Legend of Korra He Who Sleeps

"You're sure that you haven't seen anything?" Korra asked again, doing her best to try and sit comfortably, or just stay balanced, on the wobbly chair Gommu had provided for their meeting. She could have steadied herself by placing her hands on the table that rested between them but it was so splintered and equally wobbly, the only thing keeping it remotely stable being the wads of paper and rock wedged under the short legs, that she was afraid to touch it, sure it would either break apart or send the half eaten street gruel he had served tipping over. Gommu naturally fared better at keeping balance on the nearly broken furniture of his metal shack, leaning forward in his chair and placing his elbows on the table without the table flinching or the chair even groaning in protest, while hers screamed whenever she moved.

"Sorry but the last time we spied any Equalists down here was right after you sent Amon soaring into the bay and some tried hiding out with us, let alone an entire squad." He answered as he lifted a spoon full of gruel from his bowl and ate it, giving a delighted hum at the taste. "Is it true that he shot out of the water on some kind of tornado of water?" He questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"It's called a Water Spout or a Water Vortex if you want to sound dangerous." She admitted before lifting her own spoonful of gruel, careful to remain as still as possible to not break the crumbling bowl and spoon. She also gave a pleasant hum when she tasted the gruel, noting a striking similarity to her mothers' sea prunes. "But yeah I think I might have knocked him out when I sent him through the window. He probably came to under the water and panicked, good thing to. That's probably what made him start waterbending to save himself and reveal to everyone that he was liar and a fraud like I said he was." Korra explained, eating another spoonful of gruel. If she could be honest about it she'd admit that Am- Noatak had easily been a master waterbender, creating and maintaining a water vortex suddenly under life threatening stress and then escaping underwater at an impressive speed. It made her wonder how much his psychic bloodbending lent itself to his waterbending.

"So how's the search going for him anyway? Half the city is spooked that he's going to pop up again." Gommu asked, wiping his face clean with a dirty cloth. Her body stiffened at the mention of the search for the fugitive Noatak and the missing Tarrlok, an ongoing mission that had lasted since their disappearance three months ago.

"Still nothing." She lied. "When we interrogated some Equalists we noticed that one of their speed boats was missing when they gave us their inventory of everything stored at Air Temple Island. So we assume that Amon took Tarrlok with him on that, so who knows where they are." But Korra knew damn well where they were, or rather what pieces of them they could find.

She estimated she was still in the South Pole having Master Katara examine her to see if she could fix Noatak's blocking of her bending when one of the search ships came across floating bits of debris in the Mo Ce Sea. Finding more and more debris they called in the other search parties and had special waterbender diver teams begin searching the depths around that part of the sea. It had taken months of careful systematic search over miles of dark sea floor with the divers having to maintain the oxygen in their bubbles while fire and earthbenders provided light and uncovered buried debris with the use of The Great Toph Beifong's famed seismic sense. But they had found them, piece by rotting piece, until they had enough to confirm some stray bits of jaw were Tarrlok's through dental records.

Korra had just finished help quell a riot in Port Yue, started when a group of Equalists had the gall to try and _raid a United Forces shipment_ for supplies and the people had for some reason lost their shit, about two weeks ago when she had been told. Tenzin had come up to her while she helped treat the wounded police officers, there were a few benders mixed in with the nonbender populace of Port Yue who for some reason had decided to side with them, and explained that they had found them. She had been… relieved? Noatak could still take away peoples bending far easier than she could restore it, he took a second and could go on for hours while she only could restore about five everyday even with being able to just activate the Avatar State at will. So knowing exactly where he was did indeed bring comfort. But when Tenzin had led her away from prying ears and told her the truth…

It was odd, knowing that the contents of a simple tagged bag in the Forensic Department of the Republic City Police Headquarters contained the remains of what were her two greatest enemies. They were still investigating the salvaged wreckage but it was clear that the speed boat they had escaped on had exploded, whether through malfunction or sabotage was unknown, and The Council in one of their final decisions before elections began for the president decided to withhold the news of Amon's and Tarrlok's demise until the right moment.

'He could have helped.' She had thought when she first saw the bag just lying on an examination table, she still hadn't looked inside nor did she ever plan to, ready to be opened and its terrible contents revealed. 'I doubt Noatak would have been able to calm The Equalists down but Tarrlok was repentant, he told us Noatak's secret and their past. He could have served his time for his crimes and helped Republic City or just gone back to the Northern Water Tribe. Uncle Unalaq was the one who appointed him their representative after all; he could've found something for him.' But still Noatak, the man who had terrified her with his very presence and the threat of his power, and Tarrlok, who had so easily manipulated her into his plans when they first met, were dead from an _accident_ during their escape, what little of them could be found in a tagged bag, and she was sharing another meal with the breaded vagabond she met her first day in the city. The oddity perplexed her a little.

"So what's this business of Little Omashu walling itself in?" Gommu asked, tearing her thoughts away to more current problems. "Spring may be upon us but me and my fellow vagabonds will be stuck down here for another month at least."

