"So this guy barges into your bending academy, murders your teachers, and blinds you in one eye." Lin's mother spoke. "Why?"
"Acchoda, Adao, and most of the parents of the kids in my class, including my father, were friends in high school. They were the main tormentors of Min Chang when they were teenagers. The town assumes that Min Chang was taking his revenge finally, using the knowledge that hurting their kids would hurt them more than physically hurting the parents themselves." Kao explained.
"What do you believe?" Lin asked.
"I used to believe that it was Min Chang taking revenge on my father and his friends, but with recent events, I know that's not true." Kao told her in reply.
"Wait, what's the guy's name again?" Toph asked, seeming to have realized something.
"Min Chang," Kao replied.
"As in: Azula's kid?" Toph asked. Lin's face paled at the thought.
"Yeah," Kao replied.
"What'd you say your name was, again, kid?" Lin's mother demanded of the girl at the confirmation.
"I didn't," Kao retorted. Toph raised an expectant eyebrow at the girl. "But it's Kai, Kai Kao."
"Who exactly is your dad, Kai?" Toph asked. Lin's face drained of more color at her mother's figuring out of what had taken Lin a month to figure out.
"Dour Kao, but I don't consider him my dad. He's my biological father, he's an asshole, and I haven't spoken to him since I was five." Kao spoke.
"Care to share with the class why that is?" Toph asked.
"Not really," Kao muttered. Toph raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry," she muttered. "I'm just not comfortable talking about it with people I just met." She looked down to her knees, and Lin saw tears start to fall down her left cheek.
There was a pause of silence, and then Toph spoke again, "Now that the lovey-dovey crap is over, can we discuss how we're going to get out of here?"
Lin saw Kao stand and walk over to the crack in the wall as she wiped the tears from her face. Kao pressed her face to it so that her left eye could see out of it. "Well, we were right about the containment unit being near the koi pond." She spoke pulling away from the room.
"Which means?" Toph asked Kao impatiently.
"That there's a door somewhere," Kao began to reach up to feel along the ceiling, "in the ceiling."
Lin watched and Toph waited semi-patiently, for Kao to feel around the ceiling of their cell for the door that was supposedly there. "Found it!" Kao exclaimed ten minutes later, and went to try and open it. She pushed, and shoved, and slapped, and punched at the wood in different angles of her body, but a fruition of her efforts there was none. "There's something weighing it down," she sighed, "It's probably a block of ice, because he knows that if one of us were to sense a rock up there, even in the slightest, we'd be able to escape."
"Well. That's. Just. Great." Toph spat out bitterly.
"I'm sorry if this doesn't work for you, princess. I'm not exactly in control of any of this." Kao spot out at Lin's mother.
"Kao," Lin scolded. Kao crossed her arms and glared at the ground with a grumble. Lin was going to say something else, to try and get the girl to talk to her some more, maybe open up a little more about how she grew up, but then there was a knocking on the roof.
"Kai, Chief Bei Fong, are you down there?"
"Bolin?" Kao asked confused.
"Who?" Toph asked.
"That was Kai," Bolin exclaimed, "Korra, bend the ice out of the way."
"Got it," Lin heard the muffled sound of the Avatar's voice, and moments later there was light shining through a small square large enough for one person to fit through.
X
Kai, Bei Fong, and Toph were pulled from the cell by their rescuers, and as soon as they had straightened themselves out, Bolin began to freak out. "K- K- Kai, do- do you know who that is?" he whispered into her ear while trying to discreetly gesture to the older woman that Kai had occupied a cell with.
"Yeah," Kai replied with a small smile at his childish idolization. "N –"
"What did you see when you entered to the hideout?" Bei Fong demanded the question Kai was just about to ask.
"There were a bunch of firebenders that immediately started attacking us." Bolin replied.
"Was there anyone they were looking to for orders, like leader?" Toph asked.
"Yes," Tenzin replied, "There was this angry older woman giving them orders."
"An old lady?" Kai asked confused.
"Yeah." Korra exclaimed, "She was bending blue fire to threaten some of them into, too."
"There's only one person who has been able to do that." Toph spoke, getting angry.
"It's three now, actually…" Kai muttered, rubbing the back of her neck.
"What?" Toph asked astonished.
"It's kind of a family trait, she taught it to Min Chang and Min Chang taught Azule, whenever she was actually participating in training."
"And how old is this Azule?" Toph asked.
"I'm nineteen, ma'am." Azule spoke up as she, Mako, and Destan came walking in with Troy and Dimitri behind them, who had a weak Asami leaning on then for support to walk.
"How is she?" Kai asked as Troy and Dimitri got closer with Asami.
"I- I'm dehydrated, and starving," Asami replied hoarsely, "But other than that, I'm good."
"We need to get her somewhere safe," Tenzin spoke.
"Yeah, and preferably before this psycho family figures out we've escaped."
"We have a problem though," Dimitri spoke, as Troy scooped Asami up into a bridal carry.
"What?" Bei Fong and her mother demanded.
"Kai," Dimitri turned to his friend, "They have the rest of the class."
"You're kidding," Kai spoke, "Please, spirits, tell me you're kidding?" Kai begged. Dimitri shook his head, wishing he was.
"Damn it!" Kai exclaimed kicking the ground.
"What's wrong, Kai?" Bolin asked.
"He has the rest of the kids that were in my class that day." She told Toph, Bei Fong, and Tenzin.
"So," a voice familiar to Kai spoke. "What's important is getting us out. Your friends can take care of themselves." Destan spoke.
"You can go, Destan." Kai spoke angrily, the man went to say something about calling him uncle like he always would when she was younger, "But we're staying and helping my friends."
