In the cold, early hours of the morning, a masked man - or woman, it's difficult to tell - breaks into the Sato mansion and sneaks their way into the proprietor's study. Drawers are rifled through and stolen from its place is a thick binder, stuffed full of plans drawn up by a neat, pensive hand, and then the gender ambiguous thief silently steals away. No alarm is raised and there is no expression of shock and panic to behold. Which is thanks to the fact that at this hour Asami is to be found at Varrick's testing facilities, preparing for one, all important demonstration.
The room is bustling with people. The din of dozens of intermingling voices rises to the high ceiling and, if not for the windows being naught more than filters of natural light, would leak out into the chill air. Varrick has invited quite the audience.
A good number of Raiko's ministers are in attendance, along with the President himself; Lin stands to one side with her arms folded and wearing an uncooperative scowl as a pair of politicians interrogate her; the billionaire businessman even has a handful of reporters milling around the place, to the surprise, concern and irritation of many. Nobody likes nosy, prying journalists. Of course, these notepad and portable dictaphone wielding men and women are all high-profile and trustworthy, which in layman's terms equates to each of them being sufficiently encouraged to favourably cover the event.
Not that anything is going to wrong. Asami has seen to that.
From the other side of the room, Korra watches her engage professionally with every individual that wanders up to shake her hand and pick her brain. The shimmering scarlet curve of her lips remains in place, a friendly warmth to her expression as Asami modestly accepts praise - at least until her gaze happens to shift and she finally notices Korra's presence. There is something hard in Asami's eyes after that, a subtle tension to her jaw as Korra pries herself from the inquisitive clutches of a reporter and crosses the room. She finds herself coolly regarded once Asami apologises and a potential investor in her technology walks away.
"You're here."
"I was invited," Korra replies.
"Are you ready to stop making excuses for a criminal?"
"I'm here to try and persuade you not to go through with this."
Asami merely rolls her eyes. "That's all any conversation we've had has been about," she says, folding her arms, "and my answer isn't going to change."
"Asami -"
"Did you really expect to show up and convince me to pull the plug now?"
Korra frowns and doesn't reply. It was a vain hope, yet one that has kept her restless throughout the nights.
"You just need to accept that this is happening," Asami says.
Korra doesn't know how to respond to that, particularly once the final signature on her failure is wheeled out onto the raised platform at the head of the room.
Conversation fades and fascinated eyes begin to turn as Varrick sweeps onto the stage to join his wife, who is in turn flanked by a pair of male assistants wrapped in white lab coats. Korra, meanwhile, stares with mounting dread at the contraption Asami has put together. It is composed, it seems, of two parts, and Korra is not sure which is making her skin crawl more uncomfortably.
The machine itself is a tall, ugly, rectangular box whose steel casing is a dull, grim grey; it's difficult to believe that Asami Sato could create something so devoid of aesthetic charm. Set into the face turned towards the murmuring audience is a series of knobs, dials and levers, and mounted horizontally on top of the box is a clear glass tube within which is held a thick knot of spirit vine. To either end of the tube are connected wires - in fact, there are wires of all sizes spilling out from the sides of the box, trailing along the stage and disappearing off the back of it. There are several, however, that lead towards the partnering apparatus of the machine, brought in alongside it on low, squeaky-wheeled trolleys. It's a chair. A wooden chair.
A wooden chair with thick leather straps pinned to the arms and legs, and a metal skullcap attached to the backrest overhanging the seat.
"Asami," Korra says quietly - worriedly, as Varrick spreads his arms and calls for everyone's attention, "I don't like the look of this one bit."
The woman, now standing at her side as the audience gathers in front of the stage, says nothing. Her face is set and her eyes pointed ahead. Korra can feel it deep in her bones as the machine and chair together stand before her scrutiny. This is wrong, so wrong.
"Please, Asami, you have to listen to me."
"If you are so adamant," the woman says plainly, "that this machine should not exist, why don't you simply tear it apart?"
