PARADOX

Chapter 22: The Waterbending Masters: The Showdown, Pakku vs. Kiara

(There's a bit of swearing in this chapter. But that's why it's rated T.)

I watched with barely disguised boredom as Pakku's waterbending student showed off for Aang, Sokka, Katara, and all the other people who were welcomed to the feast held in the Avatar's honor. To tell the truth I was almost bored to tears. I already could do all of the tricks they were doing plus others that I had created myself.

I subtly covered my yawn with a napkin in my hand as if I was wiping my lips. I wasn't yet rude enough to yawn in front of everyone. The men probably had tried very hard to get so far along in their bending, it wasn't their fault they had absolutely no initiative to make their own moves (or practice themselves).

I listened listlessly as Sokka tried to flirt with the Princess Yue, while Katara heckled him for it. I honestly don't know how I got through the dinner, it was extremely boring but I had managed and I was glad to be able to crawl back into my own warm sleeping pelts for the night.

The next morning I was woken up by Katara and Aang getting ready to meet Master Pakku. I grunted grumpily as I rolled over pulling one of the pelts over my head trying to get back asleep.

Sunrise?

Seriously sunrise?

Why not noon?

Or after lunch?

Or not at all? A pessimistic thought inched passed through my head, it's not like that sexist bastard would teach Katara anyway. I could teach both Aang and Katara on the go and we could save much more time. Plus I could kick old man Pakku's ass anytime and then heal him afterwards too.

I wasn't snobbish enough to turn up my nose at techniques even if they weren't fighting moves. Like so many of the males. They didn't even bother to learn healing, never mind that their comrades could die on the field before they managed to drag them back to the healers.

Dumb asses.

Sure enough a couple hours later Katara came back sulking slightly.

"You found out Pakku's a sexist bastard?" I asked as looked up from the book I had borrowed from Yue several days ago. It was interesting enough, about the last water tribe Avatar.

"You knew? Why didn't you warn me?" Katara demanded angrily.

"Because you wouldn't have believed me. You would've thought I was mistaken, or that it was just because I was already so good at waterbending I didn't need training." I told her calmly marking my place in the book and putting it gently on the pillow of my pelts as I stood and stretched.

Katara looked at me with an indescribable look for several seconds.

"Now if your done going off looking for people with fancy titles... I could've taught both you and Aang waterbending on route and we could've saved plenty of time." I said bluntly. I wasn't being arrogant. It was the truth. I had managed to use my imagination to create several waterbending moves that had never been used before and I was coming up with more as I went along.

"You'll teach me?" Katara asked.

"You and Aang if you want. We can see who is the better teacher, me or Pakku. Pakku's student vs mine." I said with a small secretive grin. Katara looked intrigued.

"Of course." She agreed easily. She really wanted to learn waterbending.

We sat around for a while longer waiting for Aang.

I was brainstorming more techniques but I couldn't think of any obvious ones. I had been thinking about a steambending technique but I would have to learn at least a little firebending first to heat the water to a scalding temperature.

Finally Aang trooped through the doorway looking not just a little irritated.

"He's a jerk." Aang said bluntly falling into his "bed".

"I'll teach you both on the side if you want." I told them. "I think it's ridiculous that the men don't learn healing as well anyway, or the woman don't learn combat bending. What if someone manages to corner the healers? What will they be able to do? Heal them?" I snorted at the thought.

"Really?" Aang asked eagerly seemingly not noticing the second part of what I said.

"Yeah. Let's wait for the moon to rise. Waterbending is stronger when the moon is pulling on the earth." I said slumping back to my onto my pelts and pulled out my book again reading avidly. For some reason, the symbols that were supposed to be the language shifted for me forming the actual English words, I wasn't complaining though even though I had managed to learn the language.

Later that night we had wondered out to practice with each other.

Aang showed us a move Pakku showed him.

"Tsk." I sounded glaring at the move. "That's stupid and showboat-y. You don't need to learn that. It won't help with anything. Here try this." I instructed showing him my ice needles technique. Sending dozens of deadly needles soaring through the hair to hit the ground sinking almost two inches into the the ice. The needles themselves were only two and a half inches long.

Aang looked almost constipated as he concentrated on moving the water as he wanted. Then suddenly the water was wrestled from his control and did the same showboat-y technique.

"Aang, Kiara said you didn't need the showboat-y technique." Katara said.

"It wasn't me." Aang said.

"You've disrespected me and my culture. I won't train you." Pakku said from the bridge above us.

"He doesn't need you to train him. I'm a better waterbender than you'll ever be." I told him with a tad of arrogance.

He glared at me like I was something disgusting like a snail-slug. Not that there were any near here, they would die within minutes due to the freezing cold temperatures.

"You're a woman. You'll never be as good as a man." He said bluntly turning away. "It's a shame the avatar will have to go without learning waterbending." He said trying to make Aang feel guilty.

"He won't have to go without knowing waterbending. I'm a better bender than you. Plus I'm not stupid enough to not teach him healing along with combat." I said bluntly glaring daggers at the man's back.

"Go back to the healing huts woman. You can't fight. You belong with the rest of the women." He said bluntly.

I growled low in my throat. Something I had picked up from staying with only Kovu for so many years. It was a challenge and a threat. Something lynx-wolves did when they challenged an alpha. Something Kovu only did playfully and not seriously. Something even an imbecile like Pakku could understand.

"Noon tomorrow. You have disrespected me and mine. Tomorrow you fight to retain your title as master. If you lose you have to let Yagoda take your spot and title and you'll need to learn healing and stay 'where the women belong'." I challenged. He couldn't refuse. Refusing meant he was afraid, or that he had no honor (or pride as it were).

