Lin woke groggily in a room that smelt of damp wood and had the barest amount of light shining in through a crack in the wall. When did I get knocked out? She thought angrily. A thick breeze carrying humidity and the scent of old pond water blew through sending a chill through her body, revealing that whoever had captured her had stripped her of her Police uniform. Which meant Lin was now only in the tank top and shorts she always wore underneath. She went to try and use seismic sense to try and see where she was, but all her foot came in contact is was wood.
"It's no use, Linny," came a voice Lin hadn't heard in a long time. "The entire joint is made of wood." Lin looked over and saw her mother sitting leant up against the wall to her right with her ankles crossed. The blind woman had her arms crossed over her chest and her eyebrow was raised expectantly at Lin. "Now, care to explain to me what the hell you're doing here?"
"I– I'm– we–" Spirits! Lin cursed internally, what was she supposed to say?
"You know what?" Toph Bei Fong spoke again, "Nevermind that, why the hell did you drag a kid into it?" Lin furrowed her brows, what kid? Lin then heard a quiet whimper of pain and looked towards it to see Kao strewn half-hazardly across the floor in between the two of them. The girl's dark hair was strewn wildly around the girl's head, her ponytail having fallen out.
"Kao," Lin spoke in astonishment, the thought that Min Chang and his men would have thrown the young girl into the room as well having never crossed her mind. The woman then stood and walked over to the girl, seeing that she was having trouble sitting up. Lin took her by the arm and went to wrap her other arm around the girl's back, but stopped at the sound of Kao's cry of pain.
"What happened?" Toph and Lin demanded of the girl.
"That– That man that came up behind me," the girl coughed.
"Yeah?" Toph asked, crouching down next to her daughter and in front of the stranger.
"Mother," Lin snapped at her mother's impatience.
"What?" Toph asked.
"H- He was Min Chang," Kao was then sent into a coughing fit that had her spitting up blood onto the wooden floor.
"How?" Lin demanded, more so to herself than to anyone in particular.
"Someone must have overheard our plan when we were at the café," Kai mumbled hoarsely.
"What makes you say that?" Toph asked the girl, Lin nodded in agreement.
"Process of elimination," Kao coughed again. "The only person who would've probably ratted us out to save their own skin would be my uncle," Lin raised an eyebrow, "Let's face it all Kao men are cowards that'd do whatever it takes to save their skins and reputations." She told Lin pointedly, who furrowed her brows something starting to dawn on her. "But he's a waterbender, and Min Chang is a firebender purist. Mako wouldn't do it, because he's too righteous, and Azule wouldn't do it because she's too bitter about the way he treated her."
"What makes you say that? She is the man's daughter." Lin told her.
"Azule'd rather spend more time in the library reading, than training. She's been that way for as long as I can remember." Kao told them. "I'd seen Min Chang go on rants of rage that were directed at Azule. He'd go on and on about how much of a disappointment she was, and he'd poke fun at her interest in books. He'd done it hundreds of times before he attacked the school."
The comment about Min Chang's attack on Kao's bending academy made Lin start to ponder something. "You know," Lin spoke in response after a while, "We've never seen the burn scar Chang gave you." She gave the girl a pointed look.
Kao looked up at Lin, her left eye glaring at Lin through the open gap in her hair that was covering the right side of her hair. "That's because I don't like showing it off to the world!" Kao snapped angrily.
"You watch your tone young lady," Lin snapped. Toph raised an eyebrow at her daughter with an amused smirk. Kao continued to glare up at the woman.
Apparently deciding to break the tense atmosphere, Lin's mother spoke with an amused tone, "Simmer on down there, you two. We're going to be stuck together in this hole for a while. So I suggest you two get comfortable with each other." Lin looked over at her mother with a slight glare, even though she knew the woman couldn't see it, before turning back to Kao to see her trying not to look in pain.
"What has you squirming, kid?" Toph asked, "I know my Linny's scary and all–"
Kao cut her off, "He blasted me in the back." That shut Toph up quick.
"Let me see," Lin demanded.
"It's fine," Kao muttered crossing her arms across her chest and turning her head away from Lin stubbornly.
"Obviously it's not, Kao. Now turn around." Lin ordered. Kao huffed, but turned her back to Lin anyway.
