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Chapter Text

Year 2406

Asami placed the portable drive card in front of the computer’s screen. Codes surged up the screen, numbers and letters scrolling past illegibly fast as information transferred from the larger computer to smaller drive.

She once again cast a cautious look into the office space from around the sectioned off area she stood in.

Reports was not where she belonged. She’d swiped a badge from one of Kuvira’s faceless soldiers. That alone would be enough to land her in a dark hole for however long Kuvira deemed fit. But now she was accessing reports that were marked under ‘CONFIDENTIAL’ and scanning them to a remote server. Being caught wouldn’t mean imprisonment; it would mean being taken out behind the shed.

Piles upon piles of reports stacked up neatly on the well used desks and chairs. She could see an out cove where a set of stairs lead to the floor below, and elevators were to its side. She could see Kuvira’s dead eyes gazing from nearly every wall, mounted in picture frames next to the flags they’d all sworn allegiance to. An allegiance for the sake of survival more than sake of deference. But more than anything she could see her shadow, almost ominously hanging behind herself, as the screen kicked more information into the flat thin device she held in her hands.

“Commoncommoncommon.” She chanted to the device, though technology didn’t care about her impatience.

The files reached 80 percent. She glanced around at the darkness and then-

The screen went dark. The computers around her went dark, the coffee machine released bubbles into old coffee and the computers whirring came to an end.

She was plummeted into sinister silence.

A small measure came then before lights flooded in through the office windows and the high strung wailing of a distant alarm sounded.

Her heart sunk to her stomach and she took two horrified steps back as the search light careened the room, dipping with the rise and falls of desks and penetrating the very shadows she hid within.

As the light just reached the edge of her shoes, Asami thrust herself to the floor boards, the smell of spilled coffee and burned electronics in her nose as the light flooded over the counter tops of the dissected room. She scuttled backwards, watching the light sweep towards her feet, coming up just short before it swiveled aside. The cabinets her back rest against protecting her from that all seeing ray of light.

Bang! She jumped, her eyes shifting to the sound.

To her side she heard heavy footfalls and frantic breathing, “What do we do now.” The woman speaking clung to the arm of a familiar face. Shaking with terror, Asami peered into the steel reflective surfaces of the computers around her; she could see Varrick grabbed hold of the woman’s hand.

There came a light so brilliant that staring at it made Asami’s eyes tingle and burn.

The radiance came from the identical tattoos encasing their intertwined fingers. They were connate spirits.

Varrick had been shot and the subsequent splatter had sprayed onto the younger woman’s drafty prisoner uniform which stood in start contrast to Varrick’s military uniform. The man doubled over, gritting his teeth and reaching for the wound. His connate’s eyes filled with fear as she held him from behind, her arms wound around his body, “Varrick,” She began with grievance, Varrick we have to keep running.”

“I just need a moment.” Varrick panted, his hand covering the wound in his shoulder, blood spilling between his fingers, “If I just had a bit more time-,”

The glass windows cratered inward, shattering into a thousand jagged pieces. Asami turned her head aside as glass rained down on her. The male connate thrust the young woman to the floor as bullets rocketed through the room. The deadly metals embed in computer screens, ripped through portraits of Kuvira and melted the plastic binding of office chairs.

Glass cylinder surrounding Asami’s head puckered and exploded. A shrill of panic just barely escaped her lungs before she covered her mouth and bit back the scream.

She slammed her eyes shut and felt the glass press into her making violent marks in her wrists and legs. The bullets ceased just as the sound of purposeful footsteps, rushed up the staircases.

Asami scuttled across the floor quickly, glass erupting as the final shots came from rooftops of surrounding buildings.

Kuvira’s soldiers, clad in deep green and black uniform, armed with metal batons and black semi-automatics, overcame the room just as Varrick wept, “Zhu Li?”

Asami could see now. She could see his hands encasing the face of his connate and the glow of their right hands. Varrick’s cradling Zhu Li’s face, Zhu Li’s hand open and limp on the floor. How Zhu Li’s began to dim, flickering as Zhu Li gave her all to hold to what little life hadn’t drained from the bullet in her chest. She couldn’t hold on. It was all too much.

Her head fell limp into Varrick’s hands and the brilliant glow of his right hand dimmed. The instant Zhu-Li died the burn began.

Varrick gasped and fell to the side, the tattoos etched in his skin began puckering, swelling, and burning as if touched by branding iron. His back arched his gunshot to the arm nothing compared to the all consuming sear of the tattoo.

As Varrick released a howl of pain the doors opposite the stairs flooded aside.

Through the opened doors marched Kuvira herself, she moved towards Varrick with a deadly intent in each step. The man’s face swam with tearful realization then.

Kuvira stopped just short of Varrick, who grit his teeth, clutched his hand and withheld the screams of agony that seemed to crawl just beneath his skin. Kuvira’s soldiers moved in, taking steady aim of Varrick’s skull, ready to pull their triggers at even the slightest sign of resistance.

“Hmm,” Kuvira’s jaw tightened as she crouched over Zhu Li’s body, “Strange isn’t it? How they look so much like us. So,” she searched for the right word, “Human.” She seemed to say to no one in particular.

“She,” Varrick struggled, swallowed, his skin shifting between hues of red and orange and charred black, “She is more human than you’ll ever be.”

“Hm.” Kuvira stood, “You’re reports say there’s an overcrowding in our prisons.” She removed her own gun from its holster, “I have a solution for that.”

She fired a round between Varrick’s eyes. With a resolute pop Varrick’s body stiffened and he fell to the floor. His mouth rest agape and his eyes opened wide. And when his body touched the floor his eyes seemed to stare directly at Asami from her hidden position.
Asami’s back pressed against the counter tops, her hands covered her mouth with a trail of blood inching down her face, and she stared back into Varrick’s dead eyes, incapable of looking anywhere else.

“Bataar, have Asami Sato come to my office in the morning. She’ll be glad to know she’s been promoted.”

Asami shivered at the thought of ambitiously climbing to the top over Varrick’s dead body.

Kuvira took a breath and searched the room, “Have sanitation cleanse the room and when they’re done have them coordinate with Recruit Force. I want to know who this connate bribed to pass him on spinal testing and then I want to see that person swinging from the gallows.”

Kuvira exited the room with no further word uttered beyond that untried death sentence.

The soldiers turned on their heels then and marched directly for the dissected half of the room Asami crouched in.

Panic had just barely filled her stomach when a hand came down on her shoulder.

She jumped, her scream swelling when she turned her head to the right and found a familiar face.

The handsome face of Kuvira’s loyalist soldier named Mako. He wore his uniform better than most, he believed in everything the black and gold badge on his chest stood for. Now he crouched at her flank and pressed his fingers to his lips.

“Stay here.” He stepped a few steps back before he rose to his feet and moved into view of approaching soldiers, “All clear.” He lied to them.

Asami tried to make sense of why Mako would help her despite his resolute belief in the law.

Minutes ticked pass, the soldier’s moved their search to the next floor, and soon all that surrounded them was that same sinister silence from before only now with shattered glass covering every surface.

Asami released the breath she’d been holding and stood to her feet slowly. Shards of glass fell free of her clothes, and with a trembling hand she gently touched a piece of glass that had dug into her cheek.

Her eyes never left the athletically built man before her and their silence ticked away at precious moments.

“I don’t know why you’re here,” He said finally, his eyes lingering on the portable drive she still clutched in her hand, “And I don’t want to know. What I do know is that I need your help.” He took a breath and closed his eyes as he faced the truth in the next sentence, “My brother is dying.”

Year 1942

The door pushed open and a cold draft rippled through the room. The hot bodies of the dancers tread fast steps to the upbeat tunes of the live band.

Asami’s eyes trained on her ice melting quietly at the bottom of her glass. She only glanced up for a moment, more for the sake of curious boredom than anticipation. But what her eyes found reflected by the long wall of mirrors on the barkeepers wall cured her boredom.

She found a lopsided smile perched beneath the military issued hat of a tall broad shouldered woman. Her clothes were peppered in snow. Her group of friends all but taken with laughter by whatever wit she’d shared.

“I tell you! We’ll have ourselves a Double Victory guys and gals!” As her friends let out high pitched laughs she flooded the bar with her presence. It was charisma, Asami told herself. That certain something that some people have that makes them turn heads.

And turning heads was this girl’s pastime.

The soldiers without dates gawked, undressing the woman in uniform with their eyes; those with dates snuck their glances over long sips of alcohol.

Asami felt the touch of a cool glass against her skin. She swung her head to find a wide forced grin to cover up the lack of confidence.

His skin was dark as coal, his features so chiseled it was almost painful to watch such a beautiful massacre. But none the less the man was rendered sheepish as he made his approach, “Penny for your thoughts?” he asked.

Asami smiled and shook her head, “No thanks.”

“Aw come on.”

Korra scanned the faces in the room. It had been some time ago when she’d first seen the woman grace the stage. She had a voice that many would say didn’t belong to her. The kind of voice that made stomachs fill with sorrow and friends into lovers.

She found the woman at the bar - between songs, Korra assumed. Taking a break as she usually did with a glass of white wine, a spiritless expression and a flower with its leaves plucked apart and laid on the counter.

She always had a flower. Always pulled it’s petals off. One of the many mysteries about the white woman that liked to sing in the negro bars.

Korra looked away. Her eyes landing back on Opal and the two men they’d entered with.

Kinto, a slender faced well kempt man gleamed at her, “What do you know about victory?”

“I know it changes things,” Korra said absentmindedly her feet carrying her to the bar. Closer to the woman.

"Oh yeah? Like what?”

Korra angled herself a mere few feet from the singer. She positioned her elbow on the counter top and rest her weight there, “My father was a surgeon in the Great War.”

“That right?” Kinto mocked.

Korra turned and curtly remarked, “That’s right.”

“Dog surgeons don’t count,” Kinto laughed.

“We call those veterinarians you jackass.” Korra turned to the bartender hovering nearby, “Scotch sour.” As the bartender smiled warmly at the popular woman Korra added, “Might as well leave the bottle.”

Those within earshot laughed at Korra’s forwardness before Kinto grumbled, “What’s that got to do with victory?”

“Well, it’s the logistics,” Korra said her eyes trailing to the green eyed wonder once more, “We win the war overseas, we win the war on prejudice at home. We prove our courage-,”

“And they still find a way to call us cowards.” Kinto cut her short.

“You have no faith in nothing do you?”

“We can’t all afford to have our heads in the clouds.”

Their eyes met and Korra waited. She knew Asami was the kind of woman most men didn’t look in the eyes for too long, most women simply avoided because they found her not relatable. Korra paused because she knew Asami waited for her to look away first. But she didn’t. And when that happened Asami’s expression, as spiritless as it was, turned a shade redder. The man passing at the woman took her attention back and he said, “You come in here every night like clockwork.”

Asami’s shoulders raised ever the slightest with disinterest at the man’s observation, “This is the only place that let’s me sing the music I want to sing. Hear the music I want to hear.”

Korra continued to steamroll over Kinto’s protests, “In the Great War negro soldiers would come in with their faces melting off, limbs blown to hell and my dad was expected to practice triage on all of them.”

“That right?” Kinto asked preparing an insult.

Without breaking stride in her own conversation, Korra took another step in Asami’s direction. She felt Asami’s eyes rake over her body. Her hands were calloused. Her uniform pressed and clean. Her hair neat in a ponytail. Her jaw long and firm. And finally she met Korra’s eyes. They brimmed with jubilance.

Korra’s mouth moved to address her friends, but she didn’t bother passing her eyes from the singer, “Do you know what the first rule of triage is?”

“Try not to kill nobody is my guess?” Due chimed in.

“Save as many lives as you can s fast as you can?” Opal asked, genuinely curious.

Kinto sniffed, “Get on with it already.”

“Nope. First rule of triage is to use your resources effectively. Rank. Relatives. Comradery. All of it is secondary to resources.” The bartender returned and began passing out drinks. He shook his head and slid Korra the bottle with a brief remark on its price. Korra ignored her single serve drink and took the bottle by its neck in her hands, “So my question to all of you is if I were to crack this bottle over Kinto’s head would ya’ll consider that an effective use of resources?”

The crowd laughed at the magnetic woman as Kinto downed a shot of scotch and stomped away irritated. “Awe! Come on,” Korra called after the man, “Don’t be such a sour puss!”

Asami and her suitor looked at the crowd of laughing faces for a moment. His nerves too much to keep him from laughing. He touched her gently on the arm and extended an open palm invitation, “You know they say the music takes on a whole other meaning when you’re dancing to it with someone?”

As her friends collected their drinks Korra inched a few steps closer to the dark haired knockout beauty. She leaned just inches from Asami’s smooth skin. Her eyes working over the exposed arms, the way her back stretched flat as a board in perfect posture. Her striking red dress that fit every curve of her body. She felt her teeth bite down on her lip as she came to rest her eyes on Asami’s glorious hair. The suitor who had made no headway with the woman and Korra had just opened her mouth to send him away when Asami spoke for herself.

“So why don’t you ask someone who wants to dance with you?”

Korra’s eyebrow shot skyward, the man’s mouth hung agape, Asami placed the glass to her lips and took a graceful sip and said nothing more as the deflated man slunk away.

Her friends called out to her, Korra waved them off.

“You’ve got quite a bite.” Korra noted, “I wouldn’t have pegged you the kind to shut a man down so hard.”

“Simple ‘no’s’ don’t pass with most men. And what ‘kind’ did you figure me for?” Asami extended her fingers to the bartender for a fresh drink.

Korra shrugged, down her single shot and continued, “The kind that looks to be protected and not the protector.”

“And now?”

“Now?” Korra eyed Asami’s red dress. How vibrant it was. How she made mental note not to stare to long at each curve. “Well you’re the kind the Devil sends to tempt God’s most devout.”

Asami smiled at that, “Do you call all the girls you just meet demons?”

“Well most girls get accustomed to being called angels.”

Asami laughed breathily, shortly, an odd tune that wasn’t a laugh but still made Korra smile, “And are you amongst these… devout?”

Korra took a step away, spread her arms and grinned at her dark green uniform. A grin brought on by the fact that the broad shouldered woman knew she looked good in a uniform, “Can’t you tell by my uniform? I’ve sold my soul to Uncle Sam.”

Asami nodded, “Army Nurse Corps?”

“Closest I could get to the frontlines as a woman. Without, you know, dressing up like a man, which I tried.”

Asami choked on her drink. That was a laugh. A real damned laugh from this beautiful woman and it put Korra on the moon. “How did that work out?” Asami asked.

“Apparently I’m too pretty to be a man.” Korra shrugged. Asami’s eyes widened at the lack of cordiality, “I take that as a compliment.”

Asami chuckled shaking her head back and forth, “You’re crazy.”

Korra smiled, tipped back her glass of scotch and let it burn down her throat. When her cup hit the hard wood she announced, “Dance with me.”

The man from earlier became stricken with a look of disbelief.

The dark haired woman didn’t bother entertaining the grandiose display. She frowned around the rim of her glass, “Are you asking or telling?”

Korra flashed a sloppy smile then and Asami would have been a liar to say her heart didn’t stutter at the sight, “We’re not the kind of women anyone tells to do anything.” Asami’s eyes trailed over Korra. Her uniform. Her skin. Her charisma. Her smile. That damned smile. The Allies could learn a thing or two about invading when it came to Korra’s smile. Just a simple flash of it and her heart had surrendered.

