Chapter 3
The Empire Trials Part 1
"We are two sides of the same coin, you and I."
18 MONTHS AGO…
"What are you waiting for? Get on with it."
Kuvira turned away from the female guard to look at the clothes folded up on the wooden table. She'd seen nothing but wood and platinum since she'd been hustled into the special metalbender prison facility on the outskirts of Republic City. As soon as she'd gotten there, the guards had stripped off her every bit of metal, leaving her in only her green uniform. Now, she stood in the center of this room, as disheveled and handcuffed as she'd been two hours ago when she surrendered. Three guards stood opposite of her, waiting for her to change, the anger and impatience evident in their faces.
"Come on, let's go!" the same woman barked.
Kuvira complied, stripping off her boots and pants and slipping on the dull breaches on the table. But now she was faced with her shirt and cuffed wrists, and she paused, but none of the guards moved to help. Kuvira reached for the back of her shirt collar, ignoring the pain that stabbed through her ribs. She pulled it up over her head, then stepped on it to pull it over her arms. Next came the gloves, and then the drab gray tunic slipped back on.
As soon as she was finished, the guards grabbed her like she might disappear at a moment's notice. Two others joined them as they propelled her down so many wooden halls she lost track of where they were going. Finally, they shoved her into a large wooden cube, one she knew was reserved for solitary confinement since there was not a single gap in the wood. They shut the thick wooden door, throwing the room into darkness.
Kuvira collapsed against the far wall with a tired groan. Her body pounded with fatigue and knives of pain were prodding at her ribs and right leg. She lifted up the hem of her shirt with her cuffed hands and prodded at her side, wincing at the lance of pain and the bumps jutting from her skin. Definitely broken with the possibility of puncturing a lung. Kuvira pulled her shirt back down and tried to move as little as possible.
It was a while later before the door opened and she was dragged back out. More wooden halls before she was pushed into another, smaller wooden box, this one with a shower overhead. Kuvira stiffened as ice-cold water rained down on her, rinsing her filth and blood down the drain in the floor. After a solid ten minutes, she was pulled out from underneath the torrent of water and returned to her cell, still soaking wet. She again sat against the wall on the floor, shivering inside her wet clothes. Despite the cold, she must have fallen asleep, because what seemed like moments later, rough hands were shaking her awake, pulling her up onto her feet and out of the cube before she could gain her bearings. Soon enough, she found herself in a white hall that smelled of bleach and was very brightly lit, but of course, still made of wood.
"Over here." A dark-skinned woman waved them over and Kuvira identified her as Water Tribe, through whether Northern or Southern, she wasn't sure.
The guards hustled her over to the medical table the woman had pointed out and strapped Kuvira down, pulling her hands above her head to strap her arms above her. She couldn't stop the hiss of pain that escaped from between her teeth at the motion.
"I'm this facility's healer," the Water Tribe woman said, sitting down on a wooden chair beside the table. "All I'm going to do is check you for any wounds and heal them if I deem it necessary. Do you understand?"
Kuvira managed a nod and the woman reached out and pulled up her shirt. When she saw the ribs bulging from Kuvira's stomach, a shadow passed over her face. She swept a quick glower around the circle of guards, which had grown to a number of six. Then she reached for something beside her. Kuvira heard something uncork, and a moment later, the woman was pulling a flow of water through the air. She placed her hands over Kuvira's broken ribs and the water began to glow. Kuvira breathed a sigh of relief as she felt her bones beginning to ease back into place.
"You should have brought her to me earlier," the healer told the guards angrily as she worked. "One of these ribs was dangerously close to puncturing a lung."
None of the guards answered her, and one of them shrugged as if to say, "What'd you gonna do?" The woman continued working in angry silence. Once she had finished with Kuvira's ribs, she moved down to her right leg, where a deep gash had opened up from her knee to hip. She healed this as well before deeming the rest of her scrapes and bruises as survivable. She dismissed them, still glaring at the guards as they unstrapped her and wrestled her out of the room.
Kuvira lost track of time in the wooden darkness of her cell, punctuated only by irregular meals that were few and far between. Eventually, the guards brought in two buckets, one for drinking water and another to serve as her toilet. She had considered herself to have a good innate sense of time, but it was difficult to say how long she'd been here when her life had become dark as the night.
She thought it was about a week later when the guards came for her again. They pulled her up and out of her cell. The dim light of the halls assaulted her eyes after so long in complete darkness, and her limbs were shaky from malnourishment.