"Oh they're just angry that we had to get a little forceful while pacifying the people in Port Yue during the riot. They had Equalists with them because we chased them down here when they tried to sneak out. We could just break down the walls or just drop in with some airships but Tenzin wants to try talking to them, seeing if a compromise is possible. Pfftthpth!" She said blowing a raspberry at the end while leaning back and crossing her arms over her chest. There was a loud crack as the back support of her chair snapped at the base and Korra found herself suddenly leaning on nothing. With a startled cry she fell backwards and desperately tried to bend the air around her to stop the fall. With a rough spin of her arms and legs she managed to flip herself around, nearly slamming nose first into the hard concrete, until she was on her feet, the wind she conjured up enough to shake the very frame of Gommu's metal shack and send his bowl of gruel flying into his face. With a nervous chuckle when the shack stopped shaking, and it became clear it wasn't going to collapse, and Gommu had wiped all of the gruel mixed with dust that Korra had blown onto his face away she gracefully bowed out of his presence.

"So anyway thanks for the info and sorry about the mess!" She turned around to hustle out of there only to slam face first into the doorframe. "Fuck!" Korra yelled holding her pained and throbbing nose as Gommu just burst into laughter, his bread still dripping with mess she caused. Stepping to her right she hurried through the tattered cloth that passed for a door and left him to continue gasping for air as she walked back to where she had left Naga. 'Ow, ow, ow! Why don't I carry a water skin for stuff like this?!' She criticized herself as her vision actually blurred before a drop of water landed on the back of her hand and she stopped in her tracks.

She gazed up to the unlit ceiling of the large tunnel hub the homeless used to house their little rundown enclave and extended an arm up towards it, pulling it back slowly while curving her arm up and down while people stopped to try and figure out what she was doing. Eventually a tiny stream of water emerged from the darkness and began to circle around her right hand slowly. It looked like it would be enough but it was dirty and filled with small debris from whatever leaky pipe she had pulled it from. Using her left hand she began to spin the water faster and faster until the physical debris began to shoot out the sides and land at her feet, eventually clearing it. Still to be safe she bent the water into steam and then condescend it again and again, finally getting back to walking to Naga as she did so. Gathering the now clean water into a blob in her hand she brought it to her nose and began the healing process, stiffening at the sharp pain as it first took hold then easing as she dulled the pain receptors. "Ah yeah that's the stuff." Korra said to herself beginning the healing process, getting a strange look from a passerby. "Good old waterbending healing. Much better than that modern stuff nonbende- NAGA PUT THAT DOWN!"

She had rounded the corner of a slightly large metal shack to find her polar bear dog companion chewing on the body of a huge spider rat, easily the size of cat owl, the creatures' eight skeletal and furred legs twitching every time Naga chomped down. There was a crowd gathered around her trying to get the giant beast to let the vermin go and eat what they had provided for her, a nice pile of what smelled like seal meat, so she probably killed the spider rat to protect her dinner. "NAGA! DROP! IT!" Korra commanded when she pushed through the crowd and reached her beast who finally complied and released the spider rat, its body hitting the floor with a loud thump as its steaming insides fell out through the crushed openings punctured in its chitin exoskeleton under the brown fur by Naga's fangs. Korra held Naga's head and examined her carefully, making her open her mouth still fresh with blood. "You have to be careful Naga. Who knows what kind of diseases that thing had!" She looked down at the spider rat again noting the size of it and wondering what it could possibly eat down here to grow so large. Its eight beady solid black eyes stared back up at her from under its small ears, its tongue lolling out of its mouths over so many little fangs and sharp teeth. And those two small arm, fang, things resting behind the whiskers that injected venom…

Her eyes traveled from its head to the mostly crushed midsection, the skeletal haired legs barely attached to the broken body with two clawed toes on each leg twitch digging at the ground. Red intestines spilled out onto the concrete as its blood began to pool, matting the fur while on its back all the way to its larger rear section the half inch thick body length spines remained undamaged. She knew enough about spider rat biology to know these operated similarly to the whiskers on its face while also flaring up to give it a greater size to scare predators, she also knew that they were tough as hell and could only be removed with carving knives as some "businessmen" came to the South Pole to try and to sell them alongside ming snake oil to improve a person's vitality.

Her vision swam again as she looked at it and she tore her eyes off it back to Naga, shaking her vision clear. "And don't even get me started on the venom! Who knows what that things fang arm things could be holding?" Naga just whined at her masters chastising, giving her the saddest eyes she could. They were the same that she used to beg meals from.

"They're called Chelicerae. But do not worry, spider rats carry no venom. Their method of hunting is swarm based." Korra turned around to find an elderly woman standing behind her, about the age of Master Katara she guessed, that the crowd had given a wide breath. Her eyes were a milky white that pointed to advance cataracts framed by a multitude of wrinkles on her pale skin, her long greying hair just hung off her head with no sign of treatment. But the thing that made Korra nearly take a step back was the dirty white robes she wore. They were much too large for her and just hung off her body with no shape, the sleeves giving plenty of space for her bony hands and wrists. "I am Mother Chiyo."

"OK." Korra responded to the introduction. "I'm Avatar Korra." She took a step forward and held out her hand to shake in introduction.

"I know who you are." She responded, just looking at the outstretched hand. "I met your predecessor. He was a fool." She narrowed her blind eyes at The Avatar. "From what I've heard you aren't much better."

"Hey just who the hell do you think… you… are?" Korra began her verbal assault with a pointed finger which began to shake has her vision blurred again, harder than ever before. "W-what?" She asked as her legs began to tremble. She distantly heard Naga whine then collapse behind her, the sound seemingly coming over a great distance.