"Fine. And when I win you give up all combat bending." He told me bluntly. Arrogance and disdain crossed on his profile giving him an ugly look.

It wouldn't be a loss for me. I could do plenty of bending that wasn't considered combat because no one else had come up with it yet.

We both shared a glare and he walked away.

"Kiara, what did you do that for. He's ages older than you, he probably has a ton more experience." Katara said sounding both angry and afraid.

"I did it because he needs his sexist bastard ass kicked." I said bluntly. "Now, back to practice. Aang try to do the thousand needles." I instructed putting my up coming confrontation with Pakku out of my mind.

We practiced for another hour and eventually both Aang and Katara were able to do a weaker version of my needles. Aang's were duller than needed, probably due to his pacifist nature. And Katara didn't have the control to regulate the size of the needles so some ended up looking like nails and others looked like spikes you used to anchor a tent.

I told them we needed to get some sleep. Especially if I was going to fight Pakku tomorrow.

I went to sleep that night dreaming of different moves I would use on Pakku.

The next morning I woke up at the cheerful time of around 9ish. Which was much better than sunrise. I yawned stretching thoroughly, it wouldn't do to lose because I got a cramp or muscle pain. I set off to get myself something to eat. Unfortunately, the Northern water tribe didn't have Caribou-goats. They did have tiger seal though. It wasn't as good as the one's down in the south but it was passable.

Katara, Aang and even Sokka hovered around nervously. They didn't want me to lose my combat bending, they didn't want me to fight Pakku at all. Finally the time came and we stood in the nearly deserted practice area. Pakku showed up looking for all purposes like the stuck up old man he was.

"Give up now girl. And I won't have to embarrass you in front of your friends." He said sounding exactly like I imagined Draco Malfoy from the Harry Potter series (J.K. Rowling) to sound like.

"Why don't you give up. I wouldn't want to embarrass you in front of your chief." I said my eyes flicking to where the chief was standing slightly out of sight.

"Like I'd ever lose to a weak little girl." He said bluntly.

My friends glared at him. I sneered looking down my nose at him like he was some sort of trash.

That's what set him off. He flung several gallons of water my way in the same showboat-y arch that he had tried to teach Aang. I brought up a wall of snow and ice to protect both myself and my friends who were still behind me. I mad little ledges along the back of the wall and quickly scrambled to the top, peeking out before I jumped on top of the wall. I created a ramp of ice and quickly slid down from the top and landed perfectly on my feet even as I sent a dozen sharp ice daggers towards Pakku.

As he hurriedly dodged the daggers I created my shuriken/kunai combo and sent the storm of sharp, ice weapons raining down on him. He quickly created a dome of ice to take the damage.

As he couldn't see me I created a dozen clones of ice. They didn't work as well as the water clone jutsu from Naruto (Masashi Kishimoto), but they were a nice distraction. It also took a great deal of my own concentration to control the twelve different bodies as well as my own but I was getting better at it. Each clone grabbed their dao swords and approached Pakku's shield menacingly.

Pakku made his shield explode outward taking out over half of my clones. The four remaining clones attacked from each compass direction. They were all doing the exact same moves because it was ridiculously hard to make them all do different things.

Pakku took out three of the clones with a little bit of difficulty and barely managed to take out the last one but got a nice slice across his dominant arm as a reward. The cut was bleeding heavily. Not enough to kill him but he would probably go into shock when he saw how much blood he was losing.

"Do you yield?" I asked somewhat hoping he would. I didn't want to kill the arrogant old bastard, just take him down a few pegs.

"No." He muttered stubbornly as he took a few steps forward trying to move water with his dominant hand before switching to his left hand when his arm wouldn't move without pain.

I easily redirected his move to the side. I didn't want to hit him again. He was going to need enough healing without me adding a dozen more injuries. Not to mention his pride was going to be wounded something fierce when he realized he lost. To a woman no less.

Finally I sent a blast of water at him knocking him off his feet and then used the water to make restraints so he couldn't get up again. He struggled weakly, blood loss seeming to catch up to him. Then he slumped giving up. I hurried over along with Katara, Sokka, and Aang as well as the chief and several of Pakku's students. Katara leaned over him looking at his eyes to make sure he didn't fall unconscious. Pakku reached a hand up weakly toward her.

"Kanna? Is that you, Kanna? Why did you run away? Wasn't the necklace nice enough?" He asked half delirious from blood loss and shock.

I quickly bended some water to my hand and began healing his arm gently, encouraging the skin to knit back together and be stronger than before. It luckily hadn't cut any muscles or veins, it really was just a flesh wound, even if it was deep enough to draw quite a bit of blood.

He sighed gently at the feeling of the pain draining away and seemed to blink, consciousness trickling back into his eyes. "You're not Kanna." He muttered to Katara. "Why do you have her necklace?" He glanced at said necklace on Katara's necklace.

"My grandmother gave it to my mother. My mother gave it to me." Katara said.

"I made that necklace for the love of my life. Kanna. But she ran away before we were married. I never knew why." He whispered sadly.

I smiled as I saw them bonding. Maybe I wouldn't make Pakku give up his title. He was definitely going to learn healing though. Even if I had to teach him myself.

A/N: So what do you guys think? This chapter is finally finished thanks to Usotsuki Lily who reviewed about twenty times in a row and gave me the incentive to finish this chapter which I have been working on for several weeks but never had the drive to finish.

I want to get to 100 views soon, so if people would please review this chapter it would be greatly appreciated. Only 11 more review to 100.