Mercy
2 YEARS AGO
Something was burning and everything was heavy. The copper taste of blood filled Asami's mouth until her lips parted and allowed the blood to drip heavily to the ground.
Her arms and legs pitched forward with gravity against some kind of restraint. Opening her eyes, she realized she was hanging upside down above the ground.
Is something burning? Her sense of smell returned and almost just as instantly so did a jarring sense of touch. The consuming sensation of a thousand whips focusing on her back drowned out all other thoughts.
Struggling, she realized a slab of burning metal was atop her and all that was between her and the searing heat was the burning plastic of her seat. The heated metal and fire had eaten through the majority of the seat causing the bubbling plastic to melt against her skin with sickening pops. She shuddered away from the flames moaning in agony.
She needed to get free.
Her hands moved about herself until they sloppily found the seatbelt's buckle. She pressed the button firmly. The belt released and she dropped to the earth in a moaning heap.
Asami gasped yet again before rolling on her back. Moving side to side she smothered the flames that had endeared themselves to the fabric of her shirt as well as the skin beneath it. With the flames extinguished she closed her eyes and lay there in disturbed silence. She knew if she opened her mouth she'd resume with a blood curdling scream.
How long had she been unconscious?
She could smell her own burned hair as a stiff wind etched through the bruises and scrapes on her body.
She lay on the ground for a moment more before gathering the strength to turn over on her hands and push herself a few inches off the ground.
Where was she?
What had happened?
The moment she looked up she was greeted by the surprised expression of a man. She shrieked, backpedaling on her open palms and numb feet. She expected him to move, to allow his surprise to shift to recognition. It didn't. It remained suspended on his features.
The man's surprise had happened moments after impact. He too was still strapped in his seat, but a steal beam had lodged itself in his stomach, and gravity made his blood crawl down the slick metal.
Watching this man's face a memory tugged in her mind until it all rushed back to her.
Back to Republic City. Back to the rioting that broke out after two days without water or electricity. Back to the cannibals and radio stations reporting that they had no idea what was going on. Back to hospitals turning away patients and police stations falling into disarray. Back to the fires that were allowed to burn as first responders stopped responding knowing full well they might get bitten by doing so.
To the three firm knocks on her dorm room door and her roommate's stunned expression at the armored convoy her father had sent to escort her from Republic City University, "You're the Asami Sato? As in Future Industries Asami Sato?" To boarding the plane and finding her father had "purchased all the seats." To Asami making demands for other passengers to be allowed to board what would be the last plane out of the violent city. Then-
Asami worked to her feet with effort and took a breath. She'd removed her eyes from the man, the ghastly sight made her stomach want to expel what little food it held.
But his distraught face triggered memories. With trepidation she allowed her eyes to settle over the man's face. Familiarity. She'd seen him before now. Before the wide eyed expression of disbelief had been left suspended on his face.
Then-
Less than five minutes after take off, two fighter jets had swept in. One began dropping bombs and making craters in the runways. The second jet had pursued them spraying bullets, attempting to knock them out the sky. The pilot evaded best he could causing the plane knocking from side to side as the pilot maneuvered. Asami remembered looking out the window and seeing the shot that took out the right engine. The jet moved under them, bullets began tearing through the other wing. Then suddenly both the jets whipped a hard right and streamlined far field, away from the plane and away from the city. She'd watched the fighter jets fade to small specs when-
Asami found herself touching the man's eyelids with her fingertips. Delicately, she pulled them shut.
She could remember nothing else from this man and she felt wrong for using him in that way.
She stumbled free of the wreckage. Past the burning debris, the metallic pieces and bodies that cooked like rotisserie over flame. All of it produced a fowl stench that she knew she'd never rid from her nightmares.
When-?
She asked herself. What happened when the jets suddenly stopped pursuing them and destroying the runways? What happened when-?
The answer continued to evade her as she dug her fingers into the soft earth and climbed out of the small crater the plane had made on impact.
When-?
It hit her: when she saw the drone.
It released a package over the populated city. Moments later she saw the mushroom cloud.
That was the memory she'd had to pry free. Maybe she'd been purposefully repressing it. But now the horrifying memory returned.
When the jets turned to specs in the early morning sky, Republic City had been obliterated.