Her hand reached for Korra’s palm up invitation. Now a real smile, all consuming stretched over Korra’s face, “I bet your feet still move like the fires of hell are at them.”

That was when Asami’s bare skin purchased against Korra’s outstretched hand.

The touch hit her hard enough that both they faltered and swayed. The euphoria that instantly shot through their bodies became animated by the light that erupted. Gazing at the pretty woman in front of her, Asami watched the dark black marks begin to ease over the beautiful dark skinned face. Thin, wiring lines, intricate in design, winsome in their spirals and curves, and arches. As they imprint into Korra’s skin they began to glow. Their swirls ignited the room with a conspicuous luminescent glow that went unnoticed by no one.

As Asami witnessed the tattoo spread over Korra’s face she felt the euphoric etching as it marked against her own.

Euphoria. She’d had it described to her a thousand times. In the time of the Second World War she’d never imagined it could present itself to her. She’d imagined the tragedy that might befall her and her connate spirit if they were to meet in a world at war. But all of that was pushed away. Euphoria did that. It alienated and exiled all other emotions except pure joy.

The band had slowed to a disjointed stop. The marks on their faces were impossible to hide. Impossible to denounce. They were bound, not simply by the tattoos that lay across their most noticeably exposed skin, but by that euphoria. She knew what came next. The longing. It had already started. It had already commanded she caress the other woman’s cheek, “It’s beautiful.” She watched the luminescent glow of Korra’s tattoo fade to shifting speckles of blue tented light.

Korra smiled, “I don’t know your name.”

The women laughed then with heavy belly laughs that were more from the emotions pushing through them than from humor. They slumped further into one another, their tattoos glowing like embers in a simmering fire. Longing demanded they touch. Asami knew that. But still she felt compelled by something greater; perhaps her own desire to touch.

“Asami,” Asami breathed imagining a life in which she never had to stop touching her connate spirit.

Korra inhaled Asami’s scent deeply, “Korra.”

Then reality struck Asami and she remembered.

The music had stopped.

The dancing had stopped.

The friends Korra had come in with now stare with their mouths agape. In fact there was many of mouths agape.

They had bonded in public.

This bond had been formed between a white and a negro. Worse it was between two women.

And these two identically tattooed faces made this bond something that would get them both killed.

Year 2406

Asami had forgotten what the stars looked like outside of the city. How the planet they lived on was vast wasteland. How endless stars lay on the other side of a glass dome.

Mako’s motorcycle ripped over the land, crossing city limits and into an unknown. What seemed like hours of silence passed until a new city came into sight.

“Where are we?” Asami asked over the quiet hum of Mako’s motorcycle.

“One of Kuvira’s failed prisoner camp experiments.”

Asami had heard rumors of Kuvira running human test trials that resulted in more death and destruction than even numerically measurable. But now rushing through the monotonous buildings the realities of Kuvira’s dictatorship became all too real.

“We had to shut down a few years ago because of a contamination breach.” Mako said. Asami’s face filled with panic, Mako felt her stiffen with her arms wound around his waist, “Don’t worry, levels are within normal. No one has been out here in years.”

The buildings were at most three stories high. All made of the identical white and gray stone, glassless windows, and silver drainage pipes cakes with dirt snaking down the occasional wall. Some walls were peppered in bullets, other’s in blood.

The buildings were dissected by the main road Mako and Asami traveled down. It had many roads splitting and each tire produced a billow of smoke from its wheels as they rubbed against the gravel surface.

Not too far off in the distance was a mound of the white powdery earth that seemed to encrust this desolate planet. Asami didn’t have to guess what lay beneath the dirt.

“This is it.” Mako neatly parked the motorcycle in front of one of the many ambiguous buildings. Asami looked behind herself. Once again she questioned her decision to go with Mako. Once again she remembered the portable drive in her hand. It was the most important thing.

She took a breath and followed him inside the building.

Each footstep echoed in the hollow room. They passed an abandoned reception desk. Her eyes trailed over the discarded blank paper. The more important pieces rest as ashes in a metal bin beside the desk. The filing cabinets drawers left open. She approached the cabinet with curiosity for this place. As if she expected Kuvira's dirty laundry to lie around in the abandoned building.

“This way.” Mako instructed from a staircase.

She followed him up the stairs. Her eyes watching the white shifting dust and dirt part with each step until she final stepped into the second story of the building.

A wide space composed by whitish grey walls. On one end of the room lay stacks of thin mattresses. On the other end of the room lay stacks of metal bed frames. And in the center a shivering young boy had been chained to the floor.

Asami’s eyes lurched to Mako. She took two frightened steps away from the boys. The boy on the floor shifted, he groaned and he let out a quiet moan.

“What’s-,”

“You think I wanted to chain up my brother?” Mako asked, “If I hadn’t…” he trailed off shaking his head and looked back at the boy. His arms were spread apart. The chains had been anchored to opposite walls. His body could lay awkwardly on a mattress but nothing else. His head couldn’t touch the mattress. He wore no shirt. His bare chest exposed.

Then there was the smell. Mixing with the hard smell of asphalt was the smell of burning flesh.

She’s just barely smelled it earlier that night. When Zhu Li had died and Varrick’s tattoo had burned. But this. This was thicker. It hung in the air and made Asami swallow hard to keep back her own vile. She covered her nose with her arm and approached the boy slowly.

Casting a distrustful glance to Mako she inched across the room to the young boy.

She crouched beneath his chains and moved to examine his back.

The boy whimpered. His face stained with tears.

“Mako,” he mumbled. “Mako is that you?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Mako stepped closer to his brother.

Asami watched the older brother move to the younger for only a moment more before stepping fully around to see Bolin’s back.

She instantly knew what the smell had come from.

The boy’s tattoo was massive. Covering the expanse of his entire back and dipping beneath his pants loop.

Intricate. Delicate. And just as resoundingly beautiful as all the other’s she’d seen.

The stench had been the stench of the impressive tattoo burning.

The skin blistering, puckering, and gasping as it was pulled and ripped by the burn. It shined a vibrant red and orange as if a hot coal had been cooked inside the boys flesh.

“How long has-,”

“Three days.”

Asami’s mouth hung on its hinges, her eyes trailed to the chains binding the boy to the walls. It all made sense then. She’d have done the same.

“My god.” She murmured, “His connate has been dying for the last three days. That could only mean…”

“She’s being tortured. Killed over and over and over again. Each time she’s being revived.”

Mako nodded and his fists clenched, “He’s never met her but he still has to feel her dying. How is that fair?”

Asami swallowed. She knew euphoria. She knew his contact of a connate spirit was addictive. How it filled someone with absolute joy.

She knew when that same connate died it filled their counterpart with pure unending hopelessness. Her eyes made their way back to the chains.

Mako guiltily examined the chains as well, “It’s the euphoria. It made him so hopeless. Chain him was the only way I could keep him from-,”

Hearing the pain in his voice Asami cut him short, “I know.”

Asami’s hand trailed to her pocket where the portable drive rest concealed. Now more than ever she realized its importance. They were being hunted and soon she may very well be chained to the walls in unrelenting agony.

Chapter Text

Year 1942

Asami raised from the sheets of Korra’s bed. Shaking sleep from her head she opened her eyes to find Korra dressing quickly into her uniform. With a sore neck and tired fingers she smiled then stretched her naked body alluringly over the sheets, “Come back to bed. I want to taste your skin between my teeth,” she cooed, her eyes dropping to Korra’s exposed pelvis where the dark skin was now peppered with bite sized shades of red and purple, “I’m not finished marking my territory.”

Korra blushed, “I think the tattoo takes care of that.” Still, Korra swallowed hard and struggled to pull her gaze away from Asami’s graceful figure, “I have orders to ship today. If I don’t report it’ll be a shit storm.”

Instantly Asami felt longing. Until now, Asami had thought she loved longing. She’d managed to stave off sleep in favor of acting out every lustful - borderline perverse - thought longing had put in her head. But now her tattoo glowed for distance. A different kind of longing all together. A painful kind that made her head begin to ache and a sick feeling settled in her stomach.

A luminescent glow encased the room almost simultaneously between the women. Beginning dully then echoing out, louder and louder, until it shine brighter than the sunlight streaming through the open windows..

Was this what she’d heard about over the years when connates described their connection to one another? What they meant by not simply being completed by their connate, but one with them? Developed stronger because of them? Her mind went to the next question: What about the rare instances when connates claimed to have gained supernatural abilities after meeting their connate?

Somehow, nothing felt impossible anymore.

Korra almost angrily strapped her belt into place, “If it weren’t for country, I’d desert in a heartbeat to lie in bed with you all day.” She took a small breath to bite back words before shaking her head, “All I ever wanted was to serve my country. To fight a good fight and maybe earn some equality for my people. But now....” She trailed off. She didn’t need to finish. Asami felt it too.

At some point something had changed. At some point the solar system had repositioned itself and at its center stood a negro woman with a cocky smile and playful eyes.

Korra didn’t need to finish her sentence, because Asami knew just how far away earth had fallen away beneath their feet.

---

“Hurry, we’re gonna be late.” Korra tugged Asami frantically through the train station, her head sweeping back to check the other girl’s notably clumsy footfalls and grin to herself at the wide smile that danced across Asami’s lips. Together they dashed around trolleys brimming with suitcases, men in cheap suites, giddy children awaiting their train, and proud parents waving farewell to their enlisted sons.

The girls fell into one another as they skid to a stop. The train whistle pitched into the air. Out of breath and smiling they watched one another wondering how long the sweet would last before the bitter settled in..

God, Asami loved Korra’s smile. She felt herself lean in then, she wanted to consume that smile, bite at the soft lips, pull away pieces she could hide away for the loneliest nights and remember how they felt against her own.

She stopped short. She shouldn’t. No. She couldn’t. Not in public.

Just her standing alongside this negro woman had attracted eyes.Their tattoos weren’t glowing, but the black tent of her tattoo still shown visible on Asami’s skin, and mirrored in Korra’s darker tone.

“Korra,” Asami felt her breath flood into Korra’s slightly parted lips. She bit her own lips hard and stared at Korra’s, “I don’t know how to say goodbye without kissing you.”

Korra nodded understanding, “Wait.” She looked around and in moments she’d tugged Asami into an off-shooting walkway. The light above flickered on and off, illuminating moldy walls and overlapping floor tiles. Overall poor maintenance had earned this place low traffic and yellow tape told them to stay out.

“It’s not romantic,” Asami remarked.

“Romance is overrated.” Korra smirked.

Asami smiled for a moment then spoke only when she was sure her voice wouldn’t shake, “I wish I were a better woman. A better woman wouldn’t ask you to stay.”

Korra stepped closer to Asami, she pressed her lips so close they could taste one another’s breath. Asami’s fingers crumpled into Korra’s uniform with anticipation.

Korra spoke feeling her lips graze Asami’s, “A better woman wouldn’t ask you to wait.”

Then…

Then that miraculous kiss they shared. Where longing and distance and something nearly spiritual took hold of their bodies. The station danced in light and the walkway did little to suffocate its brilliance. Prying eyes found them instantly. Some jaws agape so far that cigarettes rolled down shirts, some light reaching so vast that the train tunnel could be etched with detail, some desire so vividly displayed that mother’s shielded the eyes of children.

But neither of them cared. Sweet was turning bitter and with each moment they were forced to confront that reality.

Year 2406 - 3 Days Ago

“I still think this is a bad idea.” Korra said as they stood together in silence.

Tonraq looked to the quiet rustle from the trees to his right. He knew it must have been Opal. She’d taken up hiding behind a thick tree. A few paces away and to his left, Jinora, the youngest of the four sat wringing her hands nervously between her thighs. She crouched in hiding behind a massive rock.

They’d chosen to meet in the forest. The tall trees stretched unbelievably high and ran only about three miles before the barren dead land became white and chalky. The forest itself had been perched atop terraformed land just like all vegetation on this particular planet.

“You were welcome to stay back at the settlement, Korra,” Tonraq retorted. Korra grit her teeth.

“Well someone had to play the skeptic. He’s Kuvira’s head scientist. You honestly think we can trust him.” Korra muttered to herself.

“Varrick is a connate like us. I’ve seen his tattoo and it’s genuine. Whoever his connate is it now outranks any loyalty he might have felt towards Kuvira. You’ll understand that once you’ve bonded.” The last words were like a slap across Korra’s face. Reminding her she wasn’t up to snuff like the other connate’s. Reminding her how little people thought of her as a person, seeing her only as the daughter of their great leader, “If Varrick wants safe passage into the Dead Zone then he knows the only way he leaves the Mainland is by bargaining with us. And Korra,” Tonraq hesitated and glanced again at Opal and Jinora, “You’ll watch how you address me as your commander.”

Korra cleared her throat and swallowed her pride, “Yes, sir.”

The atmosphere was more tense than ever between the two.

Afterall, Korra was poised to be the next leader, she like her mother and father was a connate. She’d tested positive for it from early on and her mother and father had escaped before Kuvira rose to power.

But no one wanted someone who had not been bonded to their connate to be leading the Connate Resistance. Opal herself had tested positive, and her parents had given everything to leave the Mainland before Kuvira had began slaughtering the children that tested positive.

And that was part of the tension:

Opal had a connate. Korra had a connate.

So when Suyin had walked in on the two youth stripped to their underwear and eagerly exploring one another’s bodies she was not at all pleased. Being a connate was the equivalent of be betrothed. And to share intimacy of that caliber with anyone else was the equivalent of adultery. Some even argued that if one burned and had not bonded with their connate prior to the burn, prior to their death, then sharing intimacy was still forbidden.

Jinora and Tonraq were the only ones who had bonded with their connates and they had the tattoos to prove it. Tonraq had bonded during the first Galactic War with a baker's daughter named Senna. And Jinora with Kai. They’d met as toddlers, both the children of refugees escaping Kuvira’s cruelty. But they, Kai and Jinora, were young. So fresh from training they were basically teething and tonight was Jinora’s first time ever leaving the Dead Zone since her parents had brought her there.

But Tonraq had decided to bring her. He’d gotten closer to the girl. She was smart, a good fighter, and she and her connate shared a rare ability that he thought might be able to change the tides of war. She was a reminder that Korra was not bonded.

Tonraq broke the tense silence, “He’s here.”

Opal readied her gun, checking the silencer was on correctly. Jinora herself carried a gun as well. She held the metal to her chest and focused on not shaking.

Varrick’s motorcycle rumbled to a halt. The sleek white machine hummed as he cut the engine and swung his legs to the ground.

“Were you followed?” Korra asked.

Varrick stopped short and hesitated, “No.”

Korra glanced at her father, but his face was filled with hope. Had he not caught the pause? Was he so mesmerized by the promises Varrick made? Korra stepped forward ready to press the matter but Tonraq extended a hand to her and shot her a look. A look that demanded her deference.

“Well let’s see it then. The names and location of everyone Kuvira has captured.”

“Not so fast,” Varrick said, “I need some assurances.”

“We’re standing here, aren’t we? That’s all the assurances you get. You give us the names and locations, we can talk about assurances then. Until then-,” Tonraq extended his hand though Varrick stood several feet away.

Varrick took a breath and glanced down at his hand. It began to glow. Longing. A spike of jealousy ran through Korra’s veins. Even this piece of shit had bonded. Why hadn’t she?

