Quick note: I have Desna and Eska displaying healing skills. Where did I get them being able to do this from? They're usually bored as fuck, and have also experienced combat situations where one or both have incurred injuries that required healing skills, and so set out to learn it.
That's as much thought as I put in to that.
"What the fuck even was that?" asked Mako, feeling suddenly sick like everyone else as they all climbed out the shattered windscreen of the airship as it lay on its side in the forest.
Thank fuck there had been a load of trees under them, if it had been open ground, they'd probably have all been immobilised by multiple skeletal fractures and probably on their way to dying from haemorrhagic strokes. This was still a hard landing, they had to prepare as best they could in the 20 or so seconds available to them.
That said, the sick feeling and the vision problems Izumi had sustained from looking at the explosion when it had happened, they still needed healers, and with Korra missing, the only friendly ( … sort of … ) healers available to them were … … … … Desna and Eska.
Brilliant.
They totally won't use their monopoly on healing to leverage power in some way.
Zhu finally clambered out carrying the portable long range radio and a toolkit saying "I think that could have been a nuclear explosive device, that is the only way I can make that weapons effects make sense with the available information."
"Nuclear?" asked Izumi, "as in how stars are powered?"
"Kind of," replied Zhu, "Varrik and Asami had been talking about making nuclear engines using fissionable isotopes of Uranium and potentially exploring the use of plutonium, a synthetic nuclear fuel, for the same purpose. Both of them were adamant that nuclear fuels should never be used as an explosive because fission products are generally highly radioactive for up to centuries, definitely long enough to enter our food chain and bioaccumulate."
"What does bioaccumulate mean?" asked Wu.
"Exactly what it sounds like," replied Izumi, "it is retained by your body, in your organs or your bones, it's like having an X-ray machine constantly irradiating you from the inside. Your cells rupture and occasionally mutate, and occasionally those mutations become cancers," she asked Zhu "so those dickheads we've been haggling with have been building nuclear explosive weapons? And exploding them over their own territory, contaminating their own food, creating a national healthcare timebomb for themselves?"
"Dickheads: They do what they do," said Zhu as she got on with trying to open the radio. At that point Mako returned inside the airship to grab what he can as everyone else did their various tasks mostly on their own initiative.
"How do you know all this stuff Izumi?" asked Wu.
"I lead the planets main armourer, that demands a fair amount of scientific literacy," replied Izumi.
Jinora emerged also feeling sick, and also appearing extremely agitated, her breathing seemed a bit fast, she was scanning her surroundings more than anyone else, and rubbing her throat for some reason, and she was eventually followed by Desna and Eska, strolling out bored as fuck, Desna asking "are we there yet?"
"We can't stay here," said Jinora, "they'll have seen where we landed, we need to be moving as soon as possible." That was of course true, but Jinora's leader persona was back in its box, her terror was evident in her voice.
Mako emerged with a couple of bags, saying "that's all the food that's ready to eat, and more ammo for the non-benders," looking at Jinora he assed "which includes you for now," he approached Jinora asking "you have any firearm training?"
"No," said Jinora, "only ever needed airbending."
"With that unavailable," said Mako, he pulled a submachinegun from one of the bags, keeping it pointed down saying "so, muzzle discipline, keep it pointed away from people and things you don't want to shoot, safe direction is generally down and slightly away from yourself, trigger discipline, finger outside the guard until ready to shoot," he quickly demonstrated other features including "Mag release, press to release the magazine, bolt release, fresh mag in, push it to close the bolt, firemode selector, safe, single rapid, rearsight and foresight, line front post with rear posts, charging handle, in case of stoppage where the bolt is forward, pull that to remove the dud round and load a new one, also if you add a magazine with the bolt forward, rack the charging handle to load the first round."
"Won't metalbenders just throw the bullets back at us?" asked Jinora as she finally accepted the firearm, feeling like she had been helped into a wheelchair.
"That goes for most things when bending at people, usually a submachine gun can get a few good hits through," said Mako as he handed Jinora three full magazines which Jinora pushed into the belt around her trousers.
"Also be aware, extended bursts on rapid cause muzzle climb, and you should limit your bursts to between five and ten rounds," said one of the non-benders within earshot, "and don't try to do a sweeping burst across multiple targets, each burst should be at a single target."
"Got that," replied Jinora.
Zhu was noting Jinoras current state verses just earlier, just earlier being calm, self assured, "pfft, weeks of sexual abuse, degrading treatment and casually brutal violence, whatever," to now absolutely bricking it, probably thinking she's going to end up back in Pis custody.