She could hear the pilot screaming he was losing control and feel the plane lose altitude in the sky. She could hear the warning beeps pricking the air like violent chords of a violin. She could see the simultaneously deploying air masks drop from the ceiling. She could see a mother across the aisle gripping her child and singing insufficient lullabies. She could see the man in front of her take his hat off and remove a postcard showing a destination he'd never behold.
The man across from her.
She recalled his sad eyes set above a gentle smile, a calm smile. She knew those eyes. She'd just finished closing their lids. Neither of them had bothered with the air masks despite the many that had. Somehow that endeared them to one another in these final moments, "You travel?" He asked her. She nodded. Now he showed her the postcard, "Have you traveled here?" He asked.
Asami looked at the postcard.
She'd traveled to every nation and more than half their states; she'd learned the steps of dozens of dances and could do their motions fluidly. Asami had learned every relic song of nomadic and empirical roots. Her tongue had tasted a rainbow of cultural dishes, some addictively good and others astoundingly awful. She'd had lovers of every color regardless of wealth or even gender. She'd driven fast cars around the world, shaken hands with some of the most powerful men in the world, and had earned the title of being one of the most brilliant minds in the world.
Yet she had never visited this obscure foreign place he held so dear. She'd never seen this magnificently immense tree he so desperately wanted to visit.
None the less, Asami reached across the table to the man, and rest her hand atop of his. Tears running over their cheeks, her voice cracked with each word, "It's beautiful." She smiled warmly, "Absolutely breathtaking."
He nodded, sucking in his lower lip. Maybe he detected the lie. If he did then he didn't let on.
She would die a liar but given the circumstances of her short life she could imagine far worse titles to die beneath.
She could look out the window and see the cloud of white smoke reaching out to catch them. She could see its round hand extend to the declining plane. She saw the murky underbelly as it consumed them, flooding the air with a fowl odor. Lastly, she could feel the plane jerk when it collided with the ground.
She recorded all of this in the black box of her heart and wanted to press erase just as soon as it played in her mind.
She stared in the direction of what had once been Republic City, a city of hope, reduced to plumes of black smoke.
PRESENT
Korra cradled Asami in her arms. She'd seen the girl wince when applying pressure to her right foot. She'd heard the girl announce she'd broken her arm and for that reason Korra the body in her arms and moved towards their car.
Kuvira watched the wall of undead closing in on them as Korra released Asami's body into the passenger side seat.
"Get them in the-," Korra turned to come face to face to Kuvira with a gun drawn and aimed directly at her, "What the hell do you think you're doing?" She demanded. She reached for her own weapon but Kuvira raised her jaw ever slightly shaking the weapon in her hand.
"I'm taking the car." Kuvira stated.
Behind her the undead marched forward, only a couple dozen feet away. The man on the ground with his chest sliced open now pushed himself up in the sand. He held his gaping wound and groaned, his eyes resting on the massacre that approached.
"Over my dead body." Korra growled.
Kuvira clicked her weapon from safety, "That can be arranged." Korra steeled her jaw.
"Or you come with us." Asami offered suddenly, "You think you can just drive away from this? Check the gas. You won't make halfway out of this desert. Your best bets right now are behind those walls with as many hands to kill the undead as possible."
"Guys?" Said the guy on the ground as the undead closed within thirty feet of them.
Korra continued to look down the barrel of Kuvira's gun for a moment longer before allowing her eyes to rest on the cold snake eyes on the other side.
Slowly Kuvira lowered the weapon.
Korra moved past quickly going to the first man. He was still out like a light. She pulled his arm over her shoulder and hoped he'd wake up in time to be useful.
"You!" Korra shouted to the bleeding man "What are you waiting for? And invitation? Haul your ass!"
Limping through the sand he scraped together the energy to get on his feet. He hobbled to the backseat of the car and was quickly met with Korra heaving an unconscious body atop of him. She shut the door tight as he groaned and pushed the weight off; by time he'd managed to do so Korra had found her way to the front seat.
As the car came to life so the gas light. Her foot pressed down heavily on the gas for what little it was worth.
Tonraq had expected a fight. He'd expected a stand off. He'd expected death. He'd expected a dozen different scenarios for getting to the second ring.
None of them included them simply walking right up to the gates and pushing them open.
Where are the guards? Tonraq wondered, not for the first time as they moved up the stairs inside the walls. He knew he couldn't be alone in this thought. He knew Suyin and the others had to be thinking the very same thing.
They finally reached the door that would let them out on the top of the second interior wall. Lin placed her hand on the metal handle, took a glance behind her, raised her gun then jabbed the metal handle with a loud Bang!
