The crew of the Yasuko crowded around the port side railing, shuffling out handfuls of yuans and handing the bills to Chang's second, a sinewy man named Donghai who smelled and looked as if he'd sprung full grown from the sea itself. Korra listened to the melding roar of voices from her perch atop a large transport crate. It was hard to tell whether the disbelievers were the majority or simply louder.
Asami looked up from where she stood among the crew and gave Korra a thumbs up. She'd handed over a substantial stack of yuans herself, and there was no need to guess which way she had wagered. Eventually the din faded, replaced by an expectant, jittery silence. Korra watched Donghai flick wide-eyed through the pot. He looked up at her and nodded nervously. Probably hoping he had bet the right way.
The Avatar took one last glanced from bow to stern, made one last approximation of the Yasuko's weight and center. The crew had arguably vehemently against telling her the number. Asami had tried to whisper it, and Korra had refused her. Merciless bloodshed was one thing, she thought with a grim grin, but cheating a poor man out of his money was too cruel.
"Remember, no Avatar State!" Chang shouted.
Korra snorted. As if she needed to cheat like that.
A single deep breath held in her lungs, a further challenge for no purpose beside her own pride, and she dove from the crate. She slipped beneath the surface of the water with barely a splash. Muffled cheers pieced the pressure swelling around her ears and pressing on her lungs, trying its hardest to force the air from them. A school of wolf fish scattered.
The ship floated blurry and gray above. Korra began swishing the water surrounding her, letting it twist her around in a circle, faster with each revolution. A funnel of foaming jets swirled around her, narrowed beneath her feet. A larger funnel formed ahead. Korra bolted towards the belly of the cargo ship like a missile.
Drenching streams poured down her face when she burst past the surface, and Korra sucked in a needed breath. The Yasuko balanced precariously atop the larger pillar of churning water. It tilted too far towards the stern and released a creaking whine alongside the frightened screeching of the ship's crew. Korra gritted her teeth, sweat dripping off her forehead, and the pillar supporting the ship widened at its peak, spreading along the belly. One final shudder and the Yasuko held true.
Korra felt the funnel holding her afloat quiver and weaken, but it held her stable as she lowered the ship back down. A line of awed faces appeared at the railing, staring slack-jawed and wide-eyed at the Avatar's feat. Gentle waves rolled outwards when the ship returned to the surface. Korra dipped back below, tensed, and used the water to throw herself back on deck. She even landed on her feet for a bit of showmanship that made her grin.
"What the fuck," someone muttered.
The Avatar turned towards her audience, and the grin washed off her face. A sea of pale, scared faces stared with eyes wide as a hooked fish. "What?" Korra asked. "I told you I've done that before."
"Okay, t-time to p-pay out," Donghai stuttered.
He handed out the winnings, slapping the bills into slack hands that dropped them. Asami was the only one who took the money with any satisfaction. Perhaps because she received the majority of the prize money. The crew returned to their duties on shaking legs.
"She's a monster," an old man muttered.
Korra stomped angrily down below deck, shouldered past two crew hands in a narrow hallway, and slammed the door to her quarters shut. The metal thud rang awfully in her ears.
When the knock came moments later, it was all Korra could do to ignore the sound rather than rip the door off its hinges and beat whoever stood on the other side to death. When the door opened, she stood off her bunk ready to do just that. Asami stepped inside, and Korra let the electricity sparkling through her veins die at her fingertips.
"I'm sorry," her girlfriend said. "I shouldn't have goaded them along. I knew they might react that way and I encouraged them anyway. Give them some time, I'm sure they'll come around."
"Was it like that for you, the first time you saw me when we fought those guys at your factory?" Korra asked.
"I didn't see much." Asami frowned, and her eyebrows fell in on each other. "I was busy watching over my workers."
"Well, you've seen me in action. Did you react the same way everyone out there just did?"
Korra stared at the wall to her right while her girlfriend walked over and sat on the bunk beside her.
"Worse. The first time I saw you do anything this impressive, you did worse, and you were in the Avatar State. Remember when you defended Zaofu from Jianjun's army? You were throwing tanks and deflecting shells and blasted that jet out of the sky. It is still the scariest thing I've ever seen. The media coverage afterwards was the most awful thing I'd ever seen. That was back when we'd been friends for maybe a year and I was seriously considering ignoring you afterwards, but I was scared how you would react."
To this day, those were the bloodiest two days of Korra's life. Jianjun was a madman, and his army had fought to the last, boots and treads crawling over the broken wreckage of steel and bone, the blowing ashes, the blacked earth, inhumanly willing to rush to their death. By the time Korra snapped Jianjun's arm and drove his own knife into his neck, upwards of a two thousand had lost their lives on both sides. A specific number was never established. No one could ever stomach the grim task of piecing together what remained of the bodies.
"Thank you for not giving up on me," Korra said.
"No, thank you for never giving up on yourself or the world. And I hope you don't give up on this crew, either. Keep working. Keep being that stubborn person you always are. Make them like you."
Korra shrugged. "I'm sure they will like me if I end up saving their lives."
