[Korra's plan to lure them into the mountain is out the window. She's been running as fast as she can, stopping only to fight when one of them (usually Bolin, no surprise) gets distracted and goes after an easier victim. Running and fighting, fighting and running, have led her to the Underground rather than the outskirts of town.
Hei might feel the earth grumble beneath his feet as Bolin remembers he's an earthbender. If he's close enough, he'll see a column of earth throw Korra into the air. She uses the momentum to do a flip and blast him with a gust of wind. (She'd learned quickly to minimize the airbending -- Tenzin is still the airbending master. She had tried earlier to carry them all in a tornado of air, and Tenzin had nearly killed her with his counter attack. But as long as she doesn't use it, he seems to forget he can too.)
She hits the ground and has to duck quickly to ignore a fireball Mako sends her way; elbows Asami when the other girl grabs her with that damned gloved hand, managing to break contact before she can zap. They'll forget they have powers soon enough, revert to the grabbing and biting that has left little rips and tears on Korra's thick winter jacket. (Protect every inch of skin you can, Arthur had told her, and he'd been right.)
She straightens, ready to run, but they've got her surrounded. They close in on her -- Asami, Mako, Bolin, Tenzin -- and she almost chokes on the stench. This won't be pretty.]
[ Over the din, zombies groaning like they're singing a John Lee Hooker song, Hei feels the ground quake. He whirls with a palm-heel strike to a slavering opponent, the force dislocating its jaw with a pop (it'll slow the bastard down, but not stop him), in time to spot Korra. And three very familiar zombies. ]
[ Fuck. ]
[ Dodging and weaving between teeth and claws, he sees them face off. The entire scene is controlled pandemonium. Same way he feels inside. Tick-tick-tick-ing a countdown to absolute kill-mode. He can forget, often, that Korra is more than spitfire temper and sassy teenygirl remarks. She can also be incredibly resourceful, and breathtakingly fast. Unfortunately it's not fast enough. When she's cornered, he tells himself she can handle it. The bloodshed and risks of another don't concern him -- only the placement and trajectory of his well-being does. But -- ]
[ But. ]
[ I can't leave her alone here. ]
[ Swiping his blade through a wall of rotted flesh, he creates an opening for himself. Breaks to maneuver until Korra's Gruesome Foursome are in his crosshairs. He lets a wire fly, knife embedding with a messy thwack in Tenzin's skull. Releases a catastrophic bzzzzzt of electricity, so the target crumples briefly. Giving Korra a diversion to knock the others back -- put some distance between her enemy and reconnoiter. ]
[There's a moment when Korra can't breathe. She watches blood spatter, watches Tenzin convulse like he had in the Arena. But she doesn't have time to indulge in the luxury of horror. She ducks as Mako takes an awkward swing at her and kicks his legs out from under him. Drops to the ground and rolls to avoid Bolin and Asami, who collide together. She manages to get some distance between them before rolling to her feet.
With Tenzin down (she can't think of him as dead, will break if she thinks of him as dead), she can finally use her airbending.
Light on her feet, like a probending earthbender, she creates a tornado. It captures the four ghouls and spins them high into the air. If she can knock them unconscious, she can tie them up and wait until midnight passes. She just needs to make it until midnight.
When they're two stories high, she kills the tornado, sending her friends down to the ground in a sickening crunch.]
[ Hei watches Korra summon a tornado for a pick-and-drop. As gravity yanks her opponents down, making them splatter at odd angles like broken toys, he re-focuses on his own slamfest. The first zombie and then another are decapitated -- a lash of wires and the razor-edge of his blades enough to sever brittle cartilage and muscle. They won't stay dead, but it's enough to create a window. He takes the advantage to use the chainlink fence he's backed against as a fulcrum to kick up and out. Another zombie goes down under his crashtackle, right before he launches himself knife-first at a big one. ]
[ He has no idea what Korra plans to do with her own (currently-debilitated) zombies. But he suspects this curse is wider-reaching than those that end by midnight. ]
[ High on adrenaline, a dark part of him singing from violence and nonstop motion, he slashes and strangles, leaving a twitching carpet of bodies in his wake. Approaches Korra, gore-splattered but alert, his eyes narrowed behind his mask. He's prepared to fall back, to lure his prey into a venue with overhanging wires. Fry them all so they're out-of-commission much longer than a few hours. ]
[She doesn't have time to throw up. They're not dead, she has to remind herself. In a few minutes, they'll get up and be after her again. She's learned this from hard experience. (She'll never forget when she accidently impaled Mako and the squelching sound he made as he pulled the pole from his chest and came for her again.) She needs to tie them up before that happens.
She doesn't get the chance to do that either, as one of Hei's zombies comes after her. She flips him over her shoulder; grabs the next zombie by the arm and all but throws him at the next approaching.
