Chapter Text
Korra moaned, the brush of her mascara scraping underneath her eye for the third time.
“I give up. This shit’s impossible.”
Naga just laughed. “You’ve got to be slower. More careful.” She took the brush from her friend’s hand and carefully brushed Korra’s eyelashes, darkening them and making them appear longer. “See?”
“Whatever.” Korra said with a smile. Her eyelashes did look nice. “I can’t believe we’re going to this stupid Halloween dance.”
“I can’t believe you’re going to wear a dress.” Naga replied, and Korra laughed softly.
At that point in time she was wearing a black vest and grey sweats, but in twenty minutes or so, she was going to be wearing a dress. Korra had actually planned on not going to the Halloween dance at all. After all, it was a dance. Dances were for the popular people, the people in relationships, and the dance committee. And that was about it. But Naga had always wanted to go to one, and when she’d asked Korra, she hadn’t been able to refuse her friend.
The dress Korra had picked out was blue, (“It matches your eyes!” Naga had squealed.) with silver sequins at the top around the neckline. She had tried it on in the shop, and Naga had insisted that it was the one. Considering it was the first one she tried on, Korra was very grateful that it had been ‘the one’. She did feel like a princess when wearing it, which was sort of nice, but Korra always preferred to feel tougher. Still, it wasn’t as if she could have worn a suit of armour to the dance.
“We’re going to have such a fun time.” Naga smiled. “I need to go to the toilet, though. One sec.”
Naga hurried out of Korra’s bedroom and down the corridor to the house’s bathroom. Korra dropped back onto her bed, breathing out a huge sigh. She loved Naga, to death, but she really didn’t want to go to the dance. Especially not on Halloween! She wanted to dress up as a zombie and scare people, or steal candy from little kids. Maybe she could spike the punch bowl or something, but even then… This was going to suck.
She let out a long sigh, closing her eyes. Her eyelids were already heavy from working all day on the fields, and she was drifting off when she heard a knock at her front door. She sat up straight away. There had been a robbery two doors down, and her foster parents would kill her if their home faced the same fate. She got up quietly, moved the curtain back a fraction of an inch, and peered out of the window.
The man that stood there was tall, with a buzz cut and an ear piece. Weird… He didn’t look like your average thief. He was wearing a black suit, with a black shirt and a black tie, and even black sunglasses. Korra had never seen anyone dressed like it before. He looked like a bodyguard, but didn’t they usually wear white shirts? She saw that he was holding a briefcase, and immediately assumed the worse… Knives? Guns? Laundered cash?
She wasn’t going to risk the wrath of her foster parents, so cautiously she reached under her bed and picked out the stray gun from amongst her belongings. As a general rule, she hated guns, but in this neighbourhood…
The man knocked again.
“Korra! Who’s at the door!” Naga called. Korra cussed under her breath. She heard the sound of a flush and her friend stomping through the home like a bear.
Naga came into Korra’s room and saw her friend holding the gun. “What…?” She breathed out, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Who’s at the door?”
“I don’t know. Some guy in a suit. Maybe he’s here to rob us.”
Naga laughed at Korra, loudly. “Korra don’t be silly! Why would a robber knock on the door?”
“I don’t know!” Hissed Korra. “People are wild.”
Naga rolled her eyes. “Sometimes you can be so weird. Do you need me to open the door for you?”
Korra’s eyebrows shot up. “No! Don’t do that –“
But it was too late. Naga had walked up to the door and opened it. The man and her were just staring at each other, each one waiting for the other to speak.
Eventually, the man asked, in a low and commanding voice, “Are you Korra?”
“Nope.” Naga smiled. “That’s my friend. Can I take a message?”
The man paused for a moment, and Korra inhaled quickly. She was definitely overreacting. She should just go out there and – CRASH!
The man pushed Naga so hard that she fell back against the wall. Korra’s eyes widened, her hand immediately gripping the gun. Naga was probably unconscious. Korra hid behind her door frame.
“Korra. I know you’re in here.” The man said. His voice was so flat it was scary. “I am not going to hurt you.”
Korra didn’t move.
“Fine. If you won’t come out, I will state my reason for being here. After that, you can decide on your own whether it’s worth speaking to me.” The man paused again. Korra focussed on taking soft and inaudible breaths. “You won’t have heard of the Avatar Agency, but that’s exactly the point. We’re a group of spies committed to bringing down the terrorist group ‘Red Lotus’. Most of us have special powers, known as ‘bending’, that allow us to manipulate and control our surroundings. You don’t have such powers, however you have been scouted because you posses considerable traits that we would consider useful in a nonbending agent.”
This guy is fucking insane! Korra thought.
“I will escort you to the academy, an elite school for spies under the age of twenty-one. There you will train each winter till you turn twenty-one yourself. This isn’t optional.”
