反射
Book 1.5: Reflections
Chapter 6: A City in Crisis: Part I
Korra and Bolin rushed out of the apartment building to the sounds of shouting and blasts of fire, coming from around the corner.
"Bleeding hog-monkeys!" the earthbender exclaimed. "What's going on?"
"I don't know, but let's find out!" Korra said, running toward the corner, her dark-red scarf flailing in the chilling breeze.
The two teenagers rounded the corner to see four metalbending police officers, engaged in a pitched battle in the middle of the road with at least six other benders. A loud whistling echoed throughout the darkened street as an officer shot out metal wrist-cables at two of the offenders, only for them to jump out of the way, immediately counterattacking with twin blasts of fire.
The officer manipulated his armour to cover his face and hands immediately, forming an impermeable suit of metal around himself. However, one of the other attackers produced a pair of flasks from the inside of his white suit, out of which shot two water-whips, tripping the police officer before he could recover.
"We have to help them!" Korra cried, throwing her fist forward and knocking two of the offenders off their feet with a pulse of airbending.
Bolin followed up with an open-palmed thrust that sent a chunk of the road flying into the stomach of another attacker, winding him.
The waterbender turned toward them, his eyes narrowing. "You're gonna regret gettin' involved, chumps!"
As soon as he spoke, a wisp of water snaked around Korra's ankle, throwing her into the wall of a nearby building.
"Hey!" Bolin cried angrily. He started forward, only to feel the ground beneath his feet erupt upward in the form of a short, angled column of earth, sending him flying backward. He gasped as he landed on the road, the wind knocked from him.
Korra recovered from the blow and instinctively ducked, avoiding a roundhouse kick from the white-suited individual. She punched him in the stomach, but then felt another tendril of water wrap around her chest. The teenager was hurled into a nearby dark alleyway, landing painfully on her side and sliding several feet.
She climbed to her feet, brushing herself off, to see two figures entering the alley and staring her down menacingly.
"Listen, little lady," the one in the white suit said. "We don't wanna hurt you or your fat friend, so why don't you just turn around and walk away?"
Korra scoffed. "Earth and firebenders. And you two chuckleheads are waterbenders? The Triple Threat Triad, right?"
"So you've heard of us," the man sneered. "Can't say I'm surprised – our reputation precedes us quite well."
"Any member of a triad is an enemy of mine."
With that, she let loose with a combo into the air in front of her, producing gusts of wind that slammed the unsuspecting triad-member into the dirty wall of the alleyway. The second man fell into a waterbending stance, and unleashed a horizontal rain of ice-shards at her from a shallow puddle on the alley floor.
Korra instinctively focused her chi into disrupting the oncoming ice projectiles. However, she was rudely reminded of the fact that she was no longer a waterbender when the first volley slammed into her chest, knocking her backward off her feet. She quickly recovered and rolled to the side behind a dumpster against the wall, hearing continuous metallic WHUMPS as the container bin was assailed by ice missiles.
Bolin stood shakily to see a dark burly figure bearing down on him. The man in question raised his fists to the side, and then brought them together. Bolin ducked, hearing the crash of two head-sized chunks of masonry, ripped from the exterior walls of nearby buildings, collide over his head. He rolled clear of the debris and thrust his palm into ground, raising chunks of the road that sent the offending eathbender off-balance. He followed through with a volley of large rocks, aiming for the man's torso and limbs.
KROOM!
A rumbling reverberated throughout the road as the triad earthbender raised a rock shield between himself and his opponent, the flying rocks impacting harmlessly against it. A dust cloud enveloped the air moments later when the earth wall broke apart in a volley of rock spikes, flying directly at Bolin. He gasped and raised his hands to conjure an earth barrier of his own, but it was too late –
Whistling echoed as a metal cord appeared from nowhere, wrapping around Bolin's body. With a sharp tug, the policeman yanked him backward out of harm's way.
Korra waited for the last ice-shard to shatter, before leaping out from behind her cover and unleashing a funnel of wind that slammed the waterbender hard into the alley wall. He slumped to the ground, unconscious.
Movement caught her eye, and she turned to see the first triad-member shape and launch a large ball of ice at her from his flask in less than a second. She was mildly impressed with this guy's skill.
But I'm better, she smirked, throwing her left arm into the air in a vertical sweeping motion that wind-blasted the ice-ball straight upward.
The waterbender was ready for this, however, and immediately followed through with a water-whip when he thought the girl was off-guard.
