Chapter 5 Vigilant (Pt. 1)
Year 2007
She'd been doing a handstand when the bleeding began.
"And if you just tip your weight and balance like this," Korra instructed to the group of surrounding boys, "You can stay up forever and ever."
They gasped in awe at their friend. Korra didn't hang around girls, they were all too concerned about their dollies and keeping their clothes clean. Korra liked rough housing. She liked chasing down the boys and slapping them with a few bean bags then crying, "You're finished Dr. Red Zone!" Then scurrying away.
Korra loved pretending she was a superhero. There were few female superheroes flying around. Most females who gained special abilities after meeting their connates were expected to stay home with their children.
But Korra loved to imagine meeting her connate and becoming a superhero. She didn't care what anyone said, if she could fly, if she could shoot lasers from her eyes or catching a speeding train with her bare hands nothing would stop her from being a superhero. She would be just like her dad.
He was a superhero. And her mom and him had been married and had her. But still he kept fighting, flying around the world and protecting people. That was the special ability her mother and father shared. Flight. That….and the fact that her father was built like an ox attached to a freight train standing atop a mountain. He had big hammy arms and bulging muscle, flying was almost secondary to a guy who could bench press two hundred pounds while making an omelet. She hoped she had a connate, she wanted to be just like him. She wanted to be a Legend.
These were the restless dreams of a eight year old.
These were her dreams before the bleeding started.
As the boys began attempting to hold their hand stand as long as Korra effortlessly seemed to do, Korra felt something tickle her forehead. She laughed and fell backwards onto her back. She gazed up at the sky. From where she lay on the school's playground she could hear the voices of her classmates all around her. Chatting. Laughing. Squealing in terror as a kid named Bolin ate a bug.
She huffed in a few breaths, exhausted from the last twenty minutes of play then touched her dirty fingers to her forehead. She pulled her fingers back to find blood. Weird. But there was more of it. Her fingers traced to beneath her nose and found blood ebbing from there.
Weirder still. She sat up, rubbed her arm over the ridge of her lips and looked to the boys.
"Come on, Korra! Race you to the water fountain!" Korra got to her feet, forgetting all about the nosebleed in the heat of the race.
Korra beat them all without a second thought, even having let them get a running start. She got the privilege of drinking first. She sucked in the water and stepped aside.
As she did so a teacher noticed her dripping blood into the fountain.
She grabbed Korra's shoulder and pulled her away from the fountain, "Korra?" She asked with concern, "You know you're bleeding, right?" Korra nodded. "How long have you been bleeding?" She asked. Korra shrugged. "Come on." She took the girl to the nurse's office. They plugged her nose with toilet paper and told her to tilt her head back.
Ten minutes later they sent her back to class.
The bleeding continued though. It continued for a whole hour. Then two. Then they called her parents. Then they took her to the hospital. Then they diagnosed her with leukemia.
Those were her dreams before the bleeding started.
Year 2406
They rematerialized covered in the blood.
Korra didn't feel it at first, then it became all she could feel. A bullet burning into her neck and the cruel gaze of the Great Uniter mounted on a wall. Korra's feet came from under her and she stumbled backwards into Kai. She felt the gash appear in her skin violently tearing through her backside as she fell into a flag post and rest her weight against the wall clutching her throat.
The bullet had gone through clean and embed in a wall behind them, into the side of her neck and a thin amount of flesh separated the bullet from the outside world. It had made a tunnel, burning every inch of the tunnel on it's way.
"Korra," Iroh gasped realizing she'd been shot but his eyes traveled to Kai and found a bigger problem. The boy could barely hold himself together. His skin was shifting in and out of a blurry black murk. Slices roamed his skin showing a strange coloration beneath that flash colors with seemingly no reason or rhyme. As Iroh went to reach for the boy he found his own arm consumed with slits. The sight was horrifying. Like he'd been sent through a woodchipper but hadn't felt a thing. He'd only just managed to scream in shock when Kuvira's office door flood open and the three rebels no longer stood alone.
The first soldier happened past Korra, he swung his gun to her. The young woman reacted. Wounded fatally or not, she wouldn't die without a fight. She sloppily slammed the flat of her foot into the man's gun before he could take aim. As he recovered she leaned forward with one free hand and took him to the ground pounding him with her fist. A weak punch. It did little. He reversed the fight quickly and easily flipping atop her. He grabbed her neck and dug his thumb into the sensitive bullet wound.
