Senior Year

I leaned back in my chair, rubbing my eyes, as Bolin and Pabu began to dig into the plate of food the butler had brought them.  Mako and Opal were sitting on either side of me, concern written over their faces.  They knew I was upset, but they also knew that right now I didn’t want to talk.  Spirits…I’m so damn mad at Korra, yet I’m not.  There was no evidence of Dad having Equalist ties; they searched EVERYWHERE.  Yet she was still adamant that he has something to do with them.  I ran my hand down over my face.

“Asami, everything’s going to be alright.  Everyone’s just stressed out over this whole movement.  Once it’s gone, then everything will be back to normal,” Opal said, gently taking my hand.

I yanked it back. “Korra didn’t accuse your father of something horrible, Opal!  She didn’t accuse him of wanting to hurt people that you care about because they’re benders!” I yelled.

I instantly regretted it.  The look on Opal’s face was…was heartbreaking.  I sighed, pulling her into a tight hug. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

She nodded slowly, returning my hug.  She knew I didn’t mean to yell at her, that my emotions were just running really high right now because of tonight.  I leaned back into my seat, about to take a minute to gather my thoughts and to rethink everything about tonight, when several metalbending police officers slammed the doors to the common room open.  We all jumped, and Bolin squealed a little as he raised his hands into the air.

My anger, which had just begun to simmer, instantly started to boil once again. “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” I shouted, jumping to my feet.

Chief Beifong entered the room, followed by Tenzin and Korra.  I looked at Korra accusingly; she looked down slightly before lifting her head up in a confident manner.  What the hell are you doing now, Korra?

“We have reason to believe there’s a hidden factory beneath the mansion,” Chief Beifong said, looking around the room.

“What?  Are you crazy?  I think I would’ve known if there was a secret factory underneath my own house,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

Tenzin looked around. “Where is your father, Asami?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “So you can accuse him some more?  The lies that you make up to persecute him is sickening,” I said, turning my gaze to Korra.

I could see the shift in her figure as she looked back at me. “Please, Asami.  Where’s your father at?” she asked softly, less threatening than Chief Beifong or Tenzin had.

I sighed, rubbing the bridge of my nose. “He’s in his workshop behind the house.”

I couldn’t believe my eyes.  Chief Beifong had just metalbent open the secret door to a tunnel in Dad’s workshop.  A secret tunnel!  Please, Dad, don’t be involved in anything.  Please don’t let Korra be right about this.  Yet, somehow I felt like I already knew the answer.  Chief Beifong was getting ready to descend down into the tunnel with Tenzin, Korra, and all but one of her metalbending officers.  The last officer was to wait with us while the rest of them searched the tunnel for Dad. 

I looked at Korra, who had taken her spot beside Chief Beifong.  Why.  Why did you have to be right about this, Korra?  As if hearing my thoughts, Korra turned around to look at me.  The sadness that filled her face as if she were looking for forgiveness from me.  I clasped my hands in front of  me, silently praying that this was all a huge mistakes, that Dad had nothing to do with the Equalist movement and they would return empty handed.

We could hear as the lift began its descent, taking them far into the tunnel to who knows where.  Officer Song, the officer left in charge of us, watched it.  I clenched my fists to my sides, furious that we were waiting here while everyone else was getting answers.  I felt Opal wrap her hand around one of my fists.

“They’ll figure this out,” she whispered to me, her eyes never leaving Officer Song.

I sighed. “I just…this is killing me, Opal.  I don’t know what’s going on, and it’s underneath my own house.  How could this have happened in the first place? 

Mako took a step towards me, placing his hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know, Asami, but we’re going to get some answers.”

A large door slam originating from the tunnel made us all jump.  Oh no.  What’s going on?  We all peered down into the tunnel, but nothing was indicating what made that sounds.  I could only assume the worst.

I began to make my way towards the lift that had returned, but Officer Song grabbed my arm. “You are not going anywhere until the Chief gets back,” he said, pulling me back from the entrance of the tunnel.

I yanked my arm out of his grasp, moving to tell him a piece of my mind about the entire situation itself, when Mako put his hand on my shoulder, shaking his head.  He looked at Bolin and smiled.  They both nodded to each other.

Mako turned his attention back to Officer Song. “Any chance we could wait outside?  It’s really dusty in here,” he asked, rubbing his nose.