He had thought wrong.
Korra dodged the lashing tendril of water with a butterfly-kick to the side and, as soon as she landed, shot out a gust of air straight forward – catching the still-airborne ball of ice as it fell. For its part, the ball rocketed through the air, courtesy of the boost from Korra's wind blast, and slammed right into the face of the triad man. He cried out in pain before sinking to the ground.
The airbending girl retrieved her brimmed hat from the ground, and then put her hands on her hips as she surveyed the two unconscious men before her. "Bet you two never fought an airbender before, huh?"
She rushed out of the alleyway to see if Bolin was alright, but was caught by surprise by the familiar hiss of police wrist-whips. An instant later, metal cables wrapped around her wrists, tying her hands behind her back.
"Hey!" she shouted in shock, turning her head toward the man responsible. "What are you doing? I was helping you guys out!"
The police officer detached the cables from his wrist and finished securing Korra's hands behind her back. "You got involved in gang violence. As far as we're concerned, you and your friend are involved with the triads too, and you're under arrest."
"Are you kidding me?" she exclaimed as the man grabbed her by the crook of her arm and hustled her across the road, toward a pair of waiting police vans. "I don't believe this – we were helping you!"
The officer sighed. "Look miss, I'm just doing my job. The triads are running riot, and the city is short on officers. How do we know that you and your friend aren't from a rival gang?"
"Because…" Korra paused in deliberation, but then sighed and turned her head toward him. "Because I'm the Avatar."
However, the metalbender just laughed. "If I had a yuan for every time someone tried to talk their way out of arrest with that story…"
The young woman blew out a breath in frustration, and then looked over at the nearest police van. "Bolin!" she cried. "They arrested you too?"
The young earthbender was sitting in the back of the automobile with four of the triad-members, all of them tied-up as well. "Yeah," he grumbled, clearly annoyed. "This is what you get for being a good samaritan these days, huh?"
Before Korra got the chance to answer, she was pulled away and guided into the back of the second van, along with the other two men who had been attacking the police officers.
"You and your boyfriend are gonna wish you were never born," one of them growled.
"Yeah, whatever," she said, huffing in annoyance.
The Police Headquarters was one of the oldest and most intricate buildings in Republic City, its geometric shape typical of Earth Kingdom architecture. Bright and early the next day, in a classroom in the west wing, Lin Beinfong stood before a class of cadets, posture rigid, hands clasped behind her back.
She was dressed in a uniform like the kind worn by members of the anti-Equalist task-force: a dark-blue, grey and yellow-trimmed tunic and metal shoulder pads. It was humiliating, but after the loss of her bending, the standard police-issued black metal body-armour was impossible for her to put on or take off by herself.
At least this particular batch of cadets looked promising. There had been a handful of water and firebenders, but the majority of applicants were earthbenders, many of which had shown impressive talent during the initial induction exam. Naturally, the task of instructing the earthbenders had been assigned to her.
"Before we begin, let me make one thing clear," she said, her voice loud and authoritative. "Metalbending is a rare skill – outside of this police force, there are very few people in the world that can do it." She gestured out the window at the sprawling city landscape. "Bending requires discretion in an urban environment – tearing up the infrastructure of the city is not the modus operandi of the police force. As such, I must inform you now that, unless you show adept skill in controlling your bending, the majority of successful candidates will only be metalbenders."
There was a murmur throughout the class at this.
"I am here to instruct you in the ways of utilising your bending in a controlled manner to minimise damage and casualties," Lin continued. "Earthbenders, you will learn the art of detecting impurities in metal to bend it – "
"Excuse me, Ms Beifong?"
She looked over at the cadet in question who had spoken. "Yes? What is it?" she snapped, annoyed at the interruption.
"With all due respect, shouldn't we be learning from an actual metalbender?"
Lin's eyes narrowed.
"I mean, you used to be the Chief of Police and all," the young man continued, oblivious to her anger. "But Amon took your bending away."
"Let me tell you something, boy!" she snapped, startling him. "I was the Chief of Police for a reason – my metalbending was the best of my generation. It probably had something to do with the fact that my mother, Toph Beifong, was the creator of metalbending. Despite the fact that I can no longer bend, I am still knowledgeable in the aspects of earth and metalbending."
The sceptical looks on the faces of some of the cadets immediately vanished.