Zhu sighed and returned to the task in hand, try to get her radio pack working, she got the lid off and was like "Okay, we need a new radio," as she tipped the pack over, dumping the charred fragments of blown components onto the ground, "can't do anything with this."
"Bring it over here then," said the airship captain, "I'm about to hit the thermite now everyone's off."
Zhu carried it over, pausing next to Jinora saying "Jinora. We will make it out of here, what was done to you is over."
"I hope so," said Jinora, "but we need to get a move on," remaining focused in spite, well, more because of her terror really. Zhu felt like her attempt to comfort Jinora had been rejected slightly. This mid-teen girl was also a leader, hence her arrow tats, and that was part of her coping mechanism, to focus on the fights ahead.
Not a bad mechanism to employ when you're actually in a warzone.
Provided Jinoras hypervigilance don't prompt her to dump a whole magazine into a squirrelfrog or some other unexpected noise source that is.
And Zhu Li really didn't like the idea that Jinora could be oscillating between seeking opportunities to prove herself and wanting to run away in a blind panic. That was something that made Zhu feel like her head was going to explode from the stress of having to manage Jinora doing that in the middle of a contact. As Jinora had earlier noted, Zhu Li was normally on top of everything all at once, but that still had limits.
That all in mind, Zhu just replied "Yes," and walked back to the airship and handed the fucked up radio pack over to the captain who placed it under another piece of equipment that had its thermite packs installed as part of the design specifications.
Izumi unfolded a map trying to read it in spite of her vision problems and eventually gave up and said "Mako, my vision's still fucked, try and come up with a heading for us to escape along," handing him the map and a compass.
The airship captain finally said "Right, everyone move away from the airship and do not look at it. Fire in the hole," as he cut the safety tie and pulled the ring pull on the ignitor, and left the airship as the slow match hissed away, until there was a pop and a really loud hiss almost a roar with pops and cracks from exploding and shattering components and panels as the interior of the airship cabin was filled with white hot sparks that radiated the heat of almost a star.
"Right, north west, keep any conversations quiet, we want minimum noise and maximum vigilance," said Mako, having settled on a direction, "Desna, Eska, if for no other reason than you need a team of capable fighters around you to enhance your own survival prospects, make with the healing," as he lead off.
Korra finally felt like she had fixed herself and her vision was back to normal. She tried her radio again sending "Anyone from Korra, comm check."
The fact was there would normally be a hiss of faint white noise if the radio was working, she hadn't noticed its absence as she was falling because the wind around her mask had drowned it out when it was working, but now …
She would need some tools if she wanted to have any chance of fixing it, but the only toolkit she had was in a compartment in her glidestaff which had landed … … somewhere … …
Fuck.
Korra was relying on what she had remembered as she picked a direction and started walking, removing her mask and hanging it off her radio webbing. She left the headphones on and the setting on, but strongly suspected that the radio was flat out dead.
Desna and Eska had started by healing the people at the front and worked their way back, and then it was Jinoras turn.
Only they skipped her.
"Erm, thanks for prioritising me, but shouldn't she have been now?" she heard the person behind her ask.
"Not yet," said Desna, Eska adding "we have our priorities."
Jinora fumed, but didn't comment. All she could do was keep up with the team in spite of the overall sick feeling that made her want to sleep for a week straight.
The fact the creepy twins of the north were probably acting in spite towards her made her determined to shrug it off, fuck them if they want a reaction out of her, they ain't fucking getting it. She'd experienced worse physical conditions during her stay at Granitopolis, conditions that had nearly killed her.
So this acute radiation sickness was … … Okay, it was starting to contend, but she can definitely shrug this off.
Korra heard voices ahead of her and crouched down, seeking to evade notice as she closed in on the source of the noise.
Four enemy troops, who had her glidestaff.
The lifting surfaces were torn and bent out of shape.
She would have to do a bit more than just metalbend the limbs back into shape, but the materials she would need to patch the holes in the lifting surfaces would have to be aramid to take the forces her current glidestaff had been designed for, she could find herself limited to what her old glidestaff was rated for.
She needed speed to minimise the reaction window enemy forces have.
The airship might have enough intact aramid sheets and a repair kit that included aramid thread if that were to be her next stop, but first thing was these dickheads.
