Written for the Pro-bending Circuit | Round 5
Team: Laogai Lion Vultures
Position: Earthbender
Task: Write a character(s) experiencing the same day over and over.
Prompt:
Medium (character) Ozai
Medium (character) Kuvira
Medium (location) Republic City
Hard (song) One More Light - Linkin Park
Bonus: Use of element
Word Count: 2624
AN: Buckle up kiddos, it's a villain and angst party and I ain't slowing down one bit. It's the last round before semi-finals, and it's go big or go home!
"The Fog of Lost Souls is a spirit prison for humans ... imprisoning you
in your own darkest memories."
You know your prey well. He was once Prince. Once Firelord. Once Phoenix King. Now a convict, with hair streaked gray and body withered, trapped forever in walls of stone in a city he once ruled.
One day is all it took for him to turn to this.
You waft through the iron bars, fill his cell with smoke, wrap him in a misty embrace, cloud his eyes with fog. Your hazy words flow into his mind.
You're angry. You should be.
His golden eyes are trapped in your gray.
It wasn't fair. Can I help you?
He has sat here for years, brewing in anger, waiting for your offer. He is yours before you even speak.
Again, Ozai. I can let you try again.
The first time is a throwaway. He is too hysteric, too frenzied with the feeling of the comet pulsing through his veins. The chance to redeem his most cursed day sets Ozai ablaze, and he burns short and fast. He throws every ounce of strength he has to blast the child from the sky, to reshape the destiny he'd been given. Lightning whips across the red sky, like glass breaking a thousand times over.
But it isn't enough. The child still has the Avatar state, and Ozai has strained himself too much.
"No!" he screams when his bending is torn from his body once more. You cloud his eyes, and the moment is gone, but Ozai still screams, "Again! I'll do it again!"
The next time, he is methodical. His breath is shallow as he walks into the airship for the third time, eyes flashing with the images of what will be (what has been? What could be? He's not sure). He waits, beat by beat, for the perfect moment.
He does not join his firebenders when they begin their inferno. He does not fly off the deck the moment he catches sight of the Avatar. He waits, and waits. Then like a lightning bolt, he falls.
Ozai knows this moment already. He knows the Avatar will fly to him now, will throw a mass of stone towards him next, will bend an arc of ice here and a fume of fire there. He knows the Avatar will have a moment of pause when he catches Ozai's first bolt of lightning. That knowledge alone is enough.
Electricity claws into the air again, and this time, the Avatar has no time to redirect it. Time nearly stops as the Avatar falls.
On his third chance, Ozai has done what he has always lusted to do, what had drove him to you in those years locked in prison. Destiny has been bent to his will, and Ozai laughs and spews fire, drunk with victory.
You laugh too, because you know better. Ozai may as well be throwing a fireball on a mountainside; a stone may crumble, but he will never make it fall. He can have his small victory, but he cannot keep it.
In the background, Ozai's airships are carcasses burning in the ocean, except one. One airship left, and it is no longer his, and it flies closer and closer still. You watch as Ozai cackles, you watch as the airship crashes into the stone spire, toppling him to the ground to join the Avatar.
You are there to catch him. Again, Ozai?
Mania flares in his eyes. "Another failed day," he thinks aloud, "but so close."
To Ozai, the rest of the world may as well be asleep. He rules this day, he knows the possibilities, the brilliance that could happen if only this day went perfect. If only he makes it perfect.
So Ozai tries again.
He steps into his airship. Waits, then flies to meet his match once more. Lightning streaks from his fingertips twice. The Avatar falls.
Turning around, a red blimp is throttling towards him. In the window are three faces, the Avatar's allies. Their faces flash to horror as the nose of their airship tilts down. Ozai's fists are ablaze, and so is the red cloth of the blimp.
Uncontrollable, the ship grazes the stone spire then crashes into the earth, making the world tremble around it. Ozai slips, tries to steady his fall, and fails. He lands mere meters from the burning wreckage, alone, miles away from his nearest ally and unable to move. Darkness seeps into his vision. The comet passes the horizon.
And again.
He steps into his airship. Waits, then flies to meet his match once more. Lightning streaks from his fingertips twice. The Avatar falls. The airship burns.
He lands on his feet, and walks to the nearest army post, where his generals are there to welcome him. Before the end of the day, Ozai sends word of his victory all across the world. Before the end of the day, Ozai's son, brother and the Avatar's waterbender fall upon him, and they have no mercy.
So close, you tell him, as his body shakes with the weight of his failed days. Again?
The sun rises and sets a hundred times on the same day. Once he fights without leaving the airship. Once he asks his daughter to join him. Once he stays at the palace with her. Once he hides in the catacombs. Never does the day end in victory for him.
"Again!"
"Once more!"
"Another chance!"
Again. Again. You sing-song to his half-crazed eyes. I'm sure you'll get it this time.
Maddening. Maddening.
And once, he wins. The airships spit their fire, locked in formation. The air bison, with his son and the waterbender, he had intercepted on the way. The Avatar lays still on the ground. Your prey has wrought destiny to his liking.
But destiny is unshakeable. It is like a mountain, unmovable, no matter the hail and torrents thrown at it. You know this. Your prey does not.
Ozai cackles, but he has not won. He will never win. You will never let him. This day, this victory, is nothing, no more real than fog, and it is his prison. Destiny will never be changed.
Ozai stands underneath a red sky, his airships ahead, and earthen columns around him. A stray breeze sends a spire of stone toppling, burying your prey in darkness. Ozai wails, screams, claws at the mist as victory is ripped from his hands after being so maddeningly close.
But you are there to console him. Ozai falls into the fog's embrace, again...
Zuko stares at the empty jail cell with glassy eyes. "What do you mean he's gone?"
The warden mutters, just as appalled, "He up and vanished, my lord. It's like he turned to smoke."
"I don't care what it's like! I can't go out to my people and say that my father turned to fog and disappeared! They'll think I'm covering up a murder, or a kidnapping, or—or an escape!" The Firelord whirls on the second guard in the room. "Tell me what happened."
The man tenses, and answers, "I was outside his door all night, my lord. No scuffle. No one went in. The cell's still locked."
"There had to be something, anything."
The warden looks aside and the guard is visibly uneasy. "He was… shouting all night, like he'd gone mad. You could hear it all through the prison." He takes a shaky breath, and echoes:
"'Again. I'll do it again.'"