X
Destan looked outraged at the way Kao had spoken to the him, "You listen here, young lady. I am your uncle, you will adr–"
"She's eighteen years old Destan Kao," a voice unfamiliar to Lin spoke up from behind the group, the smirk evident in the speaker's tone. She saw that Kao and her childhood friends had gone pale, and her mother had a prominent glower on her face. Lin followed her allies' gazes.
Former Fire Nation Princess Azula was as short as ever, her posture was still as straight as a pole, and her long, raven hair had turned gray and white from age. She had wrinkles all over her face from her constant smirking, and her ability to go from pleased to furious in the blink of an eye. Yet, her amber eyes were still aflame with that evil, conniving glint that had been there since her and Zuko were kids. To Azula's left stood a man with raven hair that went to his mid-back, a pair of close set eyes to match Azula's in color glinted with a crazed lust for power. Min Chang, undoubtedly. They both wore traditional Fire Nation royalty garb.
"She doesn't have to get your permission to do anything." Min Chang continued.
"You know your reign in the Fire Nation is over, right?" Kao snapped.
"Well, didn't you grow up just as cute and as witty as your grandmother, Kai." Azula sneered out. Kai raised an eyebrow, "I hate cute." She sneered out.
"Take them." Min Chang ordered, and before Kai or any of her friends and fellow fighters could anything, they were apprehended by Azula and Min Chang's followers. They were unable to move their arms, which meant many of them couldn't bend.
"What do you think you're going to accomplish by locking us away, Azula?" Toph spat out. "We're only going to break out again."
"What do I think I'll accomplish?" Azula asked with a smirk as she approached Toph, and invaded her breathing room. "I accomplish getting revenge against you, and Zuzu, and the Avatar for ruining me." She clenched her fist as she sneered out her plan, looking straight into Toph's unseeing eyes.
"What are you talking about?" Azule exclaimed, tears of fright running down her face. She knew the damage her grandmother and her father were capable of when they were alone, but together, she was terrified of the massive amounts of damage they could do together.
"I'm talking about being the one to tell Dour Kao he had a child," Lin's face started to form into a sneer, "having your daddy try and kill your class to physically hurt baby Bei Fong, again, to try and get back at you." She had directed her spiel to Toph again.
"Lin, what is she talking about?" Toph demanded of her daughter, who had gone pale.
Azula paused, and then she and her son began to laugh. "You don't know?" Azula asked after she calmed down, "Oh, Linny," she turned to the Chief of the Republic City Police. "Why didn't you tell her?"
"Didn't tell me what, Lin?" Toph demanded of her daughter.
"Nothing, mother." Lin snapped out, her gaze never leaving Azula's.
"Now, Linny," Azula said patronizingly, "Maybe this will change your mind." Azula finished with a sneer, and before Lin knew it, six benders about the age of Kao and her childhood friends were brought out: an earthbender, four waterbenders, and a firebender.
The earthbender was on his knees. He had dark brown hair pulled into a low ponytail that went to the edge of his shoulder blades and tan skin. Clad in a pair of loose brown pants, his shirt was green and he had a vest that matched his pants in color over the shirt; he wore no shoes.
Of the waterbenders, there was only one girl. She had light brown hair that's low bun was falling out, her eyes were a cerulean blue, and she had a scar across her right cheek, marring her tan skin. She wore a blue dress that went down to her knees with a white sash wrapped around her waist. A pair of black flats adorned her small feet. The other waterbenders were a set of identical twins, one with a scar on their left calf, the other with a scar on their right calf. There was a rather short and pudgy boy with a scar across his left shoulder, and a boy who stood much taller than the rest with a lanky build and a scar across his left pectoral. Each had similar coloring as the girl.
The firebender was a boy with dark hair, amber eyes, and a red headband wrapped around his forehead. He wore no shirt, showing off the burn along his right side, but wore a pair of black pants that went to his mid-calf. He too was barefoot.
Each looked pale in the face, but also angry at the man that stood to his mother's right. There was a pause of silence where everyone took in the whole situation.
"We should have gotten out while we could've. You should have listened to me like you're supposed to. Now look at the mess we're in because of you, Kai!" Destan snapped at his niece suddenly.
"She'll be nineteen in less than a week, Kao!" Lin snapped at the man angrily, "She doesn't have to listen to your rules, you don't have any say in what she does anymore." She leveled the man with a glare, daring him to question her.
"Like you do?" Destan snapped angrily. "You may have given birth to her, but you abandoned her too!"
"What the hell is he talking about Lin?!" Toph demanded in an outrage. Before Lin could reply, though, Kao Kai dug her heel into the ground and a rock went flying from the ground and into the air, nailing her uncle in the forehead and knocking him out.
Kai then spoke directly to Azula, "I don't know what you were planning, but I do know that you have heavily miscalculated the anger and vengeance that has been festering inside the ten Orta native teenagers that are a very short distance away from mastering their element. Nine years ago today your son physically and mentally scarred each and every one of us, and we've been waiting for this moment ever since."
Azula raised a bored eyebrow at Kai.
"You've also corralled the Avatar, her airbending teacher, the previous Avatar's earthbending teacher, said teacher's daughter, two probending champions, and the kickass daughter of the founder of Future Industries into one room."
"And?" Azula asked bored.
"And you've severely pissed off every single one of them. If I were you," Kao Kai told the other woman darkly. "I'd be shaking in my boots."
"Why's that, baby Bei Fong?" Azula sneered out.
"Because of this:" and right as she said that, Kao clenched her fist and dug her heel into the ground, and with that movement earth shot up underneath the feet of the men holding each and every one of their allies down. The sudden appearance of unstable earth under their feet sent Azula's and Min Chang's followers stumbling onto their backsides, letting her allies go in the process.
Everyone in the room took a fight-ready stance.
"This is going to be good," Azula smirked.
"Yeah, it is." Kai replied, and then the fight began.