"What do you mean there were only two bodies that were accounted for?" Su asks as Kya, Bumi and Tenzin reported back to her from Republic City. "What happened to the third one?"
Bumi shrugs. "Either she's alive or she turned into a zombie." Bumi mocks how a zombie walks.
Su glares at him while Tenzin smacks his head and clears his throat. "What he means to say is that from the information we gathered, two bodies were found on the scene and they were brought into the morgue of Republic City."
Su sighs and runs a hand through her hair. "I was afraid this might have happened."
Kya looks at her with concern. "What do you mean?"
Su turns to look at the three siblings. "It looks like that Vulture may still be alive and we won't see the last of her. I guarantee that."
"I can't believe the First and his brother actually survived their banishment after all those years." Bumi states slowly. "And I can't believe he's still doing those Heishi experiments after everything that has happened."
"We should have killed them." Kya lets out a frustrated sigh. "Maybe this wouldn't have happened."
"Maybe, but I'm afraid our worst fears have become reality." Su states grimly. "Amon and his brother, Tarrlok might be working for the Red Lotus."
Tenzin strokes his beard while he ponders a bit. "If they are with the Red Lotus then they must be after Korra."
Asami stirs in her sleep as the morning light crept out from the curtains. She also hears someone mumbling near her ear and she couldn't help but giggle. It felt good to be back sleeping and waking up next to Korra.
She kisses Korra's forehead. "What was that, Korra?" She says in her most innocent voice.
Korra couldn't help but give her a smile. "Would you mind closing the curtains for me? I don't want to get up just yet."
Asami gives her a quick kiss on the tip of her nose before she hops out of bed and closes the curtains shut while Korra snuggles up comfortably to a pillow and sighs contently from Asami's scent on it. Asami then quickly goes to the bathroom to freshen up a bit and was about to head back to bed when she hears Korra's doorbell ringing. She hears Korra groan and was about to get out from bed when Asami insisted she'd take care of it.
"Good morning, Asami." Katara smiles at her genuinely. "Is Korra around?"
"Yes, she is." Asami answers politely with a smile. "But I'm afraid she's still asleep."
Katara shakes her head knowingly but smiles nonetheless. "Well, would you be a dear and make sure Korra takes her painkillers? I'd really appreciate it."
Asami takes the medicine Katara handed over to her. "Of course, Katara."
"Thank you." The elder woman smiles gratefully at the younger woman before she leaves.
Asami returns to Korra's room with the painkillers and a glass of water. She gently shakes the sleeping woman but to no avail, she shakes her a bit more to get her attention but still nothing. So Asami tries a different approach, she opens up the curtains to let all the light in and which made Korra hiss like a cat and cover herself with the blanket.
"Honestly, it's just a little sunlight." Asami looks at her disgruntled girlfriend with a smirk as she sees Korra peeking out from the blanket.
"You call that little?" Korra growls under from the covers. "It's like lava pouring into my eyes!"
Asami couldn't help but laugh and close the curtains back. "Come on, get up. Katara stopped by with your painkillers and you need to take them."
Korra, sensing that the room had become dark once again, came out, crossed her arms and pouted. "But I don't want to." As soon as she said that, her head began to throb. "On second thought, it's about time I do."
Asami hands her the painkillers and the glass of water and patted her head. "That's a good girl." She began to walk her way to the bathroom but stopped as she heard Korra speaking to her.
"Do I get a reward for being a good girl?" Korra says to her excitedly.
Asami turns to her and tries to think about it. "Well, why don't you follow me and we'll find out together?" She says with a wink and a sly grin and Korra could only grin wider and rush to where Asami was going.
A table was thrown across the room and was smash into pieces.
"I had them! I had her!" Vulture yells out in frustration. "I should've killed those meddling twins when I had the chance! Then we'd have the Avatar here right now."
"Looks like you underestimated the Avatar and her friends again." Ace smirks at her but it quickly disappears when Vulture gave him a death glare.
Tarrlok clears his throat to get both their attention. "You hate to admit it but Ace is right. You underestimated your opponents."
