"What do you want, Amon?" She'd said it before, and she'll say it again, "I'm tired of this." Her enemy held his tongue, she was sure, just to irritate her "You've already broke me, you don't want information. What do you want from me?"

"Nothing. As I've said before." As he's said many times before, it was always the same answer, it still didn't make any sense.

"You must have a reason if you take the time to see me everyday." She was tired, plain and simple. Tired, and helpless, would a straight answer be too much to ask for? What could she do with any information now anyway?

"I enjoy you're company."

"Whatever." She would never get an answer without beating it out of him.

"I've read up on your son's file." A police file. Damn it! That could mean only one thing, one of her own people turned against her. Sad part was, she wasn't surprised. "His birth parents were murdered by a firebender. I've read up on all of your files as well, your father was murdered by waterbenders. Perhaps I would like you to answer a question." he changed his mind, "How could you, who's seen so much devastation at the hands of benders, be so opposed to equalization?"

"Hi, Daddy!" Little Lin Beifong ran up to her father, who would be walking her home today.

"Hi, Linnie. Did you have fun at school today?" He asked, taking the bag from her shoulder and tugging on her braid playfully.

"Not really. The other kids don't wanna play with me."

"Sweetie, why?"

"Don't know." It surely couldn't be that she'd always been rough when they played tag. Or she always demanded to be Toph when they played avatar. Some kids were just stupid.

"We'll, let's go home, and we'll try to figure it out."

"Okay."

….

"Lin! Run!" Her father pushed her away, and took a stance in front of their attackers.

"Dad!" She didn't want to leave him to face the four waterbenders alone.

"Go!" He shouted. She couldn't, she didn't want to. She wanted these bad guys to leave them alone. Mom! Mom was the toughest person in the whole world. If anyone could help her dad, it was her mom.

"I'll get mom!" she promised as she took off, but she didn't get far before she heard a painful scream. "Daddy!" All thoughts of running for help abandoned her. Going back, the eight-year-old saw two men holding her father while another one was hitting him with a water whip. She pounded the ground, making the bad guys let go of him, then she kicked up a rock bigger than anything she'd every bent before and chucked it at the whipping man.

"Lin! Ge-" He never got the chance to finish his sentence as a ice sickle was plunged into his back. His daughter froze as he fell to the ground and went into convulsions. Two men were coming towards her, water at the ready. She closed her eyes, for whatever reason. Maybe she thought if she closed her eyes and opened them, she find out that this was all a dream... maybe she thought that they wouldn't exist if she couldn't see them. Whatever good she thought it might do...it didn't. They grabbed her long braid and put her into a headlock.

"Watch your daddy die, girl." They forced her eyes open, just in time to see his body stop moving.

…..

"Chief Beifong!" One of Toph's loyal lackeys came rushing into her office. "There's something you gotta see."

"Can't see anything." She grinned as her secretary rolled his eyes.

"Chief..." he shook his head, "not now. Come on." Bad tone. Something bad. Okay, time to be serious.

"What is it?" She asked as they ran down the hall to a large supply closet near the main entrance where a dozen of her officers surrounded what felt like a large wooden crate.

"Sifu Toph..." Penga's lip quivered.

"What is it?"

"Your husband." Was that all?

"Quit playing around, boulder brains." Seriously...just...why? She hated to be a wet blanket, that was Sugar Queen's job after all, but they had her worried for a second, "Get outta that box where I can see you."

"Toph..." no one wanted to be the barer of bad news, so it was up to Penga, "he can't." This couldn't be a joke. Everyone was genuinely in tears, and Penga was telling the truth. Why couldn't he get up? Least he could do was answer her...unless he couldn't do that either...

"No." She suddenly rushed to the crate, feeling for anything. Her hand handed on something stiff, a bicep, with obviously no life left in it. Her hand moved up to trace the face, "No..." this was the first time anyone of them saw her cry, "Wha-what...how...what happened?!" She continued to trace his neck, shoulders, anything that might prove that this wasn't him, until something crinkled beneath her fingers.

"The crate came in rush delivery in for you. We moved him in here..."

"Paper?"

"Let me read it. 'Beifong, hope you enjoy your present. We're getting ready to send to another one, but it's much shorter. It has green eyes and a long pretty braid. Can you guess what it is?'"

"Find her!" Every officer burst out of the closet. One shouting at the desk clerk to get everyone who wasn't on duty there now. Another one grabbed his gear and shouted that he'd take his team and search in the Roku District. Others grabbed paper and sent out the messenger hawks to the police teams on the streets. The massive manhunt/search party was started.

…..

"This is for Arketah." If he hadn't punched her in the gut, Lin might wonder who Arketah was.

"And this is for Makya." The other man decked her left eye. She couldn't even scream. They tied, gagged and put her on a small wooden boat who's only connection to earth was the anchor.

"Man that felt good."

"Didn't it? What the hell am I gonna tell their wives?" Especially Makya's wife. Poor guy, what an embarrassing way to go.

"Tell 'em that the Beifongs got what was coming to them." A punch to the chest, followed by a punch to the nose.

"I got one for her." The first man said viciously, bringing water up from the river, sharpening the edge and slashing it from the bottom the jaw on right side of her face. She finally screamed as it cut her gag. They didn't care, no one was around for miles and it was good to hear, if they were being honest."One for Arketah." He made another slash, "One for Makya."

"She looks prettier." His friend laughed, but still hadn't had his fill yet. He started to kick her as she laid helpless on the boat floor.

"Newkaw! Stop!" He ordered when the whimpering stopped, "I think we killed her."