She sees Hei, but in the dark, high on adrenalin, it isn't actually him she sees.
I told you I would destroy you.
She grits her teeth and adapts one of her waterbending moves. She doesn't have the mastery to create an true air whip, but Hei will be hit with an invisible air cudgel if he doesn't move fast.]
[ He's perceptive enough, has pieced together enough about Korra, for divining essential truths even in the darkness. In retrospect he should've offered her a warning before approaching. But there isn't time for such superfluities. Part of him feels a jolt of irritation. If she develops the habit of reacting like this to the merest flash of a masked threat -- with that blind frantic horror-flick defense -- she'll be quite permanently killed in no time. She needs to overcome the weakness. In a battlefield, the less chinks in your armor, the better. ]
[ (Another part of him only thinks: You're going to freak this innocent girl to death. Until she accidentally kills you. That's how this'll end. ]
[ When she falls into a bending stance, her eyes seeing yet unseeing, Hei reacts fast. From his belt, a wire whips out, snagging the overarching lamppost. Gears whirr, and he goes airborne, evading the whoosh of crippling wind. In mid-air, he lets the wire snap away. Freefalls, landing right behind Korra, grabbing her in a headlock in the same fluid motion. ]
[The moment he grabs her in a headlock, her elbow heads for his gut. It takes a moment for her to register that he's said anything, another moment still to realize his voice is not Amon's (though, in this moment, they're frighteningly similar.]
Let me go.
[It's a struggle not to panic and fight against him. She feels like she's only half present -- one foot here, the other in a nightmare she can't escape unless she can move.]
[ He could've done without the elbow jab. He grits his teeth and exhales, letting the discomfort pass, pain dispersing through his muscles, knowing she's operating on reflex. He's seen and felt it before -- triggers that spawn a retroflex of memory. Like Heaven's War, over but never gone, coming alive with the rotting mephitis in the air. ]
[ He loosens his hold on her -- by slow degrees. Steps back, his free hand lifting to remove his mask. The face underneath is hard and focused, gaze unwavering, ]
All right?
[ He's not asking if she's hurt. He's asking if she's still present. ]
[As soon as his grip is loose enough, she yanks herself free. She takes a deep breath to calm herself and almost doubles over coughing from the stench. At least it helps to clear her head. None of the fights she's been in have smelled like this. Not even the sewers where she and the others had taken shelter reeked this badly.
She forces herself straight.]
What are you doing here?
[She doesn't thank him for helping her. If she did that, she'd have to remember how Tenzin fell, the blood and the convulsions.]
[ He's not expecting thanks. He made the decision in a split-second; there was no threat to his life at her expense, nor was it a ploy aimed at tit-for-tat. (BK201? Saving a life instead of extinguishing it? No one would believe you.) He lets her cough, half-expecting her to start retching. The smell has a way of sealing itself into the mind; he already knows he'll be avoiding meat for a few days, and burning incense at his flat to chase off the odors in the air. ]
[ He looks past her, mind and body on red alert. Scanning the area for new or rejuvenated zombies, ]
Target practicing.
[ Fact. The zombies are unnerving, but useful for honing old skills. ]
[Target practicing on people... As if she doesn't feel sick enough already. But she doesn't have the energy for moral indignation. She has to take care of her friends first, before they recover.]
[ They're not people, Korra. Look at them. They're warped and rotting abominations. At her question, he briefly quirks an eyebrow, before handing her a thick coil or wire knotted to the inside of his coat. ]
How are you going to kill them? Decapitation?
[ As if he can't even imagine that she wouldn't. It's a matter of expedience for him; if these creatures get free, they'll cause more destruction, attack more people. Best to nip it in the bud. ]
[People are people. Dead or alive, cursed or uncursed, good or bad. Even if they weren't, she wouldn't try to kill them. She's only ever killed animals to help feed Naga, and even that was rare -- her masters didn't like the idea of her risking her life on such a "trivial" task.]
No.
[Aang had ended the Hundred Years War without killing. Surely she can stop a few zombies while doing the same.
She takes the wire and goes over to Asami first. She pulls the glove off her hand and hurls it away, then flips the other girl over and ties her hands tight behind her back.]
[ Hei watches her, making no move to assist, his stare unreadable. Her pacifist ideology would hold little weight for him; but then, he's past the point of holding life as sacred. In a world of realpolitik, one-ups and cutthroat tactics, it comes down to the survival of the fittest. ]
[ Kill your enemy before they kill you. ]
...What then? [ A detached curiosity, as he clips his mask back in place. He has no intention of filling his lungs with the stench. The mask itself is layered in a daub of citric salve to detract from the reek. Old tricks learnt on the battlefield never go to waste. ] Don't tell me you're planning to wait until midnight.
