Aavatar Spirit Dot Net's lates drabble contest called for an awesome action scene. Question asked and answered, baby! (This story won. Yay!)


Proof

Katara uncorked her waterskin and scanned the surrounding forest. The first attack would come at any moment, and with theseopponents, not being ready could make it the last.

A breeze rustled the leaves on the branches above her. The afternoon sunlight lazily lit the moss-covered ground. Katara settled into a bow stance, front leg bent with the back leg straight, but with more weight distributed on the back than usual, for better defensive opportunities. As she moved, the water shifted in the pouch on her back, and Katara matched her breathing to the lazy swirling of the liquid. Ready to move at the speed of reflex, the Waterbender raised her eyes to the forest canopy above.

When the motion finally came, it was almost too subtle to catch. A shadow detached itself from the trunk of one of the trees and fluttered lightly in a way that didn't at all match the ongoing breeze. Katara barely waved her water out and down into a protective ice-wall before the razor disc slammed into it.

Mai.

Darn. She had been expecting Ty Lee.

Experience taught Katara that Mai could shatter her ice walls with only a few well-placed blades, and there certainly wasn't a chance that the knife-thrower would run out of ammo any time soon. In this case, the best defense was a good offense. Mixed with a little real defense. But not too much, or Katara would wind up pinned. Figuratively. Thenliterally.

Katara hated trying to think while she was fighting.

A yanking motion turned her wall back into water and a thrusting palm smoothly brought it around into a reaching water-arm. Mai was forced to dodge to the side, but did so with a spin that somehow (Mai did this thingwhere she could throw knives without anyone actually witnessing the motion) unleashed a flurry of razor discs. They flew in arcs that came in at Katara from her right, forcing her to withdraw her attack. The first one, she knocked out of the air with a well-timed waterwhip. The second, she was able to dodge with a slight shift of her weight.

The third was on a collision course for Katara's face. She ducked in a panic, and her waterwhip fell limp and splashed to the ground. Great.

Then a rain of stilettos began falling.

Katara scrambled off the mossy ground and broke into a full run. Mai followed, of course, taking the time every so often to casually wave a few bolts from her wrist launchers in Katara's general direction. In addition to the light cuts the Waterbender had sustained in the stiletto storm, which hurt only when she strained her muscles by running, a significant minority of the little arrows were hitting close enough to shave off snatches of clothing and layers of skin. Katara didn't know if Mai was genuinely missing or just toying with her, but either way, this retreat was not succeeding. She had to turn the situation around.

Katara attempted to do just that, with a sharp dodge that would have let her begin a new, truly terrifying (in her own mind, anyway) attack, but instead her boots lost their grip on the mossy forest floor, and she stumbled to the ground and quickly skidded to chlorophyll-stained halt.

OW.

"Benders," Mai drawled teasingly. Katara looked up at the knife-thrower, now approaching in an ominous amble that weaved between the tall trees. The knife-thrower's black and burgundy robes blended well with the shadowed bark of the trees. "Always throwing yourselves around when just throwing a single knife could finish the job."

That was actually a good point. Katara tucked her hands into fists and yanked them towards herself.

The tree behind Mai exploded into a swarm of splinters and a great big ball of water.

Mai barely had time to turn around before that ball of water threw itself at her head in the form of an airborne river.

As Mai slammed into the ground, Katara grinned triumphantly and blew a freezing breath at the soaked Fire Nation girl. "On the other hand, it's great having some realpower behind my attacks, don't you think?"

Mai's only reply was an icicle-crusted glare.

Katara was about to say something more when a suspiciously large shadow projected across the moss-covered ground. With a sickening sense of dread, the Waterbender immediately realized what was about to happen. She frantically used a strong arm-motion to grab the most readily accessible source of water- a thin ice sculpture that answered to 'Mai'- and threw the whole solid mass in the direction of the shadow's owner. A pink blur collided with the frozen Mai and squawked in surprise.

Ty Lee.

It was a good hit, but Katara knew it wouldn't have a lasting effect. If she was lucky, Ty Lee wouldn't recover in time to land on her feet, but either way, the acrobat would be back in the fight in seconds at most. Katara drew water from another tree, streaming a portion back into her waterskin as a reserve and keeping the rest in motion in the air. If Sokka was here, he might complain about 'flying water' again; although, come to think of it, it had been a while since he felt the need to annoy her with that.

Katara cast her eyes back towards her enemies just in time to find Ty Lee springing at her.

The acrobat struck with her left fist, fingers unevenly arranged to more effectively target chi-nodes. Dodging would be in vain; Ty Lee was easily fast, flexible, and efficient enough in her movements to flow readily into additional attacks, and she only had to get in one hit to disable at leastone of Katara's limbs. Attempting to block the blow would be even more dangerous, as there was no place on the human body that didn't offer exploitable chi meridians.

Of course, Katara didn't plan on blocking with flesh.

Keeping her left arm out to the side of her body, Katara swiped the other through the path Ty Lee's fist would be traveling, streaming her bending water between her two hands. The motion of the water worked on its mass, and Ty Lee struck the wave to find it offering more than enough deflective power to halt her attack.

