Chapter 2:

Thanks to my two reviewers and everyone else who read my last chapter! I'll definitely keep updating this story, so stay tuned! I'm not at all sure where this story is going though. Hell, I don't even know where this chapter is going. Bah!

To anyone who missed it in the last chapter: in Aang's world, the Firelord was defeated less than six months previous.

Well, here goes…

.~.~.~.

Aang paced in front of the entryway nervously. Around his neck hung a long orange cape that drifted down to the ground, and each time Aang turned around to continue pacing, the orange velvet swung about his feet and whispered to his toes.

Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen… Aang counted his steps until he had to turn around again to avoid collision with the wall towering high above him. Seventeen, eighteen. The Avatar pivoted on his heel as the fabric of his clothing rustled in objection to the abrupt motion. He felt the material brush over the top of his feet to the tips of his toes where it tickled the skin gently before settling back behind the ankle. Aang took another step, then another. One, two…

Doors opened. Aang looked up expectantly. "Well?"

Katara who had opened the doors looked at her friend solemnly, shaking her head in grief. "They're here. And they're not open to any sort of peace talk."

"But we can't fight them!"

"Aang," murmured a low voice, "we may not have a choice." It was Sokka who spoke, walking up from behind his sister. His feet dragged, making each stride long and slow, like he was wading through a river of blood and tears. In a dismally metaphorical way, he was. "Look, I know you mean well, but when Katara and I went out there to try to scope out their intentions, things weren't sounding too good. They want to burn the city to the ground, then execute all the fire benders they can lay their hands on. They're far past reasoning."

"I have to try. We didn't defeat the Firelord just so that the world could fall back into another war!"

With those words, Aang left in the direction Katara and Sokka had come. He marched down the long hallway and out onto the balcony to see what awaited him below.

The sight was a horror to see. A mob of people crammed into the town square. They overflowed into the smaller alleys and even past the city limits. It was a larger amount of people than Aang had ever seen gathered together for one purpose. The sight of so many people, so many green Earth Kingdom hats and blue Water Tribe ponytails, would have been almost beautiful, if not for the shining glints of steel one could see scattered among the crowd. Swords, spears, arrows, knives. They came with any and every weapon possible. Aang even saw a few less conventional weapons in the crowd: a wooden meat cleaver, a couple hammers, and Aang even saw one person who came with nothing but a very heavy rock.

But Aang was used to weapons. He'd been hit with quite a few heavy rocks in his time. No, it was not the weapons that frightened the Avatar but the overwhelming atmosphere of hatred that filled the square. On each and every person resided an expression of anger, of abhorrence for the fire benders who had ravaged their villages and murdered their families. Their eyebrows were clenched, and the tendons in their necks ticked out as they shouted for justice, each discordant syllable ringing out in a unified wail for liberty.

"Burn down the fire benders!"

"Fight fire with fire!"

"Give them what they deserve!"

Everyone had their own piece to say, but the meaning was always the same. They wanted the fire benders, even the entire Fire Nation if they could. And if they couldn't…well there'd be hell to pay if they couldn't.

Aang came into full view, expecting the mob to quiet down and listen to what he had to say, as people often did when the Avatar came into view. But this time, nothing happened. The crowd continued to scream and shout as if their very hero wasn't standing in front of them gesturing for silence. Most of them didn't even notice the boy as he waved his arms urgently to the mob.

A hand brushed Aang's shoulder. He didn't need to look to know it was Katara, in a somber attempt to comfort him. The water bender walked up to stand next to him. She looked down on the commotion and chaos.

"It's not your fault, you know," she whispered over the continuous noise, "There's nothing you could have done to stop it from coming to this point."

"I could have listened. I could have proved to them that the Fire Nation isn't out to get them anymore."

"They're just adjusting. There's been so much change in so little time…the people still aren't used to calling the Fire Nation their friends. It'll get better. You'll see."

"Maybe one day. But if they act before that point comes, I don't know what I'll do. I can't fight them; they're good people, they've just lost their way. But if I just let them do what they want, they'll massacre all the fire benders." Aang sighed and looked down on his orange clad body. He was so tired of war.

Katara didn't answer. She unconsciously fingered a lock of her hair, letting the individual strands twist around each other before coming back into place as she realigned her fingers. It was a nervous habit from childhood, one that she had thought long gone.

The two were interrupted from their thoughts when movement, other than the previous stomping of feet and waving of hands, broke out amongst the crowd. It was a person, a girl, older than Aang but still young, who was causing the movement. She pushed her way through the crowd (perhaps "pushed" isn't the right word, for the girl, though young, was able to forge a path for herself without lifting a finger; it was her confident demeanor that caused people to take a step back rather than physical force). It was only when the girl reached the front that she stretched to her full height and faced the crowd.