Korra rolled her eyes. Why was her life so full of crazy people?
“Fuck it..” She murmured, and came out from the cover of her bedroom wall.
The man’s face didn’t move. “You must be Korra.” He said. “That makes much more sense. You fit the part more than your friend.”
Korra got the impression that he was eyeing up her biceps, and suddenly she regretted wearing a vest. “You’re trying to tell me I’ve been picked to be a ‘spy’? Like for the government?” Humouring this guy might be the only way she could survive.
“Not for the government. Our agency works to protect the spirit world, and it’s connection to our world.”
Korra couldn’t believe her ears. “And what if I don’t come with you?”
“You will.” He said.
“What if I won’t?”
The man sighed. “Then I would have to kill you. It’s a confidentiality thing. I could easily make this look like a break-in. After all, this area is known for that kind of thing.”
Korra held up her weapon, alarmed. “Get out of my house, you freak!” She snapped. “And drop the suitcase!”
The man didn’t move a muscle. “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”
“I said, leave.” She cried, and took a step forward. In retaliation, the man lowered his suitcase to the floor and held out his palm. She stared at him blankly. Slowly, something glowing starting to appear from his palm, growing out of it and engulfing his whole hand like a red flower. In horror, Korra realised it was fire.
“You.. What the fuck?” She dropped the gun in surprise. Thankfully, it didn’t go off.
The flames stopped immediately. “Do you believe me now?” He asked.
“I… I…” Korra didn’t know what to believe.
Even if an organisation like this so-called ‘Avatar Agency’ did exist, they would never want somebody like Korra. These kinds of things didn’t happen to her. She was the kind of girl that misfortune follows everywhere – once, when she was ten, she went swimming in the ocean and was almost drowned by a whirlpool. On another occasion, she was blowing out the candles on her birthday cake, only for the fire to catch so quickly that she burnt her face when she leant over to blow them out.
“How about you just get in the limo with me, and see the academy for yourself. You’ve got a tour of the school at eight, and if we go now you might be able to catch the end of dinner.”
Korra decided that there wasn’t much use fighting this anymore. She let the man guide her outside, and just to the side of her house was a black limousine. She gasped. The man told her to get in the back, and she slipped in. the interior was just as sleek, with black leather seats. The man got in next to her, and the two sat in silence for a minute.
Korra realised suddenly that the vehicle was moving. “Who’s driving?” She asked.
“One of the academy’s professionals. Don’t worry, we’re in safe hands.”
“Oh. Okay.” Korra nodded. The windows were blacked out on the inside as well as the outside, and it made for quite a disorienting experience.
They drove for what must have been an hour in complete silence. Korra was getting a sinking feeling about all this. No way was this real! And she’d just left Naga there all alone, unconscious? What was she doing?
As if he read her mind, the man said, “Your friend will receive a letter in the post from you tomorrow. It will tell her that you’ve gone to do a fitness program all winter, and your sorry that you couldn’t go to the dance.”
Korra blinked. “You knew about the dance?”
“Yes.” The man said. “It was vital that I knew where you would be on the last day of October, to ensure you were secured quickly. Tomorrow is when classes start.”
“Classes?” Korra asked.
“You’re being enrolled in the academy as a nonbender. So, you’ll have to participate in classes, yes. For nonbenders, I believe the curriculum covers a variation of intensive physical lessons and knowledge based lessons.”
“Like math?” Korra asked. She was not about to spend all of winter vacation doing math.
“More like languages, the history of the spirit world, that sort of thing. The closest you’ll get to math is if you take any science-based classes. Like engineering.”
“Okay.” Korra nodded. “But I can choose what classes I do?”
“From the nonbending variation, yes. Although the choice is quite limited I’m afraid. Your guide will explain the rest to you.”
“There’s more?” Korra groaned.
“Much more.” The man said flatly.
Korra was getting sick of this man’s voice, and he barely said anything at all. “Who’s my guide going to be?” She asked, and can they not be as boring as you?
“Miss Sato will be showing you around. So you had better behave decently.”
“Why?” Korra asked. She wasn’t going to behave any differently, no matter who it was.
“Miss Sato belongs to one of the prestigious families that founded this agency.”
“So, what? She’s rich, or something?”
The man smirked. Korra was surprised she’d manage to produce some kind of emotion from him. “To put it lightly. Yes, she’s rich.”
Korra wished that she’d been born rich. Then again, most of the population probably wished that.
“Ah. Is she nice, though?” Korra asked. “Do you know her?” Korra wasn’t against making a few friends. Naga was basically her only friend at her current high school, and by that account, her only friend, full stop. Korra didn’t need lots of friends so it didn’t bother her, but she needed at least one.
“I have never met her.” He said. “But something tells me you two aren’t going to get along.”