"They tell you to never accept food or drink from strangers. Good advice, but the most dangerous crimes are often committed by those a person knows. And trusts." Mother Chiyo said as Korra fell to her hands and knees, barely able to keep her head up as Gommu emerged from the crowd to stand next to the old woman. "Give in Avatar Korra. You're going to need your strength."

"Fu- Fu- ck y- ou!" Korra managed to say, trying to breathe flames from her mouth at Mother Chiyo only for her stuttered words to emerge. With one final attempt to get back up her hand slipped on the expanded pool of spider rat blood and she fell to the concrete.

* * *

Unlike the previous occasions when she was knocked unconscious there were no flashes of her past life from Aang to try and warn her what was really going on, so her reawakening came back sense by sense. First came hearing, the sounds of footsteps on stone were the loudest followed by hushed whispers that spoke words she couldn't make out. Next oddly was smell, the stink of the underground sewers stronger than ever mixed with a rot she couldn't place. Then came taste as she could still feel the delicious gruel that fucking traitor Gommu had served her. Next was touch, she felt her bare feet on cold stone floor and ropes around her wrists behind what felt like a large pole against her back. The cold air against skin that should have been covered made Korra realize she had been stripped naked. Snapping her eyes open she found her final sense and looked around wildly.

'What the fuck?' She looked down and confirmed that yes she was in what she'd been born in. 'What the fuck!' Her eyes swung around the room to find five other people, three men and two women, who were just waking as she was to probably the same level of confusion and were as naked as she was and tied to poles with her in a large circle around an empty space. 'WHAT THE FUCK!' She spied what she estimated to be every single vagabond from the homeless enclave carrying torches in the dark chamber, waiting behind the posts for whatever reason.

"Ah good. You're awake." Korra swung her head to the right as Mother Chiyo walked past her from behind to stand in front of her, her hands resting behind her back in what Korra was sure was a taunt to her current restraint.

"You bitch!" Korra yelled, getting everyone's attention both those tied to the posts and the various vagabonds lingering around. She tried again to breathe fire and burn this bitches face off but nothing came, leaving her struggling against her bonds uselessly. "Why are you doing this?!"

"I am fulfilling my role." She answered with a wave of her hand and the vagabonds came closer around the captives, Korra could feel the heat of the torches against her arms and shoulders. "Your bending will return in time but don't bother with the Avatar State. We are in His domain, and He will not let you escape so easily." She turned to walk to the center of the circle but Korra managed to yell one final fact.

"People know where I went you assholes!" She said more to the crowd than Mother Chiyo. "When I'm overdue back at Air Temple Island they're gonna send search parties to your little sewer village first!"

"And all they will find is your polar bear dog on some many drugs it'll be a miracle that she's still breathing let alone able to move while we disappear into the cities underground. Never estimate the lengths people will go to avoid even looking at the homeless Avatar Korra." Mother Chiyo countered as she reached the center of the circle and raised her arms. "Brothers and Sisters! We have once again gathered to offer thanks to the All Mother! She who guards He Who Sleeps!" She gestured to the one of the tied up men, an older man of clear Fire Nation descent with black hair and a thin mustache along with golden eyes. One of the vagabonds from the crowd stepped out with a knife and stood in front of him. "We offer it knowing that she has spared us from the swarm of her children!" The vagabonds sliced the knife across his chest just enough to draw blood, the man crying out in pain and calling him a motherfucker. When enough blood had seeped through the wound he placed his dirty hand and smeared it all the way down the man's stomach to just above his groin. Then he walked over to the next person tied to a post, a young woman with sharp blue eyes and short brown hair that hinted of mixed Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom descent, and repeated the process. "We offer it knowing that this sacrifice protects not only us, but all of humanity from He Who Sleeps and Those He Favors!"

'The fuck is she spouting? I've got to get out of here and get back to Naga and the- AHH!' Korra's final thoughts became vocalized when it was her turn to get the cut and the smearing of blood. "You fucker!" The vagabond didn't spare her a second glance as he moved onto the next person in line. Mother Chiyo moved from the center to the circle to rejoin the crowd across from Korra, standing in between two of the posts. A man and a woman emerged from the crowd to stand next to her taking a rough earthbending stance and thrusting their arms forward and then to opposing sides. The floor began to shake and slowly it split open revealing a pitch black hole in the ground with sloped edges, Korra began to edge her feet away from it when floor slid under her and she could feel it settle into place. She just stared into the black pit, a sense of foreboding and fear curling around her gut, when Mother Chiyo spoke again.

"Toss them in." She said simply. Korra felt multiple pairs of hands on her wrists as they cut the bonds trying to restrain her. She pulled her right arm forward with a roar hard enough to knock the people holding onto it off balance, and send them dangerously close to the edge, while grapped the wrist of someone else with her left hand, squeezing it so hard she was sure she felt something crack as they screamed. The other people tied to the poles tried doing the same thing with little success. One by one they were tossed or pushed in, desperately screaming and clawing at the sloped edges as they fell into the darkness, until it was only Korra and a younger man with black hair and goatee with green eyes who had managed to get an arm free. He curled his hand into a fist with the exception of the point and middle finger which were left out but curled and Korra's heart froze when she recognized it. Or rather when he struck one of the vagabonds in the arm and that arm went limp.

'Chiblocker!' She screamed in her mind as she suddenly realized that the people she had been seeking down here in the sewers were the ones being tossed into the pit with her. This moment of distraction, coupled with her finally releasing the wrist she kept in a death grip, was all those holding her needed as they heaved her off the ground and threw her in. The last thing Korra saw as the final chiblocker was thrown in with her was Mother Chiyo staring down at her with those milky eyes.