Because as Varrick waxes lyrical, spouting lines about altruistic intent which Korra knows is from a script he didn't write, she recognises that the last-ditch plan pushed far to the back of her mind in the hope she'll never have to reach for it will only make matters worse. As the businessman succinctly puts it -
"I'd say it's high time we put our foot down, show these criminals they can't just do what they want when they want! I mean, if I can't skimp out on my employees' wages because of the law, why should rampaging benders get to keep their bending?"
Standing behind him, Zhu Li shakes her head. Korra, along with many others in the room, stares blankly at a wide-eyed, impassioned Varrick as his gaze flits from left to right. Beside her, Asami rubs her temple with an audible sigh.
"Right, well...anyway! To business, ladies and gentleman," Varrick booms, his voice carrying clearly over all their heads. "Allow me to introduce the subject of our experiment today, the infamous Red Monsoon, Bare Chest Bao!"
The man is led from behind the stage up onto it by an escort of three armoured police officers, and Korra automatically corrects in her mind Varrick's introduction. The heavyset man hauled into view of the audience is indeed without a shirt; however, he is certainly not 'bare' chested. Rather, he is 'bear' chested.
Upper torso a black mass of wiry curls, Bear Chest Bao does not necessarily cooperate with his escort, pulling them to and fro even with his hands bound together by thick steel. "No need to worry, folks," Varrick says in response to the concerned looks being passed back and forth, bouncing on his heels as the men finally throw Bear Chest Bao down onto the wooden chair. His forced descent rattles the trolley underneath and Zhu Li's assistants pounce on him in the next moment. The woman herself has crouched down in front of the machine, clipboard in hand as she begins to twist and pull at the knobs and levers. Bear Chest Bao briefly lost in the huddle of men restraining him, all eyes are on Zhu Li's back when the air rumbles as the machine comes to life.
All eyes except Korra's.
Hers find the face of Bear Chest Bao, drawn tight and ugly with a snarl as he's strapped down to the chair, and she is conflicted. The man, Varrick explains, is known to both the public and Police, with a list of violent crimes as long as her forearm - bloodbending among them. In fact, that is what finally puts him behind bars, nearly a decade ago. There are scars and ink all over his dark skin. He's a dangerous man, evidently, both in prison and out. The murderous look he wears as the police officers move away tells Korra more than enough about what he'd do to them all if he had access to his element. He won't ever have it again, if what Varrick is saying proves true.
"...channel non-lethal currents of electricity into the body, stimulating the chi network and manipulating its flow up towards the head."
Where, apparently, it will be siphoned away via the Light Chakra. Korra, for a moment, for the merest instant, is impressed. She glances aside at Asami, whose posture is tall and tight with what Korra recognises as nerves. This is different to all the other demonstrations she has ever held. This means so much more.
Bear Chest Bao curses profusely as a sponge dipped in saline is placed atop his shaven scalp, acting as a layer between it and the skullcap fastened afterwards onto his head. A wooden brace at the neck contains his bullish rage, allowing Zhu Li's assistants to work with marginal disruption. Zhu Li is merely skimming over the adjustments and calibrations she's made for the fifth time, waiting on the men as they hike up Bear Chest Bao's prison overalls and attach electrodes lubricated in conductive gel to his legs. The last thing they do before stepping away is tie a strip of heavy black cloth around the man's head.
Blind, Bear Chest Bao howls his immense displeasure. "What the devil are you doing to me?"
"Calm down, man, you'll be fine!" Varrick replies jovially. "He'll be fine," he reiterates to the audience. "None of this has been tested on humans before but Ms. Sato here is, like me, a genius. You should trust her. I do. Asami!" the man suddenly calls. "Any last words?"
Korra blanches as all eyes turn in their direction. Last words?
Asami swallows as her machine emits a low, constant drone and shakes her head. "Do the thing."
"You heard the woman, honey," Varrick says, swinging his arm up to point at his wife. "Do the thing!"
