Book 4: Chaos
-Welcome Back to Republic City-
Attention Republic Nations. This is your leader, Gang Qu, the Chief of the once prominent Republic City Police Department. I am here to report on the devastating events that have taken place in Republic City over the last few weeks. Our beloved prophet, Graft, the man who we all believed would lead us into peace, into a world where we could all be guaranteed the safety and respect we deserve, was assassinated by the terrorist faction under the alias, Oni. It is truly a dark day when those who fight for justice are slain by the selfish who only want power. By those who have no concern for the human life, and will gladly turn to murder to get what they want.
The terrorist faction then proceeded to engage in biological warfare by releasing a substance which contaminated the waters as well as the minds of our citizens. The police force has managed to evacuate many citizens, but as for the poor individuals who have been infected, they're minds are too far gone to save now, and even though we express great sympathy, if we do not do something, they will contaminate the rest of the world.
I speak to you all to say that we have prevailed. Those of us who remained unharmed by Oni have escaped and quarantined the city. We are certain that the only ones to remain in the city are the infected citizens, as well as the terrorist faction that has caused all this. Soon, Republic City will be cleansed in order to save the world form these terrorists. We will build a new city, a city which will not fall victim to the horrid acts of these malicious fiends.
Once Republic City is rebuilt, we can continue the path that Graft had laid out for us. A path to power for the individual. A path to a safer world. We ask for your support in this government, we ask that you support the only people who fight for justice, the only servants to this planet that remain. We are the light bearers, and with your help we can...pfft
Static. Soon the white noise of the radio disappeared, and a new voice spoke. A different voice. Much deeper than the previous one. Some kind of device was being used to manipulate this new speaker's voice. Whoever he was, he completely interrupted Qu's transmission.
Good evening, Nations. Humans of the planet. No, this is no longer your "humble servant", Gang Qu, speaking. Our superior technology has intercepted his transmission, and now we have overtaken the airways to broadcast our message. The message of truth.
Gang Qu is a liar. Gang Qu and Graft are responsible for the state of Republic City. They released the substance into the city, and watched it deteriorate as they raked in the praise of their followers. And now they seek to destroy their past and bury the mistakes they have made by wiping out those who remain in Republic City.
But do not be fooled. Their followers continue to diminish. And ours continue to grow. It has been almost a year now, and are numbers are large.
We are ONI. We are an organization. Qu calls Oni a terrorist, but he is the terrorist. We are the messengers of truth, here to establish the world that our inspiration, the hero Oni of Republic City, tried to bring to us by ending Graft's reign.
Qu and Graft lust for the power of the gods. We embrace the power of the human. We fight to save humanity, and we will stop anything in our way.
We are ONI, and our army is growing.
Join us.
The radio turned to static, then Qu's voice returned briefly for his closing remarks. Whoever had hacked the airways, they had been able to completely jam the government's transmitter. Qu would not be able to communicate to the world. The world that he was slowly making his domain since he fled Republic City after Graft's death. Graft's strong grasp had reached beyond the city, to the armed forces across the world, and this power had inadvertently been transferred to Qu at the time of Graft's death.
Bolin switched the radio off as he heard a thud on the floor above him.
"What do you think?" he asked.
Mako turned and listened, then determined it to be nothing important, "Don't get worked up."
Those who remained—Bolin, Mako, Sydney, O-Ren—walked through the network of tunnels and sewers underneath the city. Trying to survive like they had before with the bums and hobos who inhabited the underground when Amon had overtaken the city. Now, on the surface, the drones policed the streets without restraint while the fiends operated their Clasma black markets in the shadows. After the events in Graft's office, word quickly got to Qu, who ordered a massive evacuation of the city. Under the police station, there was a platform with several emergency trains. Qu gathered as many loyal citizens as possible, which was quite a lot, and loaded them onto the trains and had them taken safely out of the city to Metro, a large town on the ocean south of Republic City and home of the second largest station for underground trains, behind Republic City's Central Station. But Qu could not save everyone, and those that remained would be angry, so in his rash and uncalculating state he released Clasma into the water supply, quarantined the city, and now, from his current residence in Metro, was planning the destruction of Republic City, codenaming the mission "Cleansing". He placed the blame—of Graft's murder, of the creation and release of Clasma, of the instability—on Team Avatar, naming it the terrorist faction, Oni.
The gang struggled to survive living underneath the city. The surface was too dangerous. Aside from Graft's drones running rampant, the fiends had taken over the streets, gaining more members from people drinking the city water. They operated a chaotic clasma trading system. The water system within the city had also been cut off from the rest of the world to prevent spreading of the Clasma.