"And let me tell you something else," Lin continued, looking around the room. "Republic City is in a state of emergency. Noatak took away the bending of many people, including a large majority of the police force. As such, we are short on officers, and the triads are taking advantage of that fact. To respond to this threat, Chief Saikhan has personally requested my assistance in training a new squadron of police officers as quickly as possible."
A stunned silence filled the room.
"So," the former metalbender said, directing her steely gaze back on the unfortunately-naïve cadet who had spoken out of turn. "Do you think this qualifies me for teaching this course?"
"Y-Yes, ma'am," he croaked out, clearly terrified.
"Good," she replied, her tone brisk. "When classes conclude today, you're going to give me fifty laps around the training grounds."
At that moment, the door opened. "Ms Beifong," the police officer in the doorway said, snapping a salute. "One of the suspects we apprehended and brought in last night has been asking to speak with you."
"So?" she said, waving a hand dismissively.
"Well… she says that she's the Avatar…"
"What?" Lin exclaimed, whirling to face him. "She's back in Republic City? And she's been arrested again?"
After dozing off uncomfortably in the chair for a few hours, Korra paced around the dim interrogation room for what felt like the fiftieth time. She had been locked inside it ever since her arrival at the Police Headquarters several hours ago, which she took as an indication as to how swamped the police were. She hoped that Tenzin was not too worried.
Suddenly, the door opened, revealing a familiar figure.
"Ms Beifong!" she exclaimed happily.
"By Hei Bai's hairbrush!" the middle-aged woman sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "What am I going to do with you, Korra?"
The girl in question looked put-out. "For the umpteenth time, I've been arrested on a false charge. I'm not – "
"Yes, yes, I know what happened," Lin cut in.
She nodded at the police officer who entered the room with her. The man walked around behind Korra, and the girl finally felt the metal cables around her bound wrists loosen, before sliding off completely. She gingerly brought her numb hands back in front of her and tried to rub some feeling back into them.
"I appreciate you helping out those officers last night," Lin said. "And I'm sorry about your arrest. But with the way things are going right now, we are struggling just to keep control of the streets. We have to operate on an 'arrest first, ask questions later' basis."
"Ms Beifong, what's going on?" Korra asked, as she followed her through the bustling hallways.
The former Chief of Police pursed her lips and quickened her pace. "The triads are pushing for control of the city. The Agni Kais in particular have gained a lot of territory. And they're becoming emboldened. As you witnessed firsthand last night, it's getting to the point where they no longer turn tail and run from the police anymore. They stand and fight. I've never seen anything like it. Without the proper backup, it's becoming very dangerous for the police to even patrol the streets in boroughs held by the triads."
"What about the United Forces? Can't they do anything?"
"They have their hands full with the Equalists. Besides, there's not much they can do about internal issues."
"Wow, that's… messed up," Korra finally offered, sidestepping a pair of policeman who were hauling a handcuffed individual past them.
"Don't worry yourself with it, kid. I'm sure you've got enough on your plate at the moment. Just let us handle it."
She was silent for a moment, the oppressive din of the chaotic police station buzzing in her ears, before she remembered what else had happened the previous evening. "Thanks for bailing me out. My friend Bolin was also arrested on similar charges – could you please have him released too?"
"Already taken care of," Lin answered, pushing open a heavy wooden door to reveal the bustling reception area of the Police Headquarters, where she finally stopped and turned to face the Water Tribe girl directly. "His brother was called and informed of the situation, and is on his way down the police station to pick him up."
The mention of Mako gave Korra pause, thinking back on what Bolin had said last night –
"I have arranged for a car to have you taken to the docks," the policewoman continued. "I have also notified Tenzin of what happened. He will be waiting there to take you back to Air Temple Island."
"Thanks, Ms Beifong."
"Don't mention it, kid. It's the least I can do. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a class to get back to."
With that, Korra found herself left alone in the reception area, chaotic with police officers, anti-Equalist task-force members, and anxious-looking citizens. She began to make her way toward the exit, but paused when she noticed someone sitting on one of the waiting benches.
Not just anyone.
Mako.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
Merry Christmas to all. First of all, I would like to thank everyone who has given me feedback so far, particularly CoriOreo and HissingSnake, who have given me very in-depth and helpful ideas for improving my writing. Credit goes to them for several ideas present in the story. I've done my best to incorporate their advice into my writing, and a fair amount of the the story has been edited as a result.
I'm sorry to anyone who was expecting an update, but I wanted to finish editing these earlier chapters and get them up to a standard that I'm happy with first.
On another note, only 3-4 months until Book 2 of the show comes out! Yay!