"I did not!" Vulture barks at him and throws another table at him which he sidesteps effortlessly.
The First reveals himself from the shadows and lifts Vulture off the ground through a hand to her throat.
"Enough!" He screams out. "I have had enough of your bad temper and your poor judgement!"
Vulture struggles to say something but can't due to the tightness of Amon's grip and when Amon lets her go, she tries to steady her breathing again.
"You think you can compete with the Avatar and her friends even with the Heishi in you?" The First scoffs. "I bet you can't even take the Avatar alone!"
With that, Vulture got up and glared Amon. "You wait and see, I can take her." She immediately leaves the room.
"You do know she's going to go after the Avatar now, right?" Tarrlok tells his brother with a frown.
Amon just shrugs and gives him a smirk. "That's the idea." He turns to Ace. "Take a squad and follow her." Then he turns back to his brother. "Tarrlok, I've got something you might want to do before you set out with them."
When Korra left with Tenzin after he stopped by at her place, Asami had found that she was sitting in a bench at a park with Opal, Joyce and Bolin and dog named, Naga. Opal had shared to them about what Wing and Wei witnessed last night with Vulture and the Heishi serum. If it wasn't for Mike, maybe not all of them would make it back to Zhao Fu. Asami couldn't help but ponder at the word, Heishi.
"How do you guys do it?" Joyce asks Opal. "I mean, it's no different than my job since my life is always on the line every time I get out onto the field but I find myself worried that I may not come back at all."
Opal gives her a small smile and watches as Bolin throws a ball for Naga to go and fetch. "It's not easy, really but you should have faith with the people that got your back."
"I do." Joyce sighs and looks up to see Bolin running after Naga who wouldn't give back the ball. "But I keep recalling that night when the Red Lotus broke into my home and I couldn't even get a clear shot at one guy charging at my friends and I but Korra…Korra took out most of them by herself." She pauses. "How does she do that? How do you do that?"
Opal shrugs. "It's either kill or be killed but when lives come into danger, Korra made it clear to all of us that those lives should be taken care of first than ours."
Joyce couldn't help but giggle. "Sounds like Korra to me."
When Bolin successfully got the ball back from Naga, he began to yell out triumphantly. But Naga began to charge up to him for the ball but out of sheer panic, he throws the ball to the other direction so Naga wouldn't pounce at him but instead run past him leaving him confuse.
The ball was about to hit a distracted Asami who was lost in her thoughts and Bolin watched in horror and anticipated what Korra would do to him. Just when it was about hit her, instincts comes to her and she immediately catches the ball while Bolin falls to the ground out of pure relief that she didn't hit Korra's girlfriend.
"I now know why the word Heishi was familiar to me." Asami exclaims excitedly to her friends with the ball in her hand. "I heard my father mention about it before."
Opal looks at her with wide eyes. "You've heard of it?"
"More like read about it when I went into his study." Asami says sheepishly. "I remembered reading also two other terms, Senshi and Shuri but I don't remember reading what it does or if he actually mentioned anything about it."
"Why didn't you tell us about this, Asami?" Joyce questions.
Asami shrugs. "It was something I had to do for myself and I guess I was afraid."
"Maybe Sim might have an idea on what those two words mean since she gave us the heads up with the Heishi." Opal said as she stood up from the bench, Asami did the same but was tackled to the ground by a Naga who appeared out of nowhere and she was tugging lightly on the sleeve of her shirt.
Joyce laughed. "Looks like Naga wants you to follow her to Korra."
Asami look at her puzzled. "What makes you say that?"
Opal could only laugh as she helped Asami get up. "Korra found her hurt two months ago and she took care of her, they were inseparable after that."
Joyce smiles as Naga walks on and waits for Asami to follow her. "You better go, it might be something important. We'll see you later."
Raf stirs in his sleep and opens his eyes. His vision is all blurry and he couldn't make out who was approaching him from a chair and was about to try and sit up but a gentle hand insists he lies down.
"How're you feeling, Raf?"
"Oh. Hey, Captain. I'm glad it's you." He rubs his eyes to get a clearer vision of his friend. "How long was I out?"
