to the table. They all smelled of smoke having stood closest to Tonraq's body as it burned. Now they all took up their places at a long oval Table, Korra stood at it's head. She stood in the shoes her father had left to be filled.
"Blessings in these lifetimes," she greeted them. She received only mildly enthused responses from the collection of men and women. There were a twenty five of them. Tenzin who was not a connate but lead the civilian councilman, though not with much influence he still held a great deal of respect. Lin Beifong attended in her sister's steed as Suyin herself grieved with her sons and husband. And Zuko who had once been a general in the rebellion and had retired to the council. He held a great deal of favor.
Most of them had allowed her father to succeed his father after he passed in battle. Tonraq had earned the privilege of leading.
Korra had not.
They had little faith in her. No doubt the rumors had broken of herself and Opal being lovers despite having connates. She was a petulant child who flaunted her distaste of tradition. She only wished she could convince them with words how greatly she'd changed in the three days since her father's passing. The unheard howls of sorrow. The unanswered cries of repudiation. The unforgiving passion of shame. All of these had irreversibly aged Korra.
"Korra, while we are all glad to see you made it out well from the recent ordeal, we are not all certain you are ready to take on the role of being the Avatar." Lin Beifong's words cut Korra. But she had a right to be mad. Korra had failed to protect Opal.
Korra took a steadying breath, it did nothing to appease her guilt, "I understand. Which is why I am here to propose a Mission of Confidence." Curious murmurs rippled throughout the room and with a glance to Beifong she continued, "I will lead a small team into the heart of Kuvira's fortifications. We have verified scout reports and are able to conclude that Kuvira will be inside the building. We believe today is our best chance of striking."
"To strike what?" Bolstered a counsilman.
"I intend to put a permanent end to the Great Uniter. I intend to put a bullet in her skull."
Tenzin fumed, "You understand that failing a Mission of Confidence would result in the revocation of your title as our Avatar as well as put an end to the linear succession of said title through your bloodline."
Korra's jaw set as she drove away the last stitches of doubt, "Yes."
The room rippled once more with murmurs of disbelief.
"I want to go with you." Came a monotonous voice. The voice belonged to Iroh, a handsome tall man who had once stood shoulder to shoulder with Korra's father. A man whose reputation had preceded himself and his connate. Now the crowds whispered gossip about the self-destructing connate who had burned.
"If I had been there with you in the woods instead of cowering on the ship I'd have read Varrick's thoughts and seen his ulterior motives. Tonraq would still be alive." His eyes found Lin Beifong, "Opal would still be with us."
"You don't know that." Tenzin said gently.
But didn't they?
Iroh's depression had hurt the rebellion in a way Korra didn't realize possible. Now more than ever she realized how heavily they relied on their abilities. Without them, this fight would be easily won by Kuvira.
"Alright." How could she say no? If you're about to walk into the belly of the beast you might want to bring along someone who can read the beast's mind. More than that - someone who could suggest things to the mind.
"Now hold on Korra, we haven't given this mission our graces," Tenzin said.
"I think it's a necessary step on Korra's journey," Zuko said from the corner. The elderly man had been watching his grandson with great grievances. Zuko's own tattoo had burned on the side of his face, covering his eye. Now eyes turned to the elder. "Korra should be given an opportunity to prove her resolve to our traditions and this rebellion. I see no loss by allowing her do just that by these means if she truly believes they are the right course of action." His words seemed to resonate the council into Korra's favor.
Tenzin's nostrils flared, "She is the only heir of succession!"
"Yes. And our belief in succession rests in a tradition she has a pattern of disrespecting," Zuko didn't say this with contempt or cruelty. Simply fact. The man set Korra with a look. He raised his hand, "I suggest we call a vote. All in favor of Korra ending Kuvira's reign once and for all."
The ayes came resoundingly and most of them contemptuously. But none of that registered on Zuko's elderly face, only his desire to see Korra succeed. Zuko looked about the room, only a handful of hands rest on the table, Tenzin's being one of them, but for the other twenty or so men and women on the counsel, hands were raised.
Zuko set her with a serious gaze, "Don't fail."
~Author Notes~
So if you're thinking, "Wow. That was dull." I don't blame you XD That said, this is a two part chapter. And I'm gonna publish the second half later today. However I have a job interview in the morning so I need to get some rest (my Gosh it's 12:21 AM already!)(not to mention my beta hasn't approved the second half of this chapter). But yes. Don't worry. Next part - MY WORD I was ALIVE writing the craziness that's about to pop off.
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Make sure you follow, favorite and review! I love reviews! Oh and shout out to Thundercatroar for their review. It really gives me life and I have read it at least a half a dozen times these last few days as I searched for inspiration to write. Prepare yourself buddy cuz I'm gonna write you a FABULOUSLY in depth review lol.
Anyways. Thank ye all for reading! More to come today! XOXO - AvatarUncanon