-Drones—
Even up on the mountain, in the ice-cold blizzard, the metal of the tower was somehow warm. Heat emitted from the walls. Mako and Lin walked through a small corrider, sweating in their layers, until they found themselves within a massive, spacious dome that seemed to stretch so high it faded into darkness. They felt alone in the whole place. The only noise was the echo made from the automated machines operating all around them.
"What is going on in this place?" Mako's voice was louder and echoed more than he expected. Lin covered his mouth.
"Quiet," she whispered. "We don't know we are alone. Maybe we can find something where he stores data."
"How do we even know if this is Graft's place?"
Lin pointed upwards. An "S" insignia overlooked them. "That? What does that even mean?" Mako asked.
"It stands for Solomon. He worked with Graft to create Clasma. It's on all of his vials. I think he's dead now or something but for some reason Graft has made his name the official name of this…project. Maybe to throw people off of his trail."
They crossed a long bridge. Above them there was something illuminating their path. Light was emitted from something, but they couldn't tell what. Below them was darkness. On the other side of the bridge, they came to a security room which was unlocked. Several hallways stemmed from the area where the room was. The wall inside the security office was covered with various screens. They were all off. Mako went up to them and pushed a few buttons. Several screens turned on and showed images that must have been from a camera somewhere in the facility. One of the cameras showed Lin and Mako. He spotted it behind them.
"I guess they aren't too concerned with security," Mako whispered. They examined several rooms with what seemed like arrays of doors. No movement. No nothing. Mako tried to figure out what these screens showed him and where they were. He fiddled with the controls to see if he could change the camera's view. The camera's could move around but did not reveal any new information. One of the screens showed something that looked like mountains really close up. Lin gave him a radio.
"Keep an eye on the screens. I will look around." She had her sword in its sheath on her hip. Her mother's hand-crafted sword. Lin walked through various winding hallways. The place was a mess. Pipes were severed and water leaked from them onto the floor. Some areas were smeared with dried blood. She passed windows to darkened rooms, an eery glow emitting from a device within them that she could not make out. She usually found herself at locked doors and dead-ends. The place seemed too odd to her. When she moved past the darkened windows, she thought something else was moving along with her reflection. Mako's voice came over the radio. "I see you Lin." She spotted the camera.
"What is in the rooms, Mako? Can you see behind this door?"
"Not much. One of them is flooded. Are you noticing all the broken pipes and wires everywhere?"
"Yeah," she looked at the walls, "there are scratch marks here, too. Like some kind of fight happened."
"Lin, it looks like there is an unlocked door that goes into this weird looking room. Well, it's not really unocked, it's like someone hacked away at it until it just came off its hinges. It's just an empty room with a single door. But there is a light flashing next to the door so you might want to check it out. It's flashing yellow and I'd expect red mean it was locked." Mako directed Lin through the hallways and she found herself at the room he was speaking of. A small walkway led to the door.
Mako was turning on some of the other cameras while she had made her way there. One of them had a strange looking container in it. It reminded Mako of a furnace. There were some windows and they glowed brightly. He eyed a few other cameras, looking for any signs of threat or movement. Another camera caught his peripheral vision.
It was another array of doors, but one of them was slightly ajar. It moved suddenly, but a lock must have kept it attached to the wall. Something was behind that door, trying to get out. Alive.
Mako looked at the other images, different angles of these same doors. They had small windows, and what he thought was merely the darkness of the other side, was actually a person in black behind each one. It moved.
He looked back to the furnace room and realized the the liquid glowed like Clasma would. Behind all the doors, there was a similar glow. He hit a button which zoomed out the cameras. The camera looking at what he thought were mountains was zoomed out to show that it was an extreme close-up of a man's bicep. The man was strapped to a chair with dozens of wires connecting to his body and a metal helmet around his head. The wires glowed with clasma. The man's skin was decaying. He had no bottom jaw, and tentacles were growing out of his arms. But it breathed.