"Half a day or so." Lin gives him a small smile. "How's the thigh?"
Raf tries to raise his injured thigh and he winces a bit and he gently puts it down. "I'll live." He looks around but he wasn't familiar with his surroundings. "Where are we? I don't recognize this place."
Lin clears her throat. "Uh…We'll talk about it when you get better. Right now, you need to rest."
He looks at his Captain and shrugs. "If you say so, Captain. By the way, is Mike around?"
"I don't know how to say this to you, Raf but…" Lin hesitates for a bit. "Mike's gone. He made sure we all got out in one piece. He died protecting us."
Raf had to look away from her gaze as she told him. "Where is he? Can I see him?"
"He's at Republic City's Morgue and I'm afraid we're far away from there."
After talking with Su, Tenzin and his siblings; Korra went to grab her bow and arrow and went to the Archery Range to go clear her head and just to relax a bit. After shooting three arrows right at its target, she hears Naga barking behind her but when she turns around, she was not only greeted by Naga but by Asami as well. She gives a quick rub on Naga and kisses her girlfriend on her cheek.
"How'd you know I was back here? I haven't showed you this area yet." Korra ask her girlfriend. "Were you stalking me?" She asks teasingly.
"No!" Asami says defensively and gestures to the dog running around the field. "Naga brought me here."
Korra raised her eyebrows suspiciously at Asami, not really buying her reason but continued either way with her shooting. Korra begins to get three arrows and shoots them one by one on the same target at incredible speed. She turns to see Asami gawking at her and Korra smirks.
Asami clears her throat to try and hide the surprise in her voice. " Pssh. What about moving targets?" As Asami picks up a few tennis balls that were piled up behind them.
"Whenever you're ready." Korra gives a wink at Asami and Asami just rolled her eyes at her.
Asami throws two tennis balls hard to the air and it shoots right out into the sky. Korra takes steady aim and waits for the perfect moment for her targets to align. She holds her breathing in and shoots. She shoots through both balls straight in the middle and Naga frantically runs to catch it before it hits the ground.
"I have to say that I am quite impressed, Avatar." Asami whispers in her ear as she pulls Korra close. "I am quite impressed at how Naga catches the balls before it hit the ground."
Korra pouts while Asami laughs and holds her girlfriend as she struggles to wiggle out from the embrace. "Anyway, mind teaching me how to shoot like you?" She says as she kisses Korra's forehead.
"How are we going to go about this?" Ace whispers to the others. "This plan might go perfectly well or it's going to get us all killed."
Tarrlok sighs. "I doubt they would give us a second look when they see us in their uniforms."
"Besides, it's not like the owners are going to end up missing them." She smirks as she gestures at the pile of bodies near a tree.
"So, let's go about this plan again." One of the men says. "Before they realize their patrol had gone missing."
"You mean dead." One of the men corrects his friend and they all start laughing.
"What do you know about Senshi and Shuri, Sim?" Kya asks. "Have you heard of those terms?"
They had blindfolded Sim to get her fear out and had her hands tied to the table. Sim shrugs at the mention of both terms but her movements tell another story and both Bumi and Kya saw it.
"Sim." Kya asks slowly. "You know about the Senshi and Shuri, don't you?"
"Senshi and Shuri." Sim repeats slowly. "Yes, I've heard about them."
"What can you tell us about it?" Bumi asks her. "Is it the same as Heishi?"
She hesitates as she answers. "I…I don't know."
Kya throws a dagger between Sim's fingers and it slices a bit of her skin and she screams.
"Okay! Okay! Senshi is the same as Heishi!" Sim exclaims.
"But there's something more is there?" Bumi pressures her. "There's something about Senshi."
"Senshi has…" Sim hesitates. "Senshi is different and…difficult. Only one was made."
"What makes it different?" Kya asks. "What does Senshi have that Heishi doesn't?"
Sim doesn't answer them directly.
"What does Senshi have?" Kya asks sternly.
"Senshi has a mild drug that makes the user control a person. They can make them do anything. Whatever the user wants, they obey with no remorse or second thoughts!" Sim screams.