[He should've met Aang. Korra isn't a pacifist by nature; she's no more reluctant to kill than most human beings are, and this instinct is augmented by a desire to live up to Aang's legacy. Her own natural inclinations lean more towards Kyoshi -- not seeking to kill, but unafraid to do what is necessary.]
Why not? It's a curse.
[She has to believe that. She can't think that this is really Tenzin, really Bolin and Mako and Asami. She has to believe that their real selves are safe at home. (Yet at the same time, she can't see these creatures as anything but her friends.)]
[ He steps closer, keeping watch for any telltale twitches and tics in case the zombies rouse. He doesn't view them as the kids he'd met earlier in the City. In a place of illusions and doppelgangers, they're more likely just fragments drawn from Korra's memory. Just the City fucking with her mind. ]
[ She's better off killing them. For her own sake, and anyone else's. ]
It doesn't seem to be a normal curse. [ He can't pinpoint why, but there's too much build-up, too much widespread destruction this time. The City's way of warning everyone to stay on-guard, perhaps? ] You should get rid of them. While they're still out.
Dismember them. Separate the joints so they don't knit together. Sever the skulls from the neck. [ He's not trying to be callous; he'd just prefer if she not end up in the same crisis as earlier. He can't exactly say he's attached to the girl (those feelings are never easy for him to dissect). But he is very invested in keeping her alive. ]
[ Hei shakes his head, exhaling. Right now, her attachment is a noose around her neck, while these monsters threaten to kick the chair; she'll regret it once they wake up and the battle resumes. ]
They're not your friends, Korra. They're walking corpses created by the City. Even if you escape them, they'll find someone else to attack.
[ Just laying out the facts for her. Whether she goes through with the advice or not is her problem. ]
I won't let them. [She's not leaving them until this is over. She'll make sure they don't hurt anyone else. She ties Bolin next.
Some of Hei's ghouls begin to rise up behind him, capturing Korra's attention. She doesn't notice Tenzin coming back to life behind her, or how he leaves.]
[ He refocuses on the ghouls, armed and ready. Decimating their ranks isn't difficult. Several are still loose-jointed and dazed from the earlier clash. It's only when the last one drops, gurgling and spasming, does Hei glance back at the restrained group. ]
[ He briefly considers following. But his business here is concluded. He needs to check in with Mao about the situation elsewhere. Needs to make sure Yin's doing all right. The zombies will suffer an interesting game of cause and effect if he learns she's in danger. ]
[ There's a beat to watch Korra take off, before he heads in the opposite direction. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Action;
Hei might feel the earth grumble beneath his feet as Bolin remembers he's an earthbender. If he's close enough, he'll see a column of earth throw Korra into the air. She uses the momentum to do a flip and blast him with a gust of wind. (She'd learned quickly to minimize the airbending -- Tenzin is still the airbending master. She had tried earlier to carry them all in a tornado of air, and Tenzin had nearly killed her with his counter attack. But as long as she doesn't use it, he seems to forget he can too.)
She hits the ground and has to duck quickly to ignore a fireball Mako sends her way; elbows Asami when the other girl grabs her with that damned gloved hand, managing to break contact before she can zap. They'll forget they have powers soon enough, revert to the grabbing and biting that has left little rips and tears on Korra's thick winter jacket. (Protect every inch of skin you can, Arthur had told her, and he'd been right.)
She straightens, ready to run, but they've got her surrounded. They close in on her -- Asami, Mako, Bolin, Tenzin -- and she almost chokes on the stench. This won't be pretty.]
Action;
[ Fuck. ]
[ Dodging and weaving between teeth and claws, he sees them face off. The entire scene is controlled pandemonium. Same way he feels inside. Tick-tick-tick-ing a countdown to absolute kill-mode. He can forget, often, that Korra is more than spitfire temper and sassy teenygirl remarks. She can also be incredibly resourceful, and breathtakingly fast. Unfortunately it's not fast enough. When she's cornered, he tells himself she can handle it. The bloodshed and risks of another don't concern him -- only the placement and trajectory of his well-being does. But -- ]
[ But. ]
[ I can't leave her alone here. ]
[ Swiping his blade through a wall of rotted flesh, he creates an opening for himself. Breaks to maneuver until Korra's Gruesome Foursome are in his crosshairs. He lets a wire fly, knife embedding with a messy thwack in Tenzin's skull. Releases a catastrophic bzzzzzt of electricity, so the target crumples briefly. Giving Korra a diversion to knock the others back -- put some distance between her enemy and reconnoiter. ]
Action;
With Tenzin down (she can't think of him as dead, will break if she thinks of him as dead), she can finally use her airbending.
Light on her feet, like a probending earthbender, she creates a tornado. It captures the four ghouls and spins them high into the air. If she can knock them unconscious, she can tie them up and wait until midnight passes. She just needs to make it until midnight.