* * *

The echoes of screaming, crashing, and swearing was what accompanied Korra on the way down through the darkness, much of it her own. She tried gripping the edges to get some traction or earthbend some of the stone out so she could grab onto it. Unfortunately the walls proved too slick and true to Mother Chiyo's word her bending was still gone so all she could do was fall with the squad of chiblockers. They tumbled through the darkness together, bouncing off of stone until suddenly they were met with only air as the floor gave way. Korra just felt air rushing past her in the darkness, similar to the times she'd spent using her airbending to soar into the air and just free fall back down, until the sounds of impact and shouts of pain below her alerted her that ground was very quickly approaching.

She brought her arms to cover her head, bent her knees, and positioned her legs so she hit the ground feet first. Preparing for the impact she felt the shock as her feet impacted the ground and she quickly shifted to the side so she could fall onto her left side, the force causing her to bounce into the air again and crash back onto the ground. "Shit." Korra wheezed out as she brought an arm to her side to cradle her screaming rips careful not to touch the open wound on her chest. She felt the cool smooth floor against her back and placed her hand on the ground and instead of uneven stone she found unyielding metal. "What the fuck?" She whispered to herself. It seemed that she wouldn't be earthbending a tunnel out of here. 'I really need to learn metalbending.' The others didn't seem to have fared much better at landing as they groaned in the darkness and _one wouldn't stop screaming_!

"AHH! FUCK! FUCK!" He screamed over and over again somewhere to Korra's left, maybe four feet away. She painfully got to her knees and managed to sit up, trying to pinpoint where The Equalists were. In her current state she could hardly fight them off but the darkness meant that she was as hidden as they were.

"Wakaki calm down!" A female voice commanded to her right, about five-six feet. "Who's still alive?"

"I am boss." An older male voice answered, it sounded like he was walking over to Wakaki as it matched the careful footsteps. "What's wrong man? Where did you land? Where exactly does it hurt?" He asked in a hushed voice as Wakaki whimpered out an inaudible reply.

"Right while Huan does that anyone got a pack of smokes?" Another male voice said, this one maybe only two feet to her right.

"Of course Li! I always smuggle a pack of cigarettes in my ass so that you can smoke when we get our asses drugged, stripped down, sliced open, and thrown down a fucking hole!" The final voice, this one a very sarcastic female, revealed itself again to her right next to Li.

"You keep them in your ass? Suzume I thought as a woman a far more enjoyable place for you to stash them would be OW! OW! OW!" The sound of a fist hitting flesh reverberated around them and echoed away, apparently down a number of tunnels. Korra hissed when she moved to the side and put pressure on her rips and she could _feel_ them all stiffen at the sound.

"Almost forgot you were here Avatar." The first woman said, the apparent leader and the only member in this squad of chiblockers she didn't now have a name for. "Are you willing to parley?"

"What?!" Korra and Wakaki exclaimed at the same time although his was followed by a hiss of pain as he tried to sit himself up to Huan's protests. "Captain you can't be serious! She's the Avatar! She's just going to fucking betray us and leave us down here!" Korra rose to defend herself and glared down at where she assumed he was.

"And what makes you think I'm going to betray you? Is it because I'm a bender?" She asked, taking a stab at anti bender sentiments he must have held to be an Equalist. "Or are you just bitter that even though I revealed Amon was a fraud and a liar I also made it clear that there is no nonbender oppression. It was just Tarrlok trying to seize power and Amon manipulating you all!" The temperature seemingly dropped significantly as she heard the chiblockers breath in sharply.

"The fuck did you just say to us?" Suzume asked in dangerous whisper, taking a couple steps toward her or rather a couple steps to her right. "Because it sounds like you just said that we're all too stupid to know what's really going on in front of us. That all it would take would be one corrupt politician being an asshole and a guy in a mask with some smooth words to make us buy into anything, to make us risk our lives and the lives of our families for it. _Not_ that it was something we had to deal with _every single day_ of our lives from sun up to sun down. Knowing that no matter how hard you tried you wouldn't get as far someone who didn't deserve it simply because of how you were born. Knowing that your problems would be _ignored_ because of what you are! Knowing th-"

"That's enough Suzume." The Captain commanded and Korra heard her back off, grumbling to herself. "Do you parley Avatar Korra?"

"What are you negotiating for?" Korra asked still ticked at the verbal barrage she just endured. How were they ignoring the nonbenders? Tenzin was holding off the police from breaking the barricades down at Little Omashu so he could try to compromise with them. And how could the nonbenders not advance? He may be a mad man now but Hiroshi proved that nonbenders could get pretty far when they actually tried. "If we get out of here I can't just let you all go."

"I am aware. But you're healer right? I have a wounded man, we all have knife wounds and we need your firebending to be able to see and find a way out of here." She reasoned. "It's in our best interests to form a… temporary peace."

"You're asking me to use my bending?" Korra asked, genuinely shocked a little. "I thought to get in The Equalists you all had to hate benders as if we were all Fire Lord Ozai."

"That is a gross over generalization." The Captain responded coldly to the comparison of themselves and the 118 year old war criminal. "And Bend_ing_ and Bend_ers_ are nowhere near the same thing. But please, with the light at least?"

