James Cameron's Avatar: Aftermath

Chapter 1: Sh'yara of the coastal Ikran clan

(Ikran ambush team, waiting to ambush the coming human fleet)

Sh'yara had been to battle before. But it hadn't been anything like this.

She could hear the flying beasts of the sky people far before she could see them. It was a deep, penetrating buzz, like the buzz of a wasp. The sound got louder with each second, small pieces of rock shook loose as she felt her saddle begin to hum with vibration. She wondered if the sound might simply get louder to infinity, until there was nothing but that dreaded buzz. She closed her eyes, but that only made the fear worse.

Sakon, her Ikran, stiffened beneath her, turning it's long face towards her with anxiety, which mirrored her own.

"Calm, Sakon. We will be fine," she lied. Her fear infected her Ikran through the bond of Zaheelu like an insatiable torrent, as it rose within her own heart.

She looked around to her people, most of them veteran Ikran riders, and she realized with wide-eyed shame, that it was her job to calm their fears on the eve of this great battle, and she was failing miserably.

Why father, she wondered. Why did you let me lead the war party? I wasn't ready.

She clenched her shaking fists, and breathed deep, remembering it was her who wor the red war-paint of her tribe. It was time for her to be the war leader, ready or not.

"Brothers and Sisters!" she said in a level voice, steeling her resolve. Her warriors looked to her anxiously... pleadingly, just like her Ikran. They were looking to her for guidance. "We have never seen creatures such as these... this is indeed a disadvantage."

Their eyes aknowledged this fear with a shamed downwards glance.

"However..." her voice rose in her to a heated tone. "These... sky people... have never before seen the might of our people. And to them, this is an even greater disadvantage. For today... we honor Eywa, we fight for our ancestors! AND NOTHING SHALL STOP US!"

She watched with pride as the eyes of her warriors lit up with courage, and the air was filled... for a fleeting moment... not with the buzz of the wasps, but with the voices of her brave warriors. As their cheers sounded, the sky people's wasps came into view, hovering below in their swarm, but she did not fear them.

And then, Jakesulee gave the war cry, the glorious Tarok Makto, riding the fierce last shadow. She had never seen a more handsome man. There was something about him... that she could not quite describe... but it made her heart race.

Sh'yara whooped herself, only to hear her voice joined in the rising war cry. They joined Jakesulee in his attack. The dropped from the rocks like a glorious swarm.

The wind whistled past her in higher and higher a pitch as the sky people's fleet came rushing up towards her, looking more menacing with each moment.

She drew a long arrow from her bow, aimed, letting Eywa guide her hands, and released. The arrow punched through the window and stapled the human to his seat. Carried by momentum, she shot past him at blinding speed as his craft wobbled down, riderless.

The sky people are not invincible.

Grinning, she urged her Ikran towards the next target. Now this was the kind of battle she was used to... the kind her father had taught her to win. She could feel the blood pumping through her like the beat of a war-drum, drawing her into the rythm of death.

The air was suddenly lit up with light and burning heat by an explosion as Jakesulee's Tarok dashed one of the sky people's wasps like a play-toy against the rocks.

She gave a whoop, and urged her Ikran towards another wasp. This time, the human inside noticed her, and flames arked from both it's wings as bullets came streaming out.

Sakon gave a pained cry and Sh'yara felt as though she'd been struck by a hammer in her stomach. In an instant... she was falling. Nothing was beneath her but the open sky. Falling through the air, she looked up, to see the broken body of her Ikran tumbling downwards motionless above her, illuminated by the bright lines of tracers which streamed across the sky back and forth.

"SAKON!" she screamed desperately. Seeing her dead Ikran hurt her more than the bullet which had torn through her gut.

But Sakon was gone. Nothing was coming to save her. As the battle above got smaller and smaller, she looked up and could see the limp bodies of Ikran and riders alike falling from the sky. More Ikran were falling than the enemy's wasps.

Scores of Ikran were falling to their deaths. Have we already lost? She turned her gaze back to the radily approaching canopy of Pandora and closed her eyes.