He reached inside of a satchel he carried and produced a long piece of tech. Giving the tech a rough shake and a small tap the artificial paper lit into the cold misty night, “It’s all here. Fourteen thousand prisoners all across the planet.”

Tonraq nodded towards Varrick at Korra. Queued by gesture, Korra bound the distance between them in a few short strides. She snatched the papers from his hands and flipped through them quickly.

Names. Dates. Pictures. It seemed like it checked out. She began walking back towards Tonraq when she heard it.

A quiet whirring sound. When she’d first approached she’d assumed the sound was his motorcyle winding down from its long drive.

But the sound originated from far above her head. Her eyebrows knit down for only a moment. She wouldn’t give them away.

She flipped through the artificial papers again. This time more slowly, “You know they say the devil’s in the details.” She locked eyes with the man and when she did she could physically see the chill that ran up his spine, “I know pictures of dead bodies when I see them.”

Korra reached inside her jacket producing her concealed gun she shot directly overhead towards the sound of a very quiet, but not quiet enough engine.

The sound of a gunshot echoed into the forest. Opal and Jinora both snapped into motion.

“It was a trap!” Opal hollered touching her ear piece and stepping into the forest behind Tonraq, “Get us out of here!” She cried.

As soon as the bullet made purchase with the floating hovercraft it’s cloaking abilities faltered, shivering to reveal the black and silver underbelly of a cylindrical ship. Bulbous at it’s head and sleek at it’s back the hovercraft uncloaked at once, abandoning incognizance in favor of flooding the area with bright headlights and high caliber guns ejecting from it’s sides.

A second hovercraft unveiled itself just to the right of the machine. Rather than open fire they simply cut on their floodlights and a side door opened. Five men leapt from the aircraft on ropes. Sliding through the nights air in a coordinated fashion, their guns glinting in the moonlight and slung across their backs.

Korra dashed back to her father who began lining up a shot. She’d just managed to get to his flank when he began firing his weapon at the craft, “How’d you know?” He asked her.

“The file is worthless!” She exclaimed, still tucking the tech inside of her leather jacket’s pocket, “I think they just took shots of the corpses and edited their tattoos.” She explained.

“What makes you say that?”

“I recognized one of them.” Tonraq’s eyes cut towards his daughter then curiously. But they didn’t have time to discuss any further.

Tonraq’s bullets purchased on the glass windows of the windshield. The bullets caused spiderwebs to streak into the glass but his weapon wasn’t high powered enough to break the reinforced shield.

“Dammit!” He bellowed.

The gun began whirring as bullets began revolving. The gun locked and loaded then began spraying the ground in bullets. The bullets chewed through the dirt as the pilot attempted to add accuracy with each moment, controlling the craft to sweep the gun closer and closer to target.

Their eyes widened in unison and without another word exchanged they both broke for the nearest large trees. Korra smashed into Opal, tripping over the woman for only a moment before grabbing her roughly by the collar and all but hauling her head over heels for the nearest cover.

Wumk! Wumk! Wumk! The sound of the gun and the engine meshed together into an ugly grating noise.

“Dad! Where’s our evac?” Korra hollered, turning her head as dirt was kicked up near her foot by a bullet. That bullet hadn’t come from the hovercraft. She whipped her head to the right. It had come from the ground assault.

They’d touched down and they were coming in hot by spraying bullets. They didn’t care about taking prisoners. They were out to kill. What was Kuvira thinking?

“I told Iroh to wait at at the tree line. Do you honestly want Kuvira to know we have gun mounted hovercrafts? She’d slaughter anyone who she thought might be supplying us.”

The first round of bullets to tear into the treeline ripped too far right. Lucky they did because their purchase told Tonraq one thing, “The trees aren’t strong enough to catch the bullets. Run!” He hated this planet. Korra hated this planet. Everything was terraformed. Nothing was natural. Any natural tree that size would have caught the damned bullet. These trees were far too hollow and dead on the inside. Damn this planet.

Meanwhile, Jinora’s eyes zeroed in on Varrick as he hustled to his motorcycle and threw his legs over it’s side. He began a panicked retreat, going back the direction he’d come from. She lifted her gun to take aim, rat bastard deserved to die. But then she saw the glow of his tattoo. His connate. Her thoughts went to Kai. How would he feel if he were to feel a burn if she died. She grit her teeth, “Dammit.” She breathed letting the son of a bitch run away like the coward he was.

Korra locked eyes with Opal. She still held the fabric of her shirt tightly in her hands, “Shit.” Korra muttered.

“Korra!” Opal hollered as Korra lunged to her feet, “Don’t do something stupidly brave!” It was too late. She’d torn off, her feet digging into the dirt as she raced free from coverage and squared off with the ground assault. She took out her second gun as she went and whipped them towards the collection of men. She fired two successive shots. One landed in a skull. The other a throat. She’d turned and raced off into the forest before either of the bodies had hit the ground.

Korra didn’t bother looking back, she could hear her group behind her. Hear the ground assault calling to the hovercraft for backup.

Tonraq glanced to Jinora, “Stay with me kid.” He said to the girl who quaked with inexperience and terror. Opal herself head another way. They all scattered out in three different directions.

Three minutes later she heard the explosion.

Boom! The sky lit with fire over head. Korra didn’t look back. She’d been trained to never look back. But she knew a hovercraft had been taken out. One less thing to worry about.

But soon after she heard the sound of gunshots driven out in fast succession from multiple guns. As if they were meant for only one individual. The sound touched her ears only a moment before Jinora’s blood curdling scream.

No one was on her. If she’d kept running now she could reach the hovercraft in sixteen maybe seventeen minutes.

But Jinora’s scream - she couldn’t shake it from her thoughts. She slid to a stop in the dirt and turned to look back.

Her heart leapt into her throat as Jinora’s screams continued. She felt her feet hit the earth, felt her body begin to whip back as each stride carried her towards that scream.

Jinora. She was new. Too new. Prodigy or not. Why was she allowed to be here? “A simple exchange mission.” Her father had said, “I’ve met with him before. He’s the real deal.

But Jinora? She was too damned young to have a death warrant signed and hoisted above her head.

Korra broke into the scene. She broke in at an angle, seemingly from nowhere. The men were ready. She must have been louder than she thought. They aimed for her, their guns whipping her way.

Bang! Bang! The bullets shot from nowhere. From a new direction. Not Korra’s guns but Opal’s. She’d heard the screams and doubled back too. She’d used Korra’s arrival to distract them. Two men hit the ground dead. The third and last of the bunch whipped his gun to Opal only to be taken out by Korra. Bang!

Holstering her weapon Korra approached Jinora, “Jinora, are you-,”

Her words stopped then. She saw for the first time what the underbrush had concealed. That the blood smeared all over Jinora was from Tonraq. The girl sat upright staring at her hands because she’d pushed the heavy man off of her. Her tight fitting suit, more like a layer of blue skin was slick with her father’s blood. The bullet wounds tore through Tonraq’s back. How many. Korra counted. Five at least.

“D-dad?” She croaked. Not so far away Korra could see the original hovercraft sweeping the forest looking for them. Looking to kill them. So it had been the guncraft that had been shot down.

Jinora whispered the words recounting the events as if to prove they happened, “They were on us so fast.”

Tonraq’s eyes. Was he... Was her dad…

No. Korra couldn’t believe it. Tonraq’s eyes began to glow a brilliant white. Her dad’s tattoo was in the oddest of places being over his irises. He’d always joked that he could see his love even when she wasn’t standing beside him. Now Korra crouched beside him, thinking of her mother.

The next time she saw her mother would she be blind in both eyes from the tattoo’s burning?

“Korra?” Tonraq croaked, waving her closer.

Korra crouched down, her eyes taking in the man. She wasn’t ready to be without her father.

“Tell your mother-,”

“No!” Korra yelled at him, if only he would shut up, “We have a medic on the hovercraft! Where the hell are they?” She asked, not knowing what to do when she felt a hot flow of tears running from her eyes. She ran her hand sloppily over her face, smearing the tears into her skin painfully.

“They were scrambling our signal.” Opal said quietly, “I circled around to those first guards you took out and got their guns. They were strong enough to shoot down the hovercraft. I figured that would be a big enough signal.” Korra nodded. Glad Opal was with them. Glad Opal was here. She felt Opal’s hand hunker into her shoulder. Weighing her down to something good and solid.

Korra took a breath. She had to be calm now, “Jinora, we have to get Dad out of here. You need to jump him back to the hovercraft.”

“That’s three miles.” Jinora said, “I can barely jump that far alone but with him, he’s twice my size. There’s just no way-,”

Floodlights lit the area suddenly. Not on them, but just a half click north. The backup had arrived and a new ground assault was being dispatched. Many more than five.

“We don’t have time for this!” Korra glared at Jinora, “You don’t have a choice. Get him out of here now or he will die.”

“Korra,” Tonraq called to her again. But she didn’t want to hear it. Couldn’t hear it. She stood to her feet and tightened her jaw. As she did she felt his hand reach for her own and tug her back down, “Listen to me! I’m trying to say some last words, goddamit!” His words were angry but his smile came only a moment later, “Don’t be scared.”

Those three words broke her. Broke her false confidence. Broke her walls that said focus on everything else but the tragedy in front of her. She felt herself going weak as she drop to his side.

He smiled and nodded affirmingly, “You’re ready.”

Korra shook her head, “No, I’m not. I can’t fill your shoes, dad. I can’t bring people together or inspire them like you. We need you. I need you.” She turned her plea to the girl, “Jinora, please try!” She looked across at the younger girl who had closed her eyes in concentration. She bit back her words. She knew the girls expression. Completely blank. Finding her peace. Finding the calm necessary to dematerialize not one but two people across space and time and reassemble them again on the other side.

“Guys,” Opal whispered as armed men stomped towards them, “We need to go, like right now.”

“You don’t think you’re ready. But you are. I love you and-,”

He vanished. Jinora vanished. As if they’d never been there at all. They’d jumped through space. No bright light. No sound. Just gone.

Korra looked to Opal. Wiping away the last of her tears.

“Korra…” Opal began.

“I’m gonna draw them to me.” Korra decided.

“Don’t be-,”

“I’m not seeing someone else I love get hurt.” Korra said defiantly.

“That’s not your call anymore. While Tonraq recovers that makes you the leader. You’re the top priority.”

“And you’re ‘my’ priority.” Korra stepped towards the girl, her hands clasping her cheek, she pulled her into a kiss. And like every other kiss that had come before it, it felt mesmerizing to kiss Opal.

Opal’s mouth had been parted in preparation for a protest, the exchange of heat that flooded their mouths making the action that much more enchanting.

When Korra pulled away all reason had slipped from Opal’s body. She’d felt it to her core just as Korra had.

Were they connates? No. And supposedly they had them. But Korra couldn’t imagine herself kissing anyone other than Opal. Caring for someone as much as she cared for Opal.

“Go.” Korra instructed, “I promise not to do anything stupidly brave.” She quoted. She watched Opal walk backwards, not daring to look away until Korra faced away first. Then she galloped into the dense forest at full speed.

She head in the opposite direction then, raised a gun towards the sky and fired a single round. She felt the dynamic change immediately. Heard them change direction and head directly at her.

As she heard them advance on her Korra placed her back against a tree and waited. They came slowly. Spread several yards apart.

She waited for the first to cautiously ease towards her tree. Perfect shooting position. She readied her gun. She remained stock still. The only sound their boots into the dry leaves. Her breathing had settled her mind had focused. The first man passed directly past her tree by just inches.

Calm. Steady ready. His head dipped into view. And snapped to her as soon as he saw the black shadow of death standing so close to his side.

Too late. She pulled the trigger.

Click.

Nothing.

Click. Click. Nothing.

Jammed. Now of all times her gun had jammed.

The man was stunned by his own dumb luck. Korra’s eyes widened.

He raised his gun. She wouldn’t have time to get the gun from her holster. She decided to do something stupidly brave. Smashing the empty gun down hard on his nose. Wam!

He misshot his weapon by instinct and the result was swift. A flash of white light from the muzzle of his gun lighting up the dark night and also giving away her exact location.

The bullet jet into the ground as Korra dropped her useless weapon and clawed for the side of his head. She rammed his head into the tree. He cried out. Any regular tree, he would be out like a light. But these damned trees were artificial shit.

She rammed his head a second time. Then a third. Stopping when she felt his skull hiss and pop from the force.

The second man arrived quieter than the first. So quiet he caught her off guard.

The bullet hit her in the arm so hard it sent her spiraling backwards and took her feet from under her. The high powered bullet went through her fleshy arm clean and violent. She fell face first, reaching with her injured arm to catch her spiraling fall. The man hustled towards her from behind ready to finish her off with a bullet to the skull.

Korra didn’t wait for that second bullet. She swept her feet behind herself, praying he was close enough. She felt the first foot purchase against his calf hard enough to knock of his aim. The bullet hit the dirt at the side of her head. Her second sweeping leg brought him to his knees.

Carrying the momentum she rocketed to her own feet and reached for his gun as he began to take up aim for her head, pointing the weapon skyward. He fired.

She’d managed to grab the muzzle of the gun just before the blinding flash that lit the area. The bullet ripped into the night sky, slicing the skin between her fingers on it’s way out, and burning her hand.

Despite the sound of her own sizzling flesh, Korra didn’t release the weapon. She snapped a kick to the side of his head and simultaneously yanked the gun free from his hands. As he buckled from the weight of her kick she reversed the gun in her hands and shot him execution style.

His cranium exploded out the back of his head and smeared the nearest trees and bushes. The gunshots had called his friends. And they all swarmed at her. Bullets whizzed past her head from deep within the night. A flash several yards away.

But she wasn’t sticking around.

She took off, dropping the heavy automatic weapon as she went.

She careened down a hillside, taking the terrain as it came, leaping fallen trees, tearing low hanging vines as she pushed into them. She bound through a small river in a matter of seconds listening to the sound of scattered gunshot as they tried to make purchase from a taller treeline.

Nothing looked familiar. In fact it was fair to say she was lost. She’d thought she was going straight.

She must have turned wrong. Maybe that fight had knocked her sense of direction off. Either way she was running full speed ahead at a cliff side.

She couldn’t double back she realized all at once, seeing the forest coming to an end. Feeling headlights begin to flood over her. They’d found her. There was nowhere to hide. Nowhere to go.

If she turned back now, then what? She’d be executed without a second thought. If she simply jumped could she make it to the other side? Speed or not, she didn’t have the muscle for that kind of jump. So what were her options.

Surrender, or fight to the bitter end?

No. Never surrender.

She bound full speed ahead, breaking the forest line she felt the world rushing to an end.

She watched the cliff side slip from sight. She knew she couldn’t make that jump. She watched herself come up several feet short. Her hands reached and the earth raced up at her.

The impact was hard, violent.

She felt herself being torn apart.

Heat and pressure, and the feeling that all her bones were being crunched together and torn apart all at once.

Then…

She fell not towards earth but towards black metal grates.

The impact was a loud clatter. She felt her gun dig into her side, and hissed as she bit down hard on the tip of her tongue.

“Ah!” Kai cried as he took the brunt of the fall.

Korra’s eyes searched herself. She was aboard their own hovercraft. In front of her she could see Iroh in the cockpit. The hollow walls of the hovercraft had been constructed long ago and had the rust to prove it.

The drop she’d endured had been three feet and her momentum had been exerted elsewhere.

What had that hard impact been? Her eyes turned to the body still clinging to her. She turned to see Kai.

