Taming Of Korra CH14

Amon was a bloody smear on the ground, the underground cavern where so much blood had been shed was collapsing, and I had an open escape route. Tarrlok probably thought I was dead after he sent a bunch of drafted citizens, me included, down to be food for the equalists. While most of my group had been dragged into the dark and eaten alive, I managed to break the back of the equalists. It didn’t solve the addict problem. The food crisis wouldn’t end easily, and power for the price of eating a lot more probably didn’t sound bad to the wealthier people in Republic City. I didn’t blame them, but my sword would still find their necks. Blood still needed to be shed if I wanted to get a handle on the problem. Asami and Hao Meng were hopefully using the plans I gave them to manufacture arms to help end the addict threat. This would change the power dynamic between benders and non-benders to a more equal level. Who cares about throwing fireballs when someone can pull a trigger and wipe out a room full of firebenders? To improve this situation, I was making extreme gains thanks to the high food demand and battles.

Unlike a certain blood cultivator, I preferred to use magic to bring my Godflesh-infused body to the next level. To that end, I practiced tier 1 spells religiously, thanks to one simple fact. If I don’t activate the spell, I can form and dissipate them without a cost. That meant I could continuously practice them with my left hand to make gains most people couldn’t dream of. While I hadn’t broken the level cap, I managed to bring my power to a higher level through enhancement spells. Practice against opponents nearing my level with spells helped me get good. In other words, this was the best world ever.

I honestly didn’t know what the better play was. Deposing Tarrlok myself would allow me to take over republic city. Still, it felt better to let the starving citizens overthrow him. He already crossed a line and drafted non-benders with no national loyalty to Republic City. Really, I couldn’t have asked for a better misplay from my opponent. Then he sent me into the bowels of equalist territory, allowing me to remove the only threat that galvanized all the benders to his side. With that threat mostly gone, he wouldn’t have quite as much support.

He should have found their location and laid siege to them until they ate each other. Future Industries could have easily been renovated to manufacture tanks and artillery pieces. Then they needed to mark off a city section and begin constant bombardment. It would buy the city breathing room and allow time to train soldiers for the current enemy type. While that wasn’t what most people would think to do, and it had been a while since the last war, it was the correct option.

I ran down the sheer cliff below the hanger to gather speed before hitting a sharp rock on my way to the water. My shoe didn’t survive, but that was ok; my foot shattered the rock and bore all my momentum as I shot off. I blasted across the water as I made a u-turn toward the republic city council building. A few united military ships patrolled the ocean, but they couldn’t stop me. I was on my way back to republic city proper.

After making landfall, I noticed a few changes. Soldiers patrolled the streets, there weren’t any more homeless in the parks, and the statue of Aang was missing its head. That pissed me off; I remembered the bullshit in my own timeline about destroying historical statues. If I had my way, that statue would be restored, and whoever broke it would face my wrath. Unfortunately, some things couldn’t be allowed, and the destruction of historical monuments was one of my pet peeves.

I found a shop that had been closed forever that still had flowers. So, after I broke in and stole some with a similar shade of blue as Korra’s beautiful eyes, I put them in my inventory. “Meat,” an addict said as I stepped past an alleyway towards the council building. Next, I turned my attention to a half-armored equalist with black roots growing out of his body. They were snapping out looking for a new host or to root themselves to produce a sweet-smelling aroma to attract victims.

“Enhance Magic,” I said before an aura of blue light briefly surrounded me. A hand of telekinetic push punched through the addict’s legs. It fell to the ground reaching out with his hands and black roots. Many options were open to me, but I felt like a particular type of revenge.

The council building was in sight, and I needed a distraction to get inside. Well, I had the perfect tool to practically volunteer for the honor. So why would I refuse him? The useful idiot already gave himself to a cause that used him as a disposable tool?

I used a more controlled touch of telekinetic push to lift the man up in a hand of telekinesis before tossing him like a stone through one of the council building’s windows. The act was a little 80s for my taste. Maybe I should get a ridiculously sized boombox and play a love song while I was at it. This wasn’t out of love, so maybe some heavy metal would be better. Slayer would be my choice for the song playing on my hypothetical boombox.

A light flicked on, and the addict managed to get a victim. I didn’t know who it was, but the qi quickly moved to the addict. Unfortunately, its body was too damaged to be saved, so the vampire sapling would probably merge the flesh of the two. Benders quickly moved to the location while Tarrlok waited on the top floor. I leaped to the fence, bent my knees, enhanced my speed, and jumped.

