A/N: Hi everyone!

This is the new bonus. It happens just before Isolina and Reena leave for the South Pole. (Somewhere in the last chapter if I remember well.)

Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Angst

Summary: Before she leaves, Isolina has to face her past one last time… Maybe it's finally time…

Enjoy!

"Are you really sure about this?"

"I…"

"Asami, she needs it. Like me after Zaheer. Like you after Kuvira."

Asami, Korra and Isolina were together in the couple's bedroom. They were discussing an important—very important—matter that could endanger them and stir the past and the pains associated with it.

That's why Asami was against it. Korra, of course, disagreed. And even if Isolina was the most concerned of them, she left the confrontation of postures and looks to them and sat a little nonchalantly on her mothers' bed. She knew she shouldn't let her mother speak for her but she couldn't contradict her other mother either: she was scared.

"But it's been so long..." the businesswoman added. "It hasn't been necessary until now..."

"Yeah, right. Maybe you would have preferred to send her there when she was 12?"

"No, of course not... It's just that..."

She sighed. Anyway, what exactly was she trying to do? Korra was not the one to convince. Korra was not the one who would put herself in danger and she was not the one she would be afraid for.

She turned to her daughter who had her head bowed while waiting for the outcome of the conversation. But it didn't work like that. She wanted to make this decision, all right, but she had to participate in this conversation and prove that her decision was the right one.

"Isolina, is that what you really want?"

The girl looked up and met the piercing green of her mother's eyes. Could she show that same stubborn strength that she drew from her will to protect her?

She could and she had to. She wanted to protect herself too—in a different way. She had not to let fear speak, not to let her mother's love convince her. She had already made up her mind after having thought about it with Reena. She had to do it for them.

Reena had been enduring her nightmares for years. Isolina had been enduring these nightmares for even more years. And each time they reappeared, she felt like it was the straw that broke the camel's back. But either this camel was stronger than anything and had fun playing with her nerves, or it got back on its feet each time to hurt her over and over again.

She had started to think about it that night when she woke up as if she was persecuted again—she was convinced that her executioners had never been caught. Reena had reassured her and told her that they were well and truly in prison for eternity. But she had never seen that.

She had not been there when they had been arrested, she had not been there when they had been locked up, she only had words from her mothers who had done all the work. But she had nothing: no certainty, no anchorage, no memory to come back to. She needed it. Even if she couldn't stop the nightmares, she needed to know in order not to believe those nightmares anymore.

Maybe these ones would end up disappearing... At least they wouldn't be as disorienting and painful anymore, she would no longer have to flee from them and could confront them with weapons. She wouldn't lose anymore because she wasn't equipped against this invisible and nightmarish force which corrupted her dreams.

"Yes," she said with a nod. "It's now or never. I'm an adult now, I have to do it before I go."

"You're so young... And finishing high school doesn't make you an adult, young girl."

"Mum!"

"I know, I know. You're going to start your own life, be independent, away from me and your mother, and it's time that you face the past. I know very well what you're going to say. And I won't object. But Korra..."

"Yes, of course, I'll go with her."

"Alright."

Asami stared at her daughter, looking like she was telling her: "I trust you but you better know what you're doing". Isolina hoped that she also knew what she was doing... She just looked back at her mother and silently thanked her despite the heavy weight it put on her own shoulders.

They entered the very high security prison and took the elevator. Next to Zaheer's cell, just as isolated as he was—if not more—a second cell had been added. There was a notorious enemy, a powerful enemy, who didn't subdue people through his non-existent bending but through the power of his mind of domination and the terror he inspired. The Avatar and her daughter had come to see this enemy this day—a day that they knew to be memorable.

As soon as they entered the room he lit up with a smile. The years had taken nothing from his sadistic and ferocious charisma. Seeing that smile Isolina jumped, taking a little step back. She felt the bile heat up her stomach as horrific memories beset her mind.

Red, black, gloomy light, dull and still water that turned into a man-eating eel, the brilliant ebony snake that hissed against the walls and against her innocent and torn flesh. Yes, she could see all of that in that satisfied and incisive smile he had given her the day he had whipped her for the first time, savoring her blood and her pain. She saw that piercing gleam in his eyes that scratched her skin and tried to break into her. She felt painful chills run down her back as if someone was slowly tearing off her skin, piece by piece, string by string, while enjoying themselves.

"Isolina..." he breathed gravely, leaving each of the syllables out of breath.

The voice. He was it: the voice. She was petrified by this voice as if she was five years old again and being subjugated to it, as if each of her intonations grasped and used her. She was locked inside herself, lost, totally lost.

But Korra stepped forward.

"You better shut it up, Ba Tu. If you think we're here for a courtesy call!"

"And what else? I thought I have already had the maximum sentence. Oooh, or Isolina came here for revenge. Accompanied by our great Avatar, the terrible little waterbender came to kill me."

Korra didn't answer, she just turned to Isolina and looked at her with her compassionate blue eyes. Then, the girl swallowed and walked slowly towards her mother, feeling the urge to snuggle against her. But she didn't. She had to be strong.

