AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is one of the more intense chapters of Book 2: Change, as Korra starts to lose her grip on herself and as the conflict between her and Tarrlok finally comes to a head. The fight between the Councilman and the Avatar at City Hall is a lot more intense, and the end result is also a lot more dramatic as Korra starts to fall apart. But... I won't spoil the whole thing before it even happens.
Happy Reading!
BOOK TWO: CHANGE
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN: THE POWER GAMES
As much as Korra wanted to free her friends, she knew even in her anger that freeing her friends while Tarrlok was still in power would just mean they'd get dragged back to prison, and she wanted none of that. She whistled loudly for Naga, who came running to her master within a few moments of hearing Korra's call.
"Atta girl…" Korra smiled as she rubbed Naga's head before hopping onto her back, "We gotta get to City Hall; let's go!"
Naga got them there rather fast, where Korra saw lights glowing on one of the upper floors.
"Wait here for me, girl…" Korra whispered, although there was a look of distinct concern on the polar bear-dog's face, as if she knew something was wrong with Korra. Her state of dress and appearance was one of the indicators Tenzin and Asami used to gauge her emotional well-being, and usually when she dressed like this and left her hair down it was one of the warning signs that she was not doing okay and that she needed help. It seemed Naga was aware of this as well.
"Don't worry, girl…" Korra assured her, nuzzling against her head, "I'll be alright."
She crouched before launching herself through one of the windows, smashing through it rather theatrically, and finding herself in front of Tarrlok in his office. Tarrlok was admittedly somewhat taken aback seeing a feral-looking Korra still dragging the heavy chains on both her arms as she stumped into the room. The chains on her feet were wrapped around her shins.
"Did you really think you could get rid of me that easily?" Korra's smirk carried no happiness; only a prominent bloodlust that would have made Nakkoa proud.
"Of course not," Tarrlok kept a level head, "Go ahead and kill me if that's what you want to do, Avatar. While you're going around murdering police officers and City Council members in cold blood, some of us are actually trying to deal with the Equalists."
"You still don't even realize what you're doing, do you?" Korra growled, "you're using your power to oppress and intimidate people!"
"Isn't that what you're doing here?" Tarrlok put his hands together for a moment, "you're here to intimidate me into releasing your friends. I admire that about you, Korra: you're willing to go to extremes to get what you want—and not afraid to do a little murder if necessary. In that regard, you and I are a lot alike."
"Murder…" Korra frowned for a moment. "I resort to murder when my enemy gives me no other option! You've abandoned reason, Tarrlok. If you don't walk out of this building alive it will be your own fault. Purging the corrupt from Republic City is doing the city a grand favour. You can tell me if you fall into that category or not."
"Ahh, the Red Lotus philosophy…" Tarrlok did not seem fazed by Korra's intimidation attempts, "A sound mindset, except for one major oversight—they forgot to take into account what to do if the Avatar herself becomes corrupt. Who is there to put your power into check, Avatar Korra? Knock me out of the way and what then? Do you suppose the Equalists will simply bow to your might and concede defeat? Or do you think they'll continue to pry at your vulnerable mind until they've ruined you the same way you promised to do to me?"
Tarrlok did not expect Korra's instantaneous reaction, or that Korra had thrown one of her chains in such a way that it wrapped around Tarrlok's seat and bound him to it as she pulled him towards her before she lifted it in the air. Harsh displays of strength always seemed to make the young Avatar feel better.
"You, the Triads and the Equalists have done nothing but ruin this city with your power games." Korra's eyes flickered as she entered the Avatar State again. "Do you think the people you've pushed to the brink will mourn you, Councilman? Or will they cheer for your head mounted on a spike outside this corrupted, diseased temple you call City Hall?"
It was almost as if Korra was manifesting a past life with the way she sounded, coupled with the confidence with which she spoke. Either way, Tarrlok did not waver. With a jerk of his head, the wall of water behind him rushed at Korra, disabling her focus and allowing him to escape his bonds as he spring to his feet, forming a shield of water and launching ice daggers at Korra in a method not unlike a common attack her mother Senna often used.
"I've tried to work with you, Korra," Tarrlok suddenly and rapidly increased the speed of his barrage of vicious ice spikes to the point where Korra could not avoid them all, "but you've made it impossible—and so now I will make you bleed."
As strong as resilient as Korra was, the blizzard of ice daggers was so fast that Korra could not block or evade them all, and soon felt large gashes and lacerations across her chest, legs, and particularly her bare arms. One of them even zipped past her face, tearing her right cheek open. In a fit of rage, Korra exhaled an enormous ball of blue fire, following it up with barrages of water of her own and a huge slab of earth that smashed through Tarrlok's wall of water and forced him into the main Council chamber. Korra kept the pressure up, causing Tarrlok to lose his footing and slip past the broken balcony, now hanging a few floors above the main chamber.
