"Woah, okay, this is new," Mike said as he backed up from his initial position to get a better look at what was sitting next to him. He'd been correct before, it was serpentine and large and red…but had some lizard-like features as well. Smoke curled out of its nostrils as it stared down at him as it had before, its eyes like two little fireballs.

A dragon?

"Uh, hello?" he greeted the creature before him, wondering if it could talk.

''Sup', he heard an instantly recognizable voice reply. The dragon's mouth didn't move.

"Vito?! That's you?" Mike said with surprise. The few times he'd ever pictured what Vito might look like, it wasn't this. Truthfully, anytime he thought of any of the others he was aware of, they all vaguely looked like him, because that was who everyone saw them as and had described them to him.

'You gotta problem?'

"No, no, it's fine, just a bit shocking!" Mike assured him, waving his hands around. "Not everyday you see a dragon in real life, if this is real-"

'It's real to me. That better be good enough for you, yo.'

"Of course." Mike took a breath and looked around them. "Where are we?"

'I live here.'

Not a helpful answer, but maybe Vito didn't exactly know himself. "It's not very you-sized, though, is it?" The furniture was clearly made for humans, not dragons.

A puff of smoke; Vito sighed before curling into a ball and being wrapped in a ball of light. Mike shielded his eyes until the white at the edges of his vision went away.

Who was left standing there stood half a head taller than Mike. He surprisingly did look similar to him in regards to his skin-maybe it was a few shades tanner?—and hair; it was pushed back and poofy around the sides of his face, but pretty much the same length and color. His eye color remained the same. "Ya happy now, yo? Not my fault the place ain't accommodating for my size," Vito asked with a tinge of annoyance, pushing the sleeves of his pinkish-red shirt up to his elbows. It was unbuttoned all the way down. "I can't make it change for me, so I just deal with it."

"Huh—how did you—" Mike sputtered, trying to talk.

"Not important. Ya not supposed to see none o' this normally but you figured out how to do it, somehow, so congrats or whateva," Vito grumbled, fidgeting with the single gold necklace around his neck.

"I wasn't really trying to, actually…I just fell asleep and woke up next to you," Mike admitted.

"Well I'm wakin' us up. There's a boat we gotta board." Vito was gone after that, another ball of light swallowing him up.

"Wait, Vito—!" He didn't get to ask him any important questions. Dang it! he thought to himself.

The room very quickly slid away like it had been tipped over, and he was back in that void from before.

Mike soon woke up, except he was now on the ferry and felt queasy from its gentle rocking combined with a pain in his side.

At least he followed through, he thought as he started to lie back down.

"Good, you're awake again," he heard Beifong's voice behind him. "We're about to hit land. Like I said earlier, you'll get your belongings back and will be able to see your coworkers before a car will escort you out of the city."

It took him a moment. "What do you mean I'm leaving already? Or leaving at all! I never agreed to this," he said, shocked and confused.

"We didn't tell you until now so you wouldn't try anything before we were off island. I gave you the courtesy of not cuffing you even though I should have, don't make this harder than it is," Beifong said stoically.

"But-"

"You didn't think you could stay there forever, did you?" she asked.

He frowned. "No. I never expected that. A little more warning would have been nice—are you just going to drop me off in the middle of nowhere?" he asked in return.

"I'm not that heartless. There will be someone there waiting for you."

She wouldn't say more than that. He didn't like this at all, he hated not knowing what was going to happen to him.

To all of them.

Korra flipped in the air and landed on her feet with a whoosh! She ran forward and climbed the last bit of rock before stopping at the top and taking a final deep breath. Another successful obstacle course run.

She could see the ferry heading off towards the city. She had missed most of breakfast on account of 'not feeling hungry', immediately going off to train.

"Hello up there!" Bolin called to her from far down below.

She was surprised to see him; usually he was back in the city on the first ferry of the day. "No practice today?" she yelled back with the breath she had left.

"I'm gonna have to go later. First ferry got reserved by Beifong," he replied.

"Beifong was here?" That meant… "Where's Mike?"

"I saw him talking to her, but I couldn't get closer because Tenzin was there and they looked super serious—"

"They must have taken them back!" Korra said with a small smile.

"Is that…a good thing?" Bolin wondered.

"Uh, yeah? It means that we got enough information about them that they don't have to stay here and take up space anymore." And maybe she'd never have to apologize properly.

"Do you know where they're going? We were going to do stuff together, but haven't found time yet and they're already gone?" he asked.

"I don't know, it's police stuff, I think. They're probably going somewhere better for them."

"Better for who?"