Korra dropped off the air vortex she had been riding on as she saw the top of the airship through the trees, half way between crouching and crawling she moved towards it, searching for enemy troops. That mode of transport wasn't exactly quiet or subtle, so it had felt like a massive risk to use it, but she needed to compromise stealth for speed in at least part of her movements because speed was essential for the preservation of the lives of the crew and passengers that were trying to escape.
She identified six enemy troops and watched for a few minutes, seeking to evolve an immediate attack plan. She picked one that none of the others was looking at and bent the air out of his lungs. They were looking away for long enough that he lost consciousness unseen and it was the sound of him falling over that cause the others to crowd in around him. With them that close together, Korra was able to close in on an air vortex, bending rocks at two of them, the three finally realising Korra was there just as Korra was right up in their faces with her folded glidestaff, which she used to knock out the remaining three, using the airbending evasion techniques to weave between them as she got her hits in.
The same airbending evasion techniques she had once upon a time dissed out of frustration. Anyway, they were out cold for the next few minutes at least, so she could get to work.
She couldn't hang around, sometime soon those naked soldiers would report in and everyone would be searching for Korra as intensively as for everyone else off the airship.
Whether or not they'd have clocked the need she had for aramid from the airship buoyancy bags is another matter, they had seen the state of her glidestaff, they may not have much of an eye for the textiles or the knowledge to work out for her to be moving through supersonic flight regimes certain materials are a must have for her glidestaff to retain its structural integrity.
Just don't get blown up again is all.
Nuclear explosives.
Asami had made an estimation of the minimum explosive yield of the devices, about 1200 Tons of Blasting Jelly equivalent.
That's a lot of blasting jelly.
They had a plan, but it would be tricky. Republic City had sent fighter aircraft to defend the airship, but since the airship was down, they were then retasked to protect the escaping crew and passengers, but then Granitopolis and allies started putting their own fighters up, and now shit was getting pretty fucking complicated.
Three more electronic warfare platforms were on their way in, that could make it easier for Republic City fighters to sidestep Granitopolis and allied fighters, but that wasn't guaranteed, and then there was the SAM batteries.
And that was going to be Korras next objective …
Korra cut a sheet out of one of the ruined bags and folded that up, grabbing a repair kit for the bags on her way out, and then remembering, inwardly cursing she almost forgot, to grab a chaff round, a 3m length of 2 core cable, and a ration tin, making a bit of a mess as she had to work fast.
she already had two push to make buttons and a battery from the surplus radios she had stolen off the first lot. Having all she came for, she was out of there.
"So, on the minus side we lost cumbucket, we're at war with … everyone … Korra is alive, any good news?" asked Pi as the sun sunk below the horizon in the local control room. Each town can call on the collective armed forces to fight an enemy invading them, that rapidity of effect was crucial for defence as seconds count. It would be any away games that would demand a process of debate of all the leaders and their legislating chambers.
"We're certain they can't be at the border, and we have set up a line of spotters ahead of where they can be, and we're enough of an air threat that even with their electronic warfare platforms, they still don't have the freedom to fuck with us from the air" said Pis security chief.
"Right … … We need to do something to ensure we don't have traitors in sensitive locations ever again, this guard Rinah, what do we know about him?"
"Parents ran a struggling business, satomobile repair shop, owned slaves, so that shouldn't have been weird to him."
"Different purpose between satomobile repairshop slaves and what we were using cumbucket for though," said Pi.
"Well, it moved a bit in Cumbuckets direction, some customers reported him abusing the slaves because of something else that had upset him, a supplier ripping him off, or a tool falling apart because he bought it cheap, this could have made Rinah think there's no such thing as 'good slavery', but what we were doing with cumbucket is an extreme outlier, there's what? Twenty three punitive example slaves last I checked? So that background could still have changed someones mind unexpectedly."
"Okay, we'll do a test where we only accept people willing to violently abuse slaves for fun," said Pi, "how hard can that be?"