Glass broke against my face before I landed, digging a rut through the floor to stop myself. I was actually feeling good Tarrlok seemed ready and willing to wait on me instead of doing the smart thing and fleeing. More benders died below until a group finally burned the thing until its regeneration couldn’t compensate.

Bending took decades to get good at, so each bender lost was a major blow, especially since they were rare. Out of a hundred people, maybe one was a bender. From there, time and resources needed to be devoted to bringing one up to a level of competence. Not every earth bender was capable enough to bend metal. Benders were war assets, all things considered, and without them, a country's military power was diminished in the eyes of the world. In other words, the addicts were a political nightmare.

I made my way to Tarrlok’s office to confront the man. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I should spare him from his well-deserved fate or kill him as an act of mercy. Still, confronting him would be fun.

The man sat at his desk waiting for me. I hadn’t been exactly silent on my way in, but he didn’t seem too concerned. Either he was conceited or an idiot, maybe a little of both. He was a politician, after all.

I decided to open with charm eyes and hit him before I said a word. “Amon is dead; all that’s left now is the cleanup,” I said, leaving the cleanup ambiguous.

“You were one of the drafted. Congratulations on serving republic city; I’ll reward you with a medal in a few days and declare operation infiltration a success.” Tarrlok said with a raised eyebrow.

“So, you plan to put a spin on selling out your own citizens to cannibalistic drug addicts. Alright, I’ll bite; what do I gain from going with your song and dance? Besides a medal, what authority will you give me for saving your city?” I asked.

A small smirk appeared on Tarrlok’s face. “I had feared you would be one of those idealistic types above such petty things as negotiation. But you can be bought.” Tarrlok said.

I could take anything he could give me, and I hated the bastard; he sent his citizens to die to decrease the demand for food and eliminate decenters in one move. The draft was only to get rid of people he didn’t like. By the way, the equalists were working with the Republic city police; it was a deal made with Amon. In other words, even Amon lost his way through the addiction, the poor communist.

A man like Tarrlok couldn’t be trusted with power. He wasn’t the one in a million gentle dictator. He was no Markus Aurelius.

“Without you, the united forces would just occupy our city. Before long, we would go back to how things were with a council of representatives from foreign nations. At the end of the day, we are a colony.” I said.

Tarrlok smiled. “I see the same thing. While the other nations control us, we’ll never be great. Our identity will always be water tribe, fire nation, or earth kingdom. The only way to truly be ourselves is to break away from them; to do that, we need a symbol. With Amon defeated, you can be the symbol to galvanize the non-benders to Republic City’s cause. In addition, we rely on other nations' goodwill for food and resources. The only way we can become independent is by using the resources around our city and becoming self-sufficient.”

Of course, the new dictator for life would want to start shoring up his own power with mercantilism. “I’m assuming you want to place a tariff on foreign goods we can produce ourselves to prop up the industries.”

Tarrlok looked overly pleased by my answer. “I think I’m finally seeing the worth in non-benders. You can’t bend, so you spend that time sharpening a different skill. As my treasurer, you would hold the highest position a non-bender could possibly have, and I would pay you half the wage of my bender staff members. The women, paying a non-bender even half as much as the male staff members, would be obscene.”

Charm eyes were very useful. It made people feel like I was a trusted confidant, and they wagged their tongues accordingly. My smile had already split my face, and Tarrlok must have greatly misunderstood my disposition to his statements. He stood up from his desk and approached me with his hand raised. I slapped it aside, and his face morphed into confusion, then anger.

“I can’t pay you more than I offered.” I pulled out a nice long stake made of god wood from my inventory. The white bark seemed to glow even under electrical lights. I slammed the butt of the stake down into the floor, a good foot in the concrete. The pointy end of the stake still towered over Tarrlok, and the ceiling was too high to grasp anything even if he stood up on the point.

The councilman-turned-dictator stared at me while I eyeballed him and measured to be sure of myself. “What is that for?” Tarrlok said but didn’t move away. He tried to, but charm eye was still affecting him. That was good. I didn’t want him to run and scream yet; there were still some final preparations.

I ignored his question, pulled a red magic marker from my inventory, and grabbed a piece of paper from his desk. It was a part of a bill that used some colorful language to further limit non bender rights. I wrote dictator in large red kanji. Then I blew on the ink slowly to let it dry without smudging.

Smudges could easily change the kanji if the ink ran, making my message nonsensical. Once the ink was dry, I turned to the man who used a draft to round up his own citizens to sell off as meat. There was no remorse or defense of his actions, but I had to ask before getting started.