The teleporting connate had caught her fall.

Slowly he peeled apart from her and rolled away groaning in pain. His skin sporadically shifted through the colors of a pastel rainbow, shaped like clouds. His body curled into a near fetal position. Cuts littered his skin like he’d been running through a sea of barbed wire. He closed his eyes tight, shuddering with the pain of it all.

Korra felt like every bone in her body had been dipped in hot metal and shoved back inside of her while still warm. She could feel her skin was tender, and she even saw cuts remaining on her skin much like Kai’s but not nearly as deep. Still the concept of death by a thousand cuts came to mind. Each cut seemed to shift in and out of sight. Sometimes red from her skin beneath other times blotchy and unclear, almost painful to look at, like a camera that refused to focus.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the wounds was the fact that they didn’t hurt. Yet when she looked at Kai she knew without a doubt he could feel every one of his thousand cuts.

Kai himself appeared like he was choking, his skin settling down from shifting shades and simply turning a pale blue. Korra rolled to her side and moved towards him to help, “Don’t touch him!” Jinora shouted. Korra snapped her hands back quickly, but not before her index finger had touched the boy’s arm.

“Shesh!” Korra sucked air through her teeth when she felt an invisible blade slice her index finger open. Unlike the many other cuts she had, this one stung, badly and began bleed. Korra quickly applied pressure to the wound and watched helplessly as the boy started convulsing.

“Kai!” Jinora called from the other side of the craft, the tattoo spanning from her hand all the way to her forearm began glowing as she witnessed her connate in pain, “Kai! Calm down and focus!”

Kai looked up at his connate from across the room. His face shifting colors, beads of sweat rolling over his skin. His eyes bugging from his skull. His eyes softened upon seeing her concern. He continued to stare at her until his own tattoo ignited. He clenched his fists and grunted before pulling his arms to his chest and closing his eyes. With a deep breath he unclenched his fists and lay perfectly still.

Moments passed of the boy shaking uncontrollably, but his face became expressionless. Meditating into a calm state much like Jinora had when she’d focused on getting Tonraq to safety. Slowly the tears in his skin began to seal. Korra’s cuts sealed as well, except for the cut on her index finger, and that unfocused appearance of her hands began to settle.

He rolled over onto his back with a deep groan and huffed out breaths.

Korra’s heart slammed in her chest as she remembered, “Dad!” She attempted to stand and felt her body revolt against her. Not simply from the bullet wound in her arm but from whatever the hell Kai and Jinora did that made them able to cross space and time.

She grit her teeth and crawled to her father’s side, “Dad?” He lay still. The multiple bullet wounds exposed, his head in Jinora’s lap.

“Korra...” Jinora’s voice came softly, “I’m so sorry, Korra.” Jinora said, “When I put him back together it was too much strain on his body.”

Korra felt so tired herself. All she could do was slump down against his body. He was still warm. She remembered then, “Opal?”

“I-I wanted to go back for you two but I couldn’t even jump three feet before I wound up just like Kai..” Jinora trailed off shaking her head.

“Kai, where’s Opal?”

Kai couldn’t speak. He could only turn his head and show them the vivid emotion with his eyes. The sorrow they found in them told them everything they needed to know.

Year 1942

Asami opened her eyes to the smell of heavy cologne and the pungent odor of cigarette smoke. Hiroshi cleared his throat and spoke, “So it's true then.”

“Dad?” Asami blinked back sleep and rose from the thin sheets of another woman’s bed. Korra’s bed.

Asami felt disappointment settle in her stomach. Four months. Korra had been gone four months and counting. She’s managed all of seven days before she’d found herself using the small silver key to open Korra’s door to her small shack of a home.

“What are you doing here?” She asked. Dropping the formality, as she could see he’d been there for a good long while.

Hiroshi lifted a magazine from his lap and flung it across the room. Thwack! It hit Asami squarely on the nose before dropping into her lap. She flinched away in pain and her eyebrows knit down in confusion but her father’s serious expression told her to unfold the paper.

She obliged and when she did her stomach dropped, a brick lodged in her throat, and timid words crept from her mouth: “I can explain.”

“Please,” Her father stabbed the lit bud of his cigarette into a barely budding gloxina flower, “Enlighten me.”

“This is,” Asami began and stopped. Her eyes trailed to the cover of the magazine. It revealed herself frozen in time, her body melting into Korra’s.

The kiss they’d shared in the train station.

The whole moment had been captured and printed to the cover of an underground magazine, Red Tape Publishing. A swift thumbing of the magazine told her the magazine was by the hands of an underground gay rights organization.

“I can explain..”

“Yes.” Hiroshi snorted, “You do that Asami. Explain to me why my daughter has been photographed kissing not just a negro but a negro woman! Explain to me why I’ve been battling one phone call after the next attempting to defend your honor to every man you ever dated. Every vulture that’s been waiting to pick away at the Sato name has come knocking on my door and I haven’t got a clue how to fend them off!

“What’s worse is that you make me look like a fool not only to my partners, but to the university! Do you know how many strings I had to pull to have you accepted into a university of that stature? They were all too happy to inform me that you’d dropped out of school and were rumored to have moved north and begin frequenting negro bars. You’ve managed to humiliate me, your mother’s legacy and the Sato legacy all in the course of one semester!”

Asami placed a hand to her chest as if it could suffocate the pounding sound of her heartbeat. Hiroshi Sato crumbled the cigarette in his hand, ashes granulated in chunks and rolled across the cold hardwood floor of Korra’s home, “My daughter a-,” the words staggered in his throat, pain and anger tore into his eyes like razors, “My very own flesh and blood.” He bit his teeth in disgust.

“I didn’t consent to this.” She assured her father.

“So she forced herself on you?” Her father asked his eyes telling her to think carefully about her answer. A moment passed before she understood what he meant.

Asami glanced back at the magazine.

Asami’s eyes found her father’s. His fury palpable but not nearly as deadly as Asami’s.

“No.” Asami said and for the first time she felt a connection to Korra even deeper than love. A desire to protect her at all costs. Protect her from the lies her father could easily spin to salvage his reputation, “Korra did not force herself on me.” Asami stood from her bed then and squared off with her father, her fists clenching at her sides, “Don’t you dare say otherwise!”

Hiroshi peered at his daughter, wanting her to budge, wanting her to lie. But her face told him she’d do no such thing, “So what about this don’t I understand? What exactly do you need to explain?”

If her heart was beating quickly before, now it beat so loud and hard it could lead a marching band, “I’m- I’m different.”

“Different?” He scoffed, “You’re disgusting!”

“I never intended to embarrass anyone,” Asami plead watching him pad a few steps away, “I didn’t want to even imagine how badly something like this could hurt the Sato name. That’s why I left the university,” Asami’s words came as a hoarse whisper, “I knew if I spent one more night in those dorms they’d find me swinging from the ceiling fan.”

“I wish they had.” Hiroshi’s words slapped Asami across the face, “I wouldn’t be as ashamed of you as I am now.”

Hiroshi waited for a response. Waited for the guilt of her hurting her father to make her do what he wanted. To make her lie. And if it had been anyone else, someone she didn’t share a luminescent tattoo with, she might have been tempted.

But Asami loved her connate on a level he couldn’t understand.

No.

Asami remembered the small circular burned tattoo located on her father’s hand, right between his thumb and pointer finger. He could understand. He knew the depth in connection one connate felt for the other. That was how he knew this was a lost cause. That Asami could never hurt Korra. Not just as a lover, but as a connate.

“Fine!” Hiroshi thundered suddenly, “Do whatever you want! Just know that so long as you choose to behave this way your trust will be untouchable and your presence at the estate unwelcome.”

Neither of them dared to meet one another’s eye, they simply listened to the other internally scream into disturbed silence.

Hiroshi turned to leave and Asami found the courage to speak through the tears she bit back, “How can me taking my own life be so easy for you to imagine? Losing your daughter? Losing someone,” she thought of Korra, “Permanently losing someone you love-,”

Hiroshi’s face hardened and he cut her off, “Because at least if you’d died, your memory wouldn’t be such a bitter disappointment.” With those destructive words he swung the door open wide and cold air flood the room.

He gave her one last look, part of him hoping she’d change her mind and lie; the other part knowing his daughter was just as stubborn as her mother. Asami didn’t see the door shut. She only watched her feet on the cold floorboards.

It sickened her to accept they were cut from the same biological cloth. Now, more than ever she could see her error in stitching together family based solely on blood. There was something so much thicker than blood. There was her connate. There was Korra.

She decided then to follow her father as he reached the last step leading from the home and had just reached the sidewalk next to the quiet street, she opened the door frantically.

“She’ll never force me.” She called to him.

Hiroshi turned and gazed upward at the woman now standing in the doorway wearing nothing but a nightgown, “What?” He asked.

“Every part of me wanted her.” From the corner of her eye Asami could see her tattoo throb a pulsing blue-white hue and she amended, “Wants her. Negro and female. As disgusting as that makes me in your eyes. I’m in love with…” She trailed off. He didn’t deserve to hear about how great her love for Korra was. She’d save that for the mornings spent sharing a newspaper and sipping coffee, for the evening Korra took her out for a night on the town, for the nights she’d placed her head between Korra’s thighs, “If you come after her with your lies I’ll shout that truth from every rooftop. I’ll tell the world...”

Impatiently Hiroshi waited for Asami to finish, “Tell the world what?”

“That I want her more than I’ve ever wanted you.”

Year 2406 - 3 Days Ago

Bolin sat at the dinner table. He leaned back and placed his arms behind his head as he released a massive burp.

Mako shot him a look, “I still don’t like you working for her.”

“I”m working in freights,” Bolin specified, “I never go in the labs I just drive supplies between locations. Besides, you work for Kuvira.”

“Well that’s different, Bo. I’m not a connate. You are.” Mako stood and began clearing the dishes from the table.

“I can’t live my entire life hiding under a rock. The suppressants are working. I’ll be fine.”

“Just,” Mako ran water for the dishes, “Just be careful, Bo. I hear the resistance has been targeting transports trucks lately for supplies.” He gestured towards the small caliber gun he’d given his brother, “Keep that on you at all times.”

Bolin saluted, “Yes sir, Mr. Boss Man, sir.” He smiled at his brother reassuringly. Mako glanced behind him and caught the salute. He rolled his eyes in exasperation and turned back to the dishes.

It hit him then. With his hand still in the air. Suddenly everything good seemed to dissipate. Hope was sucked from every limb in his body. In its place came sadness and fear. His arm slid to his side, he felt hard lines begin to form on his face. His eyes drifted to the table.

Why did he both living.

The sadness had overcome him so greatly he didn’t even feel the tattoo that had begun to burn into his back until the thin lines thickened into broader strokes. Then he felt it all at once like being branded by a prod that has been dipped into god’s eternal flames. The heat never wavered. Constant. Burning deeper and deeper still.

It was the smell of burning that made Mako turn to see his brother. The young man had fallen face forward on the table, his arms spread out. His eyes dead but the tears leaving them ran into the table.

“Bolin?” Mako asked. His eyes landing on his brother. He then saw it: the smoke rising from his back, “Bolin!”

Chapter Text

Year 2406

“How do you feel?” Mako asked running a sponge through the beads of sweat on Bolin’s forehead. Bolin was still now. He wasn’t grunting in pain. Or crying for mercy. He slumped forward in the chains around his wrists and murmured to himself something inaudible.

Asami watched the deflated young boy’s eyes travel to the floor and stay there.

“Can you help him?” Mako asked stepping away from his brother and tossing the sponge into a bucket.

“I…” Asami hesitated, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Mako bolstered, “You’re the lead scientist when it comes to connates and you don’t know?” Mako’s voice had steadily risen to a shout.

It was Bolin who tried to reel him back in, “Come on Mako-,”

“No.” Mako turned to Asami, each word pushing him across the room until he stood inches from her face, “No! You have to help him. You have to know how to help him! Think!”

“I am thinking!” Asami raised her own voice slightly, going toe-to-toe with him, “But I’m a scientist and there’s only so much I can do. I didn’t ask to be dragged out here!”

“It’s okay.” Bolin said shocking them both. The boy hung with the skin on his back puckering, gasping, and smoldering. No part of this was ‘okay.’

“Bo-,” Mako began.

“We shouldn’t have forced her out here.”

“Bolin, there is no other way to-,”

“We shouldn’t have forced you out here.” Bolin lifted his eyes to the woman, “I’m sorry,”

Asami stepped towards him, ignoring the unrestrained anger that rippled from Mako, “I can’t help you not because I don’t want to,” Asami paused. That was true. Looking at this boy she wanted to help him, “But science isn’t even at a level where I would know where to begin. I mean, a sedative will take the pain away but not the stress being put on your body. If we can’t address all the damage stress is doing to you right now it’s only a matter of time before your body starts shutting down to compensate.”

“So what, shoot him full of steroids?” Mako asked, “Wouldn’t that make him strong?”

“It’s not that simple,” Asami took a breath and covered her mouth and Mako bit his mouth shut. He could see the wheels turning behind her eyes, “But we could try suppressants.”

“Suppressants?” Mako asked.

“Connates can take them to suppress their physiological abnormalities.” Asami took Mako’s dumb expression to mean he was already loss, “Connates have a few physiological differences that stand out when the right tests are run. Their hormone reserves are fundamentally different, their brains are capable of rewiring on the instant they make contact with their connate, even their skin can become porous to reveal the cells that glow when a connate experiences longing.

“These differences are so subtle that it took centuries to develop the technology to find them and even longer for us to even know we needed to be looking for them. But once connates knew the differences they were able to create suppressants that neutralize these differences and make them seem…” She resisted the urge for another scientific term, “Normal.”

“Is that how you’ve managed to stay under the radar?” Mako asked. It was rhetorical. Meant mostly for Mako to allude to the fact that he knew Asami was a connate despite her having not told him. Not a hard guess, considering the only people bold enough to break into Kuvira’s lab and steal information on connates was likely a connate themselves.

Asami only nodded confirmation.

Mako continued, “So if we use suppressants it’ll block what’s happening to him?”

“No.”

Mako’s eyebrows knit down. “No?”

“No. It’ll help suppress the symptoms but not stop the burning. Think of it as a delay to the inevitable.”

“The inevitable?” Bolin mumbled to himself, “You mean when my connate dies for good.”

Mako gently smiled at his brother, “Bo, we can help you. That’s all that matters.”

“No. No it’s not. When you feel a part of your soul die, then you tell me what matters.”

Mako said nothing. Nor did Asami. How could they? They’d never met their connates. At least not in this lifetime.

But Asami hadn’t been allowed to finish her thoughts, “When I said inevitable I was only partially referencing…” She trailed off, “I also meant that connates don’t simply complete one another, they help one another develop. You’ve heard the tales about certain connates in history that have even developing and sharing supernatural abilities after having connected with one another. It’s why Kuvira has been so hellbent on finding them. She controls this planet and the only real threat to her power are the connates who develop such abilities. If she kills them then no one can stand in her way.

“When I said inevitable I meant that the suppressants will eventually lose their effectiveness because a connate’s physiology is constantly changing. Adapting and becoming stronger. If we get the suppressants Bolin’s body might be driven to such a point where his ability could manifest and help his body cope with the trauma.”

“But what if he doesn’t have an ability?”

“Then we still created a good delay.” Asami shrugged, “It’s the best we can do for now.”