"There's something else that we're going to have to deal with at some point, the law council have been phoning us for comment over the fact we seem to have picked a fight with the world, without a prepared story for us all to stick to, all I've been able to do is plead for patience as the situation is fast moving and that they would be briefed at the earliest opportunity, but stopping Cumbucket leaking all our secrets isn't the kind of thing that the council will accept because these are secrets we've-"
"-kept from them because I'd be fired in a planck time if they knew, obviously … Right … " Pi just rubbed his brow as he tried to think of some way out of this, and said "if they had come down closer, we could have cut them off and had cumbucket back, decided Rinah was telling the truth after all, they would have been unable to challenge our claim over our slave on our territory, then sent them back to decide whether or not they still want our damn minerals badly enough to stick to the agreed arrangements, instead that fucking avatar had to fuck things up for us. … I want her to be cumbucket two … Or jizzbucket, call her Jizzbucket to keep the syllables down."
"Sir, if we were to try to capture the avatar, that would most likely cost us-"
"I was joking," interrupted Pi, exasperated. He then softened his stance and said "Kind of. … If we happen to capture her anyway, but really, just try to kill her so we don't have to worry about the avatar for another decade, otherwise find that group."
"Okay, that's as far as we go tonight, pair up, pick a direction to watch, lay up, each pair will have one snoozing and one on watch, pass that on" said Izumi to those that can hear within about 10 metres of her, and that order was relayed back along the line.
"Jinora, you can sleep all night if you like," said Mako who had stayed with Jinora and had spent a while proposing more absurd animals to have rape Pi and eventually they had just fallen silent and focused on their surroundings.
"No, I can't," replied Jinora, "we need to exercise noise discipline and I am pretty much guaranteed to wake up screaming my lungs out from a nightmare if I fall into a deep enough sleep," as she led Mako to their layup position.
"What makes you think you'll have … Right, weeks of torture, duh," replied Mako.
"Most the torture, the stuff I described, was low effort stuff, the real nightmare fuel is something I can't afford to think about, not until I'm in a space where it's safe for me to freak out or go catatonic or whatever's going to happen, for now I have to actively squash it down with other stuff." said Jinora as she sat down, back to her chosen tree, she removed the magazine from her SMG and then removed the chambered round, placing it back in the magazine, before placing the magazine back in the SMG, this to Jinora seemed a sensible level of separation between her shooting if she were to wake up from a nightmare disorientated, but then she could rack the charging handle when it was her watch and be ready for any fight that might happen.
"Doesn't sound healthy," said Mako.
"Yeah, that's only because it isn't. Just like sleep deprivation," replied Jinora, she then went on to say "The practical experience I draw upon is when we got Korra back to Air Temple Island after the fight with Zaheer, she woke up screaming the place down the first two nights, then she spent about two days trying not to sleep because she was both afraid to sleep and self conscious about waking up screaming, then the next four waking up screaming from nightmares again, and then it dropped to every other night. Her own mind was her enemy, and that's my current situation. That's me now."
"I guess you have a better idea what to expect than … Than you should have really."
"Right," replied Jinora, "in some ways my experience and that of my siblings is inadequate, I now think me and my siblings needed and still need unarmed combat training, something we can immediately switch to if something like this happens again, we especially should have pursued it when Noatok demonstrated his debending abilities, using a ministroke, not spirit bending mind, but when these cuffs went on, I just stopped doing anything, I was too broken up about my inability to bend air to even consider my options. … "
"Could you have fought your way out?" asked Mako.
Jinora shrugged and said "Probably not, there was flat out way the fuck too many of them, but I didn't even try, not because I judged it unwise, I hadn't considered anything about my next course of action at all, I just stopped fighting because I was too focused on those damn cuffs. That's one of the things I cringe the most at, Korra would have grabbed one of them and battered the rest of them with him."
Mako laughed. He said "She seems to have gotten her fighting abilities back."