She was suddenly slapped and struck by a tangle of vines and leaves as she thundered through the canopy, tumbling from one large leaf to another, bouncing down off of branches and vines which flipped her painfully through the air.

She struck the ground with a crunch. Something within her had broken. Sh'yara, war leader of her clan, let out a ragged scream of enourmous pain and sorrow, rolled over through the dense ferns, and then went limp as her vision went white.

xxxxxx

When she awoke... she let out another screech of pain. It felt as if her whole body had been broken. But almost immediately, her screech turned to coughing. The acrid smell and white blanket of smoke had covered the land.

She wondered if Jakesulee had also fallen. When he'd first flown to her villiage, her father had been reluctant to send the tribe to war, but Sh'yara had begged him. When she looked into Jakesulee's eyes, she knew that she was going to be his mate. She wondered if her premonition had cost the lives of her clan.

Ash was fluttering onto her like rain. Everywhere, Eywa was dying. She did not know how many hours had passed since she'd fallen from the sky.

She pulled herself up gingerly, ash falling from her face, each motion of her body earning jolts of pain through her body. She could see the hungry flames as they devoured the trees to the north. She suspected the worst. That the sky people had won, and now they were going to consume Eywa with their fire. She fought back tears.

Now is not the time to cry.

She knew from the burning pain in her right leg that it was broken. Gritting her teeth, she began to drag herself through the underbrush, covering her bleeding nose from the foul oder of death. She knew she had to escape. She had to reach higher ground.

If I can just make it to the tree of souls

She pulled herself, gritting her teeth to keep from crying out. Each pull was agony, but the smoke was getting thinner, and her determination was getting stronger.

And then she saw it... the reason Eywa had spared her life. Tucked within the natural colors of the forest was something strange. It was a shiny box, an intruder in the wilderness. It was built with the material of the sky people.

Smiling at her fortune, she pulled her knife from the sheath at her breast, and slowly pulled herself towards it. She heard alien voices. She was crawling now, ignoring the pain in her leg, thinking only of vengeance. Yes, many of her tribesmen had died with her in the battle, but she would wet her blade with the blood of at least one more alien invader.

Hiding beneath the ferns, she saw one of the sky people, a tough-looking man with white hair, dead in his land-creature, with two arrows sticking from his stinking corpse.

Whoever had started the job hadn't finished it. One other sky person with a familiar face was gazing, absent-mindedly up at the sky from what looked to be a seat with wheels. Every rise of his alien chest was an insult to her people.

She didn't know how she recognized the face, nor did she care. She crawled, her eyes shining with hatred, dagger clutched in her hand, and with the stealth of a hunter.

Then, just as she saw his gaze begin to move down towards the ground, she leapt with her one working leg, tackling him. Sky people were weak and flimsy, she realized as she easily knocked him from his chair.

She raised her dagger quickly to kill him.

"Stop!" Jake Sully shouted, muffled by his mask. "I'm on your side!"

"Liar," she hissed. She brought the knife down with a stab fueled with all the anger and frustration that had built within her, but he blocked her by the wrist, halting the blade just a few inches from his face.

"Sh'yara! I'm on your side! The battle is over!" he gasped, the hand which held her dagger back wobbling with exertion.

"SILENCE!" she screamed, tasting her own coppery blood inside her mouth. The fact that the alien had used her name made her even angier. Before she could stab him, however, he scrambled beneath her, and she felt his arm wrap around her throat from behind.

She thrashed to get him off, but she moved too hard. She felt a crunch as her right leg broke further. She let out a cry of pain. No... not here... not now. I must do this... I must avenge Jakesullee.

Her cry of pain turned into a cry of rage. The human had slackened his grip on her throat for some reason. She reached over her shoulder, grasped his puny body in her hands and threw him off of her.

He landed in front of her, his mask coming off. Gasping, Jake Sully struggled to get the mask back on as the wobbling Sh'yara charged him again... but the blood that had been oozing from her fractured leg had weakened her too much.

The world went fuzzy as Sh'yara's heavy eyes finally shut, falling at Jake Sully's feet.

xxx

When Neytiri opened her eyes to the bright light of the sun and the sound of the evening birds, she realized that she'd slept for quite some time.

