The jungle was never silent.
But that night, the silence felt wrong.
Birdsong choked. Insects hushed. Even the river slowed, as though it too was listening.
Then the sound came—deep, thrumming, like a heartbeat of metal.
Engines.
Not the small skimmers or dropships I'd torn apart before. These were heavier. Hungrier. They carved through the night with a hunger that was almost alive.
The Sky People had returned.
RDA Forward Base, Pandora
"Footage confirms it," Colonel Quaritch growled, slamming a fist on the table. The holo-display flickered with images of me tearing apart their machines, holding lightning in my hands.
"That… thing… isn't Na'vi." His teeth bared in a predator's grin. "That's a goddamn WMD in blue skin."
General Ardmore leaned back, her face cold and calculating."Then we'll treat him as one. Mobilize Scorpions. Bring out the prototype walkers. If it bleeds, it dies."
"And if it doesn't?" one soldier muttered.
Quaritch grinned wider. "Then we make it bleed."
Pandora – Forest Edge
The first clash came not as battle, but as thunder.
Massive new walkers—larger than AMP suits, bristling with cannons—marched into the forest, each step crushing roots older than Earth's history. Behind them flew Scorpion gunships, their rotors ripping the sky open.
I stood at the frontline with the Omatikaya and Metkayina warriors. The Na'vi readied bows, spears, and ikran riders circled above.
They looked to me.
Not as warrior.Not as outsider.But as the Storm.
I clenched my fists, heat simmering beneath my skin. The power within me pulsed, begging to be unleashed.
"Tonight," I said, voice carrying across the gathered warriors, "we remind them whose world this is."
The Na'vi roared, the sound echoing through the forest.
And the engines answered.
The first missiles screamed toward us.
I leapt, faster than sight, faster than sound—catching one in my hand mid-flight. The heat of its detonation pressed against my skin, harmless, and with a twist of my arm I hurled it back into the formation of walkers.
The explosion ripped the night open.
War had begun.
But even as I tore through steel and fire, a truth gnawed at me.
Every step forward, every victory, every Na'vi cheer—it only made me more of a target.
And somewhere above, watching through drones and satellites, the humans weren't just hunting Pandora anymore.
They were hunting me.