"Brothers," she started in militaristic fashion, "Sisters. You all know why we're here today. Each and every one of you have been affected in some way by the Fire Nation. They abused us. Threatened us. Murdered our families and friends." The girl paused for effect.

Aang noticed her odd fashion choice, like she couldn't decide between Earth Kingdom and Water Tribe styles. The band around her hair was blue, elegant, Water Tribe through and through, but the rest of her outfit was far more complicated. Her bottom half was fitted with long Earth Kingdom slacks that fell comfortably about her legs, but they were dyed a pale blue color, as all Water Tribe clothing should be. The girl's top was well fitted unlike the boxy style of the Earth Kingdom, but it was colored with sandy green and a deep shade of malachite. It was utterly confusing.

The girl looked up at the balcony and noticed the Avatar analyzing her. She glared back at him, daring the boy to make a sound. When he didn't, she continued.

"I too suffered at the hands of the Fire Nation during the long war. They killed my entire family and left me to suffer alone." The crowd was silent, absorbing the words of the strange girl, their leader. "So I know what you feel when you see these villains being treated as if they were innocent human beings, as if they had taken no part in that atrocious war." At the word 'villains,' the girl spat onto the road as if the very word had dirtied her mouth, and she then proceeded to glare about the town, as if expecting Fire Nation soldiers to come popping out of a building to end her heretical speech.

"And so," she continued ferociously, "we must give these criminals the justice they deserve. We must show them we remember the blood that they've spilled in the past hundred years. We must rid the world of those who dominate, those who oppress, those who tyrannize!"

After speaking her part, the girl glared up at the boy she knew to be the Avatar. She addressed him coldly. "Avatar Aang. I would have thought at least you would be able to see the treachery of these people. They can't be trusted. I'll ask you once, Avatar: leave these criminals to fend for themselves. They don't deserve your support."

Aang drew himself up, attempt to present an authoritative figure. He looked the girl square in her ocean blue eyes and answered her. "Come inside, and we can discuss this."

After a moment of tension, the girl gave a slight inclination of her head, signaling that she agreed.

As she walked up, Aang asked one final question of the girl.

"What's your name?"

She paused in her stride, one foot lingering on its toes as if preparing to take a step. Her chin rose so that the ocean blue eyes met Aang's once again.

"Call me Korra."

.~.~.~.

She had joined the army in the last few years of the war. She was fourteen at the time, old enough to hold her own but young enough to stand out in an uncomfortable way.

No, Korra did not miss her time in the army.

The uniforms were uncomfortable. The food tasted like shit. The people who didn't laugh outright in her face at her young age muttered in the background, like they thought deafness was a side effect of adolescence.

But she had endured it. In fact the trials made her stronger. Well, they made her angrier, and when Korra was angry she obliterated everything in her path. You could say it was "motivation." All the distresses accompanying her enrollment in the army were worth it to bash in a few fire bender heads. And there were always plenty of heads to bash.

.~.~.~.

"Well? If you have something to say spit it out," Korra grumbled to the kid standing before her. He was only half her size – half her size! – but she knew not to make assumptions based on such trivial fact.

"You can't kill off the fire benders. The war is over. Peace has been made."

"Peace," Korra scoffed, "You think this is peace? Thousands are left without homes, without families, and you think we have peace?"

The Avatar's eyes cast downward. He knew all too well the effect that the war had had on the world. "I understand that the Fire Nation did some horrible things in the past. But that was long ago. Call off the mob, Korra, please."

The girl's eyes narrowed, and her lip curled up in what could have nearly been a smirk. "Like hell I will."

.~.~.~.

Her mother had died precisely at midnight, her father a half hour before.

Korra, nearly fourteen, had been sleeping when the fire benders came to raid her village. She woke to the smell of smoke, only then noticing the shouts of rage, the screams of fear. She heard the metal on metal of a close-ranged fight and bolted from her bed out to a brutal scene; her formerly prosperous village was falling into mayhem.

Her older brother was already down, eyes cold from the absence of life. She couldn't scream. She couldn't cry. She couldn't move. She could only watch.

There was a lot of red, though whether it was from the striking, scarlet uniforms of the Fire Nation or from excessive amounts of blood, Korra could not remember. There was metal, so much metal; sword clashed with spear, and arrow pierced through armor. She saw her fellow Earth Kingdom villagers burn in flames. They could do little to counter it, as they had no benders of their own. All the benders had left for the war.

