The Avatar's hand burst through the rubble, tossing it aside. Fresh air streamed into the hole, and she took the deepest, most grateful breath of her entire life.

One last movement raised the ground beneath her feet until she was back at ground level. Her father coughed and groaned. Cool wind brushed her burnt cheek like a lover's fingers. Even that slight contact made her tremble with pain.

"We'll be okay." Korra knelt beside her parents. "We'll be alright."

Black streaks marked their clothing, and ash and dust coated their faces like war paint. Senna nursed her left arm. Blood trickled down it, macabre streams washing away the grime, and her eyes were glassy, but she seemed otherwise okay. Tonraq lay curled on the ground, huge hands clutching at his chest. Every breath wheezed painfully through his gritted teeth.

"Let's help him up," Senna said.

Korra nodded and gently pulled her father's arm from his chest, draping it across her shoulders. Her mother did the same, and they managed the big man to his feet. The first step was hard. Every step after somehow managed to prove harder. Sweat poured down Korra's face, her arms felt like lead, and she bit her lip to stifle the pain from the sweat pouring down onto her sizzling cheek. Eventually she could take no more and lowered her father to the ground.

"Korra!"

Asami and Mako sprinted towards the Avatar, dodging and leaping the rubble strewn across the yard. The airship floated just above the ground near a collapsed section of the outer wall, its boarding ramp lowered among the concrete and twisted steel. Mako hurried to Tonraq's side. Asami slammed into Korra, sure to keep away from her marked cheek.

"We need to get my parents out of here," she said. "Dad's not looking good. Do you know where the nearest hospital is?"

"Um…" Asami pulled away, wet eyes looking down at Tonraq. "There's a town about fifteen miles south. We can be there in an hour."

Korra helped Mako drag her father back up. Her arms still felt like platinum chains were pulling them down, and her cheek stung worse than ever, but she determinedly dragged him towards the airship. "Let's get there as quick as we can. Please help my Mom, Sami."

The raven-haired genius nodded and hurried to Senna's side.

The Earth Empire town was small, and they disembarked on the roof of the modest hospital standing along with a variety of municipal buildings on a straight street. Security awaited them when Korra descended with her parents to ground level. They backed away when they recognized her. Nurses rushed forward to take custody of Tonraq, but Senna refused them.

"I can wait," she insisted. "It's just some blood. The wound isn't going to kill me."

She had just left the waiting room when Asami and Mako arrived. They found Korra bent over in her chair, still covered in dust, her lips curved in an ugly frown and her eyes smoldering like boiling, angry suns.

The Avatar watched Asami hesitantly approach. Mako kept his distance. "Are they okay?" her girlfriend asked.

"Mom is. I don't know about Dad."

Friends and family are a scab for your enemies to pick. Korra brushed her fingers over the raw, hardening flesh below her eye. The pain had dulled to a lingering itch.

"I'm sorry." Asami took Korra's hand in her own.

"Avatar?" A young nurse stood near reception. "We're ready for you."

Korra kissed Asami's hand. "I'll be right back."


She tip-toed lightly into her father's room. His peaceful, sleeping expression was broken by fits of pain as his bandage-wrapped chest rose and fell.

A single chair sat beside a window. Korra quietly pulled it to Tonraq's side and fell into it. Beneath her new bandages, her burn itched as if a dozen tiny bugs were burrowing biting the flesh. She pressed her palm gently against the cloth. It helped very little.

"About seven years ago, when Mako and I first started getting along, I wiped out a bunch of gangsters belonging to a Triad bigwig named Red-Eyed Raiko. He swore revenge, but he couldn't get to me. So he went after Mako instead. He never knew why those Triads tried to abduct him. I never cared to tell him."

"After Jianjun, and everything that happened at Zaofu, his army scattered but stayed intact. I spent months hunting down and eradicating them. Towards the end, a couple platoons had holed up in a long abandoned mine near Zaofu, near a popular overland trade route for people going to and from the city. Bolin's wife, Opal, often oversees the larger shipments that leave the city and come back. It was nothing more than luck that I found those soldiers when I did. They were planning to ambush and kidnap her in two days. She has no idea."

"And now this happens to you, and Asami…" Korra took a deep breath, but it did nothing to cool the fire burning hot in her stomach, or the whispers arrogantly screaming we told you so in her mind. "It's all fucked up, Dad. Everything is always fucked up. I don't know why it surprises me anymore."

The news anchor's voice still droned in Korra's ears. Asami's wide, disbelieving eyes still stared ahead. Mako still shouted, because all he knew how to do was shout. Right now, both were likely making arrangements to travel back to Republic City. Korra would need to hurry back before they left.

"Used to be when the people close to me suffered, I would become distant. Years of guilt and brainwashing are really hard to get rid of. Not this time, though. I didn't do this to you. I didn't blow up that prison, no matter what the news says. I'm not the one who blamed Asami's company and is trying to ruin it. The White Lotus did this, they've always done this, and they're going to pay."

