A Different Destiny

Chapter 24

Katara woke with a start, dragging herself into an upright position. She immediately regretted it as pain lanced through her head, blurring her vision.

She gasped in surprise bringing her hands to her head. Katara wanted to look around the room, wanting to see where she was at. But she fixed her gaze on the wall in front of her, trying not to vomit from the searing pain in her head.

She was vaguely aware of someone saying her name and asking her a question. She wanted to respond but wasn't quite sure what they said. The stranger must have taken her silence for an okay because cold metal was suddenly brought to her lips and someone gently tipped her head backwards.

She tried to fight it, weakly moving her head side to side. Katara wasn't sure what was in the cup but she had a general policy of not letting just anyone pour anything into her mouth while she was incapacitated.

In her current state she was no match for the stranger and before she knew it she had drained the contents of the cup in a few gulps. Once it was empty, the hands let her go and she pushed away from the stranger sputtering.

Katara muttered a string of curses as her vision slowly came back into focus. Despite her threat to water smack the stranger into next year she heard a sharp intake of laughter. Moments later, the world returned to normal, no longer a collection of blurry lines and shadowy visions. And she said Gua sitting on a wooden stool, leaning next to her.

She was lying on a straw cot, a small table held a pitcher with what she assumed was more of the liquid. Gua looked at her without saying anything, a smirk still plastered on his face. It made Katara want to hit him. Unfortunately, Katara could be a girl of impulse and in one quick moment snatched the pitcher from the side of the table.

He looked at her surprised, clearly not expecting her to do that? Before he could do anything, Katara smashed the pitcher on the ground, the clear liquid spilling onto the floor along with several small clumps of green. She felt rage flare inside her, wondering what he had done to her. The herbs could have contained anything. She briefly wondered if whatever it was would kill her.

She called the liquid to her hands and flung herself at Gua. He only just managed to duck out of the way, throwing himself against the wall farthest away from Katara.

"What are you doing?!" he exclaimed, hands raised.

While Katara knew he meant it as a gesture of peace, with everything that happened it just further put her on edge that he hadn't attacked her back. She realized her water skin was still fastened to her side, with a wave of her other hand she combined her water with the liquid from the pitcher. It gave her enough to cover herself to her elbows with water. It wasn't as good as the octopus form she had used to fight off the Dai Li in Ba Sing Se but it would have to do for now.

She shot a stream of water at Gua and ducked out of the hallway before he could follow her. She ran out into narrow hallways and realized that she was on a ship. Katara could always tell when large bodies of water were nearby, the excitement of being so close to her element hummed in her veins. The excitement was mixed with fear, why was she on a ship? Had she been kidnapped?

She found the stairs, she could hear Gua calling for her. Her only real advantage here was they were on a wooden ship. So, at least for the time being, Gua wouldn't be throwing any rocks her way.

Katara scrambled onto the deck and looked around frantically. A couple older men gazed at her with confused stares but otherwise did nothing. She turned to run in the other direction. At that moment Gua burst through the opposite stairwell on the other side of the ship. His hands were still upraised. "Katara, wait! You're confused."

Panic welled up inside of her, sending a surge of energy through her body. She started moving her arms quickly in a series of complex bending motions. Seconds laters there was a loud explosion and suddenly water poured onto the ship. The stream moved like a reverse waterfall, starting from beyond the deck at the ocean waters and carried its way upwards creating an elongated u-shaped arc until it reached Katara. When there was enough water, the roaring of water stopped.

At the sight of this, many of the sailors started shouting and running for cover.

Katara was in octopus form.