Officer Song narrowed his eyes. “No, you’re to remain here.”

“Alright, but if I start to snee…if I start to…” Mako started to say, stuttering as continued to rub his nose.

Officer Song, agitated by Mako’s act, started to take a step towards us when Mako sneezed, causing him to firebend towards Song.  Backpedalling fast away from the firebending, Song was knocked backwards onto his head by a piece of the floor Bolin managed to earthbend at the right minute.  A moment later, Song was tied up to one of the barrels in the workshop, and we were on our way down the tunnel.

The lift stopped at a platform, but we couldn’t tell where at it lead to.  At a closer inspection, my heart stopped at what I saw was hanging from the raptors inside the next room.  His face plastered on them, I saw the flags of Amon’s Equalist movement.  No.  Dad, what did you do?  I stared wide-eyed at the posters until Mako put his hands on my shoulders to draw my attention to him.

“Bolin and I are going to go find out what’s going on, ok?  You and Opal need to stay here,” he said, interrupting me before I could get a word out. “I don’t want either of you two getting hurt, Asami.  I know you can take care of yourself, but these men are going to have dangerous weapons designed to hurt benders.  I don’t want you two to get injured trying to help us ok?”

I stared hard at him, trying to get him to budge, but he wasn’t going to.  I sighed. “Alright.  We’ll wait here, but you need to hurry.”

Mako smiled softly at me. “We will.”

Then they were off.  Bolin earthbent a tunnel underneath the room, covering up the opening so that we couldn’t follow.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to stop me from getting into the next room to find answers to my own questions.  Grabbing Opal’s hand, I pulled her along as I made my way into the room.  There was a large, platinum wall in front of us, and by the sounds coming from the other side, a large scale battle had commenced.

“Asami, what are you doing?” Opal asked as we moved over to one of the doors.

“I need answers, Opal, and I’m not letting anyone get hurt under my watch,” I said, opening the door to find a hallway that lead to the other side of the room.

We ran down the hallway only to come across another door.  This door was locked, but there was a number pad directly next to it.  I entered a number, hoping that it wouldn’t unlock the door.  A light flashed green, and the door slid open.  Damn it, Dad.  What have you gotten into?!

“How did you know what to enter to unlock it?” I heard Opal ask as we ran through the door and continued down the hall.

I sighed. “It was my mother’s birthday.”

The fighting in the next room had stopped.  We found the exit to the hallway, sliding it open.  I stepped out first but stopped after only a few steps.  I could see trucks being loaded with the officers by Amon’s chi blockers.  I could see Mako and Bolin carrying Tenzin and Korra with Chief Beifong at their feet.  Worst of all, I could see Dad.  He was standing next to Leu, shock gloves like the ones used at the arena attack on both of his hands.  The gloves began to light up as Dad and Leu began to walk towards them.  No.  Stop.  STOP.

“Dad, stop!” I shouted.

He froze with Leu, turning to see Opal and I standing behind them.  His facial expression, previously angry and agitated, dropped at the sight of me, my hand clenched above my heart.  I could feel the tears start to well in my eyes.

“Why?” Opal asked, holding onto my free hand.

Dad dropped his aggressive stance, taking small steps in small intervals as he walked towards us. “Asami, I wanted to keep you out of this for as long as I could, but now that you know, please forgive me.  People like them…these benders…they took your mother away from me, from us.  The love of my life is gone because of them; they’ve ruined the world around us,” he began to explain as a chi blocker walked over to Leu.

“With Amon, we can build a perfect world together, helping people like us,” he said, sliding a glove off as the chi blocker brought over a second glove. “You, me, Opal, Leu; we can all do this together, to help Amon change the world for the better.  Join us, girls.”

They held the gloves out, but I could feel Opal’s grip tighten on my hand. “Are you crazy?  Half of my family are benders.  My grandmother is Toph Beifong!  I could never do that to them.  I could never do that to anyone.”

I let go of her hand as I stared at the glove.  A world…without benders.  Everyone would be equal and the same.  I began to walk towards Dad, my eyes still on the glove.  Opal tried to keep me from moving, but I pulled my hand away from hers again.  My shaking hand reached out, taking the glove out of Dad’s hand.  I could see Mako’s expression dropped at the thought of me joining Amon’s cause.  I slipped the glove on, watching as I allowed for the electricity to glow in the palm of the glove for the first time.

