Finally, the long-awaited answer had arrived King Bumi was waiting at the front of the gates ready to fight him to the death or rather to Bumi's death. The old king was wearing only a cape and shorts he had no rings or decoration on his form and that meant that there was little chance that the old king was concealing rocks for a surprise attack, it was foolish in the extreme to meet Ozai without trying to trick him but he could appreciate the fact that the old man respected him enough to know that Ozai wouldn't fall to such tricks. The Fire Lord gracefully moved down from his ship and landed just outside the city his rival guarded before discarding his robes leaving him bare-chested as he wore only the traditional pants used for Agni Kai.
Bumi was staring at him doing his best to disguise his look of disinterest all for the plan, the earthbender contained a sigh as he watched the young(compared to him) Fire Lord swagger to the place that was going to be his grave, why the fool thought that Bumi wasn't going to use the opportunity to decapitate (perhaps literally) the government that was in a war against the rest of the world was a mystery but one that he was happy to keep as such.
"you took your time in answering my challenge" Ozai stated grandly, even if there was no audience Ozai would do his best to make the longest reigning monarch dead a spectacle "were you afraid to come here or were you simply enjoying the last few minutes of your long life?"
Ozai wanted this moment to be remembered, to have the new generations that would live in the world (his world) to know that it was here that the victory of the Fire Nation started, like dominoes the rest of the world would fall after the push he was going to give here and not even Iro- Zuko! Would be able to do anything it!
Bumi snorted at the blatant attempt to make him lose his cool, as king he had long learned to deal with schemers like Ozai the boy was fifty years too young to be trying to make him mess up by making him angry "hardly, I was playing around with my Flopsie and lost track of time but then I remembered that you had a death wish and came here" Perhaps he was laying it just a bit too thick but schemers always liked it when things were about grandstanding and all that shit.
Then again Bumi was not spared from such things as he enjoyed a good trick every once in a while people always made the funniest faces when Bumi tricked them into fighting him, beating them up afterwards was always fun and the people that chose him as an opponent had it well deserved, who in their right mind thinks yeah fighting against the most ancient earthbender in the world is a good idea? Idiots and if there was one thing that Bumi hated more than schemers it was idiot shcemers.
Ozai sneered at the king "Then let's see if you can back up those words" the Fire Lord dint waste any more time in talking and immediately went on the offensive launching a volley of fire directly at Bumi, the old man dodged exactly like Ozai expected and walked directly into Ozai's trap "Die!"
Bumi saw the glint of blue from the corner of his eye and didn't waste any time in raising a wall of earth with the talon of his right foot, it wouldn't stop the lightning that was swiftly moving his way but it would give him a few precious seconds for him to move and as an added benefit Ozai couldn't see shit! the wall of earth exploded as the lightning crashed against it so with a wave of his hand Bumi sent all the broken pieces hurling towards Ozai before stomping the ground hard.
The little rocks that Bumi threw at him were little more than annoyances and for a second Ozai thought that perhaps his subordinates were especially incompetent if they couldn't defeat a man like Bumi, but those thoughts were swiftly interrupted by the rumbling of the earth. Ozai didn't think it twice after hearing the earth move and launched himself to the side as he was briefly propelled by his fire, in the place he once stood two massive spikes of earth emerged.
"You're handling things better than I thought you would" Bumi commented as he felt the earth shift beneath his feet, his men were getting ready to spring the trap Ozai would be buried so deep that no one would be able to dig his body from where Bumi was going to place it but if he didn't want Ozai to notice what he was doing they would need to go slow, even with all the time Ozai had already given them his soldiers were still not finished with the hole and even if he didn't like to do the honorable tradition of fighting banter he would have to and wasn't that a waste, Bumi usually attacked when someone was in the middle of a rant as a great man once said talking is not a free action and yet here he was doing exactly that.
"Please as if I would ever fall for a trick so low" in his head Ozai sighed in relief had he not moved immediately he might have been caught in the attack "your paltry attacks are barely capable of making me move" as he finished speaking Ozai concentrated on his feet sending out waves of fire to disrupt the old man's footing instead of separating his feet from the dirt or moving the old man raised a moun of earth that easily dispersed the fire Ozai had just launched then Bumi raised an eyebrow at him.
"I could say the same for you, perhaps your brother would be a better challenge" the king made a dismissive wave with the back of his and waited for what was inevitably going to happen. Iroh had spoken many times of why he couldn't juts make Ozai stop and one of the reasons was that the Fire Lord had very deep-seated daddy issues, that and the fact that if Iroh beat Ozai in a fight in order to make him listen the idiot Fire Lord would stop at nothing to kill Iroh for being stronger.
Ozai let out a scream that came directly from the gut, the previously tight control he had over his bending was shattered as was his normally calm visage, there were few things that could truly enrage him but there was something that always made him lose his composure and that was Iroh, Bumi had brought many vivid memories of his father with the dismissive way he was talking. The air became scalding the previously calm face of the earth king was suddenly covered in drops of sweat not that Ozai was in a better spot but he knew that he could handle it he was a firebender after all.
Perhaps Bumi hadn't thought this through, already he could see the stone that he was standing on starting to boil and that wasn't good, this was almost like when he fought Iroh but he had learned from hir previous fight and in less than a second Bumi was covered from head to toe with rocks, his new suit of armor would normally be something of a novelty rather than a straight up defense as any competent earthbender would use it against Bumi luckily he wasn't fighting an earthbender. Ozai first retaliatory strike came as twin blasts of fire from his hands and Bumi let them splash harmlessly against his armor, well, harmlessly was perhaps not the right word as the front part of the 'suit' soon began to melt but the scream that Ozai let out as he realized that Bumi wasn't the least bit hurt by his renewed attack was worth it.
'I'm the Fire Lord! The most powerful bender in the world! And a piece of rubble dares to stand in my way!' Ozai screamed in his mind as his mouth roared out his displeasure as if Ozai was a dragon. He was done playing around Ozai advanced without hesitation flames propelling his body forward and in his hands lighting gathered, Ozai let go of the blue fire and immediately charged another attack as he continued to advance while bombarding Bumi with the most powerful attack in the world.
'Perhaps I didn't think this as well as I should have' Bumi thought as he rested beneath the earth while moving his puppet armor in erratic ways to mimic a living person, Ozai was throwing out lighting like it was going out of style all while he moved like Flopsie did that time Bumi thought to give him cactus water, erratic didn't come close to describe the way the Fire Lord was moving, worst of all he was probably destroying what was left of the city rebuilding it was going to be such a pain.
"We're almost ready sir" the pronouncement of his captain was cut off by the sound of thunder making the man wince "this is going to work right?"
Bumi normally would have made an example out of the man for questioning his genius but in difficult times like this he knew that such a thing was counterproductive so he gave him a reassuring smile and answered his question "Of course it's going to work, unless Ozai learns to fly he won't know what hit him!"
Author note so i've been having trouble in writing the fight and i scrapped what i had writen and came up with this, do you guys think this is better than the one sided POV or is it confusing? this arrrives late cause i got covid again (this has been the third time) and it put me out of comission for three days but here it is.
