反射

Book 1.5: Reflections

Chapter 11: The Avatar Returns: Part I

Light. Noise. Smoke.

Those were the three main things that took the forefront of everyone's mind as a bomb exploded outside City Hall, just below the front steps.

Screams. Searing heat.

A rumbling seemed to reverberate throughout the very earth as one of the pillars on the main steps crumbled, causing the roof above the entrance to teeter precariously –

"Look out!" one of the police officers shouted, taking up a squat earthbending stance.

KROOM!

A jutting finger of rock shot up out of the ground below the smoke, acting as a makeshift pillar to hold up the structure.

Korra lifted her head from where she had been thrown face-first to the ground by the force of the blast. Her lower legs were covered in rubble, but luckily not buried. She experimented with movement in her limbs, relieved to discover that she was not injured. Sparing a glance around, she saw that Tenzin and a few others had suffered minor injuries, but were otherwise okay. The ones closest to where the bomb exploded had been police officers and, fortunately, they had metalbent their armour to shield themselves from flying debris.

"Are you okay, miss?" a voice asked above her.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she cried, climbing to her feet. "Go help the others!"

The policeman nodded and ran off. Korra took a moment to survey the scene unfolding before City Hall. The crowd was in chaos. Most of the Equalists were wearing black hoods and face-masks. Others, however, were not, making it that much harder to distinguish friend from foe. Electricity sparked in the air as they engaged the police force, shocking them unconscious through their armour with electrified gauntlets.

Much of the panicked crowd was fleeing across the plaza toward the side streets. However, they screamed in terror and turned back when two more bombs exploded, one after another, in separate streets – these ones hidden inside Satomobiles parked by the side of the roads.

They're driving the crowd back toward City Hall, Korra realised. They're keeping people from leaving.

"Avatar Korra!" a gruff voice shouted. She looked over to see Chief Saikhan urgently beckoning her over to where him, Tenzin and Daio were taking shelter by the shattered entrance to City Hall.

"The Equalists have planted bombs in the side streets," she said breathlessly when she ran over.

"We figured as much," he replied. "Sorry, Avatar, but I must ask you to compromise your disguise. My officers are occupied dealing with the rebels disguised in the crowd. This place is a battlefield, and I need you to keep the south street clear and escort the civilians out."

"What about you?" she addressed Tenzin. "Can you escape through City Hall?"

"This entrance has been blocked by rubble, and it's too unstable to clear it with earthbending," the monk replied, brushing soot from his face.

"Don't worry about them," Saikhan said. "They're stuck here for now, but I'll personally protect them. Now get moving!"

Korra nodded, darting away down the steps and across the paved area, toward the main street on the south end of the public square. Chaos was all around her as she ran. She took pause when she noticed a pair of Equalists shock two police officers into submission, and then draw knives from their belts.

So much for peace, she thought in disgust.

She channelled her chi and blew both attackers away with a cyclonic gust of wind. Sensing danger behind her, she turned to see three more hooded people charging for her.

"Is… Is that the Avatar?" one of them asked nervously as the girl before them cast aside her trench-coat, revealing blue Water Tribe clothing underneath.

"Yeah, it has to be her," one of his compatriots answered, charging his glove as they ran.

"What's she doing here? And how in the name of Koh's hat organiser can she still airbend?"

"Forget about it! Let's just get her!"

Korra threw aside her hat and trench-coat and turned to face the three assailants. Her left hand shot down to one of the pouches hanging from her fur pelt. She raised her palm and focused her chi. A moment later, three corks shot out from her hand, striking the attackers in the head. They cried out and tumbled to the ground, unconscious.

"I think we can all agree that our Equalist friends pulled this little stunt to get to you two," Saikhan grunted at Tenzin and Daio, both of whom nodded wordlessly.

"Over there!" the non-bending minister shouted hoarsely, pointing to two hooded individuals racing up the steps toward them.

The Chief of Police wasted no time, his call to action marked by the hiss of metal cords snaking through the air. The pair of Equalists shouted in panic as they were ensnared, bashed together and then thrown aside in a single fluid movement. A funnel of wind blew past him, as Tenzin sent a third chi-blocker flying clear across the garden and into a cluster of hedges.

"A-Above you!" came Daio's panicked voice.

Saikhan whirled to see another attacker perched on the windowsill directly above them. He promptly lashed out with one of his wrist-whips and unceremoniously dragged the man down to ground level. He ripped the hood off the rebel's head and slammed him up against the outer stone wall of City Hall, one hand around his neck.

"Why are you keeping the crowd from leaving?" he growled, his face contorted in anger.

The man stared back defiantly, remaining silent. The police chief promptly raised a fist and punched him out.

Screams and cries of panic rent the air as people raced to and fro, desperately trying to get clear of the fighting. Korra was panting from exhaustion by the time she reached the street at the southern side, her foray across the plaza constantly hampered by Equalists and panicked civilians.

"Everyone, this way!" she shouted. She waved her arms and airbent a flurry of fallen leaves into the sky in an effort to get peoples' attention. Recognition appeared on many faces.

"Is that the Avatar?"

"What's she doing here?"

"Come on, everyone! This way!" Korra repeated loudly. "Come through this street!"

However, as soon as the crowd began their exodus from the area under her guidance, Equalist supporters descended upon them. The Water Tribe girl slammed a pair of attackers into the side of a building with a pulse of airbending. She ducked under a kick from another rebel, who had snuck up on her, before delivering a punch that could well have broken his nose.

The hiss of metal cords marked the entrance of more police officers, as they descended into the street from the rooftops above. They took up strategic positions on corners and in alleyways to help the Avatar protect the fleeing public.