"Yeah the faster you can actually make a light would be great thanks." Li whined. "Much as I enjoy just seeing impenetrable blackness around me I'd enjoy seeing how fire light illuminates Suzume's ti- OW! OW!" The sound of Suzume hitting Li again. Korra tried bending fire into her hand and managed to get a small flicker of flame. The orange glow allowed her to see the faces of her Equalist companions and the way Wakaki's leg was twisted at a terrible angle, the bone clearly pressing against the skin trying to break free. She could see what looked like the entrances to tunnels all around them wide enough for three of people to stand side by side and more than tall enough, its deep silver metal reflecting the flame wonderfully. "Damn Waki you got fucked up!" Li exclaimed, revealing himself to be the man with the goatee who managed to strike at the vagabonds before she was thrown in.

"No shit Li. I can barely feel it." Wakaki hissed, revealing him to be a middle aged man of clear Water Tribe descent, sharing Korra's skin tone, eye, and hair color.

"You should have tucked and rolled like I did. I landed perfectly; right between Suzume's bountifu-" He raised his shoulder and closed his eyes to prepare for Suzume's assault but nothing came. He looked to Suzume, who was the blue eyed long brown haired woman from earlier, and found her just staring into the darkness of a tunnel, eyes wide and shaking. "Suzume?"

"You didn't see them?!" She demanded not tearing her eyes away from the tunnel behind The Captain.

"See what?" Huan asked, stepping away from Wakaki and revealing himself to be the old, thin mustached Fire Nation man.

"The eyes!" She all but screamed and pointed into the dark. "The fucking fire reflected off of them! There must have been a dozen of them and then they just disappeared!"

"It was probably just spider rats Suzume." The Captain said and Korra finally got a good look at her. She had deep black hair and green eyes like Asami with the crucial difference of a deep scar running from her right eyebrow across her face to her jaw. "Are you scared of them or something?"

"NO! WHY?! Fuck you Li!" She quickly denied before immediately jumping to yelling at her counterpart for his soon to be comment.

"I… didn't say anything." Li responded unsure on how to approach this.

"Right so any ideas on how we get out of here?" Korra asked The Captain. "My bending is returning but I'm not a metalbender. We'll have to go back up through the pit."

"Yeah, let's just hop through a hole above us," Wakaki pointed up about twenty feet where the faint circular outline was visible, "and scale slippery sloped walls and then fight off a few dozen homeless people. That'll go great." He argued with a roll of his eyes.

Korra scowled down at him. "I'm The Avatar. I fly up there, extend a slap of earth out of the wall, bring you all up one by one," The Captain began to nod in understanding, "then I use earthbending to scale us up the walls slowly so that we don't attract attention. Then we burst through the floor and if they're there we fight our way through and if they're not I guess we fight each other." She looked around at The Equalists. "Unless you all feel like turning yourselves in to face justice."

"Is that what getting shipped off to The Hole and forced to stand in those two by two cells is? Yeah, no thanks." Li confirmed.

"So it's agreed. The Avatar heals Wakaki, helps us escape and we help her fight off that Mother Chiyo's cult if they're up there. Then we go back to trying to kill each other." The Captain said and her squad nodded reluctantly but Korra reeled back at the statement.

"What?! I've never tried to kill anyone!" Korra defended as The Equalists rolled their eyes and scoffed.

"Right. Because encasing people's heads in ice, throwing gigantic chunks of road at them, and trying to set them on fire are clearly nonlethal tactics." The previously quiet Huan said sarcastically. "And I'm sure there were only four people learning chiblocking during that raid while you were on Tarrlok's Task Force. Never mind that our training sites were so popular we often had a dozen people there at a time."

"We only let the reporters take pictures of four of them after we… dressed them in their uniforms." Korra admitted, a bit of shame at the act returning. "It was to "preserve their image" Tarrlok said. We sent four to jail right away and the other three to the hospital."

"That's only eleven. We had twelve that night, five teachers, five students, and two actual chiblockers as guards. Who apparently were taking a smoke break when you showed up." Huan pressed. "What happened to the last one?"

"It was an accident and I didn't do it!" She snapped suddenly, the flame flaring a little brighter. "One of the other officers just slammed her into the wall! We didn't realize she was… gone until she wouldn't get up when we told her to." The others just shook their heads and muttered damnation to themselves. "It was an accident!"

"Yeah, yeah." Suzume said, finally taking her eyes off the tunnel. "Not that it matters. No one cares when a nonbender dies."

"That's enough everyone." The Captain ordered. "Li, Suzume, Huan, I want you to start jogging in place."

"What? Why?" Li asked perplexed as Huan and Suzume did so without question.

"So I can use your sweat to heal his leg and our chest wounds." Korra answered as if he were an idiot, pointing down at Wakaki's twisted leg. "I can't pull water out of metal and the air is too dry."

"Oh, right." He said before settling into a stationary jog. Korra moved to kneel next to Wakaki and was joined by The Captain. She brought the flame close to his leg and examined it, noting where the break most likely was. She placed a hand on one side and looked at him. He nodded, understanding what was about to happen and braced himself. She extinguished the flame and placed her other hand on the other side of his leg and forcefully moved it back into place, Wakaki crying out in pain as it was set back into a more natural position.

"Will he be able to walk after you're done with him?" The Captain asked placing a comforting hand on Wakaki's shoulder when he moved and hissed in pain at Korra's touch.