Mako spoke only after a long thoughtful silence, “And what do you want in return?”

“If I’m going to go steal from Kuvira’s labs and risk execution, I expect the same from you,” She locked eyes with Mako, “You’re going to help me find my connate.”

---

“What are you going to do?” Kai asked his eyes on Korra’s blank expression. Korra clenched her fists at her side. The smell of her father’s burning body embed into her pores. She’d carry the weight of these ashes everywhere she went, she realized. Nothing will ever be the same.

Her mom stood at her side. They both wore traditional garb, breathing light blue fabric, skirts that fell to their calves at an angle and clung to each of their curves. Traditionally a connate would place anointed mineral on their burn. However Senna’s burn had been on her eyes. The woman was blind.

They’d placed Tonraq atop a bed of rock and stone, surrounded by sticks forming a pyramid shape. Igniting the body usually fell to the connate or surviving child. Korra had offered to do the task with a lump in her throat, but the blind woman had declined, “He’s my connate. I have to release him or we may not meet in the next life.”

Korra had nodded in understanding. But she truly didn’t. She hadn’t understood any of it. Not the tradition that told her to love someone she’d never met. Nor the tradition that said if a connate didn’t burn their love then they wouldn’t meet in the next lifetime. These were religious practices placed on something not even science could comprehend. If science fell short then surely religion did, right?

No. As she stared at her father’s body she forced these thoughts away. It was wrong of her to question. She’d acted like a child just prior to his death. Arguing about things she couldn’t possibly hope to understand without being a connate herself. Maybe if she hadn’t...maybe things would have been different. If she hadn’t charged off into the forest. If she had stayed by his side and awaited his orders. Maybe if she had listened instead of screaming to be heard…

Maybe her mother wouldn’t be blind. And her girlfriend - no. Her friend, Opal, would be here. If she’d just listened to tradition.

It would all make sense once she’d bonded. Until then she needed to uphold tradition.

Her people, collected here at this memorial understood that. Tradition held them together. It kept their eyes dry and their resolve strong.

Now more than ever they needed faith in something higher. No. Someone higher. Whatever the divine was that made them connates. They had to believe in that divine. They had to believe they were sacred, not something Kuvira could snuff out.

That fact had spurred Kai’s question: What would she do?

“We end this war. Starting tonight we count the final days of this war.” She began, “We send her a message. We send the world a message that it’s no longer a defensive.” Korra understood then. Why trust Varrick? Why put themselves so far out? Because her father had been searching for a way into the divine. A way to stop waiting and to start acting.

“The tide of war has changed. Defensive will get us all killed,” she spoke the truth her father had wanted to but didn’t want to frighten them all, “We go on the offensive.” Korra watched the flames lick her father’s feet, “The next body we burn will be the Great Uniter's herself..”

Year 1942

“I’ve been trying to reach you,” Kya said to the girl’s back as she stuffed clothes inside of a suitcase. Kya huffed a sigh and ached for a fresh cigarette but the sign on the wall of the boarding house told her there was to be no smoking in the building.

And she couldn’t blame them, the place looked like a fire hazard. The apartment had been made of whittled wood and painted in a thin layer of white paint. The rooms were filled with wholesome personality as you’d expect from all female tenants under the age of 20.

It was strange to imagine why someone like Asami, someone from money, would bed in a room with four other women separated by only thin hanging sheets. Fact was Asami could leave anytime she got ready and they couldn’t. This fact separated them more than the hanging sheets.

Then again, it wasn’t hard for Kya to imagine. She reminded herself that Asami was a homosexual and that’s why she stood there, nervously watching the woman take a dress from outside the window and pull it inside from the clothing line.

“Did you hear me?” Kya asked.

Asami glanced at her, the fury in her eyes enough to make Kya hesitate. Asami threw the dress atop the things in her briefcase and attempted to close it shut. The suitcase didn't play along.. She’d sloppily thrown everything inside without bothering to fold.

Asami was coming unglued. Frail from not eating, puffy eyed from crying, and her eyes vacant of any good spirit she might have had before.

“I’ve been calling here, asking for you but the girls say you’ve been gone a lot lately and not coming home at night.”

Asami said nothing but she abandoned her efforts to shut the suitcase and sat on the bed with her hands between her legs.

“I just wanted to say-,”

“Say what?” Asami’s head snapped to the woman. Her eyes deranged. Asami’s tattoo span half her face, it always glowed now. Not blinding, but there, below the surface, “I told you I didn’t want that picture published but you went ahead and did it anyways.” She turned her head aside in disgust, “You’re just like them.” She looked through the partitioning curtain that sectioned off her space from the other women. The other woman worked at a local factory, helping build Uncle Sam’s war machines. It was late, they were all home, but no one spoke. Only listened to the deranged woman and her unwelcome guest.

In the distance a phone rang, “You talk a good game but you’re empty and cruel. You force things on me just like they do. This idea that I’m supposed to be some kind of revolutionary woman is just as toxic as the idea that I’m supposed to want to be with-,” she hid away the words and settled for something less, “With someone I can’t love.”

Asami stood then and set defiant eyes on the luggage, “When will anybody understand that all I want is to be me?” Violently, she emptied the contents of the case on the bed seizing a handful of clothes at random and schlepping them into the empty case then slammed it shut.

“Aiwei lead me to believe he’d convinced you. Asami, believe me if I’d known that wasn’t the case,” Kya watched the woman who began rushing past her, “I wouldn’t have allowed it to be published. Asami,” Kya grabbed the woman by the wrist as she came level with her. “You don’t have to do this.” She said, looking the woman in the eyes for a moment, searching for that fierce girl she’d met just seven short months ago. Now. Now she found something hollow like the stirring tattoo concealed the parasite eating away at Asami’s courage.

That was what she found now in Asami’s eyes. Fear. Fear that she’d feel the burn at any moment. Fear that in a world filled with so much hate she’d find herself alone and disfigured by a burn that she hadn’t chosen.

“I do have to do this.” Asami reached inside her jacket's pocket and produced a copy of the magazine cover, her embrace with Korra on it’s cover, it had been clipped to an official document notifying her of her eviction, “My father made sure of that when he sent a stack of your magazines to every apartment on the floor. It’s a notice saying that I’ve violated multiple codes of ethic and to vacate the premises immediately. I guess he hoped it would force me to come home.” Asami refused the tears that brim in her eyes, “He made sure I’d have nowhere to go.” She hated to hear her voice crack, “You made sure of that.”

She’d just crossed the threshold of her room and found heads sweep in her direction. They all watched her for a moment from the safety of their room doors. Some turned away , shutting their doors behind them in disgust but most. Most stood and gazed.

She’d wished she’d worn makeup. Wished she’d washed her hair. Wished she didn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing her at her lowest.

But she had done none of those things.

“She use to be prettier.” One of them whispered as she passed them by.

“I heard her father kicked her out.”

“Can you blame him? If my daughter were a freak, I’d drop her off on the church steps and never look back.”

As she approached the end of the haul a woman stood at the only phone on the floor. The building manager, with hairy arms, thick lips, and a round belly looked her up and down before his face settled into a hard frown.

The woman extended the mouthpiece of the phone in her hand towards Asami, “It’s for you.”

Asami took the phone in her hand and left her suitcase at her feet. Kya’s eyes had found the building attendant. They locked eyes. She could hear his thoughts, they were written on his forehead. She wasn’t welcome here. Not just as a half colored woman, but as a woman wearing men’s trousers and cologne. Kya’s hands slid into her pockets side pockets, her jacket bunching on her arms. Her jacket so loose she could feel the firearm she carried as it hung from its holster.

“Yes, this is she.” Asami said into the receiver. Her face became more grim with each word, her grip of the phone tightening. A long pause carried as the voice on the other end of the phone explained their reason for calling.

After a certain point Asami’s tattoo began to glow, and a tear ran from Asami’s eye, “She’s coming home?”

Year 2406

Asami had never felt at ease working as a scientist in Kuvira’s labs. She’d always felt the eyes of a thousand cameras boring into her back, and even in classified parts of the facility where cameras conveniently disappeared and screams echoed from the darkest hallways, she still felt Kuvira’s watchful gaze.

But going into Kuvira’s labs with a shopping list of materials she’d need to engineer a suppressant for Bolin - well she was a little more than skittish.

She approached a cabinet full of syringes where a lab tech stocked the needles. In most cases, using any material required a swipe of her badge. She edged up to the young boy. She didn’t recognize him, he had a small stature and seemed fresh from training as he had difficulty finding the right place to put materials.

Glancing around she noted a soldier in the far corner over the top of tables. A few co-workers in lab coats filling out paperwork and examining test results. A steady roar of machinery played like a soundtrack.

Asami smiled small at the young man, suddenly glad she’d stopped by her office to change into a spare change of clothes and freshen her makeup, “Long day?” She asked the boy warmly.

He glanced at her only momentarily but then realized how attractive the woman in a white lab coat was. He gulped and nodded affirmatively before dropping his eyes to his feet and shuffling syringes into his hands, “All hail the Great Uniter,” he mumbled. A standard reply. Complaining was often met by being sent to a Re-Education Center.

Asami looked to the box he pulled the supplies from, she then glanced to the cabinet full of drugs. If this went south and Kuvira found out drugs were missing, the last thing Asami wanted was a record of her taking out the drugs. So she made a decision then.

Her hand smacked into the box of supplies. As they clattered about her both she and the boy looked surprised.

“Oh!” She exclaimed. They both went to the floor then. From here the soldiers couldn’t see over the tops of the tables. She reached above her just enough to grab three clear vials in plastic containers. Her hands then went to her lab coat pocket where she stashed the drugs and immediately went to collecting syringes. She pocketed two and was ready to pocket a third when the boy glanced up and saw her motion. She smiled apologetically and extended the few in her hand to the boy.

As they both climbed back to their feet Asami uttered an apology, her cheeks flaming more with nerves than embarrassment, “I can be such a clutz.”

The young boy shook his head, his heart in his throat as he accepted the apology, “N-no problem,” he stuttered watching Asami’s hand come to her face and a flush of red fill her cheeks, the boy was mesmerized. He cleared his throat repeatedly, “I should be more careful with where I rest these things.”

Asami agreed.

The boy glanced at Asami nervously and began to find flirtatious words but Asami was already making a speedy retreat. She raced towards the double doors that would leave the labs behind her. Now she just had to go back to her desk and finish the day as if nothing had-

“Ms. Sato,” The voice sent a shiver up her spine. cold calculated. Hard. Forced with warmth and dripping with a certain amount of condescending nature.

Asami turned slowly, oh so very slowly and came face to face with the Great Uniter.

“Do you have a moment?” She asked like a shark smelling blood.

---

Kai had worked quickly, collecting the council of connate and civilian leaders alike to the table. They all smelled of smoke having stood closest to Tonraq’s body as it burned. Now they all took up their places at a long oval Table, Korra stood at it’s head. She stood in the shoes her father had left to be filled.

“Blessings in these lifetimes,” she greeted them. She received only mildly enthused responses from the collection of men and women. There were a twenty five of them. Tenzin who was not a connate but lead the civilian councilman, though not with much influence he still held a great deal of respect. Lin Beifong attended in her sister’s steed as Suyin herself grieved with her sons and husband. And Zuko who had once been a general in the rebellion and had retired to the council. He held a great deal of favor.

Most of them had allowed her father to succeed his father after he passed in battle. Tonraq had earned the privilege of leading.

Korra had not.

They had little faith in her. No doubt the rumors had broken of herself and Opal being lovers despite having connates. She was a petulant child who flaunted her distaste of tradition. She only wished she could convince them with words how greatly she’d changed in the three days since her father’s passing. The unheard howls of sorrow. The unanswered cries of repudiation. The unforgiving passion of shame. All of these had irreversibly aged Korra.

“Korra, while we are all glad to see you made it out well from the recent ordeal, we are not all certain you are ready to take on the role of being the Avatar.” Lin Beifong’s words cut Korra. But she had a right to be mad. Korra had failed to protect Opal.

Korra took a steadying breath, it did nothing to appease her guilt, “I understand. Which is why I am here to propose a Mission of Confidence.” Curious murmurs rippled throughout the room and with a glance to Beifong she continued, “I will lead a small team into the heart of Kuvira’s fortifications. We have verified scout reports and are able to conclude that Kuvira will be inside the building. We believe today is our best chance of striking.”

“To strike what?” Bolstered a councilman.

“I intend to put a permanent end to the Great Uniter. I intend to put a bullet in her skull.”

Tenzin fumed, “You understand that failing a Mission of Confidence would result in the revocation of your title as our Avatar as well as put an end to the linear succession of said title through your bloodline.”

Korra’s jaw set as she drove away the last stitches of doubt, “Yes.”

The room rippled once more with murmurs of disbelief.

“I want to go with you.” Came a monotonous voice. The voice belonged to Iroh, a handsome tall man who had once stood shoulder to shoulder with Korra’s father. A man whose reputation had preceded himself and his connate. Now the crowds whispered gossip about the self-destructing connate who had burned.

“If I had been there with you in the woods instead of cowering on the ship I’d have read Varrick’s thoughts and seen his ulterior motives. Tonraq would still be alive.” His eyes found Lin Beifong, “Opal would still be with us.”

“You don’t know that.” Tenzin said gently.

But didn’t they?

Iroh’s depression had hurt the rebellion in a way Korra didn’t realize possible. Now more than ever she realized how heavily they relied on their abilities. Without them, this fight would be easily won by Kuvira.

“Alright.” How could she say no? If you’re about to walk into the belly of the beast you might want to bring along someone who can read the beast’s mind. More than that - someone who could suggest things to the mind.

“Now hold on Korra, we haven’t given this mission our graces,” Tenzin said.

“I think it’s a necessary step on Korra’s journey,” Zuko said from the corner. The elderly man had been watching his grandson with great grievances. Zuko’s own tattoo had burned on the side of his face, covering his eye. Now eyes turned to the elder. “Korra should be given an opportunity to prove her resolve to our traditions and this rebellion. I see no loss by allowing her do just that by these means if she truly believes they are the right course of action.” His words seemed to resonate the council into Korra’s favor.

Tenzin’s nostrils flared, “She is the only heir of succession!”

“Yes. And our belief in succession rests in a tradition she has a pattern of disrespecting,” Zuko didn’t say this with contempt or cruelty. Simply fact. The man set Korra with a look. He raised his hand, “I suggest we call a vote. All in favor of Korra ending Kuvira’s reign once and for all.”

The ayes came resoundingly and most of them contemptuously. But none of that registered on Zuko’s elderly face, only his desire to see Korra succeed. Zuko looked about the room, only a handful of hands rest on the table, Tenzin’s being one of them, but for the other twenty or so men and women on the counsel, hands were raised.

Zuko set her with a serious gaze, “Don’t fail.”

Chapter Text

Year 1942

Everything had happened so fast. The sounds of the planes overhead as they dropped firebombs. The gush of hot air that had crept up behind Korra with all the elegance of an elephant. She’d turned at the sound in time to see the plume of grey smoke rushing at her before she was blast with a powerful gust of hot wind and sent flying through the air.

Everything after that came in clips.

Hitting the earth violently.

The wounded soldiers, unsuspecting, seeing the shadow of the first plane so far above, their rumble concealed by a heavy rain. How they’d looked the sky only to find the sky rain down death.

A flash. A simple flash of bodies being engulfed in flame.

