Prompt: Defeat
Characters: Ozai, Aang
Pairing: None
He'd never thought that it would be possible, because he was the strongest. He had taken the throne from his weak older brother. He had been the one to move his father out of the way. He had conspired to do what no one save Sozin had dared do before him, and subdue the Earth Kingdom once and for all. He was the Phoenix King! Thanks to the comet, he had all the power in the world!
Even with all of that, however, he had somehow been defeated by a twelve-year-old boy.
How had it happened? He hadn't had a single weakness! Yes, the boy was the Avatar, and he had all the elements at his command. Yes, he would draw the same power from the comet that Ozai did; that, he understood. If it had only been a matter of the difference in power, he might have been able to accept his defeat.
The boy's power was not what occupied him, however. In spite of the power he wielded, the Avatar was still weak. The boy hadn't wanted to fight him, had begged him to reconsider. He'd had the opportunity to make a killing strike and he'd forsaken it. It was clear from his form and from the use of that technique that he'd learned firebending from Zuko—Zuko! His worthless son who had had to resort to weapons because his bending was a joke, who'd begged on hands and knees rather than fight for his honor like a prince should, yet somehow now thought himself worthy to train the Avatar. Whether his son had instilled the Avatar with his own weakness or simply failed to beat the boy's weakness out of him, he didn't know, and in all honestly he didn't much care. Right now, he only wanted to know one thing.
"How… did you do it?"
"Do you really want to know?" The boy was looking down on him now, but he was not angry; if anything, his gray eyes were filled with pity—another emotion that was reserved only for the weak. "I couldn't lose, because I was fighting for what really mattered. I was fighting to protect the people I love."
"I don't… understand."
Those were the last words he spoke before the exhaustion of battle and the loss of his bending caused him to collapse unconscious.
A/N: This collection's first foray into villain territory! Yeah, it's corny, but it also seems like something Aang might say.