Then I looked up and saw Korra was awake.  Those blue eyes were staring at me with wonder, with curiosity.  They were filled with fear at the thought of me becoming an Equalist.  I looked at her first with anger.  Then I realized why I was angry.  I was never angry at her; I was angry at myself, at my father, for letting this happen in the first place.  All the hurt that Korra had been suffering through, that other innocent people had been suffering through, was in large part due to my father.  I should’ve seen it earlier; the signs were there.  He was working more with the company; he was more secretive with what topics he’d talk about.  I should’ve seen it before, but I was so convinced that everyone else was wrong, that my father was too above the standard to have been a part of the movement that was ruining other people’s lives.

I looked at Dad, at his smile even if it were for the wrong reasons, then I closed my eyes. “I love you, Dad.”

I caught him off guard, pressing the palm of the glove against his chest and electrocuting him.  Leu sprinted at me, but I kicked the first baton out of his hand and used the second one to electrocute him.  They both laid unconscious at my feet, but I didn’t move.  I could hear the movement of the suits I saw when we first came into the room, but I didn’t move.

“We need to get out of here,” I heard Mako say, but it wasn’t until I felt someone’s hands on my shoulders did I finally start to move.

Bolin opened up a new exit for us.  We helped move Chief Beifong and Tenzin in first as they were helped by Mako and Opal, then Korra followed.  I moved into the new tunnel, followed closely by Bolin as he closed the opening.  Bolin moved in front of us, earthbending us a way out towards the police airship that they had arrived in.  Once we had made it safely away from the warehouse, Bolin opened up an exit close to the airship, allowing for us to quickly move Chief Beifong and Tenzin onto the airship.

Mako laid Chief Beifong down on one of the benches while I got the airship started.  Officer Song, after hearing the commotion ran onto the ramp just as it began to close.  He saw all of us, anger turning to confusion.

“What’s going on?” he asked, coming over to the controls of the airship.

Tenzin had woken up as the airship lifted into the air. “Hiroshi Sato had planned an ambush for us, and we fell right into it.”

“The others?” Song asked, looking towards his chief.

She turned her head towards the back of the bench. “They’re on their way to Amon.  I failed as Police Chief.  Tomorrow, I’m turning in my resignation.”

Tenzin whipped his head around to face her as soon as the words left her mouth. “Lin, you can’t be serious?  You can’t give up like this.”

“I’m not giving up,” she said, slowly sitting up and wrapping her arm around her stomach. “I have to find my officers, and I’m going to do it my way outside the law.”

I watched as the airship moved farther away from my house.  I wiped my eyes, not wanting anyone around me to see me cry.  My life’s over.  When word gets out, I’ll have nothing.  A hand rested gently on my shoulder, startling me a little.  I turned to find Korra standing next to me, a tiny smile on her face.

“Hi,” she said before looking down. “I’m sorry for what happened tonight. I-“

I didn’t let her finish.  I wrapped my arms around her neck, pulling her in for a tight hug. “I’m so sorry, Korra.  All those things that I said to you, how mean I was to you, and you were just trying to look out for me.  I’m so sorry,” I said, already on the verge of crying.

She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tight back. “Asami, you had every right to be mad at me.  I didn’t have a single shred of proof to show you.  I deserved all of that.”

I leaned back, shaking my head. “No you didn’t, Korra.  I should’ve seen the signs earlier; I should’ve believed you.  You had done nothing before to break my trust, and I threw you under the bus the moment you tried to keep me from getting hurt.  I just hope you can forgive me.”

A moment passed in silence, and as I was about to pull back, Korra’s arms wrapped around me tightly. “How could I not?  You’re my best friend, Asami,” she said with that wide smile I loved on her face.

A flutter in my chest passed again, and I couldn’t help but think about what would’ve happened if I had stayed mad at her.  I mentally shook my head.  No, I could never stay that mad at her, no matter what happens.  It was then that I realized how much Korra had changed my life.  She continued to risk her safety for mine, her happiness for mine.  Yet, I had acted like a complete jerk, accusing her of lying when all she was doing was trying to keep me from hurting. 

Spirits…I really have fallen in love with her.