"Not without help or a great deal of pain." Korra admitted, bringing the fire back. "It'd be better if we just carried him out of here. We'll have to leave him on the slab when we fight Mother Chiyo." 'And find Gommu.' She mentally added. Oh when she got her hands on that traitorous motherfucking son of bitch…

"I'm sorry Captain." Wakaki whispered. "Li was right; I fucked up the landing and just crashed to the ground like drunk hogmonkey at the last day of the circus." She raised an eyebrow at the unusual metaphor and quelled the flame in her hand. She reached where Li, Suzume, and Huan were jogging and pulled the sweat that began to accumulate, to Li's protests of "Fine, just rip the sweat right out of my glands, doesn't feel weird at all", and evaporated it into steam then condensed again, repeating the process until she had a clear small ball. It began to glow with healing qualities she imbued it with, the darkness pushed back by a bright blue glow. There was a brief moment when the glow appeared further back in the darkness across a hundred different circles of varying size, reflecting the glow.

"But what if you landed in the same position as him? What would your wife or my husband think?" The Captain asked with a smile and getting a chuckle out of him. Korra flicked her eyes to them to see if they saw the glow reflecting off of the spider rat's eyes. "Did Seiko get out of Yu Dao in time?" The Captain asked, not even looking at The Avatar. Korra flicked her eyes to the jogging trio who all had their eyes closed in concentration then back up to find the eyes gone, just darkness.

"I don't know." He admitted with a worried frown. "How about Jian and Biming? Did they ever get to Kita No G-AHH!" He cried out when the healing water hit his leg and started to work its magic.

"I think those spider rats are getting closer." Korra warned, moving the healing water up and down Wakaki's leg. Her eyes scanned the darkness all around them for any sign of them and again she found nothing. If they were as big as the one Naga had killed…

"What?!" Suzume's eyes shot open as she stopped jogging in place and looked around wildly. "How many were there?! How big did they seem?!" She started pacing as they all cast worried looks to each other. "Which tunnel were they down?"

"Uh," Korra drowned unsure, "maybe a couple dozen down that tunnel?" She pointed over Wakaki to the tunnel directly in front of her. She lifted the water off of his leg and nodded in satisfaction to The Captain, hooked her arm around his and hoisted it over her shoulder while Korra did the same with his other, careful to not disrupt water still floating in her hand, and they lifted him to his feet. "I couldn't tell how big they were but I saw one before we got thrown about… well before we were thrown down here." Now that she thought about it how long had she been out? She had met Gommu around 7 P.M. and she had been unconscious long enough for her to be moved and stripped to the entrance of the pit. An extended blank space in her memory where she was vulnerable and exposed like that did nothing to alleviate her fears or anger. "It was about the size of a cat owl." Huan came and took her spot keeping Wakaki up and she divided the water into both hands and then brought them to The Captain and Wakaki's chest wounds. They had all stopped bleeding some time ago but she still had to close the wound so it wouldn't reopen.

"Shit. Shit, shit." Suzume started pacing again. "That's not the same tunnel I saw them in. They're surrounding us." She stopped and glared at Korra as she removed the water from The Captain and Wakaki and started healing herself and Huan. "Can't you do that any faster? We've got to get out of here!"

"Believe it or not this isn't something you can rush." Korra responded with an edge to her voice. "Plus my bending hasn't reached the point that I can get high enough to bend the slab to carry us out of here. Besides what's the big deal? They're just spider rats." Incredibly big spider rats maybe but still spider rats. A quick fire ball would teach them to stay away.

"Spider rats the size of cat owls! They'll attack adults that size! I've seen it!" Everyone raised their eyebrows at that as Korra moved to begin healing her and Li. "I grew up in The Gut." Suzume explained and everyone but Korra and Li ahh'd at that.

"What's The Gut?" Korra asked. Was that another borough like Dragon Flats and Little Omashu? Both of those were pretty bad compared to the more middle class neighborhoods that she usually frequented, most recently helping Mako and Bolin find a new place.

"A shithole." She answered plainly. "It's near the factories so you can't breathe the air, the street doubles as a sewer, and half of it is officially condemned but people still live there." A distant look entered her eyes as Korra removed the healing water and she rubbed where the wound used to be. "But the worst is the spider rats. They're everywhere. In the alleys, the garbage, and the fucking walls. And they just wait for the perfect time to attack, either stealing food or going after it more directly." The rubbing picked up speed and moved up to her shoulder. "They'd kill people's pets, swarming full sized dogs and cats, and just pick them clean before you even get home." Her breathing started to pick up and Korra took a cautionary step back. "I saw them attack homeless people especially. Just appearing out of nowhere when they enter alleyways. All it takes is five or six of them; that's all they need to get ballsy." She brought the other arm to the other shoulder and held herself. "You can't leave babies alone. Not even for a second."

Korra just stood there with everyone else dumbstruck, completely clueless on how to handle a situation like this. Her training at the South Pole never really covered comforting deep rooted psychological trauma. Luckily it was Li who brought Suzume out of it with a simple hand on her shoulder and firm squeeze. Her eyes refocused and she looked at him and he offered a simple smile which she returned. She then turned back to Korra and asked, "So we getting out of here anytime soon or what?"

"Yeah, but first hold this." Korra instructed Li to cup his hands and weaved the healing water into them.

"Sure, give me the healing sweat to hold. That's… that's just great." Li complained looking down at it as the blue glow disappeared and Korra rekindled flames into her hands.