Lin approached the door in the room. It was locked. She couldn't see anything through the window, but she noticed the light next to the door handle on the door. "Mako," she whispered, "the door won't open, but the light next to the handle is yellow." The sign next to the door indicated the color code. Yellow meant the room was occupied. "Someone is inside…"
"Lin," Mako replied, "Lin I don't think it is safe here. The cameras that showed those doors. There are people behind those doors. I think they are exposing these people to Clasma. I'm looking at one now. This guy, he's here, they are injecting gallons of the stuff into him and its turning him into some kind of monster."
One of the cameras turned black for just a brief second, as if something had run past it. The furnace became very loud and started vibrating. Something had switched it on. The man strapped to the chair began screeching. It tried to speak, but it couldn't because say any words because it was missing half of its mouth. It just sounded like desperate mumbling. Like a dying creature. A red glow emitted from the helmet on the man.
"Lin come back, now! Something is here!" Lin was already on her way. Before she exited the room, she heard the light "ding" and turned to find the locked door now opened. Something was coming for her, and its eyes glowed red.
She quickly reached Mako back in the main room and they turned to leave, but a man dressed in all black stood on the bridge, blocking their way. Mako recognized this person. He recalled his encounter with Asami.
"Oh, I've been waiting for you people to try and stop me," Lin said. Drawing her sword, she charged, as did Mako. Mako jumped and sent flames from his feet but the man simply put his two hands out and split apart the flames. He removed two small knives and countered Lin's sword. He easily evaded both Lin and Mako's attacks at the same time. Toph's handy work proved to be exceptional as Lin's blade cut right through the man's knives, but he casually tossed the shards and ripped apart the railing of the bridge with his artificial metalbending. He used the metal bars like a staff and knocked Lin and Mako off their feet.
The man spun the detached railing around and was going to stab Lin but turned to redirect the lightning bolt that Mako had shot. He held the electricity in his body for a second, then shot it upwards at a large platform hanging directly above them. It fell and was going to destroy the bridge they were standing on.
As the platform fell, the man was hit in the back of the head by a grappling hook attached to a long wire. The wire extended from Lin's wrist. She pushed the man aside, put her hands around Mako and leaped over the edge. The grappling hook fired from her arm and planted itself into the wall of the building. They swung over the empty abyss as the platform crashed into the bridge and fell into the darkness.
Lin retracted her hook and the two zipped up the wall and landed on the side from which they had entered.
"Lin, what was that? I thought you couldn't metal bend?"
The grappling hook on the edge of the wire whipped around and stuck back into its holder. "It wasn't metalbending. This is a mechanical device. Rubber wire. Spring loaded. I don't control it." She looked across the gap. "Something else is here, Mako. Something worse than what we just faced. I think it has something to do with what you saw on the screen. We need to get back to the car."
The storm had gotten worse. It was difficult to find the car, but eventually they found the road on the side of the mountain, and the car was underneath some snow. As they were about to get in, the snow exploded as man dressed in black jumped out and lunged at them, kicking them both extremely hard, knocking them over. The man flipped backward and slowly stood up straight. It wasn't a natural looking stance. The man was twitching. Irregular movements. Something protruded from its back. It looked like two extra limbs, but not human limbs. More like those of an arachnid. It lifted its head and two circular, red eyes beamed at them through its mask. Fire began spitting from the monster's arms. It screeched loudly, echoing throughout the mountain range.
"On your feet, Mako." The two defended themselves as this monster attacked them. It was nothing like the battle they had just fought inside the tower. This thing was much faster and demonstrated excellent skills with bending. It utilized all of the elements except for air, but it never spoke. It never showed any signs of humanity. The way it moved and dodged their attacks was inhuman. It would just screech painfully loud. Like it could not speak. Like it had no mouth with which to do so. The thing was not wearing normal clothing, but instead was tightly wrapped from head to foot with dark cloth like a mummy and wore heavy boots. A metal helmet covered its face similar to the one on the man Mako had seen. The helmet covered most of its face except for its glowing red eyes.