A man raising into foliage, lit head to toe in flame. To Opal coming to her aid only to feel for a pulse and not find one.

Chest compressions. Crushing. Violently. Rain. Mud. It was monsoon season.

So much mud. So much fire. So much death.

“Get to safety.” She wanted to say but she had no words, “You’re the only one who knows about Asami. If I die here, she’ll never know why or how… if I die.”

Lin Beifong drop to her knees for only a moment. Touching Korra’s throat. Searching, nothing.

Korra was already dead.

So how was she thinking? How was he able to see Opal be dragged away from her friend, kicking her feet into the mud as firebombs ignite the world around them.

How was she able to taste the mud that splash in her mouth with a soldier collapsed at her side, his arms and legs seared, not by flame, but having walked through it. He roll back and forth, attempting to put the fire out.

How was she able to see the fire bomb that landed only six short feet away and swallowed them both?

---

“It’s nothing short of a miracle.” The nurse said, pulling back the curtain to Korra’s bed. Asami shuddering. Her body stiffening. Her eyes searching for...for something familiar.

She found nothing. Only remnants of Korra, covered in soiled bandages. Her face. Her hands. Her legs. All of her had been swallowed by the conspicuous plaster. All she could see of her wonderful skin were the tips of her fingers. She reached for them only to be chastised by the nurse, “I honestly have never seen anything quite like this. When she came in both her legs were broken. The reason there are no bandaged on her fingers is because when she came in,” the nurse shook her head in disbelief, “There were none. The nurse who changed her dressing said she removed the old ones and found they’d grown back. She’s still unconscious and considering the unbelievable damage her body endured, we can’t be sure she’ll wake up.”

She looked over at Asami, her eyes etching the tattoo on Asami’s face. She said nothing, but Asami could hear the questions. What was the exact nature of Korra and Asami’s relationship. Asami drew closer to Korra. Her hands reaching out.

This time the nurse said nothing. She only looked with a healthy curiosity. Kya held her breath. The attending physician locked his jaw. Wanting to stop the woman, but wanting to see just how far connates could override everything science told them.

Asami’s fingers touch the bandages starting at Korra’s face. She thought only of her beauty in that first and last morning they’d awaken to one another. Her fingers trailed towards her scalp, towards what little scalp remain exposed. She thought only of Korra’s fingers tracing her own scalp as Asami trailed her teeth against Korra’s thighs with small bites.

Her fingers purchased the exposed in tact skin. Nothing.

Fear consumed her. The possibility that Korra’s body lived on, healed even, but Korra’s mind was lost. Fear that she’d forever be visiting lifeless bandages.

Nothing.

Asami’s touch did nothing.

Then... the bandages seemed to gleam approximately where Korra’s tattoo would have been. Dull at first, so dull Asami had just begun to convince herself it was a trick of her mind wanting something so desperately to be true.

But then it hit her, as if the tattoo had driven the euphoria into Asami’s body like a hammer drives a nail. Elation surged into her veins. It knock into each and every cell so hard it left Asami panting breathlessly, a smile threading across her face. Tears of joy spill from her eyes beyond her control. She breathlessly laughed and glanced about the room. She was certain they had to feel it. Certain she couldn’t contain the euphoria in her body. They had to feel- but their faces were empty. Emotionless compared to everything that flit through Asami’s radiant green eyes.

Asami felt sorry for them. Sorry their senses were so dull and unintelligent compared to this touch.

She looked back to Korra and slowly closed her eyes as she felt the indescribable everything that had vanished as quickly as Korra had into the trains tunnel came rushing back towards her.

She laughed. And though Korra didn’t move, cry or even acknowledge Asami save for the glow of her own tattoo, Asami knew beyond a doubt that Korra’s mind was there with her. Fighting.

Regenerating.

Rebuilding herself anew so they could finally begin their lives together. So she needled her fingers further into Korra’s singed hair and whispered without a care who heard the passionate words, “I love you.”

Year 2406

“Take a seat.” Asami looked to the chair across from Kuvira’s desk. It was like being asked to sit down on a hornets nest. Shuddering a breath she sat down slowly, taking in the tyrant before her. They’d walked to Kuvira’s office in silence, only the sound of Kuvira’s personal detail and their heavy footfalls to break their shared silence. Now Kuvira set Asami with a hard, serious stare.

Over Kuvira’s shoulder lay a row of windows looking out over the massive city. It spread for what seemed like miles, vanishing out of sight. Short buildings, most no more than three stories high. Monotonous gray and white stoned. it was a miserable planet ruled by a tyrant. Before she’d fully grasped what it was to be a connate she’d resigned to leaving the wretched planet in search of one that didn’t weigh heavy with depression.

Kuvira’s words pulled her from her own thoughts, “Last night four armed connates stormed the building and killed Varrick.” Asami looked at the liar. She knew for fact that Kuvira had killed Varrick in cold blood. She could still see his burning tattoo.

Asami mustered the best look of disbelief she could, uncertain if Kuvira would buy it, “Oh my- I’m so sorry to hear that.” Asami said.

Kuvira only nodded, “He was a dear friend and brilliant scientist. His contributions cannot be overstated and he will be sorely missed.” Asami only nodded in agreement and Kuvira continued, “But despite their intent to stall our progress we will continue to advance towards the goals Varrick and I set so high.” Kuvira paused then leveled Asami with a knowing gaze before she continued, “Works that you and many others were not aware of.”

Kuvira handed a vanilla folder across the desk, “Asami, you know that connates can develop special abilities that if left unchecked could potentially spell untold disaster. I need not rehash what happened to our sister planet just one short decade ago when a connate developed the ability to split atoms.” Asami could still remember the tremors that had woke her. She could still remember rushing outside and looking to the sky and finding their sister planet crumbling before her eyes.

“In less than two hours they’d destroyed an entire planet.”

Kuvira was right in that way at least. Some connates developed powers too great for themselves. Too great to not be monitored. But to actively hunt them down and kill them? Asami couldn’t justify the ends to those means.

“Varrick and I had begun developing the technology that could cleanse connates of their impurities.”

“Cleanse them?” Asami asked, “What do you mean?”

“We are currently researching on criminal connates that have been captured and placed into a cooperative state. Varrick hypothesized that the ability to develop powers is not something only certain connates develop. It’s something they all have the capability of. He theorized that the connates who did not develop such abilities simply had no use for them. Rather than look at the abilities as something set in stone, he viewed the abilities as microevolution. Like living underground for extended periods of time will cause your eyes to adjust to a lack of light for you to see.

“The abilities connates possess are always there in potential, but they have to be called on. He theorized that if we force a connate to use their ability then we can find what triggers the ability in the first place. And if we find the trigger, we can reverse it. It would be a means of-,”

“Sterilization.” Asami cut in unintentionally, all of it so unreal she’d felt a chill creep up her spine. The word had slipped free before she could hold it down.

Kuvira grunted is discontent of Asami’s word choice, “ It would be cleansing the world of the impurity that is the connate connection.” Kuvira corrected her with a line that sounded as if it had been pulled straight from a propaganda pamphlet.

Asami began speaking, “But if you force a connate to the point where they use their abilities you have no idea what said connate might be capable of. They might well be able to split atoms or bring tornadoes from the sky or control the minds of everyone they come into contact with. You could potentially wipe out the world with your-,” It was Kuvira’s glare that made Asami stop. A glare that dared her to utter another word. A glare that reminded her she was expendable.

She was silent then. Biting down her teeth hard together to hold back her words.

“I apologize,” Asami said, suddenly remembering Varrick’s dead eyes, “I am simply overwhelmed with the possibility. Please forgive my incompetence.”

Kuvira studied the woman and Asami swallowed wondering if her mouth would get her killed.

Kuvira took a breath, and a smile crept across her face. A duplicitous smile that reminded Asami that her usefulness rose and fell according to Kuvira’s mood.

Kuvira stood, deciding to forgive Asami for speaking out of turn. “The scientists and doctors working in this facility know the risks they take when they put on their lab coats. Their bravery is giving us the opportunity to correct the evolutionary blemish humanity has been plagued with since before the dawn of civilization. I’d like you to lead this project Asami,” Kuvira turned to the woman who only just now remembered to breathe. “I want you to lead us into a new age, free of the threat that connates impose.”

Asami nodded. She wasn’t offering. This was a command. Saying no wasn’t an option. So she stood and moved towards Kuvira, she extended a hand, “It would be an honor.”

And when Kuvira shook her hand Asami knew she’d do everything in her power to see the new operation fail.

---

“Kai and Jinora will take us in close to the facility. From there we’ll rely on Iroh’s power of suggestion to get us to Kuvira’s office.”

Korra looked Iroh over. His combat uniform secluded to only pants. His toned abdomen exposed and showing his permanently burned tattoo that extended a foot across his wide torso and shaped like a sunrise over a horizon nestled between the straps of his swords and vest.

All of the connate’s uniforms were cut to showcase their tattoos shamelessly. Kai and Jinora had no sleeves past their right shoulders. Those who had not met their connate or simply didn’t have them wore all black, concealing every part of themselves below their neck except their half gloved hands. Tradition required unbonded women wear long beige heavy coats that extend to their wrists. A tradition Korra had skirted.

As far as she’d been concerned, she’d bonded with Opal the moment their lips had touched. Now she wore flowing woolen coat over the tightly fitting black under armour. That was behind her, she’d best forget waking to Opal’s quiet snore and pretty face.

Wei stepped towards Korra adjusting his guns in their holsters at his waist. His jaw tight. Angry even. Ready to get vengeance for his sister.

“Iroh, Kai and I will take out Kuvira while Jinora and Wei infiltrate their computer systems and locate all the imprisoned connates. We’ll have our people ready to infiltrate said facilities the moment Kuvira has been killed and the chain of command is in disarray.”

“We’re far enough,” Kai hollered to the cockpit of the small ship.

Korra looked up, “You sure? We’re fifteen clicks out-,”

“We’re sure.” Jinora cut in. Her eyes on Kai, “We’re much stronger together and we’ve got enough anger to make the jump from here. Besides, it’ll be better if we don’t trip any radars by getting close to the city.”

“Autopilot is engaged and can be hailed at any time to evacuate us manually if need be.” Iroh said as he joined the trio. He’d docked a light bullet proof vest, concealing his burned tattoo.

Everyone became silent then. Some missions required pep talks. This was not the case here.

Korra watched Jinora and Kai focus on the schematic of Kuvira’s facility. The best they could do was a fly over radar analysis of the building. But parts of the building - Kuvira’s office for example - had been built to conceal certain locations and structures.

Silence carried as the two connates reach for one another. As soon as their skin made purchase with one another’s they sharply inhaled as euphoria flooded them. A small smile show on Kai’s face, his eyelids fluttering as he resisted the urge to break meditation in favor of the natural high.

Light traced their intricate tattoo roaming from their right hands fingertips all the way to their shoulder blades in thick sweeping arches and spirals.

The brilliance of their tattoo filled the small ship. Wordlessly Kai and Jinora extended palm up invitations to the rest of the crew as the light consumed them all.

From beyond the ship the light flash like unbroken lightening in the sky, powerful and blinding as it shown through the cockpit windshield for several long seconds then vanishing in an instant.

They’d jumped.

And when they’d materialized Korra stood in a rushing sea of armed men.

They flood past Korra and her crew of rebels. None of them focused on the bunch at first. Racing towards something much more pressing than the five who materialized into thin air.

She’d only just noticed an armed man taking note of her group when she heard it. Rapid gun fire followed by a loud explosion.

They weren’t the only intruders.

Year 2406 - 13 Minutes Ago

Metal rods protrude unnaturally from Opal’s abdomen.. Her senses were overwhelmed by the stench of her own burnt hair and the taste of coppery blood in her mouth. Rolling her jaw she could feel more than one tooth has loosened from the gums.

That was something you never read about. How quickly your gums and teeth rot away after being shocked with two thousand volts of electricity over and over and over again. Dying. Over and over again. Your teeth rot almost as quickly as your liver and kidneys.

It was one of those few moments when they chose to collect data on her body as opposed to subjecting her to one of their many “scientific” torture practises.

The rectangular room had been constructed with large slabs of ugly gray cement. To her right was an arsenal of syringes, test tubes, wires and cords that connected directly into her via metal rods. To her left a long row of mirrors that she assumed were windows with the doctors and scientists examining her from the other side.

Opal herself lay flat on a table. She’d been wheeled in an upright in position, restrained by a straitjacket and muzzle. The table had been geared and lowered flat. Her straitjacket and muzzle replaced with leather cuffs for her wrists, and metal links over her ankles.

Two soldiers were stationed directly behind her at all times and a petite looking nurse with too much lipstick and a heavy smell of coffee clinging to her. This nurse, coffee nurse, was now joined by three others, a doctor, a scientist and a second nurse. They all examined the readings they’d gathered from the last round of electric shock therapy and began muttering over readings they still couldn’t understand.

Not all the metal rods in Opal delivered electricity. Some took vitals while others took readings on her hormone levels, heart rate, blood pressure, and a slew of other things. What concerned her most were the strange sensors they’d connected to her head and back. She could feel these sensors digging into her skin against the table. They’d hooked something into her tattoo. No, deeper than skin. They’d tapped into her actual spinal cord.

How long, she wondered. How long till they all cleared out and continued electrocuting her? How many times would she die on the table only to be revived? How many times would she break her connate’s heart?

She’d never been told about how it feels for a connate to die. Never been told that after death a connate will hover, somewhere between life and death, something like a purgatory. There they would see the anguish that their connate felt for their death.

Each time she’d died she’d learned something new about her connate. She’d seen his eyes reflected in a mirror. Green and sad. She’d seen a dingy floor. She’d seen a beautiful woman shouting at a handsome young man.

She’d peered through the eyes of her connate and felt his grievances as she passed away, slowly, painfully, dragging him down with her.

No more. She decided.

She’d allow no one to hurt her connate. She wouldn’t allow herself to die again.

Her fingers slowly worked, pulling metal back and forth over the leather straps encasing her wrists.

She’d stolen the scalpel only minutes ago. Stretching her fingers to a nearby tray as the nurse passed by.

Now she worked to get the strap loose. Subtle but hurried. When they shocked her, she’d lose all control of her muscles, she’d drop the scalpel, and the chance would have come and gone.

“We’re ready to begin the next round of tests.” The coffee nurse said.

The leather wore to mere centimeters.

“Very well.”

They began filing from the room. The familiar sound of a whirring machine to her left kicked into gear. It hummed, electricity charging.

She grit her teeth.

Just a little more.

The doctors and nurses shut the door. Leaving only the coffee nurse and two guards in the room.

“On my mark,” Came the doctor's voice over an intercom.

She watched a fan begin moving at her feet. Electricity began charging. The short but wide framed nurse took a cautionary step away from the girl. “Mark.”

The leather strap broke.

Opal grabbed the wires connected to her abdomen and yanked them free from her skin just as blue electricity shot through them. She threw them clear across the room. Sparks flew from their tips as they collide with the floor. The coffee nurse shrilled in surprise, dancing narrowly from the path of the electrified wires, knocking into trays of utensils in her hurry.

The first guard lunged into action racing to grab the young woman. Opal looked to her other hand, still strapped to the table. Her feet were pinned at the ankles by metal circular bars.

Ultimately, her movements were restricted.

With a loud popping Thwick! the approaching guard snapped out a slender baton..

He lunged, smashing the baton where her head rest on the table. Opal rolled aside narrowly missed.