They dragged her down more wooden halls that soon turned to platinum ones. She lost track of the number of times they turned, but eventually they came to a large platinum room. One of them opened the door, and within, built into the back wall of the room was another platinum room with bars. They shoved her inside and locked the barred door behind her. Then they moved out of the room and closed the other door too.
Kuvira turned to take in her new cell. A dim light was built into the ceiling of the outside room, illuminating her cell just enough for her to see. Built into the left wall was a platinum frame with a thin mattress and blanket on it. In either back corner was a chair and toilet, both of which were bolted to the floor.
"Home sweet home," Kuvira muttered.
No sooner had she sat on the bed when the outside door squealed open once more. A thickly bearded man poked his head through and looked around as if to check that no one was there. Then he motioned behind himself and stepped towards Kuvira's cell. Five other men quickly filed in and Kuvira stood when they closed it behind them.
"Can I help you?" she asked warily.
"Actually," The first man waved his keys at her and casually unlocked the door to her cell. "I think you can." He opened the barred door and motioned to her. "Come on out."
Kuvira didn't move. "I'm afraid I can't do that," she told him. "I'm already walking on thin ice as it is. I'm sorry, but I think you'll need to consult the initial guards first." She kept her expression calm, but her mind was racing. She knew what was coming next.
The men exchanged a look. Then, with a curt nod from the first one, two of them moved forward and grabbed Kuvira's biceps, shoving her forward. Desperate, Kuvira lifted her feet off the ground and hooked her legs on the bars. Her rib may have been healed but the stretched muscles were still some, and her side complained in earnest.
When the two men holding her failed to get her off the bars, the other three came forward to pry off her legs. Kuvira twisted, trying to get free, but they had her off the ground now and she had no traction.
They slammed her backwards against the solid platinum wall of the outside room. When the bearded man moved forward from the cell door, Kuvira swung her now-free legs up, catching one of the others around the neck and throwing him to the floor, nearly taking the feet out from underneath yet another. The bearded man slammed his elbow into her stomach before she could get her knees back down, and she choked, her legs giving out.
"Grab her, you idiots! Grab her!"
The two guards holding her arms pressed her legs against the wall with their own. The one she'd taken down stood with a groan, glaring at her.
"You just made this a whole lot worse for yourself," the bearded man snarled. When he pulled a knife from his tunic, Kuvira's eyes widened and she tucked her chin, but she knew she was just delaying the inevitable.
"Yao," the guard on Kuvira's right warned. "You can't kill her. We-"
"I'm not going to kill her," the bearded man, snapped back. Then he reached forward, and Kuvira jerked her head to bite his wrist, but he managed to get a grip on her hair, and then he was pulling her head forward. Her neck was screaming in pain. She felt his knife sawing at her hair, and before she knew it, her head was banging back against he wall, now covered in only ragged black stubble.
Kuvira made eyes contact with Yao, gaze venomous. "Damn you," she spat.
Yao grinned, shoving his knife back into his belt and letting her hair drop to the floor. "We're not even done yet," he said.
He made a fist and smashed it into Kuvira's jaw, sending stars across her vision. The other three guards that weren't holding her down moved forward and started in on her too. There were stabs of pain everywhere and Kuvira felt the blows. Fists, boots, knees, and elbows. After a couple minutes, her ears started buzzing, and the two guards holding her against the wall let go. It wasn't until she was on the floor that she realized they had actually been holding her up.
Then they were on all sides of her and Kuvira curled in on herself, knees and cuffed hands pulling in. After that, it was hard to think much at all.
Kuvira rose from unconsciousness just long enough for them to drag her across the floor and into the center of her cell. She heard the door slam shut and the key turn in the lock. Then Yao's voice snarled, "That's for our brothers and sisters. You had this coming after everything you've done."
Kuvira heard a door slam, and couldn't move. A sob rose up in her throat, but she hurt too much to let it out. She pushed it back down, refusing to let it resurface. She knew she had done this to herself, and there was nothing left to cry over.
She no longer had anyone to yearn for or a home to miss.
PRESENT
Bolin stared out the window at the passing countryside. Beside him, Mako was flipping through the file that Lin had handed to them before they left her office.
"This is insane," Mako muttered. Bolin inquired him with a look, and he explained, "They've been finding these things all over Ba Sing Se and they're just now sending us in there." He glanced up at his brother. "I don't like the sound of this."