"Sir, where is the Avatar?" Ace asks under his hood and behind his mask. "I would like to see her. It's important."
"She's busy at the moment but what's the rush, soldier?" One of the men halts them. "And who's this person all tied up?"
"Vulture, sir." Tarrlok answers. "The Avatar and her team were looking for her and we found her passed out in the field during our patrol."
The man was confused; he had no idea what this man was talking about.
"Uh…One moment, soldier." He walks away for a bit and talks to his radio.
"I have a bad feeling about this." Tarrlok whispers. "Something doesn't feel right."
"Sssh." Vulture hushes him. "He's coming back."
"And he brought friends…Great." Tarrlok panics a bit.
"How do you know about Vulture?" Opal asks them slowly.
No one answers her; they just look at one another.
"How do you know about Vulture?!" She asks again.
"Open fire!"
"I can't believe it." Tenzin says as he hears Sim's answer. "They actually did it."
"Did what?" Korra and Asami ask together.
"Who did what?" Korra asks.
"You've heard about Amon, the First right?" Korra nods at this. "He and his brother created Heishi but we stopped their research and banished them. But they wanted something that could give them control over any person despite their strong will and mind. Thus, Senshi."
"My dad must've helped them with the Senshi and after creating or helping them, he destroyed all evidence about it." Asami states. "So no one else would be able to recreate it."
"But what abou-" Korra continues but Tenzin cuts her off.
"What was that?"
"What about Shuri?" Kya asks Sim. "Is it worse than Senshi?"
"No, I don't think so." Sim tries to remember. "But it has something to do with the person who has the Senshi in them."
Kya ponders for a bit. She had no clue what could Shuri be. She was about to ask Sim another question when Bumi started talking.
"It's a cure, isn't it?" Bumi says slowly. "I would want a Plan B if ever the Senshi would fall into the hands of my enemies. A precaution, to be exact."
"Do you really think so, Bumi?" Kya turns to him.
"It is exactly what he says." Sim says to her. "But a price has to be given."
"What do you mean? What price?" Kya asks her.
"That person may or may not live from the Shuri." Sim whispers.
But only Kya gets to hear her answer since Kai busts down the door and Bumi was distracted by it.
"We have to get out of here!" Kai yells.
Asami, Kya and Bumi carrying Sim, rushes towards the Safe Haven they have underground while Tenzin, Korra and Kai went to warn and find the others. When they got there, there were injured soldiers. Kya quickly scans the room and sees Pema and Katara tending to the wounded. Raf was awake but he was talking to the person standing beside the bed next to him and she realized there were three people there.
"Is she…" Kya asks as she approaches.
"She's alright. She's just unconscious." Wing answers her unspoken question as he looks down at his sister.
"She took a bullet to her arm and a sword to her torso. She lost a lot blood." Wei continues. "She was there when it all started and we just couldn't get her out in time."
"I'm not surprised she's still breathing after all that blood lost." Lin says with a small smile. "She's truly a Beifong."
Opal began to stir and she mumbled a few words but they couldn't quite hear her so Lin called in Pema and Katara.
"Hey. Where's Korra?" Mako asks as he and the others join in the conversation.
"She went with my father and Kai to go help the others. They'll be back here shortly, I'm sure they're not stupid." Jinora answers trying to sound convincing at them being not stupid.
"I hope you're right about Korra though." Asami whispers to herself.
"Sweetie, what is it?" Pema asks slowly as Katara checks her vitals.
"Ge…Rra…Mo…Ut…Ere." Opal tries to speak up but her words were still not clear.
Kya gives her a glass of water and she drinks it all up and with a sigh, she speaks up, better than last time.
"Get Korra and my mom out of there." She pauses and clears her throat. "They want Korra. They said something about using the Senshi at her."
Korra, Tenzin and Kai had split up once they were rounding corners of the compound. They didn't know how many there were but seeing all those unidentified vehicles, they knew they had reinforcements and it wasn't looking good for them.