"Still think I'm just a stupid little girl?" Korra taunted, her eyes still aglow as she smashed her way through the hole in the wall that she had just sent Tarrlok through. Even barefooted, she still swung her leg through the air and brought her heel down hard on Tarrlok's fingers, knocking him from the ledge before she jumped after him. She didn't strike him on the way down, but left a mighty crater only feet from where he landed as if to further intimidate him.
"What are you gonna do now, pal? Cuz it looks like you're out of water." Korra licked her lips, having left the Avatar State. Finding a pattern in how Korra jumped in and out of the Avatar State was a trying task, and it seemed that there wasn't quite a method to her madness unless these transitions in and out of the state were a symptom of her lacking full control over it. Regardless, she was about to feed Tarrlok a face full of blue fire before she suddenly felt a loss of control in her limbs, which contorted into very odd directions as she staggered backwards.
"I already told you," Tarrlok gritted his teeth, "I'm going to make you BLEED!"
"You're…" Korra stammered as she tensed up, which only exacerbated her pain as blood started oozing more prominently from each little laceration Tarrlok's ice spikes had given her, "you're a bloodbender?!"
"Very observant for a… stupid little girl…" Tarrlok scowled, clenching his fists. Korra screamed in pain, the uncharacteristically high pitch of her cry betraying the agony she was in.
"It's not even a full moon!" Korra screamed, her eyes flickering as her body and spirit tried to fight back against Tarrlok's bloodbending. However, her success was limited, and a lot of her resistant actions only exacerbated her pain and drew more blood. "H-how are you doing this!?"
"There are a lot of things you don't know about me, child…" Tarrlok forced Korra back against a wall. The impact triggered Korra's Avatar State, but in her weakened condition, it seemed that it was not enough to help her break free, particularly against Tarrlok's vicious bending attacks—or so Tarrlok assumed, at least.
The real kicker and bane against what could have freed her from Tarrlok's grip, however, was that despite the Avatar State, an enemy appeared in front of Korra that she had thought she had finally put behind her after two years of struggling against it. Nakkoa herself was not the problem, but the traumatic memories of being restrained as Nakkoa tortured her were—and they were now flashing back in full, horrifyingly vivid detail.
Korra's eyes bulged and were bloodshot behind the glow as she gritted her teeth. Her face and arms were beaded with sweat, and suddenly she just shut down entirely. Her eyes stopped glowing, and she fell to the floor almost motionless, but still conscious as her face contorted to an expression racked with horror.
Perhaps just to spite her, Tarrlok picked up a fragment of stone and chucked it deftly at her head, knocking her clean out. He bound her and stuck her with one of the rare (but low-end) chi-blocking darts that the police usually reserved for hardened bending criminals (although it was likely that the Equalists might have gotten their hands on a few of these rare items as well), before hoisting her up and carrying her to a truck. He threw her in with considerable force before jumping in the back of the truck. The muffled screams and frantic banging that came from the back of the truck nearly half an hour later meant that Korra had regained consciousness, but was still helpless to escape. While it seemed vindicating and trivial to Tarrlok, it was surreal and horrifying for Korra, who could practically feel her mind starting to crumble as she tried to make sense of where she was, why the side of her head was aching, why she could vividly feel every part of her body that was bleeding, and most of all, why this ruthless fear gripped her so unforgivingly.
"It's only a matter of time, Tarrlok!" It all came surging back to her, "You can't keep me here forever—you can't restrain me!"
"Seems I already did!" Tarrlok called back as he began to slow down the truck, "and I'm not afraid to make you dance for me again... And maybe break your legs in the process."
"Try me!" Korra challenged, although when Tarrlok applied the brakes, Korra jolted, both from rattling around and from the abject terror of thinking Tarrlok was actually going to come back there and break her legs. However, he simply chuckled as the truck roared to life again.
"It seems you're still scared," he quipped, only to be met with a series of angry screams and profanities as Korra banged against the walls and tried to free herself from her bindings. She wasn't sure how long she thrashed, but it took her awhile to notice even that they had stopped.
"Are you ready to dance for me again, little girl?" He asked mockingly as he approached the back of the truck and knocking on the sides.
"Just fucking try me!" Korra screamed in defiance, to mask her fear.
"Don't mind if I do…" Tarrlok kicked the door open, using his bloodbending to levitate Korra into the air, also forcing her to contort against her bonds, which were augmented by the prison chains that she still had wrapped around her arms and legs. Korra screamed, crying out in pain once more, although it was not enough to trigger the Avatar State even on reflex (or perhaps her chi was still blocked from the dart), and so before Korra could attempt to free herself, Tarrlok slammed her into a large metal box, sealing it with various levels of additional security.
"No one's here to hear you scream…" Tarrlok replied bluntly, "or to hear you when you have another meltdown. Go ahead though—by all means, try to blow this box apart with that fancy tattoo on your forehead. Cleaning up the remains of your skull will be a lot easier than trying to transport you anywhere again."