It was no wonder... Jake still held her tightly with his strong arms. She smiled happily and turned to him, licking his forehead. "Wake up, Jake..." she whispered, giggling softly. She had fantasized about licking her mate awake from his rest ever since she was a child.

But he remained motionless.

She frowned, remembering Jake's odd sleeping habbits. He was... after all... one of the sky people. But Neytiri did not care any longer.

She lifted his arm from where it snugly wrapped around her chest, and kissed him on the check. She got up to find him in his human form, knowing that with his disabled human legs he couldn't get far... and she felt worried.

She'd already seen so much death in yesterday's battle... and Jake was still such a child that needed her protection. She smiled to herself as she approached the box that housed Jake's machine.

"Jake!?" she called out.

"Neytiri!" she heard a man answer, but to her dissapointment, it was Norm in his human form, wearing the clothes that the sky people wore. Neytiri frowned.

"Oh don't look so dissapointed..." Norm said with a scowl.

"Where is Jake?" she asked him tersely. Before Norm had a chance to awkwardly answer, Jake answered for him.

"Neytiri! I'm over here!" he shouted. She left Norm with his mouth hanging open as she dashed over to him.

"I should have been able to smell your human stink!" Neytiri teased, rushing eagerly over to him. But that wasn't all she smelled.

She smelled a female.

Neytiri stopped in her tracks, seeing Jake kneeling over a sleeping beautiful female with red war paint. She recognized Sh'yara instantly. Jelousy began to eat up her insides, and she looked over to Jake with scorn.

"Hey... why are you looking at me like that?" Jake asked, smile fading from his face.

"It's nothing," Neytiri said coldly, walking beside him. Jake's gaze fell down. He knew that his human form probably insulted Neytiri... and the fact that in reality he was a cripple as well probably didn't help. He'd hoped she would accept him.

Then why is she looking at me like that? he wondered self-consciously.

"Why is she here?" Neytiri asked, trying to hide her concern.

"She was wounded... she saw me as a human... and she tried to kill me..." Jake answered. Neytiri hissed aggressively at Sh'yara at the mention of her intentions towards her mate.

Jake smiled at the gesture, and warmly grasped her shoulder. "Easy Neytiri..." he said, wheeling in her way. "She had no way of knowing that I was a dreamwalker."

"You should have told everyone..." Neytiri said softly.

"Not all of them would have been so accepting as you..." Jake said softly, running his fingers across her cheek. Neytiri closed her eyes, yeilding herself to his touch.

"I know you..." she whispered.

Jake smiled and opened his mouth to speak.

"Not to interupt anything," Norm said sarcastically, cutting Jake off, "but the equipment is fried. We have no way of getting back into our Avatars from this terminal unless we hike it back to the base."

xxx

(Back at the Human's encampment at Pandora)

Parker Selfridge wasn't a warrior, he was a businessman. But even he knew enough about military tactics to know that what had just happened was impossible. One of the most badass groups of marines ever to scowl upon the earth had been killed by an assortment of flea-bitten savages armed with bows and arrows.

He pushed the rock of Unobtanium as it hovered on it's display. He'd always kept it as a reminder of what their true goal was on Pandora... to keep the Jarheads from thinking that it was a war, and the scientists from thinking it was a botany experiment. It was all about one thing... money.

The natives had ruined everything. When reports of the disaster filtered back to the shareholders, the corporation was going to tank, and likely the rest of earth's economy would follow suite.

No... it's not the natives fault... they were never a problem before. It was Jake Sully.

"SULLY!" Selfridge roared. He grabbed the unobtanium from the holder and threw it wildly at one of the technicians, breaking a computer.

All eyes in the command center turned to him as he huffed angrily.

"Get me every marine left on this base..." he muttered almost too soft to be heard. "Get them all into avatar bodies and tell them to destroy Jake Sully and his little friends..."

"Sir... don't they need to be matched up so their bodies are compatible..?"

"DO IT NOW!" Selfridge roared.

Once that traitor is dead, Selfridge thought. The natives will go away for good.