Korra had gathered up a few wounded soldiers and gave them directions on where to go. She was surprised at how this happened; she didn't even know how everything started. One of the soldiers told her that they had their uniforms on them and blended in with the rest but as soon as you let your guard down, they start firing or threatening you.
"Vulture's here?" Korra whispers to herself and tries to blend in with the prisoners and they try to shield her weapons away from Vulture's view.
"Where is your Avatar?" She yells at her prisoners. "Where are you keeping her?"
"Even if we did know, we would never tell you!" One of the men screams and he gets a spear to his chest for his response.
Once Vulture turned her back from Korra's point of view, she quickly gave everyone orders and directions on where to go and then she stood up and shot an arrow right through Vulture's back and she screams from the impact.
"Go! Get out of here!" Korra screams to her men and shoots two more arrows to get Vulture's attention. "If you want me, you have to work for it!"
And with that, Korra runs to an area where she knows no one else would get hurt. She stops and turns to see Vulture right behind her and she was pissed.
Asami, Lin and Kya met up with Tenzin and Kai but there was no sign of Korra.
"Where's Korra?" Lin demanded. "Did she get captured or something?
Tenzin and Kai looked at themselves confuse with her question.
"No, I'm sure she's fine." Tenzin tells her. "All three of us split up to cover more ground but we agreed if things got too heated we would meet back here and wait for each other for at least five minutes."
"And how long have you been waiting?" Asami asks with worry.
Kai checks his watch before answering them. "Almost ten minutes, to be honest."
The color drains from the three women and Tenzin notices their expressions.
"Okay, you know something. What is it that you know and we don't?" Tenzin asks.
"Senshi, Tenzin. They plan on using it on Korra and we have to find her before they do." Lin answers.
"I think it's too late for that." Kai says.
Kai points at the direction in front of him where everyone turned to see Korra running from an angry Vulture. They were about to go after her but a group of soldiers notices them and cuts them off.
"We'll go after her once we handle this bunch." Kya tells them. "Korra can take care of herself."
"How have you been, Su?" Tarrlok says as to her. ""How long has it been? Four years? Five?"
"Six years to be exact." Su hisses at him.
She was about to cut him down but someone comes out from the shadows and has a gun right at her face. She drops her dagger down to the ground and had her hands up in the air.
"That's a good girl." Tarrlok smirks. "That's not how you treat your guests."
"This is not how you treat hosts either." Su barks back at him.
She hears the gun click on her forehead and she takes a few steps back. "I'd keep quiet if I were you." Ace hisses at her. "Or it's your blood that's going to be all over the wall."
"Where is she?" Tarrlok asks.
"Where's who?" Su wasn't sure who he was talking about.
"Don't play games with me." Tarrlok slaps her hard on the face. "Where is she?"
"I don't know who you're asking about!" Su spits at his face and Ace laughed at him.
"She's right, you know. Who're you looking for? Sim or the Avatar?" Ace looks at him for a moment.
And that was all the opening Su needed. She quickly kicks the gun out from his hands and does a roundhouse kick, making Ace stumble backwards. The gun lands perfectly onto her hand and she fires the gun with no hesitation and a man falls cold to the ground.
Korra had been avoiding all incoming attacks from Vulture. She was at a disadvantage with Vulture's strength but Korra had an advantage with her speed and Vulture grew more and more frustrated at each swing she misses.
As Korra blocks an attack, her hand slips from the sword and she was now left unarmed. Korra punches Vulture with her might and Vulture stumbles back a bit. Vulture swings her sword to target Korra's head but the Avatar ducks and evades a few more attacks from Vulture.
Vulture lets out a frustrated groan for missing all her attacks. She launches towards Korra for her attack but Korra sidesteps easily to avoid it. She wings her sword again and Korra evades and catches her hand in the middle of the attack and twists it. Vulture groans and let's goes one of her twin blades, arming Korra and Korra kicks the Vulture's back making her fall to the ground.
Vulture quickly gets up and swings her sword to Korra and she blocks it easily and kicks Vulture back to the ground. Vulture aims for Korra's footing but Korra let her sword meet up with her opponent's sword. Vulture tries to redirect her attack but it gets caught and Korra quickly slices the arm off of Vulture and she screams.