Jinora nodded and said "And all it took was three years of physiotherapy and six months of wandering around Earth kingdom trying to work out what the fuck to do with herself, THEN bending the traces of mercury Suyin missed out of her, and a little help from the cunt what put her in that wheelchair to begin with of all people."
Mako speculated "well, you don't have the mobility issues Korra had."
"Give it twenty five weeks, I'll have some issues," noted Jinora, "haven't menstruated throughout my captivity, so one of their loads struck ova, be staggeringly amazing if that hadn't happened. On the plus side, provided I remain free, I won't be made to miscarry and eat the remains off the floor."
Mako was unable to form a response, he didn't want to comment on how gross that was for fear of setting off a rant about all the other gross shit Jinora had endured, Jinora was speculating, but not without reason, it's clearly a predictable outcome for Jinora continuing a pregnancy while in their custody given everything else.
Jinora eventually said "Sorry, you're trying to reassure me that I have a better head start than Korra did, and it's like, yes and no, and it's also different, like, sex just weirds everything up, and I'm still trying to work out how to converse with mum, dad, Ikki, Meelo, and Kai about this stuff."
Mako noted "I think Meelo's become less of an obnoxious shit these days, I don't know if you agree with that assessment?"
"I think they'll understand all that shit was imposed on me, I don't anticipate any of them judging me as somehow at fault for anything following my capture, but there's still this instinct that's telling me not to describe any of it to them. And there's two things Kai will need to know if we're to advance our relationship, I'm pregnant off of one of my numerous rapists, fucked if I know which one, probably one of that pack of slavers that first captured me, and I've probably got more STIs than is known to current medical science festering away in my cunt."
"You fear losing Kai?" asked Mako.
Jinora thought and said "I guess I do, not from anything I know about him or have experienced from him, but him knowing that many people, probably seventy or eighty, have fucked me, that they've been using my mouth as a urinal for eleven weeks, all of that, I mean … … He'll have that image, and we're not just logic and reason, we're also feelings, he'll have feelings about this, even if he thinks his feelings are wrong. … I don't have a clue what I might be setting off here."
Mako nodded. He eventually asked "What about your parents? I barely know anything about Pema beyond she exists, Tenzin seems like he cares deeply about you, but also seems wedded to air nation tradition, perhaps more so than to Pema."
Jinora thought and said "I think … … I don't know what to think, parents, I don't know if you built enough memories of your own while yours were still alive, so maybe my own experience is an outlier, but they tend to lecture their children about good manners and polite language, and I get that, but that sort of language policing means I have this instinctive fear of discussing shit as wild as my abusive captivity with them. That said, Tenzin's not just my dad, he's also my … I guess commanding officer when it comes to our operations, one thing we've neglected to do is have any kind of formalisation of our government, so I'll need to report what was done to me anyway. … I mean, that last fact decides things as far as what I tell him goes. Just leaves everyone else really."
The flaming torch Korra had knocked together illuminated the 2.5 by 2.5 by 2.5m shelter Korra had earthbent for herself just about adequately, but the complex flue Korra had earthbent with light discipline in mind for it wasn't very good at extracting the smoke, so Korra was in a hurry to get this done.
Korra had never tried sewing anything together before, so this was probably going to be absolutely horrific.
She used electrical tape to try to A: Hold the edges of the remaining surfaces straight, and B: hold the patches in position, using a lap of about 3cm and seeking to have at least 4 rows of stitches.
Korra had no idea if that would be adequate, she could find herself falling back to the ground the first time she pulled more than 1.1G.
It was fiddly, it helped she could metal bend the needle through, that meant the stitches were reasonably precise at least.
Eventually she had completed the last patch. There was nothing left to do but to bend some air against the surfaces and see how it looked.
Korra stared at the wings from ahead of the front of the staff.
After several minutes Korra reached the inevitable conclusion.
"Asami's so going to kick my arse when she sees this."