“Don’t damage the brain sensors!” Cried a scientist over the intercom.

A dent had been made in the metal where Opal’s head had been. The guard reared back, re-aimed and prepared to come down again, “Yaa!” he began a war cry.

Opal fell back flat on the table, rolling quickly and gaining as much momentum as the rocking motion could give her, she jammed the scalpel into the side of his throat.

The world stopped then. His voice ceased. His motion ceased. His arm hung mid-swing, and his eyes slowly edged to Opal’s hand poised beneath his chin.

No one moved. No one breathed.

Everyone - the nurse, the scientists, the doctors, even the other guard - all simply stared at the man being murdered before their eyes.

“Oh my god.” The guard struggled to speak, each word choked past the foreign object, “Oh my-,”

She reversed the initial thrusting motion, twisting the scalpel as she yanked it free.

A violent splatter of blood splashed across the room. Droplets arc into the air as if God were breathing life into the universe. His hands went to the wound and he attempted to catch the amassing puddle. Death stomped on the man’s existence, spilling beneath his collar and finding small cracks between his fingers to glide over, “Oh my god.” He managed to say before blood poured from between his parted lips and his legs came out from under him and he slid down a wall in dead eyed disbelief.

The coffee nurse ran to the guards side, dropping to her knees she attempted to put pressure on the wound but it was futile. The damage was done. There was no way of fitting the genie back in the bottle.

The second guard took it all in. Surprised by Opal’s strength and agility despite her clear exhaustion. Surprised by the blood that painted the cement in an grimy vermilion coating.

His attention then turned to Opal who had begun trying to remove the second leather strap from her hand.

“Damn you!” He lunged for her. Opal looked up at the man. Options filtered through her mind. As he neared her she decided then.

She abandoned the cause to remove the second strap. Instead her hand reached back around to the left side of the table to a metal gear she’d seen snapped into place when she’d first arrived. She grabbed the gear, a slightly crooked piece of metal about three inches long and half an inch wide. There was little surface of the gear to grab but she took hold of it and cranked the metal upward before giving it one hard twist.

Vwoosh! At a nauseating velocity the table capsized, Opal’s head surging upward and her feet downward bringing her to the upright position. The sudden swinging table took the guard by surprise, and in his slight hesitation he got caught by Opal’s forehead as it rushed upward, banging into his jaw.

Opal went for the leather strap on her right hand as the guard’s head bucked backwards and he grabbed his face in pain, “Ah!”

She’s just managed to get the second leather strap free when she felt a weight above her head. It was the second guard, he’d rebound faster than she’d expected him to.

His hand grabbed the top of the table, and he slammed it down hard as if closing the trunk of a car. With a gust of wind the table whipped back down, Opal’s head dropping as her feet rose still connected by metal bars to the table.

“Oof!” Opal’s head hit the table hard, her air knocked from her lungs.

Blinking back surprise, Opal found herself lying horizontally with a blood dripping maniac atop of her. He clutched her throat with a vice grip. He’d bitten clean through a section of his tongue which lay partly limp in his mouth and caused blood to rush from between his deranged clenched teeth.

Opal reacted best she could, as he leaned his weight atop of her in addition to choking her. She used her free hands to claw at his face, scraping her dirty nails through the blood billowing across his chin. Her hands had just began making purchase in the slick mess of blood and sweat when he shook his head free of her grasp and tightened his grip.

She reached for him again, choking around his clenched fists. She attempted to grab his face again. This time she earned herself a reprieve, one of his hands came free and he used it to send a teeth rattling punch directly for the side of her head. It felt like a rock had dropped against the side of her face right before the hand returned with a crushing weight to her windpipe.

She fought back, attempting to loosen his grip with her own hands. Ordinarily she’d have been able to break the hold, easily even, but three days of shock therapy had left her in such a state where the best she could do was dig her nails into his wrists and struggle to hold on to what little air she had in her body.

Exhaustion ran its course and before long Opal’s eyes began rolling back in her head.

All around her echoing in and out like her consciousness was the sound of a siren.

Her world dimmed.

Would she die again now? For good this time? Strangled to death. Was that the way she’d go out?

She felt something come over her. She couldn’t explain it, only that there was a brilliant light beginning to dance in her peripherals. She felt a cold chill swept up her backside. Not the regular chill of impending death. Not adrenalin, but something swept through her body. Then something came over her body. If emanated from her back and washed towards her hands which grasp futilely for the man’s face.

She smelled something then. Something...something like burning flesh. Why was she smelling herself only now. But this wasn’t her. This smell was a new smell.

Smoke. Something had begun smoking. Her eyes found it then, concentrated around the man’s face.

Just then she heard a command, “Kill her!” It flooded the intercom, “Kill her now while-,”

Her hands glowed a vibrant blue, her head rolled back, a charge emanated from her tattoo, first the normal luminescent blue then red. Her tattoo surged red and a violent gush of fire shot from her hands, scorching the man’s face.

“Gah!” He screamed, lurching away as his face had become enveloped in a consuming fire where her fingers had been. His skin, charred in a magnificent blast.

“Holy shit!”

Opal gasped choking down air, rolling her neck. She’d felt like her spine had been crushed from his weight. Now she blinked back the tears that came with oxygen deprivation.

The world dimmed black and red as a siren blared. She knew without a doubt that an execution squad was now being sent her way. She glanced at her hands.

She knew what it meant. She knew that being a connate had finally paid off for more than pain and suffering. She was one of the rare connates that developed special abilities. Which meant her connate shared whatever ability this was. Fire? Burning light? She wasn’t sure and she didn’t have time to collect her thoughts on the matter.

Her hands went to the metal restraints on her ankles. She undid them easily, freeing herself finally.

“You bitch!” The second hollered, half his face burned off, he was beyond recognition, his face covered in a sickly looking layer of skin that featured patches of fiery red exposed flesh and even a black gaping hole where Opal’s palm had been. Just inside this hole Opal had a clear view of his burned teeth and gums.

Anger fueling each step he closed the distance between them and went for a sloppily thrown punch. Opal sidestepped the man, hooking her arm into his own she redirected his force and with a circular motion threw him clear across the room and directly into a generator.

The thin metal collapsed with his weight, electric wires hissed at the intruder before electrocuting the man. His body danced and jiggled for only a few seconds before he lay still. The electricity hadn’t lasted long enough to kill him, but enough to char his eyebrows and knock him clean unconscious.

Her head snapped to the coffee nurse who cower in the corner, eyes wide in horror at the violence she witnessed.

She watched the woman, quiver in absolute terror, her eyes to the girl's hands which seemed to begin to change into an orange and yellow tent, as if the flames were begging to be set free. Opal herself felt a strange rush of adrenalin coursing through her body, a new strength. And it all seemed to radiate from her hands. Restless. She felt she could burn the whole damn building down if she wanted. She could focus that heat and create a whole new sun if she wanted. She felt better than she’d ever felt in her life.

She smirked at the terrified woman, she’d never felt like killing anyone, but now she wanted to see the limits of her power. Before the primal instinct took hold she forced the woman’s eyes to find her own with an intent gaze, “This is the part where you run.”

---

Korra didn’t have time to consider the options. Fact was, whoever had decided to overrun the facility had put everyone on high alert. Their element of surprise was lost.

Worse, they stood out like sore thumbs amongst Kuvira’s heavily armed men.

But none of them stopped. None of them took aim at Korra and her group. Like they were invisible. Krra looked to Iroh. His face had become dead serious. His eyes unblinking.

“Is that you?” Korra asked. Iroh said nothing.

Kai and Jinora looked stricken. They didn’t know what to do, “Our element of surprise is gone.” Jinora observed.

“True as that is, we had a mission remember? We need info on the location of connates in this facility. Jinora and Wei, get going. I don’t know how long Iroh can cloak our presence so be ready for when it wears off.” Jinora nodded, her hand going to Wei’s shoulder and they quickly vanished.

“I know where Kuvira’s office is.” Iroh said quietly. His expression strained. His eyes snapping to a soldier at his right. The soldier running by towards the explosion had slowed down. His eyes on Iroh and Korra. His gun began to raise, Iroh took a breath and wormed his way into the man.

The man’s face filled with confusion then and he turned and continued running along with the sea of soldiers.

“Are we sure we want to do this?” Kai asked, “Kuvira will be waiting for you if she’s already not being whisked away from the facility in an unmarked car that is.”

“I can’t fail this mission.” Korra said, “My family’s honor rests on it.”

“Alright,” Kai said, he didn’t agree but he respected Korra, “Iroh, share with me the details of her office.”

Iroh face bead with sweat. His eyes bug from his skull and his motions were slow. He was barely holding them. This was a main corridor. If even one mind broke through…

The man moved gravely, working to touch Kai’s forehead. Kai took a breath and closed his eyes allowing the schematic to enter his mind, “I see it. It’s not far.” The young boy grabbed Korra’s forearm.

Korra’s head turned to acknowledge Kai’s touch and only then did she see. The gunman who stood at the end of the hall. He’d dropped to his knee. Hidden in plain view. He aim for the group of rebels. For Kai. Korra yanked the boy violently aside as a spray of bullets shot their way. Kai registered the motion but did not lose focus.

He jumped.

Was his ability fast enough? Korra wondered. Faster than speeding bullets?

No. They rematerialized covered in blood.

Chapter Text

Year 2007

She’d been doing a handstand when the bleeding began.

“And if you just tip your weight and balance like this,” Korra instructed to the group of surrounding boys, “You can stay up forever and ever.”

They gasped in awe at their friend. Korra didn’t hang around girls, they were all too concerned about their dollies and keeping their clothes clean. Korra liked rough housing. She liked chasing down the boys and slapping them with a few bean bags then crying, “You’re finished Dr. Red Zone!” Then scurrying away.

Korra loved pretending she was a superhero. There were few female superheroes flying around. Most females who gained special abilities after meeting their connates were expected to stay home with their children.

But Korra loved to imagine meeting her connate and becoming a superhero. She didn’t care what anyone said, if she could fly, if she could shoot lasers from her eyes or catching a speeding train with her bare hands nothing would stop her from being a superhero. She would be just like her dad.

He was a superhero. And her mom and him had been married and had her. But still he kept fighting, flying around the world and protecting people. That was the special ability her mother and father shared. Flight. That….and the fact that her father was built like an ox attached to a freight train standing atop a mountain. He had big hammy arms and bulging muscle, flying was almost secondary to a guy who could bench press two hundred pounds while making an omelet. She hoped she had a connate, she wanted to be just like him. She wanted to be a Legend.

These were the restless dreams of a eight year old.

These were her dreams before the bleeding started.

As the boys began attempting to hold their hand stand as long as Korra effortlessly seemed to do, Korra felt something tickle her forehead. She laughed and fell backwards onto her back. She gazed up at the sky. From where she lay on the school's playground she could hear the voices of her classmates all around her. Chatting. Laughing. Squealing in terror as a kid named Bolin ate a bug.

She huffed in a few breaths, exhausted from the last twenty minutes of play then touched her dirty fingers to her forehead. She pulled her fingers back to find blood. Weird. But there was more of it. Her fingers traced to beneath her nose and found blood ebbing from there.

Weirder still. She sat up, rubbed her arm over the ridge of her lips and looked to the boys.

“Come on, Korra! Race you to the water fountain!” Korra got to her feet, forgetting all about the nosebleed in the heat of the race.

Korra beat them all without a second thought, even having let them get a running start. She got the privilege of drinking first. She sucked in the water and stepped aside.

As she did so a teacher noticed her dripping blood into the fountain.

She grabbed Korra’s shoulder and pulled her away from the fountain, “Korra?” She asked with concern, “You know you're bleeding, right?” Korra nodded. “How long have you been bleeding?” She asked. Korra shrugged. “Come on.” She took the girl to the nurse's office. They plugged her nose with toilet paper and told her to tilt her head back.

Five minutes later they sent her back to class.

The bleeding continued though. It continued for a ten minutes. Then fifteen. Then they called her parents. Then they took her to the hospital. Then they diagnosed her with leukemia.

Those were her dreams before the bleeding started.

Year 2406

They rematerialized covered in the blood.

Korra didn’t feel it at first, then it became all she could feel. A bullet burning into her neck and the cruel gaze of the Great Uniter mounted on a wall. Korra’s feet came from under her and she stumbled backwards into Kai. She felt the gash appear in her skin violently tearing through her backside as she fell into a flag post and rest her weight against the wall clutching her throat.

The bullet had gone through clean and embed in a wall behind them, into the side of her neck and a thin amount of flesh separated the bullet from the outside world. It had made a tunnel, burning every inch of the tunnel on it’s way.

“Korra,” Iroh gasped realizing she’d been shot but his eyes traveled to Kai and found a bigger problem. The boy could barely hold himself together. His skin was shifting in and out of a blurry black murk. Slices roamed his skin showing a strange coloration beneath that flash colors with seemingly no reason or rhyme. As Iroh went to reach for the boy he found his own arm consumed with slits. The sight was horrifying. Like he’d been sent through a woodchipper but hadn’t felt a thing. He’d only just managed to scream in shock when Kuvira’s office door flood open and the three rebels no longer stood alone.

The first soldier happened past Korra, he swung his gun to her. The young woman reacted. Wounded fatally or not, she wouldn’t die without a fight. She sloppily slammed the flat of her foot into the man’s gun before he could take aim. As he recovered she leaned forward with one free hand and took him to the ground pounding him with her fist. A weak punch. It did little. He reversed the fight quickly and easily flipping atop her. He grabbed her neck and dug his thumb into the sensitive bullet wound.

Air hissed through Korra’s teeth and the unpleasant sensation of a foreign object burrowing into her flesh filled her mind, blurring her eyes with tears and her heart pounding harder. Blood flooded the man’s aggressive hands as her heart worked to keep up with her horror.

She looked about herself. For anything. Something. She found someone. She found Kai, on the ground, in pain, trying to put himself back together just two short feet away. She lodged her knee into the man’s stomach and sprung a weighted kick into his abdomen. Hard enough to get him off, long enough to grab his locks of hair and send him neck exposed into the shifting dark matter that surrounded Kai’s body.

The same jagged slice that had cut Korra’s hand and back cut into the man’s exposed neck. Unlike Korra’s bullet wound - damning sure, but not instant - this man’s wound left no life. It cut him thoroughly to the point where his spine lay exposed and blood gush across the room as though he’s been sent neck first at a chainsaw.

As Korra took on the first soldier, Iroh reached for his gun only to find it shifting in and out of reality. He might be able to fire it, but what if a key component were missing? Did he want to take the chance of a bullet being spat back directly into his face? No.

He went on the offensive as the second, third and fourth man entered the room. They carried their automatics at the ready. Iroh looked to one of the armed men, locking eyes with him and he felt his own mind empty as he entered another's.

In a mere moment the second soldier’s mind had been invaded. The soldier swung the muzzle of his gun on his comrades. The action taking them by surprise as he let loose a stream of bullets for their skulls.

The third and fourth soldiers painted the walls with their blood and the second soldier turned to the oncoming soldiers.

“He’s gone rogue!” One of them hollered only to be met with bullets.

Iroh sunk to his knees and turned his head aside in shame as the second soldier followed his commands.

We are not the enemy. Kill them all. At any cost.