Or she would go to far, frighten them even more, and blacken the Avatar's reputation the same way poisonous ash had blackened the emerald valley and sparkling rivers of Zaofu. No matter how you try to earn love, and no matter how you deserve it, you will always be feared and hated, because humanity can never love something they do not comprehend.
One quiet day passed, and then another. Korra's only real conversation came with Asami and Captain Chang. Sometimes Donghai would muster the courage in his captain's place. The crew managed polite smiles more often than not. They tried their best to avoid her.
The pirates came on the third day, as the sun turned the sea to sparkling fire to the east and the stars burned away. Korra heard the shouts from topside, and Asami shuffled awake beside her. Clothes were hastily donned. Asami slipped her coat over her bulletproof vest, and insisted Korra wear one as well. They shared the same brief, unsatisfying kiss as always. Motivation, Asami said the first time they kissed before a fight, so they would both stay alive for one better.
Captain Chang's bloodless face, white as the moon, stared towards the rising sun and the two ships stark as shadows against the rising sun, like an artist's painting of impending doom. "Two?" Korra said. "Guess they are doing well for themselves."
"We have maybe five minutes until they're on us," Chang said. "What do we do, Avatar?"
"Get your crew ready to fight. Full speed ahead. Try to outrun them."
"Those are frigates. This is a damned whale. There's no chance we can lose them."
"You don't have to." Korra jumped atop the portside railing. "You only need to buy me time."
She dove into the water, spread an air bubble around her body, and propelled herself towards the pirates.
"What the fuck is that thing?" a scarred, hard woman shouted, gone soft as silk in her fear.
Korra ripped a square of metal from the wall in time to halt three bullets fired her way. With flicks of her wrists she turned it sideways and spiraling into the shooter's chest. The rest fled up the stairs to topside, like the others had. Right where Korra wanted them, with nothing but wide, open space and only water to escape to.
Greed continued to motivate the worst of the pirates. Two clutched sacks of valuables like their firstborn children, while others stood frozen in place with fistfuls of coins glinting between their fingers. The barrels of cheap pistols shook in a dozen hands while they aimed Korra's way. Uncertainty made her hesitate.
"Flyswatters attempting to kill an eagle," the White Lotus woman behind Korra said with a chuckle. "Finish them, Avatar."
Three more bullets let fly. Korra used a gust of wind to send them wobbling wayward into the deck. Two fired, and she stood out of their way. A grin poked at the corners of her eyes, feral and bloody. She rushed forward and the deck devolved into chaos.
When the fight ended, Korra wiped the blood from her eyes and spit at an old man face down near the bulkhead blocking the way back below deck. He had been the first to run and the last to die. The smell of blood blended with the salty spray off the water. A good smell, an invigorating, victorious smell. A victory she had trained her entire life for.
The White Lotus woman smiled at the Avatar's side. "Very good." More climbed on deck from the small boats surrounding the pirate vessel. "Very good, Avatar. You should be proud."
Korra waited for her congratulations. She waited for the praise she'd dreamed of when this day ended. For the White Lotus to finally say they were proud, that they were happy. Instead they began tossing the dead overboard with hardly a glance her way.
"I killed them all?" Korra asked. Adrenaline rendered the fight a blur.
"As you should have," the woman said. "As you were trained."
"But maybe if I kept them alive, I could have-"
"There is no benefit to mercy. Ever. You know this. Or do you require more lessons?"
Korra shook her head and averted her gaze.
"No mercy for the black of heart, Avatar. Such scum will never show you such leniency, and to hold back only gives them opportunity to hurt you in ways they should never have been allowed to begin with. Look at the blood."
She did as told, as always. The deck was coated with it, a grim, grisly, uneven coat of paint drying quickly in the sun.
"Mercy does not prevent blood. It only changes the bodies it flows from to the innocent instead of the guilty."
The closest of the pirate frigates split the water above Korra, the edge of a blade thrust towards the Yasuko ahead. She broke the surface in an arc towards the hull, guessing she was near the engine room, split open a section to give her entrance, and tucked into a ball as she passed the jagged edges.
A lone crewmember stared mouth agape while Korra stood up. She knocked him out cold with a punch to the jaw and wrapped him with cables ripped from the machinery around her. One person who would survive the day, anyway. Once she bent the water from her skin and clothing, she hardened it to ice and began slicing at everything in sight. A dying groan, colossal shudder, flashing red lights, and piercing alarm told her the job was done. Korra gashed the hull. Water poured in through the breach, shoving at Korra's legs, trying to knock her off her feet. She bent it away and ran for the opening.
The breach stitched shut like a wound. Korra was knocked off her feet into the water. Her jaw bounced off the floor and her head rang with a hundred bells.
"Who the hell are you?" a tall pirate asked. He tapped a pipe in one hand against the palm of the other.
"Someone you should not have tried to fight," Korra said. She couldn't help it. The grin spread sure as it did the day the White Lotus unleashed her on the world, nodding like proud parents as she spilled the blood of the pirates aboard that tiny ship.