Air hissed through Korra's teeth and the unpleasant sensation of a foreign object burrowing into her flesh filled her mind, blurring her eyes with tears and her heart pounding harder. Blood flooded the man's aggressive hands as her heart worked to keep up with her horror.
She looked about herself. For anything. Something. She found someone. She found Kai, on the ground, in pain, trying to put himself back together just two short feet away. She lodged her knee into the man's stomach and sprung a weighted kick into his abdomen. Hard enough to get him off, long enough to grab his locks of hair and send him neck exposed into the shifting dark matter that surrounded Kai's body.
The same jagged slice that had cut Korra's hand and back cut into the man's exposed neck. Unlike Korra's bullet wound - damning sure, but not instant - this man's wound left no life. It cut him thoroughly to the point where his spine lay exposed and blood gush across the room as though he's been sent neck first at a chainsaw.
As Korra took on the first soldier, Iroh reached for his gun only to find it shifting in and out of reality. He might be able to fire it, but what if a key component were missing? Did he want to take the chance of a bullet being spat back directly into his face? No.
He went on the offensive as the second, third and fourth man entered the room. They carried their automatics at the ready. Iroh looked to one of the armed men, locking eyes with him and he felt his own mind empty as he entered another's.
In a mere moment the second soldier's mind had been invaded. The soldier swung the muzzle of his gun on his comrades. The action taking them by surprise as he let loose a stream of bullets for their skulls.
The third and fourth soldiers painted the walls with their blood and the second soldier turned to the oncoming soldiers.
"He's gone rogue!" One of them hollered only to be met with bullets.
Iroh sunk to his knees and turned his head aside in shame as the second soldier followed his commands.
We are not the enemy. Kill them all. At any cost.
The second soldier moved with an agile purpose not his own. Clearing the hallway of his comrades, methodically, sidestepping the bodies as they amass bloodily at his feet. Iroh didn't let him feel the pain of the five bullets that came to pepper his body during the battle. Iroh didn't let him feel the hurt when he read the mind of his good friends as they were murdered by a man they trusted and respected. He let nothing register. Only the binding command that told him to kill anyone who march on behalf of the Great Uniter.
"Kai," Korra's voice came course, her hand pressing into her throat as blood ran slick over her grip, "Kai, you have to focus." The boy grunted and shook his head.
The sound of gunfire ceased. Iroh had the second soldier place the barrel in his own mouth. He'd snuffed out his consciousness. Now there was only this. Iroh felt the man's finger tighten on the trigger and he reached back inside his own mind in time.
But he could still feel it. The weight of death. That solemn nothing he felt whenever he read the mind of the dead.
Kai's skin began to settle. Iroh's arms reassembled. Korra breathed steadily and calm. She'd lost so much blood. Her clothes were stained and wet to the touch from all the blood she'd lost.
"You two," Korra grunted, "You have to get out of here. Whatever had those guards in such a fuss made Kuvira leave. I'm sorry." She looked at Kai as the boy clenched his fists on his thighs and looked to her, still shivering.
"We aren't leaving you here. If Kuvira finds you…" Kai began. Korra shrugged.
"I'm dead anyways." She asserted, "I won't make it back to the hospital, not we leave more than one of our people-,"
"We have the files," Jinora's voice crackled over their ears pieces, "Wei has gone through the footage. It looks like Kuvira left with an escort just a few minutes before we got here. We might be able to catch her if we-,"
"No," Korra touched her ear piece.
"You're willing to give up so easily?" Iroh asked.
Korra opened her mouth to speak but Iroh approached her quickly, "Don't." He gave her a knowing look and she smiled faintly, glad she'd brought a mind reader, she didn't think she had the strength to speak. Or the blood left to speak either to be honest.
As she spoke through her thoughts, Iroh relayed aloud to the com pieces, "Those soldiers were here too fast. They were waiting. How did she know we could get in her office without walking? Because she knew Kai could teleport. She probably knew Iroh could suggest. She knows everything about every move we make and we know nothing. Going after her would get everyone killed. I shouldn't have lead this mission, I'm sorry." Korra's eyes began to flutter shut, sweat bead on her forehead. She closed her eyes as a sleep called to her.
She felt Iroh push into her mind, push for her to stay conscious. Suddenly her pain was gone. She smiled at the man. Yet another mind trick.
"We have to try, Korra. If we don't… You won't be the Avatar. You might not…" Jinora stopped the words and a silence carried between the rebels.
