Vulnerability Pt. 2
7 MONTHS AGO
Winter had begun leaking from the trees in piles of cascading snow. With each passing moment Spring nudged winter further and further aside but Kuvira couldn't help but fear the cold, even as it made a retreat.
Korra placed a cup of tea in front of the shivering woman. Korra herself looked strong as always. Her clear blue eyes leapt through the caves' shadows and announced safety in a world that had so little left.
Korra saw the holes in her shoes, the unraveling threads in her dingy jacket. Korra saw the way Kuvira's knees knocked; the way hunger gnawed muscles till all that was left were hollow bones. She saw this and gently placed her hand behind Kuvira's head, slowly tipping the tea into her mouth. Kuvira had once been too proud to accept such pity. But the truth was she felt too weak to resist.
A large fire warmed the cave and Korra had surrounded her with warm blankets. She hadn't been here long but she knew they were a well oiled machine. Doing what needed to be done and doing so somewhat happily.
None of them looked hungry. None of them had frostbitten fingers. Nor had witnessed hungry animals pick off their friends. None of them had seen the underbelly of winter as Kuvira had.
Korra lowered herself into Kuvira's view, placing her sturdy back against a cave wall and laying her forearms across her knees. She had one question:
"What happened?"
Kuvira looked at the woman, whose eyes shined with hesitant curiosity, she searched for a way to describe what she'd witnessed. How they'd toed the line of savagery so closely they hadn't realized when they'd crossed it.
The words came painfully like the cold against her emaciated body, "Winter turned us into savages. It turned us into…" The words hung in their air. She closed her eyes and said them aloud, "It turned us into living undead. It turned us into cannibals."
3 DAYS AGO
Suyin's words came as they always did, direct and unhampered, "Amon will never trade you for your friends."
"I know."
"So why are we going to meet him?"
"We're not going to get hostages. We're going to make them." Korra stood outside the retirement home. The cars had been pulled around and she hoisted guns or all sizes and calibers into the trunk, "No one in Ba Sing Se wants Amon as their leader. not since he started rounding people up and dropping them from the wall. We remove him from the equation we can take the city easily."
"The people might not agree with him but his military does." Lin reminded her.
"That's why we need these explosives." Korra pointed to the quick work of home made explosive Asami had put together in a night long project.
She could still hear Asami on the balcony. She replayed it over and over in her mind. Those word from Asami's lips, 'And that's why it's so damned hard for me to resist kissing you.'
Suyin awakened her from the thoughts, "We can ride to nearby settlements. They've also had their people taken by Amon and they've already offered support if we choose to mount an attack."
Korra nodded, "When I meet Amon, I'll take out his guard and whoever's with him then take him hostage."
"Korra, there might be more than you can handle alone." Tonraq admitted.
"She's not going alone." Korra turned to Asami as she approached, "I'm going with her."
"No." Korra shook her head, "You're too valuable to the operation. We don't have a better mechanic or explosives guru."
"My skill will be no use to you a thousand miles away. You know I can hold my own in a fight and I was at the compound last week so my face will be familiar." Asami crossed her arms and raised a Try-Me-If-You-Dare eyebrow, "I'm coming."
PRESENT
Asami hadn't even embraced her father for all of two seconds before Korra was in Amon's face. She turned her chin up at the man who had a good foot on her, setting him with her deadliest expression, "Where the hell is my crew?"
"Korra," Amon shook his head back and forth, each of his words so deliberate it sounded almost drawn out, "You didn't think I would trade a bandit and his two companions for you - someone of no real consequence." A guard stepped from Amon's side. He removed the visible weapons Korra carried. Two guns, a machete ad two daggers. He passed them all to the two guards who remained inside the helicopter.
"I killed Pema."
Amon smirked, "Barely."
"Dad," Asami whispered her voice thick with emotion, "How are you here?" she buried herself in his neck allowing tears to slip down her face, "How did you find me?"
Her father pulled back from Asami and extended a green pendant. Korra recognized it from what felt like lifetimes ago. She'd seen it first time she'd met Asami and coincidentally the first time Asami saved Korra's life.
The medallion attached to the broken leather chord was flat and round. The back made of metal and the protruding from was a ground green stone surrounded by smaller red stones. Asami took it with sheepish fingers; a new emotion fell over her face.
Grief.
Korra watched the woman she'd fallen for as she pulled her father into another hug, "You left it at Pema's compound. When I saw it I knew it was the one that belonged to-,"
"Mom." Asami finished.
Both Amon and Korra watched the encounter. Korra finally spoke, "This was never about a trade. You just wanted me to bring you Asami."