He was a talented metalbender, Korra could give him that much, and he was in his element. The close quarters gave Korra little room to maneuver, forcing her to focus on defending his attacks. He gave few openings. His stamina was impressive. His attacks creative.
Too bad he didn't pay more attention to positioning.
The moment his foot splashed through the water accumulated in the engine room, Korra froze it in place. The moisture splashed up his body, allowing her to freeze his legs, left arm, and chest. He beat at the ice with his free hand, too slow to stop Korra from whipping him across the face. She froze the rest of his body as footsteps pounded down the metal stairs leading above. She collapsed the roof to impede them.
Cold water burst through two new gashes in the hull. The Avatar dove out into the ocean. To her right, the second of the pirate frigates had closed the gap and was preparing to pull alongside the Yasuko. Muffled commands blared bland static into her ears. Tiny dots descended in tinier boats lowered to the water while others readied boarding ramps.
Korra dove beneath the water, tensed, and pushed herself forward.
Gunshots rang loud above her head when she surfaced. A body fell from the Yasuko. She could not tell which side it belonged to. Another joined it moments later. Korra rose high in the air within a whirlpool and took in the battleground. The crackle of electricity drew her attention where Asami had shocked a pirate and took his gun. She ducked from behind her cover to pop off three shots, one of which blasted the brains of another pirate out the back of his head.
Others had fared much worse. Donghai lay bleeding against railing, unfocused eyes staring at his wounds. Four others lay motionless among the crates. Pirates poured aboard the deck from ladders and ramps. Blood streaked the steel and pooled behind Korra's eyes, guilt pulsing at her temples. She should have been quicker. She shouldn't have tried to show off.
The Avatar fell onto the deck in a swirl of wind and water, knocking the invaders into the water and ricocheting them off the crates. A firebender loosed his flames at her, and Korra shoved him off the ship with her own. A pair of guns fired simultaneously. She deflected one bullet, but the other ripped through her side. The pain lanced through her. Her eyes glowed, and she snarled. The last thing she remembered was the scream of the man who shot her as his arm snapped at the elbow and the dual steely ring when his gun clanged off the deck.
Time passed in a blur of water and blood. Something detonated in her ears. Backs showed as the pirates fled. Korra gave chase. Those who draw your blood must repay with interest. Always. A woman screamed. Bones cracked like twigs. A retreat was shouted desperately from aboard the pirate frigate. Another detonation sucked at the air. Korra strained, her muscles bulging and flexing.
She came down to the feel of a soft hand gripping hers. Asami whispered in her ear, the words slowly breaking through the rush of blood in her head. "…it's over. It's over, calm down. You did it."
Other, happier sounds replaced the swell in her ears as Korra came down. Cheering. The crew of the Yasuko surrounded her, and hands slapped happily on her shoulders and back.
Chang broke through the crowd to shake her free hand. Asami still held Korra's other hand like a drowning sailor to a lifeline keeping her afloat. Or maybe she was Korra's lifeline, lifting her head above the blood. "Thank you, Avatar Korra," the captain said. "I thought we were done for. We definitely would have been if you hadn't sunk that other ship."
"That was amazing!" someone else shouted. "I can't believe you threw that ship!"
Smoke rose thick and black into the sky where the two broken vessels slowly submerged into the ocean. Fires snuffed as they were extinguished. Bodies spotted the water between the sinking frigates and the cargo ship they had attacked.
More compliments rained upon Korra's ears alongside slapping hands and mindless cheering. Asami led Korra away, doing the speaking for her. They disappeared through the bulkhead and down to her quarters. Only when Korra was seated on the bunk did Asami let go of her hand, and only long enough to brush her fingers along the damp side of her shirt, making Korra wince.
"Bullet went through me. Guess I shouldn't have tried to play it nice."
Her girlfriend pulled a first-aid kit from under the bunk. "What do you mean?"
"I tried to take out the first ship bloodlessly. Took too much time and let them get to you."
"It didn't matter what you did. Once you dove in the water, both ships came full speed ahead. One of them was going to reach us."
"Then I should have gone Avatar State right away and sank them both."
Asami frowned. "Don't ever regret doing the right thing."
"Why?" Korra tried to stand, but was pushed back down. "If I do what I was trained to do, no one on this ship dies today."
"And you look like the monster you claim to despise."
Korra shrugged. "Maybe I should have just been the monster today."
"No." Asami's emerald eyes were afire, her ruby lips a hard line. "Doing the right thing isn't easy, Korra. That's what makes it right. Hardship is what sculpts a person into the best they can be. What you did today is you at your best. It's the woman I love, and the woman who just had the crew that feared her hours ago cheering her as their hero. You did good today, Korra."
The Avatar reached down to wipe away a smudge of blood above her wound. "Mercy does not prevent blood. It only changes the bodies it flows from to the innocent instead of the guilty. Something the White Lotus taught me."
"And do you wish to live by their teachings again?"
Korra's blue eyes went cold as ice. "Never."
Asami brushed her lips against Korra's. "Then let the guilt hit you. Let it torture you. Because the consequences of doing the right thing are a lot easier to forgive than the memories of doing the wrong thing."
