Hello everyone! I apologize profusely for how long it's been since I've updated. Things have been super busy with exams and ceremonies and stuff this past week, not to mention the lockdown that happened on my campus tonight. But I wanted to try and make the effort to post tonight since I read through the chapter yesterday for final edits. Hope you enjoy it. And thank-you for all of your support, kudos, and wonderful comments. They give me strength in my times of need. I love you all.

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Chapter 8

It was you

"Y – You – you're part of the Strikers?"

He tried to squirm away, but Korra was having none of it.

She forced him into the tree and held him there. "You? It was fucking you? You're the one who attacked us? After all the shit you put me through last semester in chemistry class? After every fucking thing you and Kuru did to me? What's your fucking problem, huh? What have you got against me? Is it because the Dean embarrassed you in front of your class? Huh?!" She increased the pressure on his chest, stabbing his own eyes with hers. The fire continued to rage inside of her; she could feel it in every cell. "Or is it because I'm from the Water Tribe, because I'm a snow savage?" Her nose was mere inches from his, every ounce of her expression full of ire. "Answer me! All the shit you put me through. The attack now, almost killing us. What have you got against the Water Tribe? What have you –"

Her face fell flat. The blood drained from her skin. Her heart plunged at the realization.

"My mommy was a Water Bender."

"She tried to fight them and protect me, but they shocked her with their gloves. The man – the man with the electric stick, he – he – he was the one, the one that ki – killed –"

"It was YOU!" Korra slammed him against the tree again. She took her forearm off of his chest and clenched both hands around his throat. "You!" She growled as she lifted him off the ground. She refused to let go of him, refused to release this wretched man from her grip. The flames consumed her. Red rage blinded her sight.

Korra! Korra, stop.

"You were the one! You were the one who killed her. You killed Ahyoka's mother!"

Korra: calm down, now.

She wouldn't relent. Her palms were almost burning-hot against his skin.

"You killed her. You set her house on fire. It was you!"

Korra, what are you doing? Stop this! This – this isn't you. Stop!

Sentai struggled for air. He scowled and looked into the fiery eyes boring into his. "So the savage child lived," he choked out his question, but chuckled his response, "what a shame."

Korra lifted him further up, her arms shaking in absolute fury. "You son of a bitch. You son of a fucking bitch. You don't even care. You destroyed her life, and you don't even care!"

Korra. Stop. Now.

She was blind in her ire. His legs dangled against her. She was oblivious to everything around her except for the pupils staring back into hers, filled with nothing but hate for her, pride in his actions, and a hint of what she believed to be… cunning?

Korra! You need to stop this or you're going to kill him!

She blinked for a second, part of her head clearing out the beclouding rage. Her grip on him lessened just a bit.

Just enough.

"Korra, look out!"

It was too late.

Sentai managed to pull the baton from his back while she strangled him. Before she knew it, he drove the electrified end right into the center of her chest, stabbing her with what appeared to be a very small, hidden blade at the point.

"Korra!" Asami's call was almost blood curdling.

Senna and Tonraq tried to reach out to her, but couldn't.

The shock overwhelmed her. It took only a second or two for it to debilitate her, to bring her plummeting to the ground. Her drop forced the blade to go deeper, cutting up her skin before the burn of the current could close the wound. The pain was too much. Her heart raced in an erratic pattern from the horrifying electric pulse. She crashed into the frozen dirt and curled into herself, her hands against her chest to calm both the jolt and the bleeding. Everything churned inside of her. The flames and eddies of energy moved back and forth in a confused pattern.

Warship slammed down next to her, laying on his side while he coughed and hacked for breath. His hands were to his throat, the sparks in the corners of his eyes becoming less frequent with each life-restoring inhale.

Korra shut her lids and winced. While the baton had long lost contact with her skin, the electricity was still rampant within her. Her whole body jumped and twitched when an occasional loose stream coiled from her insides to the ground underneath her. A vibrant buzz radiated in her core. She opened her eyes and stared with anger at the man in front of her, though her sight was flipping between blurry and focused. She tried to push herself up, but the motion was too much. Korra dropped once more, her limbs shaking.

Sentai rose to his feet with the assistance of the tree beside him. His steps were rickety as he made his way over to Korra. He gathered his strength and kicked her ribs with excessive force.

The pain was enough to force a small cry from her lungs.

He smashed his foot into her abdomen again, forcing her to roll to her other side. He stomped on her several times before pushing her onto her back with the toes of his boot.

"Leave her alone!" Asami screamed, fire burning in her eyes.

Sentai chuckled and circled the bleeding girl.

Korra attempted to turn away from him – still unable to get her footing – but he prevented her from doing so with a heel to her throat. Her airway closed to the pressure of his body weight. She latched onto his leg with both hands, failing to remove it. She could feel the life draining from her. Sparks started to creep into the corners of her eyes.