"Had enough yet?" Korra asks as her back is turned from Vulture and she freezes.
Vulture looks at the direction Korra was looking and smirks at seeing Korra freezing in place at the sight in front of her.
Asami dodges an attack and jabs a knife towards her attacker and he falls to the ground. She sees the others were still busy fighting off some of the Red Lotus soldiers. She looks around and sees that no one was paying attention to her. She slips by and went to look for Korra.
She finds Korra slicing the arm off of Vulture and she couldn't help gasp in horror as Korra did it with no remorse. She was about to approach Korra but she sees her not moving and she sees Vulture getting up and was about hit Korra from the back with her blade.
"KORRA!" She screams but it was no use.
Korra couldn't hear her and she quickly looks around to find anything. Anything that can help her gets to Korra or stop Vulture in her tracks. She sees Korra's bow and arrow nearby and she quickly grabs it. She takes aim and holds her breath to steady and she fires.
The arrow directly lands to where the heart of Vulture should be and she coughs up blood and turns around to see where the arrow came from. She closes her eyes and falls to the ground. Asami tries to run up to Korra but Korra chases the figure in front of her. She either ignores Asami's calls or she just couldn't hear her.
Su takes out the magazine on the gun and throws the magazine somewhere behind her and she fires the last bullet from the gun at Ace's thighs and he screams in pain. She then throws the gun away and picks up her dagger. She makes Ace lean against the wall.
"What's your objective here?" Su demands.
Ace avoided her gaze and remained silent. Su pierces the dagger where she shot him earlier and he yells out again.
"You better start talking or you're going to end up like my friend here." Su points a now dead Tarrlok.
"It would be better that way since you wouldn't get any information out from me!" He growls.
Su smacks him right across the cheek and he spits out blood.
"Just you wait. Everyone's going to die. You're all going to die!" Ace laughs out loud.
Tenzin and Lin bursts through the close doors. Lin looks frantically around and when her eyes landed on Su, she rushes her and gives a big hug and Su couldn't help but relax to her sister.
"I'm alright." Su says. "Is my family okay?"
Tenzin nods. "Though Opal got hit pretty bad but she'll live. She told Kya to get you and Korra out of here."
"Okay, but where's Korra ?" Su asks Tenzin.
"Uh…We're not sure." Lin answers. "We lost Asami too. She might have gone after Korra when we weren't looking. We sent Kya and Kai to look for them."
Ace begins to laugh. "By the time you find Asami, she'd most probably be dead already."
Asami went after Korra's retreating form but couldn't keep up with the speed Korra was taking. Everything was so dark and she had no idea where she was.
"Korra!" Asami screams again and again but nothing.
A hand lands on her shoulders and she suddenly grips the hand and twists it. The owner yells out in pain.
"Ow!" Kai winces. "It's me!"
Asami realizing what she had done, quickly let's go of his hand and mutters an apology.
"Where's Korra?" Kya asks urgently.
"I was following her but she took off so quick. I couldn't keep up." Asami says as she looks down to the ground.
"Let's keep looking. She couldn't have gone far." Kai reassures them and moves onward.
Korra ran after the figure in front of her. She didn't know how long she had been chasing the figure but she needed to get to him. She sees the man turn and suddenly, she feels a stinging pain right in her stomach.
She looks down and pulls out the dart she found on her stomach. She starts feeling numb and dizzy as she fell down to the ground. The last thing she sees before she blacks out is the man looking down at her, smiling.
"…Mike?"
A/N:
And there's chapter 8! I'm sorry for the delay, I keep getting distracted when my cousins message for a game of DOTA2. :D Please forgive me.
Thank you for your reviews XenaWP, esther and Anne. ;)
esther: I guess I just wanted Asami to win, maybe Korra did let her win. I wouldn't know. :P Hey, you know the good thing about having a bad day? It's when the day isn't over yet but if your day ends bad then...I have no idea what to say. :P But if you need someone to talk to, you know where to find me. :)