Light flooded the winding stairwell and the unit broke into-
No resistance. The top of the wall was empty. Not a guard in sight. Only the sound of the undead just below, reaching up for a meal.
"Alright. I'll say it," Lin began, "What the hell is going on?"
"If our intelligence is correct, there should be a corridor on the south end of the wall holding prisoners." Suyin said her eyes directed to a map in her hands.
"Our intelligence said we'd be fighting our way through at least two dozen guards before we even reached the wall." Lin countered.
Suyin crinkled the maps in her hand before folding it, "Are you saying you want to turn back? Right now when we're so close to my daughter?"
Tonraq knew that as the days had passed she's stopped sleeping. She'd stopped eating even, 'I'll eat when my daughter is safe in my arms...' For such a rational woman, Tonraq was terrified when Suyin had turned to such irrational behavior. They'd become close these last ten months. And now he placed a hand on her shoulder, grounding her to reality. And though it was a measure that barely restrained the stubborn woman it was enough to make her drop the fists she'd clenched around her machete.
Lin spoke carefully, "I'm saying we need to proceed with caution."
"Proceed how you want," Suyin snapped and shrugged off Tonraq's hand, "Just stay out of my way." She blew past Lin and moved towards the corridor.
"What are you thinking?" Tonraq asked.
Lin watched her sister walk away from her, concern clearly written on her face, "We saw a helicopter leaving the city. I'm guessing – no, I'm certain, whatever made that helicopter leave is also why we haven't seen any opposition."
Mako, Bolin and Kai sat in silence. They hadn't been checked on in hours, or maybe it only felt like hours.
They'd lost track of time.
Just as Bolin had gotten used to the heavy breathing of thirty starving men and women, a bang came from the other side of the door.
The door clattered aside and they all flinched. As sunlight bathed them they looked aside allowing their pupils to dilate before returning their eyes to the slender frame of a girl.
"Listen up," she confidently addressed them, "There are at least a thousand undead headed for the walls of Ba Sing Se." Whispers began immediately but the girl spoke right over them, "In case you hadn't noticed the walls are falling apart. Half of it is patched with fences. As we speak, the interior wall is being secured by Amon's most loyal followers. They've already begun hoarding food, clothes, and water within in the inner most walls and reeling in their troops. They intend to allow the outer ring to be overrun."
Mako looked around and said more to himself than anyone, "That's why we haven't been checked on in hours."
"That's right." She confirmed, "Even before this, we were active in trying to prevent more bandits for being hunted and killed without fair trial. We saw what Amon was doing and knew it was wrong. We do not want to die and Amon's remaining army does not care. Ultimately, we have two options. Stay outside and die. Or fight our way inside for the chance to survive."
"Why should we trust you?" Someone inquired.
"He's right. Who are you?" Demanded another.
"I'm Jinora." She stepped further inside, her face now visible shown obviously pretty, obviously damaged from invisible scars. Bolin felt Kai take in a sharp breath, "We call our army the White Lotus." Jinora's eyes had wondered the room. Now they found their way to Kai, he looked back. Her mouth hesitated for a moment until she managed to steal her eyes away and finish, "Join us, fight them, and together we can take the upper ring."
The undead haunted this part of the desert. They shambled around as if they were attached to the city where their living bodies had once called home. Korra had swerved and evaded quite a few on the way in. Now she'd wished she'd conserved the gas. The car went dead and she began coasting on momentum.
"Dammit!" Korra had reached her breaking point, and her voice now made the hollow car feel even smaller. Too small to contain her angered scream. With one hand on the wheel she whipped around and pointed to the man still slumped against the window, unconscious, "Wake him up!" She shouted.
"He's-,"
"Wake him up or we leave him here to die."
When Korra turned back around she could feel Asami's gaze on her cheek. Korra didn't have time to explain. She never seemed to have time. Not with her mother to say goodbye. Not with her father to greet hello. Not with her friends to tell them to run and let her die. Not even enough time to fall in love.
She took off her shirt; until all that covered her upper body were her bandages winding from her mid section up, over her chest and covering her healing shoulder.
"What are your names?" Korra asked.
"Daw." Said the bloody man shaking the unconscious man, "And this is Wu."
"Well, Daw do you think you can carry a semi-automatic half a mile?" He looked down at his chest. His shirt split open revealing the mess Korra had made with her machete. He'd almost immediately forgiven her when he realized she wasn't going to leave him in the desert to die.