Korra leaned over and kissed her father on the forehead. "I love you, Dad. Mom is trying to contact your friends in the Northern Water Republic, so they can help her get you out of here. I don't know when I'll see you again, but I promise I will. And I promise that when that day comes, we will be celebrating the death of the White Lotus."

The low static of a television pierced the silence of the hospital as Korra marched away. Nurses and doctors watched from the corners of their eyes as she passed. Fear tempered opportunity. They would have seen the report as well. Korra continued on without a glance backwards and pushed through the entrance to the streets outside.

As she expected, Asami and Mako were packing their bags when she arrived back at the hotel. Asami stopped to greet Korra when she shut the door. "Is your father okay?" she asked.

The Avatar nodded. "We need to talk. Right now. I need to know everything you know about the White Lotus. I need to know everything you learned."

Asami's eyes narrowed confusedly. "You're not coming back to Republic City with us?"

"No. Why would I?"

"Because you need to get out in front of this!" Asami grabbed her girlfriend's hand. "Tell your side. Let everyone know you didn't destroy that prison, that we had nothing to do with this. If you run off now, everyone will assume you are guilty, and me along with you. Tell your side and get the support of the people."

Korra turned a hard glare on Mako. "Give us a minute alone. Go check on my mom."

The firebender was more than happy to obey, his long strides falling just short of a sprint. Korra waited until the door closed to look back to Asami, and the pleading emeralds threatening to break her resolve.

"As long as the White Lotus is out there, nothing I do will ever change anything. They'll always be there to ruin my life and endanger the people I care about."

"But you can change things, you did change things. You told me yourself-"

"Are you going to tell me what you know or not?"

Asami recoiled, but she did not frighten. "You promised me. You promised me you wouldn't lose yourself. You've worked so hard to keep that promise. Don't break it now."

"I'm not losing myself. I may be Korra, but I'm also the Avatar, and one thing the White Lotus taught me is true. There can be no mercy for the black of heart. If I'm merciful, they will think I'm weak. I'm strong. I'm going to show them just how strong I am. I'm going to show them that not even the White Lotus can escape the Avatar's justice."

"Korra…"

"So that's a no?"

Asami nodded. "I won't help you prove them right."

"Fine." Korra turned to storm from the room. Her cheek's itch was maddening now, and her hand trembled to rip away the bandage and dig her nails into the cracked flesh. She turned around and kissed Asami on a cold cheek. "I love you. I'll send you a letter."

The engineer answered with icy silence.

Korra had just raised her hand to knock on the door to her mother's room when it opened, and Mako slid through. She glimpsed her mother asleep within. "How's she doing?"

"She's okay, just tired." Mako smirk was uncertain, one the Avatar recognized immediately. "You're going after the White Lotus."

"Yes, and don't try to stop me."

"I won't. I think you're right. As long as they're out there, nothing else you do will matter." Mako glanced over at the neighboring door. His voice was a whisper. "Do you have any idea where to look?"

Korra just noticed the pair of folders in his hand. "No."

The detective handed them over. "I wrote everything down. It's all in there, everything we know." His mouth set in a hard line. "Get them, Korra."

She hugged her friend tightly. "Thank you."


You must look past the humanity of a villain. In the face of greater power, even the most despicable man will discover those things which make him human. A shadow smiled within a hood. They will beg, plead, and bargain. They will tell of you wives and children, of sick friends and the circumstances which turned them to evil. Some of it will be true. None of it matters.

Enlai blubbered, and pink spit ran down his chin. He had already run the gauntlet of excuses and made his bargains. Korra had been trained well in how to break a person. The wide eyes of a soul laid bare were an old companion. She need only ask one more time.

"Tell me everything you know."

The words stuttered and whispered, they spat and sobbed, but they came. They came and came until Enlai could no longer speak. Names, dates, locations, connections like ant hills, spreading and disappearing as they crumbled, the wreckage transforming into new connections. It all began to tangle in Korra's brain. She took a moment to separate the various threads.

"That's it," Enlai said. "That's everything. I'm so sorry, I'm not like them. Please let me go."

He was not allowed another breath to lie or plead with.

Korra worked her way back through the sharp splinters of broken doors and blood-drenched hallways. One man still twitched as aftershocks stimulated the dead muscle. Death stained the air, familiar.

This first sat limp in the chair, slumped over but still bound. She had assumed him strong when she left him there. Now she wondered whether these men were simply ignorant to the trap at the prison. Unimportant men, not privileged to the workings of their masters. Both had refused and denied, no matter how she questioned about it. They had told her everything else, eventually, but not about the prison. They had screamed, they had hurt, but they had denied. And they had not lied. Korra knew a liar, knew the smell, the twitches, the look in a person's eyes.

And if since they did not lie, they were ignorant. After all, if the White Lotus had not set the trap, then who had?

Sirens blared down the street. There was no need to run, but Korra ran anyway. Away from the sirens, between two houses, scooting on a ball of air up the steep hill north of the neighborhood. She stopped at the peak to stare back down. A single blur of lights stopped outside the house. A lone man entered to investigate. When he ran back out of the house, tripping over his feet and sprawling onto the driveway, Korra continued on to her camp.