Some of the tunnels under the city were recent and constructed by Graft. Some of them led to garages which led to highways which led to the bridges leading out of the city. The team knew of several of these exits by now. After hearing the news of the terror that Qu unleashed and placing the blame on them, the remaining members of Team Avatar were working to help any surviving, sane citizens left behind by Qu to escape the city via these several tunnels. But fiends tailed them. Fiends driven by Clasma. Fires and riots and violence were above them on the surface. The gray sky that once rested above Pratt Street now flowed through the city as it deteriorated from the anarchy.
Fiends with multiple bending abilities ran wild through the streets. Burning buildings. Freezing people to death. Uplifting the earth. Filtering the water to find more Clasma. To become stronger. In the state that they had been driven to, finding more was all they knew. It was all they wanted for they truly believed it would save them from their misery. Soon they would desire to leave the city, but Qu's metal benders installed metal barriers across the city. They hoped there was not traces of metal bending Clasma.
The misery of insanity. The misery of not knowing their true identities. But underneath them, the true misery of the planet sought a way to save it. The true misery of the young friends who had almost everything taken form them in their lives and were never given much to begin with.
"Don't drink any of the water, remember," Mako had told them.
"Do you think they found the way out?" O-Ren asked. They had just led a group of survivors to a safe exit. Qu's haste must have made him forget that people would escape through these tunnels. As long as the survivors stuck together, they were safer anywhere else than they were in the city. This was all they could do to help. Lin and Tenzin had already left with another group of survivors several days earlier. The Team agreed that Tenzin could not stay in the city. He had a dependent family, and against his wishes, he finally agreed go with Lin and the other survivors. The team convinced Lin to let them stay and find as many survivors that would be able to escape before the city was leveled. Hopefully, one of these survivors would be the people who had been left behind from Team Avatar. Mako and Bolin weren't going to give up so easily when it came to their two best friends.
Korra. They thought Korra had been killed. Solomon dragged her battered body away and disappeared with it. They watched in shock but quickly tried to put the horrific scene out of their minds when they saw what the city was becoming. Korra may be dead. But somehow, they knew she could still be alive. Korra was full of surprises. Mako had a desperate hope, but Bolin felt assured that she would return. He was expecting to see her just show up. She always had nifty ways of returning from life-threatening situations.
And then Asami. Asami had become infected, too. Solomon left her to rot under the influence of Clasma. The team had helped her out of Graft's building and to the underground where she could be taken care of until they found a way to save her. But they had taken too long. Asami had developed the ability to bend, and became a new person, unwilling to cooperate with Mako and Team Avatar. Her inner mechanisms changed too rapidly for her mind to keep up, so it was lost in a foreign personality. Her fingers emitted flames, and in her confused state over this transformation, fled.
Now, the team took note of this last exit before they returned to the city to find more survivors. There was a garage here, some with cars. If they needed a quick escape, this would be the exit to go to. It was a bit longer of a tunnel, but the cars would definitely come in handy in a bind. But they wouldn't leave until they got Asami and Korra. As the team walked back toward the inner city to find more survivors, just above them, two fiends walked through an alley, one of them carrying a wooden stump.
"Quit walking so loud! You'll wake him!" the female said. She was holding the wooden stump.
"Quit yelling so loud! You'll wake him, bitch," the man said.
"You don't speak to me that way you no-good pile of waste. When was the last time you did anything for the family?"
"You should be grateful to me! I ain't be out cheating on you. I find the best for this family. Trying to achieve the dream, and you just walking corners sleeping with pigs for a quick buck and now we got this baby. Thanks for helping out."
"You're going to regret those words!"
"There ain't gon be no family left if I can help it," the man pulled out a pistol and shot the woman in the leg. She fell to the ground, crying in pain. The man opened a dumpster and held the stump over it.
"Stop crying! Good for nothing, You wanna cry? You think someone will just come and help you if you cry? You'll see. No one is left to save you! No one in this world cares!" he said. He put the stump in the dumpster and closed it. Behind him the woman cried in pain still. "Quit you're crying, sheesh. You'll survive. What? What is that look, now? Why'd you suddenly stop wailing? What is…"
Suddenly something was on the man. He was on the ground, this person pinning him with his feet on his arms. He jerked its head close to his face in a very rapid, irregular movement. Its eyes glowed red as it analyzed the man, crying in fear. A tentacle extended from the creature's back with a sharp blade on the end of it. It concluded the man to be a law-breaker, and the drone drew the blade back to plunge it in to his chest.
The drone screeched. Not its normal, crying screech. It was in pain. The tentacle had been severed, and in the next instant a hand was grasping the back of the drone's head. A light emitted from the contact, the red glow faded, and the drone fell to the ground, shaking.
The man looked up, beyond the drone's shriveled body was a tall woman standing right before him. She possessed a katana with an intricate design on the blade which was inches from his face. He didn't even breathe.
"If you don't want to end up worse than that," the woman said, pointing at the drone "You will tell me where Asami Sato is."