The burn was horrible, but it was barely second degree, which meant it wouldn't scar too badly, if at all. "Spirits," Lin cursed under her breath, worried about how the wound would heal if it weren't treated soon.
X
"Can you tell us how you know this guy, hardhead?" Toph Bei Fong asked obnoxiously as Lin Bei Fong went about using some of the fabric from Kai's pants (with her permission, obviously) to bind her burn wound to keep it from getting anymore dirt than necessary in it.
"He burned her and her classmates when she was a kid, mother." The chief snapped at her mother.
"Because that helps me understand why I'm stuck here," the former chief retorted snarkily.
"I- It was the week before my tenth birthday," Kai looked down at her hands to try and keep herself from breaking down into another panic attack, "It was early in the morning too, because I remember we were only just starting Nation History when the school's emergency siren started going off…"
"Everyone down in the corner!" Master Acchoda ordered the class. Master Adao quickly huddled the group of ten year olds as close together as possible.
"What's happening?" Azule squeaked in her ear, wrapping her arms around her tightly.
"I don't know," Kai whispered back just as scared.
"Are you two stupid?" Troy snapped at them irritated. "That gang that's been attacking the town for the last month and a half is attacking the school."
"Why would he do that?" Azule asked weakly.
"Because he doesn't know who's in here ready to fight him!" Dimitri brought up a few small rocks form the ground, his hands forming fists as he went to stand.
"Don't be an idiot Dimitri," Kai snapped at her friend, grabbing him by his shirt tail and pulled him back onto the ground. "Some of us aren't even ten. We can't take an entire gang of full grown benders. They could be masters of their element for all we know." Her voice took on a scared quiver to it. Dimitri huffed out a pout.
"It's alright everyone," Master Adao told them in her motherly voice, "Everything will be okay. The Island Guard is on their way."
"You foolish woman," a sinister voice filled the room. "Do you really think the Island Guard will be able to stop me?"
Kai shoved her way to the front, a choice she will forever regret, to see who was speaking.
He was a tall man, about 6' 5", with dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. A tattoo of a flame covered his right eye, the needed body part's iris, along with its counterpart, were a shocking ice blue with a thin circle of topaz at the edges and around the pupil. His eyes were wide with a crazed look, his long crooked nose's nostrils flared, and his lips, bright red with pealing chapped skin, curled outward in a crooked smirk.
"What are you doing here?" Master Acchoda demanded of the man.
"I'm here to take my revenge on my family name." The man sneered.
"You don't have to do this, Chang." Master Acchoda replied.
"Your quarrel isn't with these children, Min. Why would you hurt them like this?" Master Adao exclaimed in anguish, tears streaming down her face.
"Because, I know it will hurt those who ridiculed us more then it will hurt them." The man sneered out. He quickly pointed two fingers at Master Acchoda, and before anyone could do anything about it, a sharp bolt of lightning was sent straight to Master Acchoda's heart. When the powerful substance made contact with Master Acchoda's chest, he immediately dropped to the ground.
"NOOO!" Master Adao screamed in anguish. Kai let out a strangled sob. The man, Min Chang, then turned to Master Adao and stood, bringing his fist back and a large plume of bright blue flames was firebent towards them.
Kai felt a flash of white hot pain shoot through her eye, and out of all of the pained wails of agony that were emitted from the ten 9 and 10 year olds in her class her's was the loudest.
X
Lin felt her face drain of color. "So he–"
"Mm-hmm," Kao cut Lin off, and the police chief watched the girl as she reached up for her long fringe that covered her right eye and pushed it behind her ear.
The scar stretched from the middle of Kao's cheek, up to her brow bone where there was only the tiniest sliver of an eyebrow, and it wrapped around her face to where it cut off abruptly just before her ear. Where a mirror image of the upper left side of Kao's face should have been, there was a scar so brutal that even though it was healed, if the light hit it just right it appeared to still be partially raw. Her eye wasn't a completely milky orb, but it was just foggy enough to not be a complete mirror of her left emerald green eye that had the slightest hint of blue.
"I can make out most things, but unless I was standing all but an inch away from something fine, small details like a person's freckles or the grainy details of a brick are gone unless I'm using my left eye with it. It would be completely gone had I not shut my eye just before the blast hit." Kao was partially blind in her right eye.