Bolin shrugged. "She did say they weren't sure if it was a trap or not."
"Still…" Mako leaned back in his seat. "I have a feeling they're only doing this now is because of the summit."
Bolin punched him in the shoulder. "After everything, and now you're finally getting scared?"
Mako glared at him. "I'm not scared," he grumbled.
Bolin raised an eyebrow at him and then laced his hands behind his head. "We got this, Mako. I mean, come on! We help the Avatar save the world and Republic City a couple times, and now the entire city calls us the Detective Brothers. We have a reputation! If we can do that, we can do this too."
Mako shook his head with a small smile and closed the file, setting it on the seat beside him. He glanced around the all but empty maglev train. It was getting dark out, and those who were still on the train were beginning to stretch across the seats to sleep out the night.
After picking up their currency, passports, and tickets from the mission desk, the two brothers had grabbed their bags and caught the first train to Ba Sing Se. Though they'd made a few drop-off stops along the way, the rest of the ride was straight on for the rest of the night.
"You know," Bolin said, still gazing out the window despite the growing darkness. "After everything that happened, I thought the Earth Kingdom would never get better again. I mean, even before Zaheer killed the Earth Queen, it wasn't very well off the begin with. And then all that stuff with Kuvira…" He took a deep breath. "It just seems weird that things might actually be getting better after so long."
Mako nodded. "I guess that's why the chief sent us. It's our job to make sure the Red Lotus doesn't try anything like that again. We can't let them mess this up after Wu and the council have made so much progress."
The fallout after Kuvira's surrender had been a confusing mess. The Earth Empire army, the majority of which had marched to Republic City with her, had all but disappeared by the time United Forces marched their way across the continent to Ba Sing Se. Unfortunately, just like when Zaheer had murdered the Earth Queen, the bandits and criminals that had been lying low since the beginning of her rule took the opportunity to steal, murder, and overall bring yet more chaos. Unlike three years before, though, the general population was not so eager for the violence. They had become tired of it after three years of playing hunter or hunted. Sorting between the violent and the peaceful citizens had been hard enough for the United Forces. Add in the prisoners from Kuvira's labor camps, and the world leaders had their hands full.
Mako and Bolin themselves had escorted Wu back to Ba Sing Se after the United Forces stabilized the city before returning back to Republic City and starting their new careers as the first sibling detective pair in the city. Over the course of the year, though, they'd had constant updates. It took just over a year for the kingdom to be stabilized once more with jointed help from the United Forces, the Air Nation, and the forces of Zaofu. Wu had spent the next four months building a completely new government, organizing delegates and leaders and a new army. Finally, he'd managed the first summit for the newly created Earth Kingdom Council, led by himself and made of the heads of each city-state in the kingdom. That had been unprecedented, the signing of the Constitution of the Earth Council and the official creation of the Earth Kingdom's new government. Only now was the council meeting again.
And it was up to Mako and Bolin to make sure it didn't end in disaster.
"Hey," Bolin said, pulling Mako out of his thoughts. "Loosen up, Mako. Like I said, we got this." Right after he said that, he yawned, stretching his arms above his head. "Whelp, he said. "Since you'll probably be up all night worrying, I'm gonna go to sleep and get enough rest for the both of us." With that, he wadded his jacket up and tucked it beneath his head, lying back on the seat.
Mako leaned his head back, staring up at the ceiling of the maglev car. He was confident the two of them were fully capable of solving this case and finding the final drop-off location. But no matter how much he tried, Mako couldn't shake the chill that had settled over him when he first saw the symbol on that wall. All he could think about was how long it had taken Korra to recover from that disaster and how that might just happen again if they weren't careful.
Mako looked down at the file beside him. Inside were the dozens of cases of those symbols around Ba Sing Se and the signs that the group was all over the kingdom, moving around right under the Earth Council's noses. Mako had a feeling that the Red Lotus wasn't too happy about the new government.
Mako grunted and leaned his head back again, an ironic smile tugging at his lips. Not even a bodyguard, and he was still protecting Wu.
"Hey Mako?"
"Yeah?" Mako prompted his brother.
A pause. "Does the Red Lotus scare you?"
Mako didn't answer for a second. He clenched his fists and took a deep breath.
"Yeah, Bolin. They do scare me. Way more than you know."
"One and the same."