Korra screamed in frustration, banging on the box and clearly slinging some high-powered attacks at the thick metal, which did not yield. Tarrlok left the remote cabin he had taken Korra to, and made the long drive back to Republic City.
He had only one chance to save face, and he knew he had to act quickly. Using a box of confiscated Equalist equipment, he went to City Hall and made the damage appear to be done by them, suggesting that they attacked him and kidnapped Korra. He even went as far as electrocuting himself with one of the electroshock gloves to really pull off a genuine facade.
This was the story he presented to both Tenzin, Saikhan, as well as the media when they inevitably arrived on the scene.
"I tried to protect Korra, but we were outnumbered," Tarrlok explained as a healer worked on the injury on his arm, "one of them stunned her, and another one electrocuted her—and then she just sort of… froze up. Her eyes widened and she stopped attacking for long enough to allow the Equalists to get the better of us both, where they left me for dead and took her to oblivion-knows-where. These Equalists were the ones that somehow blasted their way out of prison last night as well though."
The little tidbit about Korra freezing at a particularly triggering moment actually made his story sound much more credible, considering that Tenzin was very aware of Korra's mental struggles, and that there were legitimately times when Korra simply froze up and stopped functioning for a few moments at time. This was no doubt a byproduct of her mental trauma.
"Korra…" he whispered under his breath. The fact that he had gone to the police station to argue (unsuccessfully) for the release of Korra's friends as well only frustrated him further, knowing full well that Asami would both want to know about it and could potentially provide further insight on what was happening to Korra. Whatever had happened, it was clear that it had been particularly horrifying for her if Tarrlok's claims of her outright freezing up were true.
The announcement that was made over the radio shortly after this also resounded through Lin's apartment, where the ex-Chief of Police was still lazily dozing off and brooding over recent events as she recovered from her injuries from the Probending Arena incident several weeks prior. Her arm had been slightly fractured, and she had disappeared from the public eye as she waited for it to recover. It had only been two days since her full recovery, but even then, she had turned her back on the city that had turned its back on her.
Lin didn't even listen to the entire report. After she heard that Tarrlok was attacked and that Korra was abducted, she knew that the days of her sitting by were over.
She moved to her wardrobe where her police uniform still stood, and put it on, only removing the insignia of the police department from it as she metalbent the rest of the pieces around her body. Throwing on a trenchcoat, she headed out. It didn't take her long to learn where Korra's friends had gone, and while the claims that "Equalists" had blown a hole in the prison was the official story, Lin was all too familiar with Korra's destructive style(s) of escape to recognize the Avatar's handiwork. Finding and rescuing Korra was on Lin's agenda, but for the moment she needed to work with the targets in her reach: Asami, Mako, and Bolin.
Asami definitely looked sleep-deprived, caused by a mixture of the cell's discomfort (especially compared to what she was used to), but also worrying about whatever horrible thing Korra had done to break out of the prison the previous evening. Knowing Korra when she was fuelled by anger, it was likely violent, and Asami actually assumed that Korra now had more blood on her hands than she did before that evening.
She jumped when she heard a loud bang and the metal door of her cell suddenly getting ripped off its hinges and thrown aside.
"Hope you got enough beauty rest, kid," Lin cast her an approving look, "I'm busting you out."
"Thanks," Asami smiled despite her exhausted demeanour, "I owe you."
"I wouldn't say no to a strong drink if you've got the right vintage," Lin quipped, "but otherwise don't worry about it. We've got a lot bigger problems on our hands."
Mako and Bolin were in a slightly different position when Lin ripped the bars off their cells; unlike Asami, the brothers were behind bars rather than in what was essentially solitary confinement like Asami. Lin mentally scoffed at the irony.
"Oy, a little privacy here?" Bolin called out, considering he was standing in front of the cell's toilet with his back to the others.
"Privacy or freedom?" Lin quipped in response.
"Hey," Bolin finished his business and zipped his fly, "when you gotta go, you gotta go."
"Not to play devil's advocate here," Mako added, "but I'm with Bo on this one."
"Either way, thanks!" Bolin smiled at Lin, "so were you able to find Korra? I figure that explosion that shook the entire place a few hours ago was definitely her, but after realizing that she wasn't coming to rescue us…"
Asami's face dropped as well. If that had in fact been Korra busting out of prison, why had she not come and rescued her friends? Were they still Korra's friends, or had something else happened to Korra's already shattered and somewhat deranged mental state that had dislodged them from that part of her mind?
"Seeing the damage from outside, it's definitely Korra," Lin replied, "but word from police says she was captured by Amon."
"No, no, no!" Asami clenched her fists around eye level, "that's the last thing she needs!"
"All the more reason it's time for us to move," Lin ordered, "we've got ourselves an Avatar to find—and an Avatar to rescue."
Asami still couldn't help but worry about what had happened to Korra. Hiroshi's revelation and betrayal had shaken the Avatar rather badly, and so for another traumatic event to happen in Korra's life so soon after the previous one made Asami fear for Korra's very sanity.