Emperor Fire, Wang Fire

A short piece for Capt. BA's "Bad Ass Sokka Contest"

Phoenix King Ozai held the burned out skull of the Avatar in his hand, looking into the vacant sockets, and smiled. The Great King wondered, idly, why the boy had not used the Avatar state, why he had huddled in his little stone ball, until he was incinerated, by the Comet enhanced fire of the Phoenix King. Not that it would have made any difference. Sending a mere boy against a warrior, a god, such as himself, had been the height of folly.

The Fire Bender spat into the skull's face, and let it fall from his hand. Now to finish the mission. Even with only one airship left, he alone could still raise Ba sing Se, thanks to Sozin's Comet, and there was still plenty of time, the comet was still high in the sky. It was even better this way. By destroying the city by himself, his power would be manifest to everyone in the Earth Kingdom. It would break the back of any rebellion, and destroy the will of the people to resist. He toyed with the idea of leaving his army of occupation in the city, and incinerating them with the civilian population. That level of ruthlessness would show the world who was in charge now.

Ozai heard the sound of an airship overhead. As he looked up to signal it, something hard and heavy struck him on the back, driving him to the ground. He threw the offending weight off of himself, and standing, looked to see what had hit him. Lying on the ground, not far away from the fire bender was, obviously, judging from the uniform, and the ridiculous pony tail, a water tribe "warrior".

The boy looked up at the king, and smiling, said,

"Sorry about that, but you were the softest thing around here I could land on."

The Phoenix King looked into the blue eyes of the peasant, lying before him. He saw the dark skin of the boy's face, marking him as something less than even a fire nation peasant.

"I'd get up." The boy, still smiling, told the king, "but I broke my leg, and it's a little hard to stand at the moment."

Ozai took a fire bending stance, he would burn this "thing" slowly, he decided, to make "it" pay for "its" effrontery.

"Oh, yeah," The boy said, scratching the back of his neck, self-consciously. "About the fire bending, that's not going to be working for you."

The fifteen year old warrior, shifted into a more comfortable position on the rocks. The Great Lord drew back his hand to send a stream of fire at the insignificant tribesman, but his fist only emitted a small puff of smoke, and the older man heard a burbbeling sound coming from someplace below his chin.

"A very smart old guy once told a friend of mine, that fire bending was all about breathing." The teen explained.

Then he held up an odd looking knife, that seemed to be made out of some sort of jaw bone. He continued,

"You see, when I landed on you just now, I cut your throat. That wet stuff running down your chest, that's your blood. No throat - no breathing, no breathing - no fire bending. You benders always forget about the simple stuff like… knives" He finished with a small flourish of the blade in his hand.

Ozai, second son of Fire Lord Azulon, Fire Lord, Phoenix King, ruler of the greatest empire know to history, looked down at his own chest, saw the blood flowing down, as if from a water fall. His legs gave way, he collapsed onto the ground, his face turned to the boy, lying casually in front of him. The blue eyes in the dark, smiling face, were the last thing the king saw in this life.

Sokka crawled painfully over to the skull of the Avatar. With his sleeve he wiped the spittle off of it. With tears running down his cheeks, he told his friend,

"Aang ole' buddy, I warned you, I tried to tell you. Sometimes you just have to be 'Bad Ass'."

The End

Disclaimer : "Avatar the Last Airbender" the characters and the world were created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko and owned by Nickelodeon and Viacom or Paramount or some huge corporation. This is purely a work of fan fiction because I wanted to play in their world and I love the characters that they created.

Author's notes:

For Capt. BA's Bad Ass Sokka contest over on Deviant Art. Sorry it is so late. I have no hope of winning, but I had to get something in for this contest since Sokka is the baddest of the bad. I hope you enjoyed it.

This was inspired by two pieces one by herself which can be found on her Deviant Art Profile.

And one by Menamebephil called Irrelevant which can be found here on Fan Fiction

I hope they both find this small piece an acceptable tribute.

Now I have to get back to my next chapter of I'll Walk You Home.

Thank you to all for reading

All comments and/or criticisms are more than welcome.