"That's not true." Amon responded coyly, "This trade wasn't just about Asami," suddenly his playful tone turned acidic, "It was about vengeance."
Asami had removed herself from her father's arms and slipped the necklace around her neck. At 'revenge' she took up a horrified expression, her mind finally remembering what this was supposed to be. The plan. But Korra could sense things had changed the moment Hiroshi Sato stepped free of the helicopter.
That was Amon's plan.
Amon's eyes trailed to Kuvira who had taken to looking anywhere but Korra's eyes. "She told me everything I need to know about you, Korra. Strong willed, resilient, clever. She told me about your tendency to mistake foolishness for bravery and surrender for cowardice."
"It is cowardice," Korra said more to Kuvira than Amon, "When you have just as fair a chance by standing your ground and fighting."
Amon had begun making a small deliberate circle around Korra like she was an animal at the zoo. He left no part of her unobserved.
"That's all you do, Korra. Fight, fight, fight." He shook his head and came to a stop in front of her, "Do you know the single greatest difference between you and Kuvira?" Amon suddenly asked.
"Why don't you enlighten me, Lord Snooty."
"Of the two of you, Kuvira is the only one who's going to walk out of this desert, alive."
Amon's men didn't need a signal. Tone was enough. One guard drew his long machete, shooting forward faster than the other. He swung for Korra as she took a few stumbling steps back from the blade. Her head swungg to Asami who had chosen this moment to freeze up. "Asami?" Korra asked. This moment to stand at her father's side as Korra was prepared for slaughter. "Asami," she almost wept for the second friend to betray her in hours of need.
Together Korra was sure they could take them. Alone, with Kuvira, she wasn't so sure. She reached for her own machete then remembered she'd been frisked and disarmed.
Kuvira and the two other men closed in ranks around Korra. Kuvira held two daggers in raised fists, the man directly in front of her a machete, to his side a man holding two machetes.
The first to attack was the man in front of her. He stepped in with a wild swing, his legs too far apart, his body too over extended. Korra ducked beneath his blade easily ensnaring his arm in hers. She slung him over her back tossing him up and over in the air. She removed the machete from his hand and trampled his head with her foot.
She'd lost sight of Kuvira, now she sensed her in her peripherals. She deflected two swift jabs from Kuvira's dagger then turned and snapped a kick to the second guard who had circled around, attempting to catch her off guard.
Asami watched the battle, her stomach knotting, "Dad." She fumbled to find the words, fumbled to earn anything but love from the only family she had left, "Don't let them do this."
Korra cried out as a machete made purchase on her calf and the guard reared back for a second attack. Korra tackled him then, slamming her right fist into his ribs, angling for his kidneys, then her left into his chest. He stumbled away but not out of reach. With a wide hard upward swing she cut him open from his navel to his neck. His shirt split open, his flesh unzipped allowing blood to surge.
'Kuvira,' Korra remembered just as Kuvira's dagger embed itself in her side.
"Gah!" Korra gasped falling forward a moment, and hunching over her knees. Kuvira gleefully removed the dagger, tugging at her skin and making the wound wider. Kuvira was too close, Korra realized as Kuvira leaned in to stab her in the back. Korra held the new knife wound with one hand, and with the other she gripped her machete and spun with frightening strength. Kuvira thrust her stomach away from the blade, narrowly avoiding a blow that would have her abdomen split in two. Korra backpedaled then, feeling blood ooze over her hand. She grunted and groaned.
Close up combat was Kuvira's specialty. Korra didn't want to get close to the beast.
"Dad." Asami continued desperately, "Tell them to stop. Please!"
"I'm sorry Asami. She participated in the death of one of our most prominent generals. There's nothing I can do."
Asami's body became racked with humiliation but more than anything sadness, "I participated in the death of one of your prominent generals! Will you have me killed as well?"
Mr. Sato's nostrils flared, "Asami, you were acting out of necessity. You are not a bandit."
"I was doing what was right. Korra saved my life. So did Kai."
Mr. Sato grabbed her wrist then, "No, Asami! You don't know what you're saying. You've been-," He looked for any option, any way to justify killing one but not the other, "You've been brainwashed!"
Clanking metal reverberated in the air as Kuvira began a fast assault. Korra kept her pace just barely. Korra slipped into defense rather than offense, she couldn't find a way in past all the jabs. She could only deflect them ad hoped Kuvira didn't have a longer stamina than hers.
Amon looked between the women, knowing the fight was a true coin toss. That Korra's passion matched Kuvira's will to survive. Knowing he didn't want to be there when the coin hit the ground. He climbed into the helicopter and looked expectantly for Hiroshi Sato and his daughter to join him.