He knew Amon would have.
"I can try." He nodded solemnly before he arched back his hand and slapped Wu firmly across the face.
"Kuvira, I need you to carry the missile launcher from the trunk." Korra grunted as she tied a makeshift sling around Asami's broken arm using her shirt. Glancing in the rear view she could see the army of undead as their heads bobbed into view over mounds of sand. They moved so fast in packs, "Your seat should pop down."
Thunk! The sound made Korra jump and jerk her head to the right. She came face to face with an undead pressing against the glass of her window. She swallowed and continued, leaning down and taking out a small knife she cut off the bottom half of her pants leg and cut that into strips as well. Asami extended her foot and Korra began making applying her makeshift compression, wrapping the already swelling ankle quickly. Daw took out his canteen. He took a swig of the water before pulling Wu's head into his lap and dousing him.
Wu gasped jerking upward and looking around, "Where-? What-?" His eyes settled on Korra and they widened. Time seemed to slow, in that moment of confusion Wu acted on raw uneducated instinct. He panicked.
And he opened the car door to escape.
"Don't!" Korra yelled. Instantly the hands of an undead grabbed Wu's wrist and beginning to pull him out.
"Wu!" Daw moved to help his friend as he was being yanked from the car.
A second undead reached Wu's side of car, he moved beneath the boy's squirming body just as Daw grabbed hold of Wu's legs and firmly tugged him back inside. Wu screamed as the hands moved to take a hold around his neck unintentionally strangling the boy and silencing his screams to small gasps. The undead had enough of what he need though. He unhinged and moved to clamp down hard on Wu's neck.
Daw reacted, grabbing Kuvira's gun.
"No!" Korra shouted.
Pow!
She knew right then time was out. She knew right then Daw might as well have sent up a signal flare telling ever undead within a mile exactly where their next meal was. The undead who hadn't been interested before now closed in ranks and began to mob them.
The undead fell forward his brains draining from the new hole a mushy green substance. Daw raised and aimed for the second undead still attempting to crawl underneath Wu's body. Wu fell to the ground limp but only for a moment as three undead picked up where the first had left off. His legs were all that remained in the car; his upper torso was an easy sprawled out target. Wu was dragged free of the car, with three undead piling on him.
Daw hesitated as Wu was dragged through the thick sand. He hesitated to leave what the last safe zone offered by the car. But Korra knew better. The safety of the car was a lie. The moment they'd run out of gas the car had turned them into sitting ducks.
She locked eyes with Asami. The emerald eyes still took her breath away, even now filled with so much fear.
Korra's heart ached as she turned to her door then and jammed it open into the face of the undead that desperately tried to get in.
He bucked away from the door as it hit him. Over his shoulder a second undead hobbled forward, his arm at an awkward angle from his body, his breathing expelling blood and saliva from a deformed lip. She slammed the door shut behind her and raised her gun. They were coming for them anyhow. Daw had insured that. She fired at the first undead. The second undead reached out with his one good hand and locked a firm grip on her hand holding the gun.
She used his grip against him, pulling her arm back and allowing him to stumble forward into the machete she brought up to his stomach. She tugged the machete through his body's core, ripping him all but in half. His dissected body fell to the ground and she didn't waste another moment moving around the back of the car.
She aimed and fired three shots rapidly into the skulls of the undead trampling Wu.
When their bodies fell limp he shoved them off, screaming like an idiot. The lucky bastard had somehow managed to not get bit. Korra approached him and with each step she took he scurried away. The determination in her gaze as deadly as the gun in her hand. She leaned over and yanked him to his feet by his scrawny shoulders.
He turned away shaking violently in terror, expecting her to kill him. Instead when he managed to open his cowardly eyes he found her pointing to the crumbled break in the outermost wall. She handed him her spare machete and shoved him forward, "Run."
Just then Korra heard the sound of shattering glass. She spun in time to see the three undead that had pound their way into Kuvira's side of the car.
The hands broke through the glass and pulled her wriggling body through the jagged pieces. The sharp edges bore into Kuvira's skin on the way out, scraping her body head to toe.
