Book 1: Fire

Chapter 4- Heart of Fire

Korra grunted as she raised her jian to parry the thrust of the spear. The sword rang as it impacted the spear blade. Her opponent was nimble, experienced, easily sidestepping her attacks while parrying the ones that did land. At this moment, she regretted choosing the jian over the spear, but she guessed that was the reason why she needed weapons training. Around them stood other members of the Southern Raiders, their spears and jians held high in a respectful salute as they watched the duel. In the crowd was also one of the Firebending masters who watched her from her Agni Kai, the one with the sword at his side.

"You need to be quicker. Focus." Mako said patiently as they circled each other, weapons at the ready. Not surprisingly, that was exactly the opposite of what was going on in Korra's mind. It was frustrating how easily Mako had countered her blows; even more infuriating was the fact that she knew he was purposely holding back, as though she were not worth the effort.

It was Mako who pitched the idea of having Korra train with the Southern Raiders. It was an easy sell to the warden, who was pleased to have such an elite and renowned unit pay attention to his star pupil. It also quickly occurred to him that despite Korra being one of the top firebenders in the compound, the warden never thought of giving her formal trainings in weapons. Something he had hoped to correct.

Roughly, if necessary.

"Oof!" Korra fell back unceremoniously as Mako suddenly attacked, parrying the sword aside and hitting the side of her ribs with the shaft of the spear.

"The sword is an extension of your body," Mako said patiently, "Treat it as such."

"Very profound, Sifu Mako, did you come up with it yourself?" she smirked, a bit tired from the exchange but still raring to go.

"As a matter of fact, I was taught by a great master," he said, slightly irritated, but nonetheless enjoying the friendly spar. He had spent all morning showing her the basic forms of all the weapons, jians, dual daos and spears. Although Korra was not a natural at any of the weapons, she had a very aggressive style that suited her, always aiming to throw her opponents off balance. That was partly why he recommended the jian to her, since that was a weapon most commonly used in conjunction with firebending.

"I can't believe they never taught you weapons," he remarked as they circled each other again, exchanging another parry of blows. "You'll need to know more if you even want be more than just a common prison guard."

That last bit stung more Mako than probably intended. I'll show him common prison guard.

She charged forward, both hands on the hilt of her sword, but Mako sidestepped out of the way, swinging the length of his spear at Korra's back. Korra however caught the counter-attack, ducking and doing a sweeping kick that forced Mako back. Her sword was back up on guard.

"You have great potential," Mako commented with approval in his voice. "But we'll keep working on this day in and day out. An enemy can smell someone who's green, and you're still as green as they come." Mako at least, wasn't taking pleasure in inflicting pain and humiliation on his trainees like Rho, but at the same time Korra hated losing with a burning passion; she would show him.

"Gee, thanks sergeant." Korra muttered.

"Just stating the obvious," Mako replied nonchalantly, standing his spear by his side. "You'll just have deal with it for now."

"You deal with it," she huffed, and then to everyone's surprise, the blades of the swords began heating up. Sensing the danger, Mako quickly brought his spear up to guard, but Korra had already closed the distance, sliding under Mako's spear thrust, she jumped up and took another swing towards Mako; producing a bright wheel of flame that would have burnt his head had he not ducked under the blade. With Mako down, Korra reversed her jian, and sent the hilt of the sword slamming into his chest, sending Mako reeling backwards onto the floor, surprise and slight embarrassment written all over his face.