He bent down until he was a few inches from her face and smiled at the turn of events. While he wanted to kill the others first, she would just have to be the starter instead. He brought the electrified end of the baton to the left side of her neck, keeping it close enough for the hum to reverberate in her ear, but far enough away so that it didn't quite touch her – blade and electric pulses included. The stench of his breath filled the air around her. "Any last words, snow savage?"

She wanted to fight. She wanted to spit in his face. She wanted to tell him to fuck off. But she could do none of those things. All she could do was watch this man kill her: stab her in the neck, just as he had done to Ahyoka's mother. She fought the tears that formed from the thought and held them further when she imagined what he would do to her parents and Asami. Now was not the time to show him any weakness, even if there was nothing she could do to stop him. Her limbs wouldn't respond. Nothing worked. She had gotten lost in her anger, let it get the best of her – let it do exactly the thing that she had been trying to prevent with her trip to the Fire Nation.

Maybe… maybe I can…

Korra reached a hand up to him, hoping by some means of the Spirits that a flame would shoot out of her fingertips. Her internal sun wasn't enough. Her anger wasn't enough. Her breath wasn't enough. The chi just wouldn't flow.

Warship flicked the arm away and it fell to her side in a weak flop. "Pathetic. That's exactly what you are; pathetic. You're nothing, you hear me? Nothing. You have never been and you never will be anything but a piece of worthless, snow savage trash."

"You're… you're wrong…" she choked out, blackness almost consuming her. It battled with the flames inside of her, the former trying to bring her to a dark end while the latter fought for a chance to live. She caught a flick of the fire, just a little piece, just enough to give her a last ounce of strength. "You're wrong!" She coiled her fallen arm and extended it with all the might that she could. Her fist landed right into the left side of his jaw. Pain shot up her arm, and she was sure she broke a knuckle again.

The blow was enough to knock him off of Korra. He crawled to his hands and knees and cradled his injury, spitting blood.

Korra rolled away the second he fell. She coughed and hacked for breath, holding her throat in a similar fashion as he had when he escaped her clutch. She pushed herself to her hands and knees, the electric buzz still radiating from her chest. A large portion of the front of her shirt was stained red from her wound.

They locked eyes and staggered to their feet, the Southerner panting and sweating much more than the Striker. The pair stared at each other, waiting for one to succumb to their injuries.

Her legs were shaking. The pulsing in her chest was too much. With a desperate breath, she clutched her center and dropped to a single knee.

He walked up to her – baton in hand – and pointed in her direction. He kept his distance, refusing to underestimate her again.

"Get the hell away from her, you bastard!" Tonraq growled, his voice deep and angry. "If you so much as look at my daughter again, I will fucking kill you!" Tonraq raged from his spot on the ground, his limbs still unable to move. Senna and Asami were lying beside him, looking just as angry and horrified as he did.

Sentai glanced up at him with amusement in his eyes. "And what is it exactly that you're going to do, mighty Warrior of the North? Head-butt me from the ground?" He chuckled until he noticed something was off.

Wait a min–

He was flying through the air before the realization could even come together into a coherent mental sentence. He flew and smashed into the ground, baton rolling far away from him. Warship lifted his head – unable to rise from the shock – to see the massive polar bear dog taking trembling steps in front of her human companion, snarling with her teeth bared.

H – how? The animal was chi blocked. I saw it with my own eyes.

It must have worn off enough for it to move.

Dammit.

Korra stumbled to her feet, using Naga's harness as a support to pull herself up. She held a bloody hand to her chest, trying to add pressure for the wound to clot. Though the edges were burned, the injury was wider than she would have thought. It gave her body a run for its money as her heart raced on. "Thank-you… Naga…"

She barked and rubbed her head into the Southerner's side to hold her up, indifferent to any blood that might have gotten on her white fur.

Korra's mind was a bit woozy from everything that had happened; the fatigue, the fight, the loss of blood and air, the electric pulse alone... She staggered over to the paralyzed trio and dropped to her knees beside them. She put a shaking hand on Asami's shoulder and locked onto her peridots, though she was afraid to see the emotion in her eyes. The only thing she could decipher from her greens was relief. "Asami…" She removed her palm so that she could wipe a tear away from the raven's pale cheek.

Several of the Strikers around them groaned. Some of them twitched as they fought to get to their feet.

"We have to get out of here, Korra."

She eyed her father and nodded. "You're right." She twisted around and called Naga closer. Panic started to cross her when her peripherals alerted her to the struggling Strikers in the darkness. "Bend down, girl. We've got to get them in your saddle, okay?"

Naga barked and flattened herself the best she could. She kept her head up and her eyes on Sentai and the other Strikers, a deep snarl escaping her.