Lin swung her sword, but two long blades extended directly from the monster's wrists. Connected to its body. Blood covered it. Green speckles reflected in the blood. Almost saturated with Clasma.
As Lin defended herself, Mako stood in amazement. He could not decide if what he was seeing was real. The monster that had haunted his dreams was here now. Lin was about to look to see what he was doing when Mako attacked relentlessly. Something had overtaken him. He seemed possessed to Lin. He did not stop firebending at the monster for even a second. The monster's screeches were complemented by Mako's angry yells as he tried to kill it. Lin had never seen Mako so angry, and did not want him to hurt himself. The monster clearly overpowered Mako, and he was going to get seriously injured, but he stood and continued fighting. The limbs extending from the monster's back could lift the earth. Mako was hit with several rocks, making him bleed, but he didn't give up. Lin had to restrain him to keep him from killing himself.
She tried to get Mako to flee with her and lose the monster. But he wouldn't move. The monster stopped suddenly, as if it had heard something, a signal from somewhere. It quickly stood up straight, very erratically, and quickly began to take off.
"No! You're not getting away from me." Mako took off after it, nearly slipping down the side of the mountain. Lin was preoccupied with something behind her. Through the heavy snowflakes pounding against her face, she thought she saw the figure of Republic City's infamous saboteur. But then it was instantly gone. She cursed for letting herself get distracted. Lin turned to see Mako going for the monster.
"Mako! Stop!" Lin followed. The monster ran to the edge of a cliff with a huge drop and jumped, its spider-legs aiding it in the jump. Mako wanted to follow, but stopped himself right at the precipice. The monster fell through the air at terminal velocity and waterbended the snow below it into an ice slide that it used to descend. It was heading for the city.
Mako yelled and shot fire out of his fists toward the air.
"Mako, it's headed for the city, we have to go, now! We have to expose Graft." Mako's fury kept him there for a second, watching the monster get away.
They had reached the car and were driving recklessly down the mountain back toward the city.
"Mako, what was that all about?"
Mako was breathing short breaths, some of them had fire in them. "That thing. I would know those eyes anywhere. That was the monster that killed my parents."
"What are you talking about?"
"The memory is as clear in my head. Like a lucid dream. I saw the red eyes of the assassin that murdered my parents. I thought I was just a kid seeing crazy things. My mind playing tricks on me and my memory refusing to tell me the truth, warped by my fear, but it was true. The thing that killed my parents was a firebender, and it killed my dad with fire. But my mother was an earthbender, and she tried to stop him. I knew I saw that monster stop her rocks, but I never thought that was possible until now."
The monster sped down the mountain. It looked behind it to see Korra following. She had found the monster in its chamber within the room Lin tried to enter. The room with the yellow light. Korra had hidden herself from the monster when it was freed and was now going after it. A gust of air lifted the monster off its feet and toward a tree. It turned and landed sideways on the tree, then flipped onto the ground. Korra slowed herself down with the air and slid by the monster, cutting one of its extra limbs off with her blades. It screeched extremely loud. She dug her blade into the ground, bringing her to a stop. The monster twitched upward to look at her. Korra knew she could take this one, but soon, one turned to many. From all directions, glowing red eyes revealed themselves. Moving toward her. A dozen of these monsters surrounded her, ready to kill. Some had similar limbs on their backs. Others had long, metal tentacles on their arms. Korra turned to face her enemies, but concluded that this was too much for her. She was alone. They would overpower her.
But she didn't have to be alone. She had to see Asami. She needed her old team to stop this now.
Korra turned and blasted a gust of air behind her, sending her quickly down the mountain and plunging, involuntarily, into icy waters near the outskirts of the city.
Clasma. Infusing Clasma with people to the point where they had lost their sanity and became drones. Lifeless drones with only one objective: killing. A soldier with no mind or ethical boundaries that will do what it is told. A perfect weapon.
Korra had lost them by now. She got out of the water, shivering uncontrollably. She needed to find Asami. She needed to assemble her old team. And she had to do it quickly.