"Korra!" a voice called out. She turned to see a familiar, and very welcome, figure running toward her, decked out in task-force protective armour, and armed with a chi-blocker glove. Three police officers were accompanying her.

"Beifong!" she cried happily.

"Have you seen any more suspicious activity in this street?" Lin asked, no time to be wasted on pleasantries.

"Uh, no, not yet."

"Stay on your guard. The Equalists might try to set off more bombs here." The middle-aged woman signalled for her three cohorts to continue on ahead toward City Hall.

Her prediction proved correct. Fortunately, the contingent of police officers spotted, and managed to stop, a handful of rebels who tried to detonate more bombs hidden in stores along the street. The paper screens of several front windows were peppered with holes and tears as metal cables shot through them.

For her part, Lin Beifong moved like a hurricane and struck like a force of nature. She paced forward through the street, her face stony and grim, shocking straggling Equalists unconscious with her electrified glove. It was almost as if she had never lost her earthbending, so effective was her fighting style. She bobbed and weaved, ducked blows, and left not a single capacitated opponent in her wake.

"Beifong, look out!"

A gust of air swept past her face, mussing her bobbed dark hair, and she looked to see a chi-blocker soaring through the air and crashing into the side of an abandoned Satomobile in the middle of the road. She shot a smile at Korra, her palm still open from the pulse of airbending.

"Nice timing, kid."

As it turned out, the remaining Equalists had been subdued by the police. The civilians were evacuated from the area, and ambulances began to arrive to cart the wounded to hospital. For their part, fifteen captured chi-blockers, a mixture of men and women, waited in the plaza to be transported to the Police Headquarters, de-hooded and with their hands bound behind their backs with steel wire.

As Lin and Korra were passing by them to return to City Hall, one of them, a young woman with brown hair done up in a long braid, turned and spat bitterly at their feet. She could not have been much older than Korra. It occurred to her that she had never been to visit any imprisoned Equalists, or even tried to talk to them. Was this part of the reason why they regarded her with such anger?

"Please listen to me," she started, causing everyone in the immediate area – police officers and Equalists alike – to look at her in surprise. "All of this fighting has thrown the city out of balance. But if we work together, I know we can have peace again."

"Balance?" the offending chi-blocker scoffed, her eyes blazing with hostility. "Your idea of 'balance' is having the bending elite lord their powers over the rest of us."

"Yeah!" a black-haired man next to her shouted, straining against his bonds. "The revolution began because we wanted change, and it won't stop until our voices are heard!"

"But your voices have been heard!" Korra cried over the growing sounds of discontent among the revolutionaries. "Before the revolution… I was not listening hard enough." Humility crept into her tone. "I was not doing a very good job of serving as your Avatar, and for that, I am sorry."

Although most of the chi-blockers continued to shout obnoxiously, several of them quietened, surprise evident on their faces.

"I promise you that I'll do everything I can to end this conflict," Korra continued, looking pointedly at everyone present. "I know we can all get Republic City back on the right path, and begin a new era of peace."

All she got in response were jeers and scowls from the more vocal Equalists, while others looked down at their feet, refusing to meet her gaze. Seeing many of the police officers giving a similar reaction caused disappointment to flare up inside her.

It was then that she noticed Tenzin standing at the smouldering front steps of City Hall, beckoning her over.

"I don't know why you're bothering," Lin said briskly as they walked over to join him. "These people have convinced themselves that the government is evil, and they'll stop at nothing until there is chaos in the very streets." She did not bother to vocally announce how naïve the young Avatar was being. Hopefully her tone would make that clear enough. She had been dealing with the riots, public threats and the climate of fear being bred from the terrorist faction for the past few weeks, which was only getting worse since Amon's downfall. It was all but total war in the streets.

"I still think there is a chance for peace between benders and non-benders," the girl said stubbornly.

"Hmph. I hope you're right." The Beifong heiress turned back toward the crowd as police vans began to arrive on the scene. "I have to oversee their transportation to HQ. I'm sure I'll see you again." A light smile of approval appeared on her face. "You did good out there today."

"Thanks, Ms Beifong. I'll see you around." She started to leave, but, as an afterthought, turned back. "Make sure the Equalists are treated well."

Several of the bound chi-blockers exchanged glances with each other when they heard this.

"The Avatar is right," Tenzin's voice rang out as he came to stand beside her. "These people are entitled to due process under the law."

"Oh, we'll treat them right," one of the police officers snorted as he opened the rear doors of one of the police vans. "We'll treat them better than the Equalists ever treated any benders that they took prisoner."

"Hypocrisy at its finest," the nearest chi-blocker snarled as two officers grabbed his arms and hustled him toward the van. "Your corrupt Council was detaining innocent people indefinitely, and you call us tyrants?"

Arguments broke out, but Tenzin grabbed Korra's shoulder and guided her away before she could get involved. "I must admit… I'm rather surprised by what you just said."

"Why?" she asked, stopping to face him.

He smiled warmly at her. "Don't take what I said the wrong way. Fighting was never my father's strong suit, and he would have been proud to see you making such an effort to understand his philosophy. Avatar Aang tried to avoid violence wherever possible, and helped people in different ways."

Korra gazed around the plaza. Smoke billowed in the air – yet another scene of violence in a war-torn city. The man was right – if she wanted to stop the fighting, she needed to solve the issue with words rather than more violence.

She took a deep breath. "Tenzin, please organise a press conference for tomorrow morning."

He looked at her in surprise. "For what, exactly?"

"…I'm going to give the people their hope for balance back," she finally said, after a measured silence. "I'm going to reveal myself, and officially announce my return to Republic City."