She saw her father fall. At first glance, Korra thought he was clenching a spear between his shoulder blades. No, that wasn't right. The tip of the spear was protruding from his chest. Which meant…

"Dad!" said Korra, emerging at last from her state of paralysis, ran forward and caught her dad as he fell. Her arms weren't quite large enough to fully grasp her father's body, so her touch caused the man to tilt and land on his side. He was gone already, face glued into a permanent state of shock and pain.

.~.~.~.

Korra left the room quickly, back out to her rampaging people. A water bending girl – Katara, Aang called her – ran after her, but she didn't listen to the soothing words the girl pleaded.

She emerged in front of the crowd who were waiting with eager expectancy.

"We fight!"

A triumphant wail erupted from the crowd. All at once, a large group of people charged forward, eager to achieve the justice they sought.

.~.~.~.

The young Korra stood. She wasn't sure what exactly was happening, wasn't sure how her body was moving all on its own accord, but she turned to face the battle closest to her.

A dark skinned hand – her own, Korra realized – shot out and aimed itself at the nearest Fire Nation soldier. Korra felt power course through her, from her core to the tips of her fingers. The man was blasted back into another of his kind.

She turned rapidly, facing soldier after soldier, and each of them toppled down, occasionally landing gruesomely on fallen weapons, others landing in just the right fashion that she could see the unnatural angle of their heads upon their necks.

Korra was disgusted. But she could not stop. Her body continued to turn; the corpses continued to fall.

.~.~.~.

It was chaos.

The mob ran through the buildings and alleyways, looking for anyone who could be considered Fire Nation.

The problem? How does one define Fire Nation?

And so, the first few times they encountered some lowly citizen, they were confused as to their intentions. Are they an enemy? Do they count? Such people at first were trampled over by the mob who was eager to find a different choice of opponent. Over time though, boundaries were blurred and adrenaline escalated, and who's to say that some earth benders weren't among the dead count. Who's to say that all the victims had been from one side of the war?

.~.~.~.

Korra was still standing. She was the only one doing so.

Bodies lay around her. There were so many, too many, to count.

So many.

.~.~.~.

The crowd had made its way through the lower town. They swung their spears, heaved their mallets. No person was free from the touch of blood, though not necessarily their own. The weapons were nearly unidentifiable under the thick layers of crimson.

It was all done under one unifying chant.

"Fight fire with fire!" "Fire with fire!"

.~.~.~.

Her fingers trembled. Korra knelt slowly in front of a small figure sprawled over a scarlet puddle. It was a figure she recognized. Her mother.

Did I do this? Korra shocked herself when she didn't know how to answer.

.~.~.~.

Korra led the charge. She struck down any clearing of flesh she saw. If it wore red, she hit it.

She swung her knife up. The momentum stopped abruptly as the blade met a man's skull.

.~.~.~.

"Korra." The voice was soft over pallid lips. "I always knew you were special."

"Mom."

.~.~.~.

She pulled the knife from the body with ease, plunging it into flesh once again just to be sure.

.~.~.~.

"You've been special ever since the day I first picked you up off the streets. You know what I heard that day?"

.~.~.~.

"Fire with fire!" "Fire with fire!"

.~.~.~.

"There was a voice in my ear, right as I grabbed your hand, Korra. And it said to me, 'Call her Korra.'"

.~.~.~.

She stepped easily over the body, reaching out to her next victim.

.~.~.~.

"And right then and there, I knew you were special." The woman smiled, oh so gently.

.~.~.~.

Blood erupted. Korra pulled her knife back out and kicked the body in the chest. She ran quickly past.

.~.~.~.

"I don't want to be special! It was an accident!"

.~.~.~.

Her opponents were nothing. They perished just as soon as they saw her.

.~.~.~.

"Don't be sorry for anything, Korra. You have a destiny too great to be weighed down by regrets."

.~.~.~.

In the heat of the moment, Korra forgot what she was doing. She forgot who she was. Her hands moved forward on their own, positioning themselves in front of a woman clad in red.

.~.~.~.

"Promise me, Korra. Promise me you'll keep moving forward." The words were interrupted by heaving, as if the woman's very breath was bleeding out.

.~.~.~.

The woman looked at Korra in shock.

Then she was blasted back, neck snapped in two.

.~.~.~.

"I – I –"

Before Korra could say the words between her gasping tears, her mother fell into a permanent silence. And the world was so quiet, just as it must have been at its very creation before any life had started.

I promise. The silence was too ominous to break.

.~.~.~.

Korra and her people left after they had finished with the lower city. No one made a sound. No one dared.