She stood in front of Ba Tu who was handcuffed. He was taller than her, less tall than she remembered, but that didn't take away his threatening side.

"I..." she started in a quavering voice that got out of breath on its own.

She closed her eyes and continued:

"I will no longer be afraid of you."

Ba Tu simply laughed.

"You don't believe it yourself, girl."

"I will no longer be afraid of you!" she repeated, shouting and opening her eyes this time.

"Pfff... It's deplorable. Is that really all you have become? A lousy pet of the Avatar, when you had so much potential, when you could have destroyed her."

"She's my mother!"

"Yes, I was informed. What a stroke of fate, isn't it? The instrument of the loss of the Avatar becoming her doggie... But you know what your destiny is, Isolina, you know that you have to kill her, remember? For your poor parents who fought for us, against this abusive and foolish woman."

"Shut up."

"Why? I'm telling the truth. Do you forget them? Do you betray them? After all they have done, the number of people they have captured for us, for our mission, their own daughter betrays them by rallying with the enemy and not only! By replacing them and daring to call their sworn enemy "mother"!"

"I told you to shut up!"

She slapped him. Ba Tu barely moved but he laughed out loud.

"Isolina..." Korra tried to intervene.

"Oh, come on, is that all you can do? I didn't think you were so weak! You were scared and you asked her to take your bending away from you, right?"

The young waterbender couldn't stand it any longer. She found water in the air around them and formed a lasso which she enlaced Ba Tu's throat with.

"Is that what you wanted?" she spat at him, darker than the ash burned in the sun.

"No. You know what I want Isolina. Show me, show me your real power!"

"Isolina..." the blue-eyed woman tried to intervene.

"I don't do that kind of thing anymore. I'm someone much better than you!"

"You're someone infinitely weaker than me. That's all you are. You're weak and pitiful, and if I had known you would turn into that I would not have tried to protect you."

"Protect me? By marking me for life? Whipping me until I have scars for life? Was that protecting me?"

"I should have let them do it. I should have let them abuse you like they did with the others."

"The others…"

"Yes, they had to be allowed to unwind, there had to be some benefits for living hidden and excluded. So little girls like you, like your little friend, every night, they had to be useful... "

Isolina's eyes filled with tears. She had never wanted to think about Lochan's suffering. She had never wanted to confront the images she had seen as a child with the analysis that she had been able to make of them as an adult. It hurt too much to imagine how much she must have suffered, all they had done to her, by raping her. By raping her over and over again.

She tightened the lasso but he kept talking.

"Oh, but don't worry, I would have kept you to myself, and I would have penetrated you again and again, all day and all night if necessary, until you were finally destroyed. Until you had nothing but me and our relations. What do you think, Isolina, would you have liked that sweetness? I could have offered it to you, I could have... "

This time, she couldn't stand it any longer and—as a wild tear wore her cheek out—she bent Ba Tu's blood wringing his stomach and feeling the sudden urge to tear his penis up.

"Isolina!" Korra called her. "Please don't do something that you'll regret later."

She barely heard her. It was as if Korra was no longer there, as if she had no family, no love, as if she was back at being the desperate child she was at five years old.

All she saw was Ba Tu who managed to smile, again and again, through all the pain. She wanted so much to snatch that smile from him. She wanted to take everything from him, everything he had, everything he was.

Taking revenge, he said. And why not? Why not take revenge when people had hurt as much as he had, when they still felt the need to hurt by their words, to dig an ever-deeper hole in their past victims.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked at her mother. She was calm, she was not afraid, she did not judge her, and yet she felt so misunderstood!

"He's horrible! He deserves for me to kill him! He deserves for me to kill him like he killed everyone! Everyone I loved!"

"I know. It's up to you to choose what you want to do, Isolina. I'm not here to stop you from doing what you want to do but think carefully about your choice. You will remember this moment all your life, my daughter. When you think about it later, do you want to think 'I was strong, I killed this bastard' or 'I was strong, I didn't give in to my pain'?"

She didn't know. Was it really being strong not to kill him? Being weak by killing him? Being strong by killing him? Being weak by not killing him?

"I want to kill him," she cried. "I want to kill him so much..."

However, she let go and collapsed in the mother's arms which welcomed and consoled her. Ba Tu took a breath and snorted.

"Even Lochan had more courage than you. At least she died with dignity."

Isolina cried again but she answered him through her tears:

"Lochan... Lochan had more courage than anyone."

Trying to calm down, aggressively wiping her eyes that kept dropping tears on her reddened cheeks, she still turned to Ba Tu and resumed in a damp and sensitive voice:

"But her courage was love, and I will have this same courage. I won't kill you. That's what you want: you're stuck here. You're weaker: you're stuck. I'm free and I'm stronger and more powerful than you. I could destroy half the world if I wanted to, but I won't."

"What's the point of having this freedom and this power if you don't want to destroy half the world?" he asked, a little bitter and tired.

"I will do better."

Ba Tu raised an eyebrow.

"I will heal half the world—the whole world if necessary—and I will become the greatest healer the world has ever known. You wanted me to destroy; I will rebuild, out of love, in honor of Lochan, and not destroy out of hatred for you."