"What? We didn't..." he looked down to see a very limp little girl, "Uh oh."

"Yakone's gonna kill us! What are we gonna do?"

"I don't know what you're gonna do, but I'm getting outta here!" Newkaw jumped out of the boat and on to the shore, quickly followed by his partner.

"Wait, what are we gonna do about the brat?" One waterbending slice answered his question, cutting the anchor rope and sending the boat with the girl down river.

Minutes later the convict named Yakone arrived with a few men to find no waterbenders, no boat and no hostage. His escape just got a whole lot harder.

…

"Lin!" Aang shouted at the wooded land beneath him. They'd gotten an anonymous tip that two of Yakone's henchmen came running out of these woods, "Lin!"

"Aang!" Toph shouted back, "Get down here quick!" He followed the voice to the river bank where Lin was in the mud and brush, "Help her!" Her friend didn't argue, even if he did (very guiltily) wonder if he was going to try and heal a corpse.

"We're gonna need Katara." Aang said once he realized that there was life left in her. He was a good healer, but if she wanted to pull through she was going to need the best.

They rushed Lin to Air Temple Island where one of the best healers in the world gave her prognosis...the little girl wasn't going to make it.

"Yes she is!" Toph taught Lin to be strong, she'd make it through this.

"I'm so sorry, Toph." Katara said through her tears.

"You're just not doing it right!" She wouldn't accept this, "Get in there and heal my daughter!"

"Toph, she's so strong, but she can't hold on much longer."

"Please...please...help her." she clung to Sokka for support, "I can't lose my baby girl."

"Can you keep her alive?" The councilman asked finally.

"Sokka, I told you the damage is too extensive..."

"I don't mean heal her, can you keep her body alive long enough for an airship to make it to the Northern Water Tribe?" Spirit water. The only thing that could heal her wounds now.

"I don't know."

"Try, damn it!" Toph shouted. Anything was worth a try.

"I'll go get the ship." Sokka ran off to get a bison and fly to the dry docks.

"I'll stock up on water." Aang ran off to fill as many skins as he could with enough liquid for the trip.

"Get the children ready, too!" His wife yelled after him as she went backing into the healing room.

…...

The healing waters of the Spirit Oasis worked better than most expected. Not only did it save her life, once she fully recovered there was no trace of the damage... except for the two unique scars on her face. No one, not Aang, Katara, or even the spiritual guides in the North could explain why they grew as much she did. But the bigger she got, the longer they got, maintaining the same coverage of her face as they had when she was eight.

It would be years before Lin found out why she'd gotten those scars. She'd taken Makya's life that day, and her father had taken Arketah's. When her mother found out that her daughter had killed a man she crushed the bodies and took credit for it in her report. No evidence supported Toph's claim, and even the most gullible person could see through the lie. But after seeing her father murdered, being kidnapped, being beaten and left for dead...everyone agreed that she'd been through enough and hid the fact from her.

The two benders who kidnapped her wisely pleaded guilty without a trial on the agreement that they'd be put in a Water Tribe prison, far, far out of Toph's seismic range.

Toph put a challenge out to the entire world. She would sign over her inheritance and everything that went with it. Her title, fortune, land, even the Beifong name...everything. And all someone had to do to win this prize was bring Yakone in dead or alive, preferably dead so she didn't go to prison for killing him herself. Everyone and their brother looked, no one ever found him.

Lin changed from that day on. She never let her hair get that long again, for starters. She also dealt with any threat to any member of her family. Anyone wanted to get to them, they had to go through her. Even the eldest, and the strongest, and the bravest...all of them found her stepping in between them and their foe. She never left anyone again.

How could she oppose him?

"If you got a good look at those files, then you know a waterbender saved my life. You also know my husband and mother were killed by nonbenders."

"I am aware of that. But had it not been for the waterbenders who kidnapped you, there would have been nothing to save you from." Yeah, completely ignore the nonbending murderers, they were obviously justified.

"What are you talking about? I'm glad those dunderheads beat me to an inch of my life." Finally a reaction! A look of pure confusion was clear even behind his mask, "If they hadn't sent me down river, Yakone, a nonbender, would've gotten ahold of me and he would've sent me back to my mother in pieces." Sokka pointed that out to her, and strangely enough, it did make her feel better, "Don't you get it? It's not the bending, it's the people."

"But if evil people had no bending, good people would stand a chance."

"And the good people with bending, who use it to help others?"

"Most of them still dominate their fellow nonbenders in one way or another, even you." When? When she tried to arrest Pema? That was just an abuse of power, nothing dominating about it, "As for the few that do not, no peace can begin without sacrifice."

Knock, Knock

"It's time, Amon."

"So it is, Lieutenant. I'm afraid our discussion must be cut short, Chief Beifong. I must make an appearance at the Pro-Bending Finals tonight." What? No!, "Don't worry, your sons aren't competing. They are not quite ready to play yet. Remember that." he threw a newspaper in front of her, "Take her back to her cell."

'BEIFONG BOYS UP AND AT 'EM' a picture showed them walking, however poorly, near the docks. The article said that they'd left the hospital the day after being admitted. Idiots. Just because she broke out of the hospital once...or twice, didn't mean that they should too. It also listed injuries they'd suffered, that's what she really wanted to know. 'They will live', while very good to know, didn't tell her all that much. According to the paper, their injuries weren't light, but the punchline was 'they'd be fine', there were no missing limbs or any other sort of permanent damage.

"Those morons. Could've got themselves killed." She shook her head, but smiled. They were okay, for now at least.