Author's Notes: Hey everyone, sorry that it has been so long since I updated but I hope that this will make up for it. As always I own nothing.
The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential... these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence-Confucius
The spirits swarmed the ship, they seemed to be everywhere. Fire from the benders on the ship worked somewhat at holding them off but it was far from perfect and those armed only with regular weapons were having even less success, Akemi launched a bolt of lightning to dissipate one spirit, only to watch in horror as a group of others swarmed several men near her before she could react. She felt helpless at the sight, a helplessness which turned to a ball of rage, burning like a ball in her belly. She forced herself to ignore it and focus on the battle. Looking beyond she saw that the other ships in the fleet were faring just as badly, dealing with both spirits and boarders, if something was not done and done soon the fleet might be lost entirely, or damaged so badly that it would be unable to render aid to those ashore. The only bright spot was that so far the troop transports had manage to avoid the enemy by hanging well back.
"Lieutenant!" A marine called to her. "They're storming the bridge!"
Akemi cursed, feeling the burning within her growing, this was the last thing they needed! She looked around in an effort to find troops not engaged in combat and not really seeing any, all who were still physically capable of doing so were fighting for their lives already, mostly unsuccessful. The burning inside her was becoming painful and harder to ignore. She would have to clear some of the spirits from around here if she was going to be able to do anything about the bridge. She fixed on a target, a spirit attacking several sailors. She charged towards it while gathering energy for an attack.
Her father had taught her firebending, to draw energy from energy and life, yet she found that was not enough to overcome her current opponents. She knew her father would not approve but she felt she had no choice, it was her duty to save her crew by any means necessary. She tapped into the rage and let it flow into her bending, mixing the anger with the energy and life she normally employed. It felt strange, different from how her bending usually did, it was harder, as if it were fighting her in some way. All in all she was not sure if it was a good or a bad thing. Whichever it was, she could not deny it was strong.
The flames flowed over the spirits, who for their part howled and dissipated. This new boon did not; however, come without cost. The pain was building inside her, growing to the extent that she was beginning to see whit at the edge of her vision. Still, even though it was getting harder and harder, she forced the pain to the back of her mind and focused on the battle.
"You lot!" She said to the sailors that she had just rescued; "Come with me!" They nodded and fell in behind her.
They forced their way through the fighting press of bodies, when they could spare the time they drove off or destroyed spirits and added the ones that they rescued to their force. By the time that they reached the entrance to the superstructure Akemi had a force of nearly forty, a mixture of sailors and marines. Once they were inside the superstructure they found their progress faster, the spirits were restricting themselves to attacking those on the outside of the superstructure and no new enemy forces had yet boarded the ship. Therefore, they were able to move to the bridge without incident, save for picking a few more crewmembers. However; when they reached the bridge itself they found that the door had been warped out of shape and could not be opened. Akemi turned to the benders amongst them.
"Heat the edges." She commanded them. They moved forward and heated the edge of the door, paying particular attention to hinges till they were red-hot and began to bend and sag. Once she was she was satisfied Akemi called them back and sent in the sailors. Some of these were catapult operators and had employed their heavy hammers as weapons, which they were still carrying. Several these brought their tools to bare and slammed them against the door. Weakened by the heat door bowed and crashed inwards, clearing the way into the bridge for Akemi and the others. The bridge was a charnel house. Dead officers, including Captain Chan, lay everywhere. Akemi were not sure if all of them were dead but she did not have time to check, her attention was focused on the few officers who were still fighting.
Leading them was Admiral Natsuko, she and the others were cornered at the far end of the bridge, to her dismay Akemi saw that that there were only six of them still standing, all of them bleeding to one extent or another. Spirits swarmed around them and it was clear that they would eventually be overwhelmed, seemingly sooner rather than later. Even as Akemi and the others entered the bridge another of the officers fell. At the sight of the officer's death the burning rage inside Akemi flared to a new level, but now it had focus.
The anger was at the unjust death of her people, at all of the deaths and destruction which had been inflicted that day and indeed the whole war. The aggression came from a desire to stop the enemy and save the lives of her people and to punish those who had brought so much misery and suffering to her nation and to the world. As all these thoughts came into focus the rage and aggression which she had been using to augment her firebending merged with the emotions she normally employed to fuel her abilities. It was as if a dam had been opened inside her, the pain flowed up to her arm and burst out of her fist in ball of flame. Flame which burned blue.
Author's Notes: Hey everyone, sorry that it has been so long since I last updated and that it is on the short side, I will try to make the next longer. I wanted to show her coming into her full potential as a firebender by merging all the different ways firebeners power themselves. Till next time Happy New Year, I pray that you are blessed by God with a new one, I would also like to thank all of you who prayed for my family friend, God answered and he is doing much better. Please keep praying for the victims of the flooding in the US, those persecuted for their faith and all the others who need prayer. Bye and may Jesus bless you.