"I'm going to scare them off and make it clear that if they get any closer to us they're going to get burned. I highly doubt they'd put up with the fire alone just to get a meal." There were six tunnels all around them and Korra started with the one that Suzume had first seen them down, launching a fist sized blast of fire down the tunnel. It traveled down it uneventfully until it hit a wall some ways down, its dying light revealing a fork that led to two other tunnels. Working clockwise she fired down the next tunnel and the next until the fourth where a brief flash of a brown furred skeletal leg as the spider rat fled the flame soaring above it. There was a muttered "did you see the size of it?" from Wakaki and Suzume gritted her teeth but the fifth tunnel proved to be as empty as the rest.

Korra for her part was just enjoying being able to bend her favorite element again, loving the surge of power that traveled from her lungs to her shoulder and then down her arm and out the fist. It felt good to be powerful again, to be in control even in this crazy situation where she was working with Equalists. By the third tunnel Korra and moved on from simply just throwing a ball of fire to more complicated maneuvers. For the fifth for instance she had decided to go with a pair of smaller and faster shots of firebending that had erupted from the tips of a pair of outstretched fingers on each hand. Readying herself for the final tunnel Korra instead kicked a final stream of fire into the tunnel, holding the position long enough that she'd be sure that the fire would hit the end. She doubted that the others would find it impressive but it was good practice nonetheless. The feeling of power she felt when the fire traveled out her foot disappeared when it revealed what the final tunnel contained, replaced with a cold terror.

The spider rats were packed closely together, their legs nearly interlocking so that their bodies could be pressed against one another to save space. The ones the fire first revealed were normal in size, just over ten inches in length with their ears and thick body hairs laid flat and pitch black eyes staring forward, with more than three dozen of them forming the first line at the mouth of the tunnel. Soon this gave way to ones as big as cat owls, towering above their average sized brothers and sisters in small pockets among the swarm. About half way down the tunnel they saw one as large as a wolf in the dead center of the swarm filled tunnel, its chelicerae twitching excitedly. When the fire sailed over it the largest spider rats' thick body spines raised themselves to full mast and its chelicerae open wide so its mouth would be unimpeded when it let out a piercing screech, like metal being dragged against glass. In unison the others mimicked it their many voices coming together as one death howl as they surged forward toward Korra and The Equalists, the larger ones just stepping over the smaller ones.

In response, Korra and the others turned and fled down the opposite tunnel at full sprint.

Suzume and Li took the lead, Suzume surprisingly the only one not screaming in sheer terror, while The Captain and Huan continued to carry Wakaki in the center, straining to keep up and have enough space in the tight tunnel. Korra brought up the rear bending fireball after fireball into the face of the swarm, watching as the spider rats fur caught flame when struck and as they spasmed in a death thrall that went ignored as their brethren simply filled in the space created. The new spider rats simply walked over the dying and the swarm seemingly never lost mass as they did so, their screeching death howl continuing uninterrupted. When she reached the mouth of the new tunnel Korra spied new swarms emerging from the adjacent tunnels.

'That's impossible! It was clear!' She screamed in her mind, or it could have been aloud it was hard to tell over the screeching, as she flung fire at one of the cat owl sized spider rats'. Its body crashed to the ground as the others rushed over it, uncaring that their skeletal legs got singed in the process as its fur burned away to reveal the solid black chitin underneath. A scream of pain broke the through the ones of terror behind her and Korra swung her eyes to find a spider rat, its coat a deep silver instead of brown, latched onto The Captain's face. She fell back onto the wall, shoving Huan and Wakaki out of the way, as its chelicerae dug into her brow and its jaws clamped down and chewed through her right eye. The two clawed toes on the end of each leg digging into her cheeks and forehead, ripping bits of flesh away as it constantly dug and pulled to get a grip.

A screech above her forced Korra to tear her eyes away from the horrific scene to a spider rat falling down towards her, its fangs salivating as it no doubt prepared to dig its jaw into her face. She breathed a torrent of fire that caught the beast right before it crashed into her arms, barely raised in time to protect her. It no longer had coherent movement as its claws dug into her flesh, ripping away skin deep enough to expose muscle and screeching in its death thrall, the sound alone painful enough to sting her ears. Korra gripped around a pair of legs, the burning fur falling off and letting her grip the chitin underneath, and flung it into the swarm with a guttural roar made from a mixture of rage and the pain of her muscles feeling the sting of air for the first time. Fury fueling her actions she sent a wave of fire across the tunnel, insuring it to burn the spider rats gripping the very walls when the floor proved too crowded when the other swarms joined, and turned back to the others.

Suzume and Li had managed to pull the spider rat off of The Captain, and were now stomping its body into a bloody paste while the bottom of their feet turned a sickening red with clumps of fur stuck to them, who lay against the tunnel wall holding her face. Blood flowed freely from between her fingers as Huan tried to provide some measure of aid while Wakaki leaned against the wall and stared up at the ceiling, his mouth trying to help him formulate thoughts. Korra followed his gaze to see a small rough crater on the ceiling, just big enough for a spider rat to tuck its body into, and came to the same conclusion as Wakaki did as she turned her gaze back to the stomped on silver spider rat. Its coat matched the metal walls perfectly, even with the orange glow of fire.

That solved the mystery of where the swarms from the cleared tunnels had appeared from.