Zhu Li, wearing her patented dispassionate look behind small, stylish spectacles, throws the switch.
Bear Chest Bao tightens his jaw, then he clenches his teeth, yellowed and uneven. The sudden and violent jolt of his entire body against the thick, sturdy frame of the chair makes everyone jump. If it isn't for Asami failing to react at her side, her eyes sharp, narrow and unblinking as Bear Chest Bao bodily shakes, knuckles white as he grips onto the chair and his voice a desperate whine, Korra would run forward to put the whole thing to an end. But she doesn't, because even in this perverse, utterly wrong situation, she trusts Asami. Or at least her many years of mechanical engineering.
A collective gasp is issued when the glass tube attached to the top of the humming machine begins to glow. Blue light pulses through the spirit vine held up by a pair of clasps inside it with the rhythm of a heartbeat at rest. It swiftly quickens as Bear Chest Bao's breath whistles between his teeth, a heavy sheen of sweat glistening all over his face. Not to mention the beads of moisture trapped in the bush on his chest, the black mass of hair sticking straight up as though a thousand tweezers are trying to pluck him bare.
In the meantime, another gasp is drawn when the glass tube is filled suddenly with a burst of light, blinding luminescence forcing hands up in front of narrowed eyes. Korra, standing closer to the machine's side of the stage, turns away when the glare burns spots of pain into her vision. She only hears when Zhu Li once again throws the switch, a distinct ker-thunk that with it brings the fading rumble of the machine itself.
All goes quiet. Korra slowly raises her head again. She glances around to see others doing the same, some shaking their heads to clear their vision, some squinting against the natural light. Asami, of course, comes prepared. She stands with her arms lightly folded and pair of dark, tinted glasses over her eyes. On stage, Varrick practically mimics her. Korra huffs. Couldn't she have spared her a pair?
"Test him," Asami calls out promptly.
First, however, they have to wake him. Bear Chest Bao sits slumped in the chair, head lolling against the neck brace. Zhu Li's assistants move back onto the stage, one bringing with him a bucket and the other to attend to the unconscious prisoner. Removing the man's blindfold as the bucket is set in front of the chair, the sound of the assistant sharply slapping Bear Chest Bao's cheek rings through the room.
"We'll be conducting this part of the procedure more humanely in future," Varrick comments seriously, removing his glasses and tucking them into his jacket.
This part? Korra frowns.
The assistant suddenly steps back. Bear Chest Bao awakes, and almost succeeds in sinking his teeth into the man's hand in the process. He snarls viciously up at him, at everyone - until he notices the bucket. He licks his lips and smiles all too widely. "You fools. You're all dead!" the man declares, and with a predatory grin and murderous intent his fingers splay open. But nothing happens. The water in the bucket remains unmoved. Bear Chest Bao stares at it; everyone stares at him. He tries again and again, straining forward against the chair's restraints as each time he closes and throws open his fist.
"What...what the hell?" the man blurts out. "My bending...you...you monsters...took my bending?!"
And now everyone turns to Zhu Li, who carefully detaches from the machine the glass tube and brings it forward to the front of the stage. Inside, the knot of spirit vine has fallen from its clasps, shrunken considerably as it lies against the glass. Zhu Li holds it up high for all to see: the softly glowing product of Varrick and Asami Sato's combined ingenuity. Tension subtly melts away from the latter's face and shoulders, a long held breath escaping her lips. Varrick, beaming proudly down at his wife, raises his hands as he turns to the enraptured audience.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we've done it. Bending in a bottle!"
And that's when the windows explode.
There is shouting, there is screaming, and there is chaos. When the dust settles and the smoke bombs finally clear, several police officers and members of the demonstration's audience are unconscious. Varrick is a small form huddled against Zhu Li and Bear Chest Bao lies face down on top of the stage with the bucket knocked askew and water pooling around his head. Asami grunts as her vision wobbles, wincing as she picks herself up off the floor. Which is when she notices that two things are missing: the machine, and the chair.
And Korra.