Mako dropped back as Izumi took control, her sight being okay now, which meant Mako could check on Jinora, he offered her a chocolate and nut bar, saying "Here, get some food in you, don't imagine you were fed anything good by your captors."
"Thanks," Jinora said accepting the snack, but pocketed it saying "still feel sick though, so, … "
"Didn't the weird Twins heal you?" asked Mako.
"No," said Jinora, "not quite sure whether it's hatred or sadism, but fuck them, they won't heal me, I won't protect them, well, any more than I absolutely have to."
"Right," said Mako as he dropped back to the back of the formation where the twins were staying and he asked them "So, you two have a problem with Jinora? Just we need her fighting fit too if we come into contact with enemy forces."
"Or she can fall behind and enemy forces decide they have what they want," said Desna.
"It was her on board that got us shot down, remember?" added Eska.
"Uh-huh, right, erm, perhaps you should think ahead a bit?" suggested Mako.
"How do you mean?" asked Eska.
"Okay, well, you also have to negotiate trade deals with Tenzin occasionally, and you two making Jinora easier for the enemy to capture, knowing how they treated her and would most likely go on to treat her again, bearing in mind she is his daughter, probably his favourite, he's a bookworm, she's a bookworm, so there's probably a much stronger bond between her and him than with any of his other kids, so, good luck selling anything to them, that's one thing. Another thing, is, with his affinity for Jinora in mind, that famous live and let live attitude the air nomad philosophy emphasises … … Do you two really imagine that would survive the loss of Jinora back into sexual slavery under an organisation that has a literal hate boner for air nomads? … Like, you think Tenzin wanting to fuck you up is a price worth paying?" explained Mako.
Korra left the soldiers with their hands bound by their socks and their sight obstructed by their pants, taking absolutely everything they had with her, all bundled up in one of their coats, carrying her glidestaff, having metalbent the limbs straight enough for the spars to fold correctly, once she was far enough away, she would sort through everything, since she can't just keep lugging this stuff for the rest of the mission.
Korra was still annoyed at these people for what they had done to Jinora, but Korra still couldn't bring herself to apply lethal force where it wasn't necessary. And it just so happened it wasn't necessary in this case. They would eventually wake up, make their own way back to their forward operating base or the nearest phone or whatever, and would report their contact, hopefully by that point the information they had would be of no value.
Eventually Korra stopped, set everything down, and grabbed the toolkit out her glidestaff, pulling the radio from her webbing. She laid out one of the coats as a blanket to make it less likely she would lose parts as she worked as she would need to reassemble the radio once she had fixed it.
She got the case open.
"Okay, that answers that," commented Korra when greeted by the sight of a circuit board populated with mostly exploded components, and she didn't have much faith that the thermionic devices were any better off.
That warhead had thrown the entire electromagnetic spectrum at her it seemed, this was evidence of the kind of EMI one of Future Industries induction furnaces would chuck out.
Those four soldiers had been equipped with radios, so she fished those and their accessories out of the bundle. Testing one, it seemed to work, and she was now hearing about their co-workers having found the airship wreck and talking through their progress in exploring it. Comms and radar equipment was now lava, Korra was aware of thermite charges in the equipment, so that meant at least one of the passengers or crew had survived and pulled the trigger on it. They talked through the exploration of the ship, all rooms cleared, armoury had some submachineguns, but no ammo, no food … Everyone had evacuated.
Korra didn't know from the communications what state everyone was in, if all were walking or some were being partly or fully carried, just they had all gotten out and hadn't been seen as of yet.
And if they see Jinora (referring to her as Cumbucket, because, of course they do), they were to incapacitate her, lethally if they have to.
That seemed to confirm exactly what Jinora had hypothesised, she was also an information bucket as Izumi had put it.
She would leave that radio on current settings and would take another of their radios and would tune it to Republic City strategic command and said "Any from Korra, comm check." This was slightly desperate because these radios were short range only, but the Republic Forces included aircraft whose sole role is to facilitate friendly comms straight to the office of Republic City president and other facilities as well as other electronic assistance and mischief as needed.
"Korra, Bolin, where the fuck are you all? Where's Zhu Li?"
While the situation remained a colossal shitshow, Korra was never the less relieved that she was able to get friendly forces on the radio.
"Upside down in the shit," replied Korra, "Ganitopolis and allies started shooting at us, I was defending the airship just fine, but then we came up against missiles with insanely energetic warheads, like fucking suns exploding in our face, and this didn't have the feel of spirit energy, this is something else. Enemy comms traffic has it that they found the wreck of the airship but our people are still at large, my current intention is repair my glide staff and then protect our people."
