trans_9 | Last Straw

She went straight to the Sensoriums. Her feelings were all over the place, and she had to get away from people right now. She remembered all too well what happened to Alex when he lost Luna: she knew she had to find a way to take her aggression out. There was pain and self loathing and unspeakable things she was sorting through, but right now it was nothing but anger she was feeding on. She closed her eyes when she entered, concentrating on the enemies she;s fought while she'd been on the ship.

The Terminators. The T-Rex. The Nightmare King's monster minions. The traps Hal had laid for them. They came one at a time but Katara was ready, steeling herself to calmly maneuver out of the traps, to find a way to take down the terminator most efficiently, and those alone took more than a few hours. It was when she got to the nightmare King's minions, however, that Katara stopped being cautious. Now she ripped into them, stabbing at them with ice shards and freezing them on the spot before blowing through them, and slowly her determined face gave away to that of rage. As she started to remember their fights, their hugs, their talks, she switched to the Bene Gesserit fighting style, her hits were starting to get more serious, leaving many injured in her wake, though she received a few cuts herself. When she was done an hour later, it faded, all of it, and she was left in water, where she had heard Sokka once talk to Toph about how she'd been like a mother to her, and she couldn't stand it anymore. She let out a scream, primal and pained.

"WHY?! WHY BRING HIM HERE JUST TO TAKE HIM AWAY?! ALL THIS TIME, JUST TO TAKE HIM AND NOT HAVE AANG HERE AND MAKE ZUKO FORGET WHAT WE ALL DID?? WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME!?"

And she dissolved into tears here, the sun sinking into the clouds and leaving a dark, lonely pond.

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She frowned, but he had a point, at least from his perspective. "I guess that is kind of a compliment, so I can't complain."

Here, she knew she was going to have to explain. "I used to get very emotional, and it would honestly screw up my bending: it was unfocused and completely brought out by anger. That girl you saw mastered her emotions, and it made her dangerous, practically unstoppable. But the day I fought her, the day you saw? She wasn't that on a day where she got tenfold strength and was fighting me. I'm not saying emotions don't help, but if you let them control you, it just winds up hurting others."

"I've always felt that a good rage really helps you blast better," he said. "But yeah, it's stupid if you blast the wrong things because of it. But demon powers aren't your bending powers, so, apple juice and Prinny juice."

"Whatever emotion you have in a fight, you have to channel it, not let it control you," Katara said. "No one said feelings couldn't help. You just can't let the emotion do the talking. If you do, its controlling you."

Here, she was confused. "Um, what about juice?"

"Uh, you know, comparing two things that aren't alike?" Zetta tried to come up with a better metaphor, but... nothing was like Prinny juice. What could possibly fit better?

Katara laughed. "I guess, never heard of it, to be honest. But I stand by what I said though. It's why I'm here to begin with. I would never allow my feelings to get the better of me in a fight."

"...that whole thing you went through on your world must have been pretty rough on you," Zetta said thoughtfully, looking at the girl. "I mean, I know humans grow up a lot faster than demons, but still, even speaking relatively..."

"It was a war," Katara said. "A hundred years, and for the most part, it touched on everyone. Adapting, learning to fight: these were things you did, or you became someone terrorized. I'm making sure that never happens again: not to me, or to anyone who feels that way here."

And here she looked serious. "That was something me AND my brother believed in our world. I'm going to make sure that continues, even with the Outsiders."

Zetta made a noise somewhere between amused and thoughtful. "Sounds like a lot of people have had one of those in the past. Well, once we get out of this crap, if you ever get an insane murderous dictator taking over your planet, let me know and I'll kick his ass so hard he'll get an orbital tour of his former conquests."

Katara shook her head. "There have been a LOT of stories I heard, not all of them pretty, to be honest. But if that's true, I think you should take what you ca from your own personal pain and learn from it. I'm sure you learned something after turning into a book, right?"

Here she did smile a little, almost shyly. Overlord Zetta was definitely a charismatic guy. "I think I'll have to settle for the alien species trying to destroy us all as the worse enemy I've ever faced."

"...I learned that being a book sucks!" Zetta said, completely oblivious to any and all subconscious character growth he might be experiencing in the course of his time stuck in the Sacred Tome on this ship. "And yeah. This is probably the low point of my career too. It bothers me that they were clever enough to tamper with the Sacred Tome."

"Never mind," Katara said, half giggling to herself. If there was one thing she could say about talking to Overlord Zetta, it was that he was never boring. But when it came to the Ohm, Katara was fairly focused.

"I have to make sure I can do better, help fight them," she said. "We were barely lucky last time."

"Hey." Zetta fixed Katara with a serious look. "Don't go overboard. You're human. And you're not even an adult yet. I'm not trying to put you down saying that. But you're not cut out for obsessing. Don't get so 'I gotta help everyone' and 'I gotta get stronger' that you screw yourself up."

"It's not about an obsession," Katara said, "But I have to be realistic too. They are here, hunting us, and that means we have to do what we can. When I say I got lucky, I meant it: there was a full moon out, I could blood bend. What about the next time?"

She sighed. "I'll push myself, but only so far now. I can't lose myself."

But here she gave him a teasing grin. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you actually cared."

"W-well you do know better!" Zetta sputtered. "So why would you say that? But even a demon makes a point to enjoy himself, right?"

She laughed, but nodded. "Yes, I do all right. Thank you, Overlord Zetta. I feel a lot better now, actually."

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