“Do you regret selling your own people to the equalists?” My spell was weakening by the minute as his mind finally caught up to the fact that something was wrong.

“They were more mouths to feed, and their deaths spared benders,” Tarrlok said.

“How prudent; not every man can make such practical decisions. I’m sure others would do the same if they were in your shoes.” I said before I grabbed his arm.

Stalin, Hitler, and Mao came to mind as I dragged the man towards the stake. “There was a man who spoke highly of impalement spikes to deal with commies who wanted to destroy the world. In the past, I thought this punishment to be too cruel, but you’ve convinced me. You don’t deserve mercy from me, so I’ve decided to turn you into a lesson for would-be dictators.” I said, and the spell finally broke on Tarrlok.

I felt a tugging sensation in my blood and rebuked it. “You won’t get away with this; they will know it was you,” Tarrlok said.

A chuckle escaped my lips. “I hope they pay attention to the lesson I’m trying to teach them. Though my statement is a bit brutal, hopefully, it will stick for a while.”

“Help,” Tarrlok screamed as I tore his clothes away from him, leaving him naked as the day he was born. So I thought it would be fitting that he went out similarly. He punched and kicked, but his blows were those of a mortal man. No matter how fit, he couldn’t break my hold or hurt me.

I tugged him off his feet and grabbed his leg. He moved his other arm in a circle and pulled water from the air before I stomped his hand. Tarrlok’s fingers crunched under my good shoe before I hoisted him, tossed him up, grabbed his other leg, and pulled them apart as he fell.

“Jackpot,” I said as the spike slammed home in his asshole. An ear-piercing scream filled the room as Tarrlok struggled as gravity drove the stake deeper. He screamed, bled, and pleaded all in the same breath. The spike was sharp, nearly unbreakable, and gravity worked him down the spike, but he didn’t die. That was the wonder of the impalement spike. Some people could remain for hours or days, dying slowly on them. As he sunk, I grabbed his flailing limbs and taped them behind his back. People rushed up the stairs but were too slow to save him. The damage done already was fatal. Removing the stake would help him die faster.

I taped the sign to his chest and wrapped the tape around it to ensure it stayed there. His throat broke as he screamed. That hadn’t taken long.

Then I opened my phone to see Korra and me together on my lock screen and smiled before unlocking my phone. I took a video of Tarlok screaming and snapped a few photos. Then I used a grease spell all around the stake and moved the desk away to make it harder to get him off it. Death was mercy; this was his fitting punishment. Then I kicked through a window and leaped down to the city below.

My feet touched the ground, and I returned to Air Bender Island. Honestly, this was the most roman thing an American has ever done. Killing a dictator in his office not to replace them with my own puppet but to help the city become an actual republic was a net positive in my book. So long as it doesn’t become a democracy, then everything will work out fine.

I leaped into the sea and ran back towards Air Bender Island, where Korra waited for me.

After making it there, I stepped off and went to Korra’s room with flowers in hand. That’s when I saw Mako, nursing two black eyes on my way there.

“How are you still alive?” The fire bender growled.

A smile spread across my face at the sight of him. “Enhance MAG, Telekinesis,” I said as I grabbed him and turned towards the fire nation. “You’ve overstayed your welcome in my city, begone.” I threw him with all the strength I could muster and watched his body sail through the air. I didn’t flatten him like Amon because I didn’t want to leave a mess for Pema to clean up. She was still heavily pregnant, and the last thing she needed was to clean up a puddle of gore.

I checked off all the loose ends I needed to tie up and froze. The most important loose end hadn’t been tied. I rushed off with all the speed my 1000PL body could muster. Fortunately, I wasn’t too late.

The hot water from the shower quickly washed all the blood and grim off my body from a long night of slaughter. Really Korra might even love me, but she probably didn’t want to snuggle with a guy who smelled like a butchery. After washing the last of the gore, I slipped on a new set of clothes before going to Korra’s room.

I knocked on her door and waited for her to get up, flowers in hand. As she slowly moved, I debated whether I should have brought her chocolates and maybe some jewelry. Korra was probably worried to death, and I had been having the time of my life killing commies and dictators like it was going out of style.

Korra opened the door, saw the flowers and me, and jumped in my arms. She snatched the flowers with her jump and held them behind my back. Tears fell onto my cheek as she gripped me hard. I walked into the room and shut the door behind us.

I fell into the bed with her and felt her nice, firm breasts press against my chest. We didn’t have sex; instead, we stayed pressed against each other for hours before falling asleep.