Iroh's voice was the answer that spoke but no one doubted who the words came from, "I know. But this isn't a gamble anymore. This is a guarantee: If we go after her we will all be killed. And I can't let that happen."
Year 2007
Senna pat Korra's pillow fluffy again and placed it behind Korra's tired head, "You guys ready?" A nurse poked her head into the extended stay bedroom. Korra dipped her chin, her lack of excitement palpable.
Senna smiled apologetically, "We'll be out in a minute."
As the nurse left Korra stared at her hands.
"Korra?" Her mother came to her bedside, "I thought you loved the story of how Daddy beat Dr. Red Zone with the help of the Legends?"
Korra looked down at the action figures in her hands. One was Dr. Red Zone fully transformed into though black and red figure with long tendrils for hands and his humanoid figure made of blotted proportions. The other hand held her father, much smaller than in real life, in his long black cape and navy blue get up. He carried a sword on his back, and a knife on his hip. His spandex tight to his body.
He looked like a miniature god.
"I do." The now nine year old admitted.
"So come on, lazy bones." Her mother tugged her free of the sheets. With a grin on her lips and an ominous scratchy voice she growled, "Dr. Red Zone waits for no one."
The voice always cracked a smile on Korra's lips - her mother was terrible at impressions - and Korra's smile made Senna smile. And Senna smiling made Korra smile that much harder, even laugh. And a laughing Korra made Senna hug her daughter tightly.
Senna managed to get Korra into a wheelchair. As they rolled towards the constructed stage in the playroom of the children's hospital a nurse came to Senna.
"I'll take her," The nurse smiled, "We have a place for her. We knew she'd come." She winked.
Senna's phone began ringing then and she flipped it open, "Hello? Yes. This is she..." She waved to Korra as the nurse pushed her away and Korra waved back.
When the play began Korra waited for everyone to be engrossed in the action on stage. Everyone watching as Dr. Red Zone tragically lost his wife, his connate. As the actor on stage walked off stage, probably to do the big shift from human looking to the big giant black and red creature beast thingy, Dr. Red Zone, Korra stood, grabbed her IV and walked away without anyone noticing.
She wound up in the children's chapel. The walls were painted in fun colors. The cross looked bubbly and each candle on a long table had a child's name etched into it. Slowly she walked down the aisle solemnly, she'd only came here to sit. She walked about halfway to the pulpit and sat on the left hand side of the aisle on a dark brown pew. Exhausted from the short journey she allowed her body to slump down in the seat and gazed upon the stainless steel glass that depicted Jesus Christ.
No one knew if he was a connate but many speculated he was and that he'd had the ability to mind control people, or at least brainwash them. Others thought he was the son of God himself, or whatever great creator had made humans and connates. Whatever, whoever, he was Christ still and had an even bigger fanbase than the Legends and that was saying something.
She'd been sitting there for a few minutes when she heard the door bang open. She turned expecting to find her mother, perhaps frantic and disheveled. Instead she found a dark haired girl in a pink and red dress.
She was healthy looking, unlike Korra who had dark circles under her eyes, a bald head, and wiry limbs. The girl had a lush flow of dark locks and green eyes. She was pretty. No. More than pretty. Korra felt uneasy in her presence, and wanted to leave immediately, her hands toying with the two action figures she carried. That feeling again. That girls said they got around boys.
She didn't know why she felt it for girls. Only that she somehow felt ashamed of it.
"Hi." The girl said quietly, politely.
"Hey." Korra responded.
A few footfalls later and the girl came to take a seat across the aisle, one row up from Korra.
Together they sat in uneasy silence. Korra wanting to leave but not wanting to hurt the girl's feelings. The girl… well, she just was quiet.
She was one of those girls Korra would have hated back when she still went to school. One of the girls who probably cared too much about keeping her clothes clean, and never wanted to be hit with red bean bags. They had nothing in common, Korra decided. Nothing but sitting in the children's chapel when they probably both had somewhere else to be.
"So what do you think?" The girl asked suddenly, she turned and looked over her shoulder at Korra.
"About what?" Korra asked.
"You think he was a connate or God?"
"Aren't they the same thing?" Korra asked.
"No," the girl shook her head, "You can get away with anything if you're a God. Just say it was all a part of your plan. But connates, like Red Zone, they get in trouble for doing bad things.." Korra had never thought of it like that, and a part of Korra was still a bit confused about the concept.
"Jesus didn't commit any crimes, though. He was perfect. Without sin, that was kind of the point."