It should be okay as long as she was into semisonic or faster flight regimes, the imbalance would be consistent and so she could simply lean to trim and crack on as if it were normal, it would be takeoff and landing that would get difficult, stalling out of the air for landing would probably cause an extreme roll moment that was likely to catch Korra off guard.
She folded the staff.
Well.
She tried to fold the staff.
"All callsigns from Big Rock, pogo channel Sierra, Korra, want to talk to you, please reply."
Korra chuckled and earthbent some rock around the flaming torch to put it out and then opened the ceiling, creating a staircase for her to leave the shelter as she eventually replied "Hey Pi, how's things with you?"
"Oh, fine, never better, just having a bit of a hunting trip, see, we have these stuck up ideological freaks who think slaves are equal to citizens, you can't be one of those freaks can you? You're way too strong for that."
Korra sunk the terrain for about half a metre around her thinking people might be closing in or that an airstrike was being arranged, or something.
It was dangerous to think she could flirt with danger in this way, by fucking definition, but she couldn't resist. Korra replied "Well, I do understand the theoretical concept of there being a natural order where by divine right ordinary citizens can own people that are slaves, it's the natural order, it's what's right, it's how the world is meant to work, it's what's meant to be because might makes right, and it does appeal to the ego a bit."
"So I might be able to convince you to help us and return my property to me?"
"You want Jinora back?" asked Korra.
"Oh dear, you've been using that name to address her haven't you? You know that sense of self and sense of dignity will have to be beaten and intensively fucked out of her again don't you? That's a lot of suffering you're responsible for inflicting on her. But yeah, and I'll even let you visit and fuck her. You like having ladies tongues up your cunt I hear."
There was a bit of an eyeroll moment as Pi seemed to think cunnilingus as a reflex to hearing the word 'lesbian', but Korra eventually replied "Well, yeah, I do indeed like it when women suck my clitoris. The problem with slaves is they don't consent, and by the way, I said I understand the theoretical concept of there being a natural order, I just happen to think it's hippobullshit. Change my mind if you can." She listened out for any activity around her that indicated inbound hostiles.
"Korra, Bolin, bandits, three ship, inbound from one seven five, angels two, time on target, you by the way, twelve seconds."
"Bolin, Korra, got that."
Korra counted down as she put the wind mask back on and Pi continued to talk, saying "Well it's unfortunate I suppose if you can't be convinced of truths as fundamental as what I have just discussed with you," Korra catapulted herself into the air at 3 seconds from the arrival of the bandits and deployed her glidestaff, airbending her fast into low transonic as the three fighter bomber aircraft overflew where she had been standing dropping high drag bombs and blasting the fuck out of empty forest, she flew off, still listening to Pi.
Eventually Pi was asking if Korra was still there.
Korra didn't answer.
He kept trying to bait her.
A bit of luck he might actually believe she is dead and be actually surprised when she shows him signs of still existing.
Still, that channel was of no further use to her and she turned the radio unit off.
Mako was awoken by an elbow in his side and as he was getting his shit together he heard growling.
From a human?
He realised Jinora was in a semi crouch, her hands wide ready to punch, her weapon on one of her hands pointed forward but not located where she could build a sight picture, instead off to her side, facing ahead of them and was the one producing the growl.
As he further awakened, he just about caught sight of a big cats arse moving in the foliage ahead of them, it was slinking off.
After a few more seconds Jinora relaxed and sat back down looking to Mako she said "Sorry for waking you, figured it would help get that cat to realise we're going to be too much trouble for it."
Mako eventually asked "you growled. … What was that about?"
"Part of the communication strategy, in general a predatory carnivore approaches you, you want to make yourself seem at least dangerous enough that it doesn't want to try its luck, that's the safety briefing we got whenever dad takes us to locations where such encounters are highly likely."
Mako asked "So that wasn't a PTSD thing?"
Jinora let out a "heh," shaking her head with an amused grin across her face before saying "No."
"Okay then," said Mako.