"Got that," replied Bolin.
After a short delay, she heard "Korra, Asami, any more details about those weapons you can remember?"
Korra thought and replied "Searing heat, blinding light, enough EMI to blow up my radio, had to yoink a replacement off the enemy. … Also felt just generally unwell all over, it was like when the Red Lotus crammed that mercury into me."
Eventally Asami came back with "you didn't fly through the exhaust cloud did you?"
"No, my glidestaff was blown off of me, I fell almost straight down. Do you know what those weapons are?"
The creepy twins finally finished healing Jinora as they continued to walk and Jinora said "Thanks." Jinora then asked "so why did you skip me earlier?"
The twins ignored her and moved to the front end of the formation.
Jinora shrugged and, having got her appetite back, pulled, unwrapped and ate the snack she was given earlier.
All she knew was Mako had talked to them.
Jinora dropped back and when she was next to Mako she asked "Thanks for getting the creepy twins to heal me. Did they explain their opposition to you?"
"Yes, but … " Mako thought and then said "nothing you need to worry about."
"Right, you know that makes it sound more important, not less, right? And I need to understand their motivations to also understand how carefully I need to watch them. And I'm not exactly invested in them liking me, I already understand there's something about me they hate more than anyone else in the group. … So tell me," replied Jinora.
"Okay, just remember you insisted. … They think you endanger us all. They blame you got us getting shot down." Explained Mako.
Jinora nodded. She thought and said "that could be useful, if they're especially keen on getting me, that could make them walk into a trap if I bait it."
"Are you mental?" asked Mako.
Jinora shrugged and neutrally answered "almost certainly."
"I meant in wanting to bait a trap intended to harm the massive enemy force chasing us, with yourself?"
"That information can only harm Pi and pals if it gets out, Zhu has it, I'm not needed," said Jinora.
"Okay, well … … I'll just tell Tenzin and Kai 'hey, you know that missing air nomad? Well, we rescued her for a bit, but she decided to carry out a BLATENT ACT OF SUICIDE'-" started Mako.
Jinora slapped Mako in the stomach with the back of her hand saying "Hey, we're trying to evade the enemy, remember?"
Mako made some strangled sounds of frustration. This was maddening, they were in this mess trying to protect her, and she wants to defeat their efforts by risking her arse to protect them?
Jinora then said "Look, obviously I want to get out too, right? I don't want to die here, especially not at the hands of those fuckers, but I want to protect the rest of the team … I suppose that'll have to include Desna and Eska, ugh … "
"And if they incapacitate and capture you?" asked Mako.
The apparent cramping in Jinoras abdomen was evident in her walk and she was feeling her throat again, that possibility was definitely being considered, and Jinora said "I risk that when I return to duty after I get these chi blocking devices off of me … I need to decide if I can continue, knowing this kind of thing is one of the potential outcomes of doing that job."
Mako thought about his own attitude to his own safety as he reviewed the jobs he had taken, mostly law enforcement, occasionally vigilante with Team Avatar as the people who team up with Korra had referred to themselves on the occasions they had worked together, minder to Prince and then King Wu, not as bad sounding after hearing Jinora's account of having to drink peoples piss while he had to stand guard near his principal taking a piss as part of his protection duties, and then there's that time Guan had captured, brainwashed, and pitted him against the avatar. Imagine if that was Kyoshi and not Korra. … … Actually that could be unfair to Kyoshi for all he knew, all he knew was Kyoshis rep for being a bit enthusiastically violent.
Probably be an idea for Mako to actually read something on Kyoshi rather than just assume, it occurred to Mako, remembering how a distinct lack of curiosity had chainsaw butt fucked the careers of a certain pair of moustache obsessed detectives that Mako was pretty ecstatically glad to see the back of.
It also occurred to him Jinora was trying to prove to herself that she could still face down the dangers her job presented to her. Or she was trying to feel powerful from facing down a threat she had spent eleven weeks being cowed by.
That could be dangerous, Jinora was laboratory grade white hot fury incarnate, she would suicide bomb Pi Fahoun if that option were open to her as the only retaliation option in Makos estimation. Mako thought about how he would feel if that had been him rendered helpless and subjected to all that sexual abuse.
Yeah. … All that continuous pain and humiliation with the only practical option to just take it without complaint … He'd be a nuclear explosive device.