At night on Pandora, Jake Sully sat in his wheelchair, gazing wistfully at the Avatar testing area inside the abandoned human base.
After tonight, he would never come here again.
Today was not only his birthday—tomorrow, with the help of Eywa and the Tree of Souls, he would take part in the soul transfer ceremony, completely leaving behind his crippled human body and becoming, in truth and in spirit, a Na'vi. He would be the leader of his people in the great forest.
So tonight, he wanted to make one final recording—a farewell to his human self.
"Jake! Come out, something's happened!"
Just as he opened the console to begin his message, Neytiri's urgent voice and pounding on the door interrupted him.
Alarmed, Jake quickly strapped on his breathing mask and rolled to the door.
"What is it?" he asked as the door slid open, looking up at his towering mate.
"Look at the sky!" Neytiri pointed urgently upward.
Puzzled, Jake tilted his head. Following her finger, he saw a dozen dazzling points of light blazing in the night.
The sight made his heart jolt.
He knew this sky. There shouldn't be that many bright stars here—and stars didn't suddenly appear in clusters.
That left only one explanation—ships decelerating.
But the Venture Star had only just departed. How could Earth have sent a fleet back so quickly? And not just one ship—but more than ten?
Jake's composure slipped.
"Sky People—they're back! We have to return to the clan immediately!" he told Neytiri. Like the other Na'vi, he no longer even used the word "human"—to him, they were all "Sky People."
Without hesitation, Neytiri scooped him onto her ikran and took off toward the clan's territory.
But Jake didn't know that the bright lights above were indeed ships—just not from Earth.
They were the warships of Miles Quaritch, alive and stronger than ever, commanding a fleet from a far more advanced parallel universe.
And they weren't simply decelerating—they were descending. Unlike the Earth Federation's Venture Star, these ships could land on a planet's surface. The energy cost was high and the structural stress immense, but with starship-grade materials from the Star Wars galaxy, their hulls could easily endure it. Their size was large, but not beyond what a gravity well could allow.
As for energy, Josh had given Quaritch more than enough, and once he secured Pandora, he could soon produce it locally.
One by one, the massive warships touched down, their blazing thrusters carving open scorched clearings in the jungle for bases.
As the engines cooled and the landing bays opened, swarms of drones, ground vehicles, and combat robots poured out in perfect formation, scanning the area and setting up camp.
But from one ship, the disembarking figures were neither machines… nor human.
Instead, what emerged was a massive horde of dinosaurs fitted with electronic control devices—raptors, pterosaurs, tyrannosaurs, and even several colossal dragons.
Of course, these dragons were not the ones from Daenerys in Game of Thrones, nor the intelligent great dragons of Azeroth, but the proto-dragons of Northrend in the Azeroth world.
These distant relatives of the five dragonflights lacked high intelligence and rarely used magic, but their physical strength and vitality rivaled that of their more famous kin. And because they were less intelligent, they were also much easier to tame.
As luck would have it, the Vrykul excavated and sold by Abbendis to Josh were experts in breaking proto-dragons. After a deal between Josh and Abbendis, proto-dragons were officially added to Josh's roster of military units and his merchandise list—alongside the dinosaur armies supplied by Yuri.
Quaritch had specifically requested these dinosaurs and proto-dragons from Josh for one purpose—Jake Sully.
"You beat me last time by relying on Pandora's animal armies and even tamed the fearsome Great Leonopteryx, becoming a Toruk Makto? Fine—this time I won't use my machine army to crush you. I'll fight you beast-to-beast." (TL/N: Toruk Makto is a legendary figure in the Na'vi culture of Pandora from the movie Avatar. It translates to "Rider of the Last Shadow" and refers to a Na'vi individual who successfully bonds with and rides the Toruk, a large, powerful flying creature called the Great Leonopteryx)
If Jake wanted to rely on giant native creatures, Quaritch would unleash his own—see which were stronger: Pandora's wildlife or genetically modified dinosaurs from ancient Earth and proto-dragons from another universe. This would be a full-scale biological invasion.
"Go hunt, my children! Show the little darlings of this world just how warm your welcome is!" Quaritch sneered as he pressed the control pad for the bio-weapons. The moment the command was given, the monstrous creatures scattered into the jungle.
It didn't take long for a proto-dragon to spot a Great Leonopteryx circling the landing site.
This Leonopteryx had been the apex predator of the surrounding forest, drawn here by the commotion of Quaritch's fleet landing.
When the proto-dragon lunged at it without hesitation, the Toruk was equally unafraid. As a top predator of Pandora—over 10 meters long with a 25-meter wingspan—it was not intimidated by an unfamiliar creature of similar size. It only sensed a challenge to its dominance.
It folded its wings and dove.
The two titans slammed together midair—talons raked against scaled hide, claws tore at armored plates, and snapping jaws sought each other's throats.
Then the proto-dragon whipped its head, jaws locking directly with the Toruk's. A blast of searing dragon breath roared out—not as devastating as that of a true five-colored dragon, but more than enough for a native Pandora beast. (TL/N: In World of Warcraft, the term "five-colored dragon" refers to the main Dragonflights—Red, Green, Blue, Bronze, and Black—that were blessed by the Titans to protect Azeroth. Each flight was given dominion over an aspect of the world, such as life (Red), magic (Blue), the earth (Black), the wild (Green), and time (Bronze)).
The Leonopteryx's head was charred in an instant, its great body losing all strength and tumbling toward the jungle below.
The proto-dragon dived after it, snatching the lifeless carcass and perching on a massive tree, tearing into its meal.
Elsewhere in the forest, pterosaur flocks clashed with ikran riders, tyrannosaurs chased the lightning-fast thanators, and packs of raptors hunted viperwolves and sturmbeests.
It wasn't only the Na'vi—every creature on Pandora was now facing the onslaught of an even deadlier alien invasion.
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