She turned around and started to go out. Then, he shouted to her:

"You can heal whatever you want, Isolina, the world will always be imperfect as long as your 'mother' is there! You can heal but you refuse to change things, that's what will lead us to our loss!"

"The world doesn't have to be perfect, it needs good people to have it run, and my mom is someone good, not like you!"

"You haven't changed, Isolina. You're exactly the same. You're like me. You know very well that there are bad guys in this world, one day your instinct will overtake you and you will eradicate them."

"I won't kill anymore. Never again!"

"Sometimes that's what you have to do to make things better. It's because your parents died that you stopped fleeing and leading a miserable life."

Feeling her anger take over for her, she stopped to glare at him. How dared he say such a thing?

"I would have had a very happy life if you hadn't chased me in the first place!"

"What about your mothers? They wouldn't have had you. Negative things bring positive things. Death brings life, destruction prosperity, you will realize one day, Isolina, that I was right, that your parents were right. The Black Lotus will exist until it succeeds in its mission."

"It won't exist through me. I won't be the one bearing the burden of your madness. All this is past, it no longer exists, not for me. It's over."

The elevator doors she and Korra had reached closed and Ba Tu couldn't say anything else. Once the doors were closed, Isolina sighed.

"I'm proud of you," Korra said.

"I could have killed him."

"I know. But you didn't."

"What if I had?"

"We would have overcome that, together."

"You wouldn't have stepped in?"

"It wasn't my fight, Isolina. It was yours, I've let you handle this confrontation despite the horrors he said."

"I should have cut off his dick..."

"Oh, that can be dealt with! If you want, we go back!" she joked.

Isolina giggled lightly and hugged her mother, putting her head on her shoulder.

"Thank you for coming, Mom. Otherwise I would have made a mistake..."

"You are much stronger than you think, Isolina. You would have remembered that you have people who love you and who wouldn't want you to carry this burden."

"Maybe… "

They got out of the elevator but before they reached the big central door, the blue-eyed girl held her mother by the hand.

"Hold on! I want to see him!"

"Who? Hieu?"

"No, I'm done with them. I don't want to see them ever again. Ever. Zaheer. I want to see, Zaheer."

"Zaheer? But you haven't seen him for almost ten years!"

"I know but... he helped us and we've never told him it was over..."

"Oh, don't worry, he doesn't need me to tell him this stuff, I'm sure he's very well informed."

"Mom, I want to see him. You don't have to come."

"That's not why I don't want you to go see him… I just don't get why… But if you want to, then…"

They joined the second elevator and descended to the depths of the prison in order to see the other most dangerous public enemy.

He was surprised to see them, Korra just gave him a look that meant "I don't know what we're doing here either" and stayed back. Isolina walked with a smile over to the man whose graying hair had turned white. He went down a bit from his meditation position to say hello and was greeted with a hug. He was very confused and Korra was amused when seeing his face—it would remain forever etched in her memory—although she remained impassive.

"I have never been able to thank you," Isolina said, giving the airbender a new bright smile.

"Thank me…"

"Yes! For helping us capture the bad guys!"

"I wish I could have done so much more, Isolina... If I could, I would have killed them with my own hands."

"I know, I almost did it too."

"You almost did?"

She succinctly told him about her meeting with Ba Tu and Zaheer softened. He liked this child. He had only seen her once, maybe two if you counted the time he briefly encountered her in the Spirit world with Korra and Asami, but he loved her dearly.

He liked her energy, the innocence she had kept, and he liked that she reminded him of P'Li. He liked to see that she was doing better than the latter and that—even if she didn't share his ideals—she fulfilled at least one of his desires: to see her happy. He had always wanted P'Li to be happy, she had ended up dying for their cause. Isolina had already suffered because of their cause, so at least she could be happy.

They talked for a while, Korra didn't bother them. Zaheer inquired about Isolina's life and he learned that she had decided to use her gifts to do good—which he could only agree with—and that she was therefore leaving for the South Pole with her girlfriend to study.

He told her that if she ever went to the Spirit world, she shouldn't hesitate to call him and they could see each other. She promised to come back one day, at least when she was a great waterbender. He told her that he would be looking forward to this day and after a few more happy chats, Korra and Isolina left.

Zaheer remained in his prison as usual. He smiled again for a moment. Isolina was healing, getting back on her feet, she would be strong, he knew it. He felt like he had achieved something, something he could be proud of even if he was only a small factor. Ah, he would wait a few more years until Isolina came to see him, to speak to him and tell him that she was the best healer the world had ever seen. Afterwards, he would definitely go to the Spirit world. He was getting old and this world had very little attraction. But he would wait for Isolina first and tell her that they could still meet in the Spirit world.

A/N: So, what did you think? Let me know?

Um… I'm sorry but I won't be able to post for a little while. I'm busy and kinda exhausted. So, I can't write or translate anything, because the last strengths I have are for studying and reading when I have free time. I'll try not to make it too long, but let's say I'll certainly need a few weeks. At least for the second part of the last bonus. I don't know about the translation. I might finish it next week…

See you and take care!

Lion