Feeding the fire at the mouth of the tunnel again and hearing a slew of new death screeches that filled her with a savage joy Korra ran to The Captain trying to collect the sweat off of herself and Suzume and Li to create more healing water. "Move your hands! MOVE YOUR FUCKING HANDS!" Korra screamed as she fought away a gibbering Huan and tried to get The Captain to stop covering her face. She managed to pry away one hand and nearly fell back when she saw the condition she was in.

The Captain's right eye was gone, what little white remained of the soft eye ball mixed in with blood pouring out from the empty socket and the eyebrow hanging from a thread above it. Her cheeks had been torn open giving Korra a glimpse of her mutilated tongue inside, with what looked like deep gouges on her teeth and on the exposed cheek bones. She tried to bring the healing water to her… everything when The Captain's free hand stopped her, weakly smearing blood all over Korra's wrist.

"no…" She managed to garble out through the blood in her mouth. "get, them… out." She gestured to her team that was just watching in stunned horror at what had happened to their leader, unable to do anything to help, Huan huddled next to Wakaki and cried to himself in terror. Then she pointed to where she assumed the spider rats were, still held back by the flames. "feast… you… t-tim-" Her grip on Korra's wrist weakened until her hand fell to the floor, the other stuck to shield the other side of her face, as the blood slowed and then stopped all together. Korra fell backwards onto her ass and then scooted as far from the body as she could, slamming into the wall next to Wakaki and brought her knees as close as possible. They stood and sat there for as long as the spider rats allowed.

They turned and watched when a particularly loud howl emerged on the other size of the flames, the spider rat the size of a wolf came crashing down on top of the fire, still burning because Korra had bent it to stay lit for as long as she could hold it. Instead of getting up and charging at them it stayed, the flames already eating its legs and face, so that the swarm could use its body as a bridge. Soon even it couldn't be seen under the mass of smaller spider rats leaping off of him to continue the flood for food.

"GO! GO!" Korra and Li yelled at the same time as they grabbed Wakaki and slung him over their shoulders, Suzume and Huan taking the lead while Korra kept a flame in her hand to brighten the way. She cast one last glance at The Captains before they rounded a corner to see the swarm over take her body. For a brief moment the spider rats stopped to feast before those who couldn't find any spot to eat or burrow inside for the organs continued after them.

They barreled through the maze of tunnels with no idea where to go, taking rights and lefts whenever it seemed that the death howl was getting too close. Sometimes someone would cast a glance back but they only ever saw darkness, the swarm no longer illuminated by fire light but the still assuredly there. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." Someone was endlessly repeating over and over again next to her or maybe it was her, she could hardly tell right now. She cast her own glance behind them and still saw nothing but experience had her watch the ceiling constantly, checking for any discrepancies closely.

Not that looking at the floor would have helped when the metal panel under them crashed up and launched them backwards into the air.

Suzume and Huan were on the other side of panel as other three fell backwards onto their asses and came face to face with the horror that uprooted them. Korra could only see the head of what looked like a spider rat but it was too large to possibly be such a creature, its head equaling Naga's in size and doubled in number of sharp fangs. The monstrosity brought a skeletal leg as thick as her arm up out of its hole and swung it at them impossibly fast, one second just being an open salivating mouth of teeth with twitching chelicerae and the next swinging hand length scythe like claws at them. Korra kicked a fireball at it and quickly rose to her feet with the others when it gave a pained death cry the fire spreading across its face rapidly only for its claws to suddenly swing and hook Wakaki in his previously injured leg, the claw digging in and punching through the other side far too easily.

It ceased its death cry as soon as Wakaki started his, suddenly uncaring of the fire consuming its face and how one of its chelicerae withered in the fire, and tugged him towards his death while Korra and Li struggled to get a footing against its strength. "Oh please help me. Please don't let go. I don't want to die." Wakaki cried as the claw tore through his leg as the tugs grew harder and tears streamed down his face, knowing what was going to happen soon. He was wrong.

When he got close enough, the bottom of Korra and Li's feet scrapping against the floor, the monsters head split open in four different directions, the teeth splitting with it and a section going with each flap. Wakaki's pleas were replaced with screams of terror and joined by their screams as the creature pulled them even closer. Four thin tongue like appendages appeared from inside its mouth and snaked their way across the ground to him, leaving steaming trails of acidic saliva where they went eating the metal. The first to arrive wrapped itself around his ankle of the hooked leg and Korra watched in a somehow growing terror, when she was sure she reached her limit when The Captain died, as the skin boiled away and melted the muscle to scorch the bone. Two others wrapped themselves around his calf and thigh on the other leg, soon leaving nothing but a burned flesh near the tongues that wrapped around bone. While the final one, much longer than the others, settled on his stomach and the base of his rips. Wakaki managed to give one final death gurgle as blood exploded out his mouth when the tongue boiled its way into his intestines and started to turn his blood into steam and burn his organs before he went limp in their arms.

"Let him go!" Suzume yelled which Korra and Li immediately complied with, dropping him to the ground and frantically backing away from the monster while its tongues pulled him into its jaws and disappeared into its hole once more with him. Suzume and Huan waited a second before leaping over the panel in the darkness and urging Li and Korra up, the sounds of the swarm growing ever closer. Korra rose to her feet and managed to rekindled the flame again in her shaking hand, looking into the terrified faces of her companions before they continued deeper into the labyrinth.

**This was originally going to be a one shot until time constraints made me cut it in half to meet my Halloween deadline.**


End file.