Korra raced to the vehicle checking to be sure there wasn't a build up on Asami's door. She brought her machete down on the head of a new arriving undead, yanking the machete free with a firm jerk. Suddenly she hesitated. Looking at Asami in the passenger seat. Her foot badly sprained. She needed someone to help her to the wall. She needed someone maybe just as badly as Kuvira and everything in Korra wanted to be that someone. But she couldn't be, not right now, her heart sank to her stomach as she turned to Daw and shouted, "Get Asami to the wall!"
She then glanced at Asami whose mouth fell slightly ajar. She knew in that moment that Asami wanted her to be that someone. But she also knew Kuvira needed someone as well.
Korra raised her gun and found she was out of bullets. She discarded the weapon then, feeling it hunker into the sand she cut down the first undead, severing its head from its neck then moved on to the second. He managed to grab hold of her shoulder; in one fatal swoop she severed the connection between his wrist and his hand. The hand fell to the ground only fractions of a second before his body.
She glanced again to Daw who allowed Asami to place her weight around his shoulders and together they struggled free of the car.
Kuvira screamed reminding Korra of her purpose.
She raced for the woman as the undead took her to the ground with an almost synchronized motion. The first undead to bite in pulled back his head munching greedily on the flesh he pulled away. Kuvira screamed firing her gun at blind targets.
Asami screamed as a bullet split through the air, breaking the glass of Korra's window burying itself in the sand. It had missed Asami's body by centimeters.
Korra glanced behind her, to Kuvira's reckless hand, to the undead and made a choice. Upon arrival she kicked the gun from Kuvira's hand before she accidently killed someone.
She grabbed the shoulders of the undead who had unhinged his teeth around Kuvira's ankle. She tossed him backwards and buried her machete into his body.
Meanwhile Kuvira began beating her fist into the skull of the undead that was unhinging for his second bite. He wasn't deterred and Kuvira soon found her fingers taking hold of both ends of his jaw. She pushed his mouth open with all her strength focused on keeping the jaw apart. She screamed a gasp of effort as the teeth began to close down on her fingers. Her blood mixed with his thick saliva and with a final cry of strain she managed to break the mouth apart rendering him incapable of biting.
Korra sliced through the back of the last hunched over beast. He turned his head to her slowly and that was the only queue she needed to clobber her machete through his jaw.
Kuvira threw the undead over to the ground and climbed atop of him. His arms strained beneath the legs that pinned them and he gurgle blood sloppily out of his broken mouth, heaving his chest upward he snarled at the woman as she buried her fist into his skull. Then the other. Then the other. She began pounding him senselessly.
Korra approached the woman and now she could see why the woman beat the undead so viciously. Kuvira's ear had been partially removed along with a part of her cheek. She could just make out the white of Kuvira's teeth. Her blood and exposed flesh must have ached unbearably but Kuvira was too blinded by rage to feel it.
Kuvira threw one fist after the other into his face, gritting her teeth and ignoring the tears that began running down her grimy face.
The undead closed in. The wall of undead spilled over the last hurdle of dunes before they entered this empty space leading to the outer walls.
Korra grabbed the woman's raised bloodied fist in the air, "We have to go."
Kuvira ripped her fist free and brought it down again on the flattened skull.
Kuvira heaved heavy breaths dropping her fists to her side as she fought back tears.
Korra spoke softer, knowing she couldn't possibly imagine what Kuvira was feeling, "Kuvira-,"
"I'm going to… I'm going to become one of them."
Korra took a breath. She stepped into Kuvira's line of sight and set her jaw firmly, "I won't let that happen."
Hearing the resolve in Korra's voice, Kuvira looked up at the woman, "You'd do that? Show me pity? After everything I've done."
"It's not pity. It's mercy. And if there is such a thing as pity or mercy in this world do you honestly think you deserve it?"
Kuvira looked to the ground then, "So why-,"
Korra cut her off; "Because the only difference between them and us is our ability to show mercy even to those who don't deserve it." she reached down and yanked the woman to her feet. She noted the three undead coming for them at all angles only a few yards away. She turned and pointed to the crumbling wall. There was no safety inside of them. But it was the prospect that there was something still worth running at.
Kuvira looked to the walls. To the closing in undead that blocked their way, "We're fighters," Korra eyes found Asami just now making it to the wall. Asami stood on her sprained ankle. She buried a machete into the head of an undead with her left arm. The strength behind it was too light. She had to hack the undead three times. But the undead was finished and Daw was finished with two others also. He put his arm under her and carried her towards the walls. "We have people we want to fight for knowing we'll probably never earn a peaceful moment with them. Mercy is us from being the undead."