The second soldier moved with an agile purpose not his own. Clearing the hallway of his comrades, methodically, sidestepping the bodies as they amass bloodily at his feet. Iroh didn’t let him feel the pain of the five bullets that came to pepper his body during the battle. Iroh didn’t let him feel the hurt when he read the mind of his good friends as they were murdered by a man they trusted and respected. He let nothing register. Only the binding command that told him to kill anyone who march on behalf of the Great Uniter.

“Kai,” Korra’s voice came course, her hand pressing into her throat as blood ran slick over her grip, “Kai, you have to focus.” The boy grunted and shook his head.

The sound of gunfire ceased. Iroh had the second soldier place the barrel in his own mouth. He’d snuffed out his consciousness. Now there was only this. Iroh felt the man’s finger tighten on the trigger and he reached back inside his own mind in time.

But he could still feel it. The weight of death. That solemn nothing he felt whenever he read the mind of the dead.

Kai’s skin began to settle. Iroh’s arms reassembled. Korra breathed steadily and calm. She’d lost so much blood. Her clothes were stained and wet to the touch from all the blood she’d lost.

“You two,” Korra grunted, “You have to get out of here. Whatever had those guards in such a fuss made Kuvira leave. I’m sorry.” She looked at Kai as the boy clenched his fists on his thighs and looked to her, still shivering.

“We aren’t leaving you here. If Kuvira finds you…” Kai began. Korra shrugged.

“I’m dead anyways.” She asserted, “I won’t make it back to the hospital, not we leave more than one of our people-,”

“We have the files,” Jinora’s voice crackled over their ears pieces, “Wei has gone through the footage. It looks like Kuvira left with an escort just a few minutes before we got here. We might be able to catch her if we-,”

“No,” Korra touched her ear piece.

“You’re willing to give up so easily?” Iroh asked.

Korra opened her mouth to speak but Iroh approached her quickly, “Don’t.” He gave her a knowing look and she smiled faintly, glad she’d brought a mind reader, she didn’t think she had the strength to speak. Or the blood left to speak either to be honest.

As she spoke through her thoughts, Iroh relayed aloud to the com pieces, “Those soldiers were here too fast. They were waiting. How did she know we could get in her office without walking? Because she knew Kai could teleport. She probably knew Iroh could suggest. She knows everything about every move we make and we know nothing. Going after her would get everyone killed. I shouldn’t have lead this mission, I’m sorry.” Korra’s eyes began to flutter shut, sweat bead on her forehead. She closed her eyes as a sleep called to her.

She felt Iroh push into her mind, push for her to stay conscious. Suddenly her pain was gone. She smiled at the man. Yet another mind trick.

“We have to try, Korra. If we don’t… You won’t be the Avatar. You might not…” Jinora stopped the words and a silence carried between the rebels.

Iroh’s voice was the answer that spoke but no one doubted who the words came from, “I know. But this isn’t a gamble anymore. This is a guarantee: If we go after her we will all be killed. And I can’t let that happen.”

Year 2007

Senna pat Korra’s pillow fluffy again and placed it behind Korra’s tired head, “You guys ready?” A nurse poked her head into the extended stay bedroom. Korra dipped her chin, her lack of excitement palpable.

Senna smiled apologetically, “We’ll be out in a minute.”

As the nurse left Korra stared at her hands.

“Korra?” Her mother came to her bedside, “I thought you loved the story of how Daddy beat Dr. Red Zone with the help of the Legends?”

Korra looked down at the action figures in her hands. One was Dr. Red Zone fully transformed into though black and red figure with long tendrils for hands and his humanoid figure made of blotted proportions. The other hand held her father, much smaller than in real life, in his long black cape and navy blue get up. He carried a sword on his back, and a knife on his hip. His spandex tight to his body.

He looked like a miniature god.

“I do.” The now nine year old admitted.

“So come on, lazy bones.” Her mother tugged her free of the sheets. With a grin on her lips and an ominous scratchy voice she growled, “Dr. Red Zone waits for no one.”

The voice always cracked a smile on Korra’s lips - her mother was terrible at impressions - and Korra’s smile made Senna smile. And Senna smiling made Korra smile that much harder, even laugh. And a laughing Korra made Senna hug her daughter tightly.

Senna managed to get Korra into a wheelchair. As they rolled towards the constructed stage in the playroom of the children’s hospital a nurse came to Senna.

“I’ll take her,” The nurse smiled, “We have a place for her. We knew she’d come.” She winked.

Senna’s phone began ringing then and she flipped it open, “Hello? Yes. This is she...” She waved to Korra as the nurse pushed her away and Korra waved back.

When the play began Korra waited for everyone to be engrossed in the action on stage. Everyone watching as Dr. Red Zone tragically lost his wife, his connate. As the actor on stage walked off stage, probably to do the big shift from human looking to the big giant black and red creature beast thingy, Dr. Red Zone, Korra stood, grabbed her IV and walked away without anyone noticing.

---

She wound up in the children’s chapel. The walls were painted in fun colors. The cross looked bubbly and each candle on a long table had a child’s name etched into it. Slowly she walked down the aisle solemnly, she’d only came here to sit. She walked about halfway to the pulpit and sat on the left hand side of the aisle on a dark brown pew. Exhausted from the short journey she allowed her body to slump down in the seat and gazed upon the stainless steel glass that depicted Jesus Christ.

No one knew if he was a connate but many speculated he was and that he’d had the ability to mind control people, or at least brainwash them. Others thought he was the son of God himself, or whatever great creator had made humans and connates. Whatever, whoever, he was Christ still and had an even bigger fanbase than the Legends and that was saying something.

She’d been sitting there for a few minutes when she heard the door bang open. She turned expecting to find her mother, perhaps frantic and disheveled. Instead she found a dark haired girl in a pink and red dress.

She was healthy looking, unlike Korra who had dark circles under her eyes, a bald head, and wiry limbs. The girl had a lush flow of dark locks and green eyes. She was pretty. No. More than pretty. Korra felt uneasy in her presence, and wanted to leave immediately, her hands toying with the two action figures she carried. That feeling again. That girls said they got around boys.

She didn’t know why she felt it for girls. Only that she somehow felt ashamed of it.

“Hi.” The girl said quietly, politely.

“Hey.” Korra responded.

A few footfalls later and the girl came to take a seat across the aisle, one row up from Korra.

Together they sat in uneasy silence. Korra wanting to leave but not wanting to hurt the girl's feelings. The girl… well, she just was quiet.

She was one of those girls Korra would have hated back when she still went to school. One of the girls who probably cared too much about keeping her clothes clean, and never wanted to be hit with red bean bags. They had nothing in common, Korra decided. Nothing but sitting in the children’s chapel when they probably both had somewhere else to be.

“So what do you think?” The girl asked suddenly, she turned and looked over her shoulder at Korra.

“About what?” Korra asked.

“You think he was a connate or God?”

“Aren’t they the same thing?” Korra asked.

“No,” the girl shook her head, “You can get away with anything if you're a God. Just say it was all a part of your plan. But connates, like Red Zone, they get in trouble for doing bad things..” Korra had never thought of it like that, and a part of Korra was still a bit confused about the concept.

“Jesus didn’t commit any crimes, though. He was perfect. Without sin, that was kind of the point.”

The girl turned then and said nothing, she just set Korra with a smile, “Or maybe that’s just what he made everyone around him think.” She winked for some reason then and something stirred in Korra’s belly. She never liked girls like her, all frill and no grit. But for some reason girls like Asami always made Korra’s heart beat faster. They made her nervous.

This girl smiling made Korra’s breath catch. She was super pretty. Korra looked back at the action figures in her hands and she only looked up when she felt the girl join her on the church pew.

“Why are you here?” Korra asked remembering how healthy the girl looked. Her expression changed then, it crumbled a bit, and her eyes dimmed. Asami pulled her legs up to her chest and rest her feet on the pew.

“I’m visiting my brother.” She said.

Korra nodded.

The girl continued with a sideways glance at Korra, “My mom died a few days ago in a car crash, she was pregnant with my brother. He was born too early though so he probably won’t…” She trailed off.

Korra’s heart felt a little heavy then. Her worse nightmare, hearing her father had been killed by one of the bad guys he fought against… This girl was living it. She looked healthy, but Korra could see the pain on her face and it told her she was everything but healthy right then.

“I’m sorry.” And she was. She didn’t know this girl, but she felt for her.

Korra looked down at her action figures again as the girl rest her chin on her knees and began quietly crying.

“I have leukemia.” Korra said simply.

The girl looked up, “I’m sorry.” She said and a small silence carried between them. “My name’s Asami, by the way.”

“Korra.”

“Can I ask you something Korra,” Asami tried out her new friend's name.

“Shoot.”

“If you like Dr. Red Zone, why didn’t you go see the play?”

Korra shrugged, “I don’t know.” She lied quietly. Asami scoot a little closer to her then. So close Korra found herself tentatively trying to pull her sleeves down to cover all the needle marks in her arms and biting her chapped lips.

She once wished she looked like Asami, small and graceful. But she was big, weirdly shaped, and even more so now that she was bald and hungry looking.

The girl reached for the figurine of her father, “You’re a fan of the Southern Trojan?” Asami asked.

Korra beamed, “He’s my dad.” She announced proudly. Asami jaw dropped.

“No way! Your dad’s a superhero?” Asami asked. Korra nodded excitedly.

“When I get back to my room, I’ll show you a picture of us to prove it.” Asami nodded like it was a done deal, but she could tell the girl didn’t doubt her. She liked that. The unwavering trust.

“That’s awesome. I wish my dad had gotten powers when he met my mom. But they’re just regular connates. They don’t have powers.” She looked over at Korra then and found her smiling, “What?”

“Well, I didn’t think a girl like you would be a fan of the Legends.”

“With Legends like Kyoshi, who wouldn’t be a fan? Remember when her country was being invaded and she literally split the land in half and Shin the Conqueror fell to his death and when she was summoned to appear in court she said, “I killed him, so what?” And no one did anything because they were too scared? That was awesome!” Of course Korra knew that story. But Kyoshi was amongst the first and earliest Legends. Not even a popular one. This girl knew her Legends, plain and simple, and Korra was impressed. Asami reached for the Southern Trojan action figure, “Can I see him?”

Korra shrugged and extended the action figure. Their fingers graced against one another's and at first it was a nervous feeling that passed through Korra. Then something much sharper. Her heart lurched, a chill ran her body followed by an explosion of warmth that emanated between them.

They gasped simultaneously.

Korra looked at Asami to be sure she was feeling the same as Korra. Instead she found that the girl’s face was being etched by several traveling blue lights. They etched a luminescent tattoo into the girl's skin, and she could feel the same on her own. In unison the tattoos expanded. Small first, just on their foreheads. Then it widening, covering half their faces. The process took a couple of seconds, and each second the girls shared an unfamiliar emotion.

Deep. Incomprehensible. And though they had little reason to smile, little reason to look optimistically towards the future, as the tattoos etched into one another’s skin they couldn’t help themselves. The girls began to giggle uncontrollably. Breathily.

Korra’s connate was one of those girls she’d avoided. Now she wondered how many of those girls could make her feel something she hadn’t felt since she still dared to dream of being a superhero.

No. That was absurd. Only one girl could make Korra feel, could make Korra dream. Only one girl could make Korra smile and feel-

“Hope.” Asami said.

Year 2406 - Twelve Minutes Ago

Mako didn’t know what Asami was hoping to find by gaining access to the files on all connates who had managed to flee Kuvira. A list of names was a great start, but without being able to touch every person on said list it was just as much a hay stack as-

The portable drive flashed a luminescent red light twice before returning dormant and each flash was punctuated by a high pitched beeping sound.

Mako stood at a computer terminal in the corner of the hard drives lab. Large decks of computer mainframe scattered about. A few paces away he could hear men changing shifts. They’d be headed his way any moment and he didn’t want to explain why he - an officer on Kuvira’s detail there mostly for security - was tapping into the mainframe for sensitive information. Did he have clearance to access said information, yes, but that didn’t make his actions any less questionable.

The men began his way chattily, “You see that hull damage the rebels did to that last transfer truck?” One of them asked.

“It looked like someone had taken a bite out of it or something.”

“No kidding-,” The second man stopped short as he rounded a corner. Mako held his breath. This was it. He cleared his throat, straightened his spine and prepared to deliver a threat that would keep either men from reporting the out of place behavior of Kuvira’s most trusted officers.

But he didn’t need to.

They weren’t there. Then they were. A young girl and a broad shoulders strongly built young man. Materializing from thin air they took a moment's pause to gather their surroundings.

Mako’s heart slammed in his chest and he bit back the scream of surprise.

As soon as the young woman saw the guard she sprung into action. The first guard reach for his baton and she quickly powered an extended leg into his chest. The force drove him backwards several steps and he hunker to the ground to catch his fall.

The young man made for the second guard sending a firm punch rocketinging into his jaw with enough force and leverage that the second guard was sent flying aside into a panel of computers, unconscious before his round belly hit the ground. The younger woman’s kick had disorganized the first guard but he wasn’t through. He begun a sloppy arching punch only to have it batted aside like a fly by the young woman who then extended her other palm against his face and -

He vanished. Just like that. Gone in a blink of an eye to...Who knows where. Mako took in the younger woman’s attire. All black like the customary connate get up, tight fitting, and revealing only the skin that show her connate tattoo, it’s intricate detail notable against her exposed shoulder all the way to her fingertips.

Mako backed pedaled quietly behind the stacks of machinery as the two rebels took control of the room.

He couldn’t see what they were doing but something told him they were probably seeking the same information he had been. They said nothing. The young man keeping a watch out as the younger woman’s fingers danced past one security measure after the next as if child’s play.

“I’m through the last firewall. Extracting the information now. It’ll be broadcast directly to our own database.”

“So we need to work fast before one of Kuvira’s computer geeks notices the connected signal.” The younger woman only nodded, her fingers rapidly working through one coding after the next.

Minutes passed. Before long Mako wondered if he should be alerting security. But then what? Sure it would show his loyalty to Kuvira but that would also mean he’d need to explain why he was so far out of his regular jurisdiction. He kept silent and waited until finally the young woman placed a hand on the young man’s shoulder and the two vanished.

He breathed a breath of relief and moved from behind the stacks and towards the exit. He’d made it nearly out of the room when he saw her. Or rather. Saw the glow.

His eyes snatched the image in a moment but once he’d seen it his heart sunk in his chest. Mounted on the monitor was a woman being hunted by easily thirty-five men. They all had guns. They cornered her between a flight of stairs she’d just climbed and a long hallway she’d run into.

She watched their guns train on her. They shouted commands. She was cornered. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. The woman responded turning back to face the men who had been pursuing her from the flight of stairs below. That motion had revealed her backside, revealed the puckered bloody mess of a tattoo that emanate a luminescent glow.

Mako’s breath caught, his brothers haggard face in mind, “You’ll never know till you feel your connate die time and time again.” Bolin had said.

Bolin’s connate...it had to be, right?

The girl took an aggressive step towards the stairwell. The five men all pulled the trigger without hesitation. A fire seemed to ignite then, like a tornado, massive, powerful and billowing out in a hot flash of bright light and the screen buzzed, killed by the intensity of whatever had sparked that flash.

Mako didn’t see the flash. He didn’t see the men burned alive by the scorching heat. He didn’t hear the sound of the entire corridor going up in flame and cement being blasted to fragmented rocks. He didn’t see bullets disintegrate mid air. But he felt it - he felt the entire facility burst into flame as Bolin’s connate detonated like a bomb.