"Dad," Asami's heart broke, "Please."
"I can't Asami," he yanked her arm forcing her towards the aircraft.
"Let me go!" Asami demanded. Hiroshi looked inside the helicopter where two more guards sat with guns between their feet. They didn't need any more instruction. In seconds they began violently strong-arming the woman aboard. Asami struggled, wrenching her body in their hands, but she came up empty against the three stronger men.
Korra heard Asami's cries of distress but Kuvira moved almost unbearably fast. Each step a preface to the other in a barrage of well timed disasters. One dagger going for her jugular. She'd slap the hand aside. Disaster averted. One to her stomach. She'd dodge. Disaster averted. but there always came another, just as fast. Just as deadly. She couldn't help Asami.
Korra began reversing her steps as Kuvira penetrated her defense.
She found herself traveling uphill backwards on a mound of sand, deflecting, dodging, swaying, returning one attack after the other until they all seemed to melt together like a dance between enemies.
Wind began picking up. Somewhere in her mind Korra registered the helicopter taking off.
Then the music changed, Kuvira had let her hear it, just long enough to begin a rhythm. Just long enough for her to catch Korra off guard when she broke that rhythm.
Korra's feet tripped over one another. Kuvira was atop her instantly. She brought a dagger down for Korra's head. Korra saw it coming only moments too late, moments before it was to penetrate her in the eye. She acted in desperation, catching the blade with her bare hand, wrapping her fingers around it tightly. Her fingers screamed, her palm screamed, as she held firmly to the blade. Her blood making her grip slick, she clamped down harder still not quite ready to lose an eye.
Asami became quiet. Her eyes watching the pilot flip one switch after the other. Watching the guards strap her in with a seat-belt and shut the doors behind them. Watching Amon settle his heartless gaze outside the window where Kuvira and Korra worked to kill one another. Watching her father stare at her wondering how he could fix her.
Always trying to fix her.
He smiled, "I'm glad you came to your senses."
If Hiroshi Sato had been with Asami these last two years he would have known his daughter only got so quiet when she'd made a decision and usually that decision ended with someone bleeding. She felt the helicopter lift from the ground.
She didn't remove her eyes from the window; she only allowed her hand to edge towards the belt buckle. She took stock of the guns held by the guards at either of her sides. She subtly checked if Amon's attention remained with the fight below and her father with ways of fixing her.
She was happy to see her father. Knowing he was alive gave her so much joy. But Korra could be dying at that very moment.
She undid her seat-belt and clutched it so tightly her knuckles felt like they might explode. She steeled her jaw.
Asami jerked into motion, twisting her upper body; she rammed the belt into the throat of the guard furthest from the door. before he'd fully registered and cried out she struck again this time taking his eye and quickly dropped the belt dirtied belt. It snapped back trailing blood across the passengers. The second guard barely had time to react before Asami took hold of his head and smashed it against the helicopter's window leaving bloodied cracks in the thick glass.
Of the two remaining men in the cabin, Amon was the first to react. he was only moments late. Asami had already retrieved the guards gun and placed it to Amon's temple.
Her father's mouth hung ajar. She must have looked deranged.
She bit back laughter. He didn't know her anymore, she realized. She'd never really known him. Known he was capable of killing people without a question. Killing people she cared about. She wasn't someone he could bully into doing as he said anymore. He'd expected her to allow herself to be manhandled. He'd expected her to take it all lying down.
But that was never the Sato way. Sato's went after what they wanted. Her father had taught her that.
And right now she wanted to be with Korra. Right now, she wanted to save her friends.
"Let. Me. Go."
Korra took a fist of sand and threw it in Kuvira's eyes. As the woman turned her head, Korra scrambled away on her one good hand and knees. A small ways away she looked down at her hand. The pain was enough to make her want to scream. She struggled to her feet, raising her fists, only to find her opponents attention had been taken elsewhere.
It had been taken by a puff of orange dust swerving between sand dunes. The tires grind into the earth kicking dust and debris in a trailing cloud. As it drew within a few hundred feet Korra began to make out that it was a vehicle. The occupants narrowly dodged a large boulder.
That wasn't the view.
The view emerged from the tops of sand dunes.
The view marched through hundreds of miles of deserts and now marched directly at them.
A wall of undead stretching further than the eye could see, their bodies swaying unsteadily in the sand. Their heavy breathing droned together with the sound of propellers. Even hundreds of miles away Korra found her hand coming to her nose as a hard wind swept the putrid scent of decayed flesh and waterlogged guts her way.