Korra pushed herself to her feet. "I guess it's a good thing I forgot to take this off of you earlier, huh, Naga?"

She gave her a mixed expression and howl.

"Yeah, you're right. I'll take it off next time when we aren't being attacked." Korra spun around and slid her arms under Asami. She lifted her and swayed, her body at her limits. "This isn't going to be pleasant." She shifted her weight and half-slid, half-tossed the engineer onto the polar bear dog's back.

Asami landed with an 'oomph' and a reassurance that she was okay.

"Korra, we need to hurry."

She took a moment to survey the area. The moonlight was strengthening and so were the Strikers.

Shit.

She rushed over to her mother and carried her in her arms, a bit frantic in her movements.

Senna faced the same tossing fate as Asami. Lucky for them, she landed a few feet away instead of on top of the heiress.

The Strikers were getting sturdier. Even Sentai was on his feet, wandering to his baton with a hand on his abdomen.

"Korra, they're closing in. Leave me. You have to get out of here."

"I'm not abandoning you. I could never do that to you." Korra buried her hands under her father's shoulders and pulled him with all of her strength towards the polar bear dog. She leaned him against the animal and grabbed her bag before climbing into the saddle. She tossed it beside her, in between her mother and her friend.

"Don't just stand there, men. Get her." Sentai called to his comrades, his electrified stick pointing at the Water Tribe girl.

Shit!

They charged at her, their own sparking weapons at the ready.

She leaned down and latched onto Tonraq's robes. "Go, Naga, go!"

The polar bear dog sprang into action, sprinting on a tipsy path away from the circling Strikers.

Korra struggled to hold onto her father, who was bouncing off of the ground as Naga ran. She groaned and dug her heels into the base of the pillion, using her leg strength to try and pull him to safety.

Asami and Senna crashed into each other – the bag between them – as they slid into the back. Their bodies skipped and mushed into the rear of the saddle, the curve of the seat keeping them from falling off.

Naga ran through the forest, the Strikers close to her tail until they escaped the clearing. She had no idea where she was going; all she knew was that she had to keep going. She ducked under branches, contorted around trunks, and leapt over any obstacle in her path.

"I've almost got you, dad!" Korra gritted her teeth, using the last surge of energy in her to lift him onto her torso and into the seat. She pushed on his shoulders until he rolled off of her, most of his body in the saddle. She sighed in relief, bracing herself against the recoil of Naga's running.

Naga.

She crawled to the front end of her animal companion and grabbed the small handles that acted as reigns. She sat and leaned forward – loose hair whipping in the wind – as they sped through the forest.

"Korra, do you know where you're going?" Asami called from the back, enough feeling returning to her hands to allow her to grip the side of the saddle.

"I have no idea! I'm just trying to get away." She looked over her shoulder and watched the engineer move a bit closer, freeing herself from Senna's body and the bag alike.

"We can go to my Estate. We'll be safe there and it's not too far from here, now that we have Naga."

Korra nodded and brought her attention back to the path in front of her. She directed Naga around a large boulder, causing all three of her passengers to slide on the back. "Just tell me where to go, Asami! Naga will get us there."

Asami crawled towards Senna and Tonraq, her limbs coming back to her in small amounts. She didn't know why, considering she was the last of them to get attacked – or blocked, as she had heard Korra mention. Perhaps it had something to do with her lack of overuse of her chi to fight and move. Or perhaps it was just luck. Either way, she had to do something. She pulled Tonraq closer to Senna and held them down so they wouldn't bounce away, using their own body weight to keep the bag in place.

Why did she take the time to grab this?

The book, Asami. The book that she showed you.

She glanced over at Korra – staring at her for a minute – before attempting to get her bearings. The improvement in the lighting certainly helped. She squinted and scanned. "Just try to get out of the forest, Korra."

"Will do." She gripped the reigns and focused all of her efforts on the task at hand. She ignored her exhaustion, ignored the buzzing and throbbing inside of her, ignored her bleeding. All of these were things she could fix later. Right now, she had to get them to safety – wherever that may be.

Within a few minutes, Naga burst out of the tree line and headed towards the fringes of the City.

Asami recognized their location in an instant. "Move along the edge of the forest, Korra. It'll take us up to the Dragon Flats District. We can take the eastern bridge to the central jut of the City. From there, we have to get to the outskirts to the east, near the mountains. That's where my Estate is."

"Got it!" She directed Naga just as Asami instructed her to.

The moon was beginning its final descent as they made their way to the Sato Mansion. The clouds seemed to be getting heavier and stronger the closer they got. Korra, on the other hand, was fading, but she hung on. She had to. If she didn't, they wouldn't make it. If she didn't, they might die.

If she didn't, she might die.

Gotta get them to safety. Gotta… get… safe…

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