The girl turned then and said nothing, she just set Korra with a smile, "Or maybe that's just what he made everyone around him think." She winked for some reason then and something stirred in Korra's belly. She never liked girls like her, all frill and no grit. But for some reason girls like Asami always made Korra's heart beat faster. They made her nervous.
This girl smiling made Korra's breath catch. She was super pretty. Korra looked back at the action figures in her hands and she only looked up when she felt the girl join her on the church pew.
"Why are you here?" Korra asked remembering how healthy the girl looked. Her expression changed then, it crumbled a bit, and her eyes dimmed. Asami pulled her legs up to her chest and rest her feet on the pew.
"I'm visiting my brother." She said.
Korra nodded.
The girl continued with a sideways glance at Korra, "My mom died a few days ago in a car crash, she was pregnant with my brother. He was born too early though so he probably won't…" She trailed off.
Korra's heart felt a little heavy then. Her worse nightmare, hearing her father had been killed by one of the bad guys he fought against… This girl was living it. She looked healthy, but Korra could see the pain on her face and it told her she was everything but healthy right then.
"I'm sorry." And she was. She didn't know this girl, but she felt for her.
Korra looked down at her action figures again as the girl rest her chin on her knees and began quietly crying.
"I have leukemia." Korra said simply.
The girl looked up, "I'm sorry." She said and a small silence carried between them. "My name's Asami, by the way."
"Korra."
"Can I ask you something Korra," Asami tried out her new friend's name.
"Shoot."
"If you like Dr. Red Zone, why didn't you go see the play?"
Korra shrugged, "I don't know." She lied quietly. Asami scoot a little closer to her then. So close Korra found herself tentatively trying to pull her sleeves down to cover all the needle marks in her arms and biting her chapped lips.
She once wished she looked like Asami, small and graceful. But she was big, weirdly shaped, and even more so now that she was bald and hungry looking.
The girl reached for the figurine of her father, "You're a fan of the Southern Trojan?" Asami asked.
Korra beamed, "He's my dad." She announced proudly. Asami jaw dropped.
"No way! Your dad's a superhero?" Asami asked. Korra nodded excitedly.
"When I get back to my room, I'll show you a picture of us to prove it." Asami nodded like it was a done deal, but she could tell the girl didn't doubt her. She liked that. The unwavering trust.
"That's awesome. I wish my dad had gotten powers when he met my mom. But they're just regular connates. They don't have powers." She looked over at Korra then and found her smiling, "What?"
"Well, I didn't think a girl like you would be a fan of the Legends."
"With Legends like Kyoshi, who wouldn't be a fan? Remember when her country was being invaded and she literally split the land in half and Shin the Conqueror fell to his death and when she was summoned to appear in court she said, "I killed him, so what?" And no one did anything because they were too scared? That was awesome!" Of course Korra knew that story. But Kyoshi was amongst the first and earliest Legends. Not even a popular one. This girl knew her Legends, plain and simple, and Korra was impressed. Asami reached for the Southern Trojan action figure, "Can I see him?"
Korra shrugged and extended the action figure. Their fingers graced against one another's and at first it was a nervous feeling that passed through Korra. Then something much sharper. Her heart lurched, a chill ran her body followed by an explosion of warmth that emanated between them.
They gasped simultaneously.
Korra looked at Asami to be sure she was feeling the same as Korra. Instead she found that the girl's face was being etched by several traveling blue lights. They etched a luminescent tattoo into the girl's skin, and she could feel the same on her own. In unison the tattoos expanded. Small first, just on their foreheads. Then it widening, covering half their faces. The process took a couple of seconds, and each second the girls shared an unfamiliar emotion.
Deep. Incomprehensible. And though they had little reason to smile, little reason to look optimistically towards the future, as the tattoos etched into one another's skin they couldn't help themselves. The girls began to giggle uncontrollably. Breathily.
Korra's connate was one of those girls she'd avoided. Now she wondered how many of those girls could make her feel something she hadn't felt since she still dared to dream of being a superhero.
No. That was absurd. Only one girl could make Korra feel, could make Korra dream. Only one girl could make Korra smile and feel-
"Hope." Asami said.
Year 2406 - Twelve Minutes Ago
Mako didn't know what Asami was hoping to find by gaining access to the files on all connates who had managed to flee Kuvira. A list of names was a great start, but without being able to touch every person on said list it was just as much a hay stack as-
The portable drive flashed a luminescent red light twice before returning dormant and each flash was punctuated by a high pitched beeping sound.