The car trampled a small dune of sand. Or what appeared to be a dune. The moment its tires were midway through the car bounced upward. A tire popped and the carcass of another vehicle was unveiled, sharp edges scraped against the bottom of the car. The driver lost control and the vehicle span sideways into a log roll.
The car flipped on its side, stopping only when it collided with a taller sand dune.
The undead pounced at once. What looked like dozens of them began climbing atop the car. They moved to the windows, they banged on the windshield. They begged to get in.
Korra took two steps in their direction before Kuvira's hand landed firmly on her shoulder.
When she looked at the woman her eyes said something both of them had already realized. They were too late. There was nothing they could do.
The undead swarmed, one had managed to pry his hand through the windshield. Others followed suit.
The occupants were dragged out screaming, their bodies ripped by the glass on their way out.
She tuned away feeling her hands begin to shake. She turned away knowing that beneath the sound of the helicopter's blades turning loudly just above her, beneath the sound of a thousand marching feet and ragged breaths of the undead. Beneath that there were three people screaming in agony, calling to a cavalry that wouldn't come as the undead devoured their flesh.
Korra knew right then what it must have felt like. The horror Asami had endured that night in the woods.
"Migration." Korra spoke looking to the crumbled outer wall of Ba Sing Se, "And it's headed straight for the city."
Asami opened the doors of the helicopter, several feet off the ground. She looked behind her; she continued to level her gun to Amon. The pilot had brought them to a standstill. Not sure what he was supposed to do with a deranged woman pointing a gun.
"Asami, if you go out there," her father looked at the migration coming for them then to his beautiful disobedient daughter, "You'll die."
"Then let Korra board and we can all fly out of this. Alive."
"I can't-,"
"I'm not leaving without Korra."
"You'd choose that bandit sympathizer over me? Your own father? Have these two years turned you to such indecency? Why would you die for a girl who associates with the same kind of ment hat killed your mother? have you forgotten that they stole the love of my life?"
"No!"
"Then why-?"
"Because I need her!" Asami's voice lowered until it was barely a whisper above the roaring propellers, "She's everything to me what mom was to you."
Inconsolable rage consumed her father's face. He moved towards his daughter, placing himself between the gun and Amon. His face twisted with disgust, "How dare you!" He grabbed her by the collar of her shirt, his hatred bleeding from every inch of his face. Survival compelled her to shoot, her love made her drop the gun.
"Comparing that savage to my wife?" He shook her violently but Asami showed no sign of retracting her assertion. He growled, "I can see now that there is no reversing how badly you've been brainwashed!"
"Dad, please-,"
He dragged her to the opening of the helicopter and threw her to her death.
Korra watched Asami drop. As if in slow motion. She could see her necklace lifting from her body as she ripped through the sky several feet. her hair whipping across her face in thick waves. The way her arms and legs flailed, her hands grabbing to catch something as she dropped twenty feet towards the earth.
She felt her body cross the distance only moments before she felt the impact of Asami's body against hers. She absorbed most of the blow as it took her to the ground painfully. She felt something in one of their bodies pop then crack. Their legs folded up against one anothers. Her teeth bit down on her tongue drawing blood.
They lay collapsed on the ground. Physically and emotionally drained.
Asami stared skyward; her eyes open as Korra's hand's fluttered over her face, "Asami?" She asked. Had it been enough. Was Asami alright. Her bloody hand dripped blood everywhere. her heart became heavy. "Asami, say something." She plead feeling a darkness invade her heart. The possibility that Asami wasn't alright.
"I think I broke my arm." Asami finally whispered. Korra smiled first, glad just to hear Asami's voice. Glad the darkness was receding. Then she realized someone had just tried to kill Asami.
Korra glared up at the man who had shoved his daughter from the aircraft. He returned her gaze with an equal hatred for Korra. For Asami. She hoped to ever see the man again, she wasn't sure if she'd be able to resist killing him.
The helicopter's blades sliced through the air as it spun around and faced away from Ba Sing Se.
Amon was abandoning the city. He knew if the walls couldn't keep out a few dozen undead. They certainly couldn't keep out thousands.
The helicopter began moving towards the undead. The harsh wind of the low helicopter whipping Korra's hair in her face painfully.
Wet warmth touched Korra's fingers and looking down she found they had come from Asami's eyes. The woman curled into Korra, nestling her head into Korra's chest she began weeping the loss of her father for the second time.
As Asami wad Korra's bloodied shirt in her fist a thousand undead marched towards the vulnerable walls of Ba Sing Se.
An old thought came to mind. It was about happening to find yourself between a migration and the noise they herded to…
Korra held Asami a little tighter as the raven haired woman said the word that echoed in Korra's mind, "Massacre."