Ty Lee blinked.

Katara grinned.

Ty Lee struck again.

Katara water-blocked again.

Ty Lee leapt into the air, somersaulted over Katara's head, and struck downward at the Waterbender.

Katara ducked her head and ran.

This time, Katara knew she wouldn't be able to get very far. Even if she was in the middle of a jump, Ty Lee could be back in pursuit faster than Katara could think. So all the Waterbender did was put some distance between herself and her opponent, and unleash her full long-rangepower. Katara started by compressing the water covering her hands into a globe and flicking it outward to explode into a cluster of ice-shards.

She'd have to thank Mai for the inspiration, sometime.

The sharpened icicles flew at the acrobat with all the speed of a bison sneeze, but she somehow managed to evade; in this case, 'somehow' entailed an almost unnatural twisting of her body that let her slip between the shards while still moving forward at full speed. Katara gave in to the urge to growl with annoyance, and drew the last of the 'bendables' from her waterskin. She raised her arms up in a pattern like unfolding wings, and the water responded by moving up to fully encase her forearms. She reached out with one of them and streamed a probing whip at Ty Lee, not even waiting to see if the attack struck home before striking with her other arm as well.

Ty Lee's response was a sight to behold. She didn't stop, or even slow down at all. She just kept moving at Katara, even managing to accelerate a little as she dodged each every strike of the waterwhips. She spun around the attacks, leaped over them, and rolled beneath them. She transitioned from propelling herself with her legs to somehow running just on her arms without any awkwardness. She managed to make each of her already impressive jumps carry her even further by turning every would-be landing into a springing push back into the air.

For some reason, other people wondered why Ty Lee scared Katara out of her mind.

When Ty Lee finally got within punching range, that fear made Katara's reaction unthinking and clumsy, and so Ty Lee was easily able to lean over the wall of water that Katara was in the process of raising to painfully tap the Waterbender a little forward of her right hip. A sharp pain exploded from that spot, and suddenly Katara's whole right leg gave up its ability to function.

The Waterbender dropped to the ground at gravity's full acceleration.

"Time to finish her off," came Mai's voice from behind Ty Lee. The knife-thrower stepped into view, her clothes and hair still glazed with half-melted frost, looking a rather damp and sullen mess. Her hands flicked inside her long sleeves for half a second, and each emerged holding one of the girl's larger tri-pointed blades. "I call first dibs."

Ty Lee, her expression conveying only a slight worry, stepped back to let her friend have a clear shot. Mai, however, wasn't interested in throwing anything this time. She stalked towards Katara slowly, as if trying to project a menacing image.

It was kind of working.

Yet Katara still had one last trick to try.

She was lying on the forest ground, a ground made up of dirt, dead leaves, pebbles, and one more thing. Most of the ground was covered in thick slippery, smelly, moistmoss. Katara focused her being on connecting with the water spread throughout the mat of tiny plants, and making it think of itself as one big system of water. Then she screamed, threw all of her functioning limbs out away from her body, and made the entire forest floor explode into a world where rain falls up and monsoon season had just arrived.

Ty Lee and Mai disappeared completely from Katara's sight, but she could clearly hear their shrieks of surprise. They were stunned, wet, and miserable, but not yet beaten. So Katara brought her arms back towards her body with parallel punching motions. The rising rain stopped its ascension and swirled in place with the same basic motion, Mai and Ty Lee at the center.

It probably felt an awful lot like being pummeled by a zillion angry flies all at once.

Even for small things, a zillion is a really big number.

When all the water fell back to the ground, turning what was left of the forest floor to mud, Ty Lee and Mai were visible both sprawled on the mess, looking even worse than forest around them. The acrobat was waving an arm frantically, calling out, "Give! Give!"

Mai was just groaning.

Katara tried to get up, but her leg still wasn't working. Looking down at herself and realizing that she was just as filthy now as her opponents, she decided to just drag herself over to where they were laying, and let herself flop down between them. "I pass?" she asked.

Ty Lee gave a moan. "You pass. Welcome to the Dangerous Ladies."

Mai snorted. "I thought we were Zuko's Angels."

"That used to work, but this time Zuko isn't giving us orders." Ty Lee's voice gained strength as she pondered the matter out loud. "Besides, that still doesn't cover when we were working for Fire Lord Ozai and Azula. 'The Dangerous Ladies' is much more general. Besides, Sokka came up with it, and he's cute and clever."

"Whatever," Mai grumbled. "I'm still disappointed I don't get her hair-loopies as a trophy."

"So," Ty Lee asked as she turned to look Katara in the face. "Are you in?"

"I get a choice?" Katara was pretty surprised by that. When the acrobat had come to her for help with whatever mission she was planning with Mai, she made it sound very important- too important to involve someone who couldn't hold her own against Azula's former lackeys at least once.

Ty Lee smiled at the Waterbender. "On my teams, new recruits alwaysget a choice."

Katara smiled back. "I'm in. Say hello to your newest Dangerous Lady."

"You two," Mai declared with a roll of her eyes, "are ridiculous."

Katara laughed, and threw some mud at her.

END