Sorry, I burnt my foot and fingers while I was burning my old stuff and dancing around the fire while doing so. Turns out even books seek revenge from time to time. Anyway, this chapter is short and not as detailed as the others, but the next one will be a lot more detailed than this one. Maybe even more than all the other chapters!

During the scouting, the quartet met Toph who had heard about her family being captured and decided to free them. Toph had been impressed by her granddaughter's choice for a fiancé, his bending skills and his seemingly perfect control of the element was something she had strived for, but couldn't achieve to the degree he had. What was more is the fact that Toph didn't have a parent who was a fire-bender to pass on the gene required for her to be able to bend lava.

The four Earth-benders were devising a plan, when Wei mentioned Bolin's ability to create a hover-board and use it to fly. Lin had found this intriguing and decided she wanted him to use this ability to free the family, as they had most likely been suspended far away from the ground to prohibit their bending abilities. Opal had set out to scout the area from the air, looking for the rest of the group, where she discovered a giant spirit cannon being prepared for testing.

Opal had returned to inform the others of their discovery, which alarmed them knowing about the power a single vine contained. The power the army would have would be nearly unstoppable, but Bolin knew otherwise. He had absorbed that power when Verick had built a bomb with the spirit vine a few days ago, and it hadn't been as unstoppable as the rest of the team had made it out to be at all.

Balan had talked to him about it during their travel to Republic city, explaining some pretty nasty details. It turns out that demons and devils had the ability to consume spirit energy and transforming it into their own, giving them a large power boost. The boost was temporary, but it also depended on the level of the demon or devil. Balan himself could consume enough energy to destroy the planet and still not be near the maximum, however, Bolin's body would be put under too much strain and explode with all that energy.

The idea that he could explode if he used the consumption ability was unnerving to Bolin, but there was a probability there was somebody who could probably contain that much energy, but it would be too soon if he ever found out about their family's legacy as spirit keepers… His mother was killed by a fire-bender and her spirit did nothing to protect her, he didn't even know the family he had in the Fire Nation because of that spirit refusing to help its keeper.

When he shook his head clear of his thoughts, he saw that Toph had made a tunnel leading to the secret prison. Bolin joined Toph in the process of digging out the tunnel, speeding up the overall process at which they did it. As they pushed out the last segment of the wall, they came into a large open caver with a wood structure in the middle of the room containing the three family members.

"Get to work Bolin." Was the only thing Lin said before he sprang into action.

Opening his waist pouch which carried roughly 3 kilo of fine metal, he created a board and hopped on it and flew over to the other side. He noticed the guard just in time to fly up high enough to disappear into the darkness. The guard stuck around for a minute or two before leaving again, and Bolin lowered the board down to the wooden cell. Spinning his hand in the air, he collected dust and heated it creating a bright flame around his hand, making it look as if he was fire-bending.

"I thought you are an earth-bender." Bataar Sr. commented.

"I am. I'm using the dust in the air and my lava-bending to make this flame saw." Bolin explained.

He quickly cut the one side of the cage and reformed the board to allow the two new passengers on it. Now that he thought about it, he and Opal could have done this alone, it would have been much more discreet and faster. He slowly flew them back to the other side, but just as he landed he heard the door open and the guard spot him. Bolin spun around and shot two torrents of lava at the guard, killing him, but it was too late, the noise he had made had already notified his partner who sounded the alarm.

Alarms blared around the station as they made their way out of the cave they had dug, meeting up with Opal again. Bolin hadn't noticed that Opal wasn't with them, but when she told him that Zhu'Li was trying to sabotage Kuvira but had been discovered, he knew the punishment would be bad, but he hadn't expected her to be the person they fired the weapon at! She would perish with less than a quarter of the weapons full power, but testing it at full power was strong enough to maybe kill a powerful spirit.

Opal and Bolin acted quickly, flying over to Zhu'Li to rescue her from Kuvira's wrath. Kuvira saw Opal and Bolin attempt to help Zhu'Li and did nothing, attempting to wipe up multiple enemies at once. Bataar Jr. however still had family loyalties, once he had noticed Opal was in danger, he acted as fast as he could to redirect the beam, hoping that the small change in the angle would be enough to save his sister.

Bataar watched in bated breath as the beam fired, and headed towards the tower, hoping that it would miss. Kuvira smirked, but the smirk was wiped off of her face the next instant when the bright pink beam missed them and dug into the mountain behind them, cutting thru the mineral deposits and metals inside it as if it were butter. The single act made her love her fiancé less than she did, but she overlooked it. She still had other plans she needed to work on and some of those he had been in charge off.

Bolin and the rest of the rescue party flew back to the city, leaving Toph behind who preferred to look out for concentration camps and free the people who were imprisoned. The Beifong elder siblings had at least made peace with each other and their mother. They weren't comfortable leaving her there, but they knew how stubborn she was and had relented. Bolin walked over on the back of the bison to sit on its head with Opal.

"Hey." He said as he sat down.

Smiling she leaned into him. "Hey."

"What's been eating at you? You've been quiet since we left the testing site."

"I'm not going to lie to you Bo… It's just the thing with Korra, I really want to sit down one day and say this didn't bother me, but it does."

"Why does it bother you so much now? You know it meant nothing to me."

"It's not about what it meant to you, it's about what it meant to her… you haven't seen the looks she gives you when you're not looking Bo. I think she's in love with you."

Bolin was quiet for a minute, not looking her in the eye. Then he sighed. "I'll have to talk with her, I don't love her and I really don't want to hurt her either, but I don't love her."

"I know Bo… I know..." she said softly, nuzzling into his arm and falling asleep.

They arrived at the city a few hours later, and went straight to sleep, leaving everything for the next day. Bolin and Opal walked towards Korra's room, but stopped outside it, not knowing what to say or do. They knew they wanted to make it clear where they stood and that they were engaged and to be married soon, but they didn't want to her their friend either... The two shook their heads and walked to their room, not noticing Korra looking at them from her door.

Okay, why is my supposed 1-shot now a multi-chapter story? Anyway, I have a companion story to this one. I'll only post it once this is done and after I upload my completed chapters to the other fics I have.