Mako stood at a computer terminal in the corner of the hard drives lab. Large decks of computer mainframe scattered about. A few paces away he could hear men changing shifts. They'd be headed his way any moment and he didn't want to explain why he - an officer on Kuvira's detail there mostly for security - was tapping into the mainframe for sensitive information. Did he have clearance to access said information, yes, but that didn't make his actions any less questionable.
The men began his way chattily, "You see that hull damage the rebels did to that last transfer truck?" One of them asked.
"It looked like someone had taken a bite out of it or something."
"No kidding-," The second man stopped short as he rounded a corner. Mako held his breath. This was it. He cleared his throat, straightened his spine and prepared to deliver a threat that would keep either men from reporting the out of place behavior of Kuvira's most trusted officers.
But he didn't need to.
They weren't there. Then they were. A young girl and a broad shoulders strongly built young man. Materializing from thin air they took a moment's pause to gather their surroundings.
Mako's heart slammed in his chest and he bit back the scream of surprise.
As soon as the young woman saw the guard she sprung into action. The first guard reach for his baton and she quickly powered an extended leg into his chest. The force drove him backwards several steps and he hunker to the ground to catch his fall.
The young man made for the second guard sending a firm punch rocketinging into his jaw with enough force and leverage that the second guard was sent flying aside into a panel of computers, unconscious before his round belly hit the ground. The younger woman's kick had disorganized the first guard but he wasn't through. He begun a sloppy arching punch only to have it batted aside like a fly by the young woman who then extended her other palm against his face and -
He vanished. Just like that. Gone in a blink of an eye to...Who knows where. Mako took in the younger woman's attire. All black like the customary connate get up, tight fitting, and revealing only the skin that show her connate tattoo, it's intricate detail notable against her exposed shoulder all the way to her fingertips.
Mako backed pedaled quietly behind the stacks of machinery as the two rebels took control of the room.
He couldn't see what they were doing but something told him they were probably seeking the same information he had been. They said nothing. The young man keeping a watch out as the younger woman's fingers danced past one security measure after the next as if child's play.
"I'm through the last firewall. Extracting the information now. It'll be broadcast directly to our own database."
"So we need to work fast before one of Kuvira's computer geeks notices the connected signal." The younger woman only nodded, her fingers rapidly working through one coding after the next.
Minutes passed. Before long Mako wondered if he should be alerting security. But then what? Sure it would show his loyalty to Kuvira but that would also mean he'd need to explain why he was so far out of his regular jurisdiction. He kept silent and waited until finally the young woman placed a hand on the young man's shoulder and the two vanished.
He breathed a breath of relief and moved from behind the stacks and towards the exit. He'd made it nearly out of the room when he saw her. Or rather. Saw the glow.
His eyes snatched the image in a moment but once he'd seen it his heart sunk in his chest. Mounted on the monitor was a woman being hunted by easily thirty-five men. They all had guns. They cornered her between a flight of stairs she'd just climbed and a long hallway she'd run into.
She watched their guns train on her. They shouted commands. She was cornered. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. The woman responded turning back to face the men who had been pursuing her from the flight of stairs below. That motion had revealed her backside, revealed the puckered bloody mess of a tattoo that emanate a luminescent glow.
Mako's breath caught, his brothers haggard face in mind, "You'll never know till you feel your connate die time and time again." Bolin had said.
Bolin's connate...it had to be, right?
The girl took an aggressive step towards the stairwell. The five men all pulled the trigger without hesitation. A fire seemed to ignite then, like a tornado, massive, powerful and billowing out in a hot flash of bright light and the screen buzzed, killed by the intensity of whatever had sparked that flash.
Mako didn't see the flash. He didn't see the men burned alive by the scorching heat. He didn't hear the sound of the entire corridor going up in flame and cement being blasted to fragmented rocks. He didn't see bullets disintegrate mid air. But he felt it - he felt the entire facility burst into flame as Bolin's connate detonated like a bomb.
~Author's Note~
Yet another two part chapter. I hope you all enjoyed. If you did, drop a review, if you didn't let me know why. I decided on superheroes because… Well I was just burning to write this story set (eventually) in 2016 and I love the whole concept of the Marvel Universe and I just finished Jessica Jones. Basically I'm burning to write a bittersweet romance set to the backdrop of disease, progressing medicine, hope and - blah blah blah. What do you think? I really wanna know! Follow me on Tumblr AvatarUncanon for more queer ladies. Subscribe. Follow. Favorite. And share.