When they're two stories high, she kills the tornado, sending her friends down to the ground in a sickening crunch.]
Action;
[ He has no idea what Korra plans to do with her own (currently-debilitated) zombies. But he suspects this curse is wider-reaching than those that end by midnight. ]
[ High on adrenaline, a dark part of him singing from violence and nonstop motion, he slashes and strangles, leaving a twitching carpet of bodies in his wake. Approaches Korra, gore-splattered but alert, his eyes narrowed behind his mask. He's prepared to fall back, to lure his prey into a venue with overhanging wires. Fry them all so they're out-of-commission much longer than a few hours. ]
[ What's her agenda for the night? ]
Action;
She doesn't get the chance to do that either, as one of Hei's zombies comes after her. She flips him over her shoulder; grabs the next zombie by the arm and all but throws him at the next approaching.
She sees Hei, but in the dark, high on adrenalin, it isn't actually him she sees.
I told you I would destroy you.
She grits her teeth and adapts one of her waterbending moves. She doesn't have the mastery to create an true air whip, but Hei will be hit with an invisible air cudgel if he doesn't move fast.]
Action;
[ (Another part of him only thinks: You're going to freak this innocent girl to death. Until she accidentally kills you. That's how this'll end. ]
[ When she falls into a bending stance, her eyes seeing yet unseeing, Hei reacts fast. From his belt, a wire whips out, snagging the overarching lamppost. Gears whirr, and he goes airborne, evading the whoosh of crippling wind. In mid-air, he lets the wire snap away. Freefalls, landing right behind Korra, grabbing her in a headlock in the same fluid motion. ]
[ Not to hurt her. To keep her still. ]
Calm down. It's me.
Action;
Let me go.
[It's a struggle not to panic and fight against him. She feels like she's only half present -- one foot here, the other in a nightmare she can't escape unless she can move.]
Action;
[ He loosens his hold on her -- by slow degrees. Steps back, his free hand lifting to remove his mask. The face underneath is hard and focused, gaze unwavering, ]
All right?
[ He's not asking if she's hurt. He's asking if she's still present. ]
Action;
She forces herself straight.]
What are you doing here?
[She doesn't thank him for helping her. If she did that, she'd have to remember how Tenzin fell, the blood and the convulsions.]
Action;
[ He looks past her, mind and body on red alert. Scanning the area for new or rejuvenated zombies, ]
Target practicing.
[ Fact. The zombies are unnerving, but useful for honing old skills. ]
Re: Action;
Do you have any rope?
Action;
How are you going to kill them? Decapitation?
[ As if he can't even imagine that she wouldn't. It's a matter of expedience for him; if these creatures get free, they'll cause more destruction, attack more people. Best to nip it in the bud. ]
Action;
No.
[Aang had ended the Hundred Years War without killing. Surely she can stop a few zombies while doing the same.
She takes the wire and goes over to Asami first. She pulls the glove off her hand and hurls it away, then flips the other girl over and ties her hands tight behind her back.]
Action;
[ Kill your enemy before they kill you. ]
...What then? [ A detached curiosity, as he clips his mask back in place. He has no intention of filling his lungs with the stench. The mask itself is layered in a daub of citric salve to detract from the reek. Old tricks learnt on the battlefield never go to waste. ] Don't tell me you're planning to wait until midnight.
Action;
Why not? It's a curse.
[She has to believe that. She can't think that this is really Tenzin, really Bolin and Mako and Asami. She has to believe that their real selves are safe at home. (Yet at the same time, she can't see these creatures as anything but her friends.)]
Re: Action;
[ She's better off killing them. For her own sake, and anyone else's. ]
It doesn't seem to be a normal curse. [ He can't pinpoint why, but there's too much build-up, too much widespread destruction this time. The City's way of warning everyone to stay on-guard, perhaps? ] You should get rid of them. While they're still out.
Action;
And how am I supposed to do that? In case you haven't noticed, they don't exactly stay down.
Action;
[ He's not sure when it happened. But it has. ]
Action;
No.
[It's too easy for her to imagine what he's describing, and it makes her sick.]
Action;
They're not your friends, Korra. They're walking corpses created by the City. Even if you escape them, they'll find someone else to attack.
[ Just laying out the facts for her. Whether she goes through with the advice or not is her problem. ]
Action;
Some of Hei's ghouls begin to rise up behind him, capturing Korra's attention. She doesn't notice Tenzin coming back to life behind her, or how he leaves.]
Action;
[ Minus one. ]
....Korra?
[ Who taught you to tie hostiles up? ]
Action;
She quickly finishes tying Bolin (not very well) and takes off after him.]
Action;
[ There's a beat to watch Korra take off, before he heads in the opposite direction. ]
ooc