Hey every body, here's the fourth chapter of my story. I took a bit of a break because I haven't been getting many reviews, but I'm back with my longest chapter yet. Enjoy!

(Please enjoy, and review. It makes my day and lets me know what the reader wants. I'm open to suggestions and criticism, especially regarding my grammar which I know isn't the best.)

Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar. I own only my original story points and the characters I created myself.

A Second Chance

Chapter: 4, Welcome To the Jungle!

Me, Jake, Norm, and Grace were all on a scorpion heading deep in to the jungles of Pandora. Me and Jake were supposed to be security detail, They gave us assault rifles that could probably kick a humans arm off from the recoil, and upon my request I was given a machete. It was going to be an important day, but I didn't really know what to expect.

"So what are we going to be seeing out here?" I asked Grace.

"I told you. Me and Norm are going to be taking samples from the local trees. We need to know more about how the forest works." She said, confusing me.

"How the forest works? What exactly are you talking about?" I could sense she was becoming annoyed.

"From what we know, we believe that the there is some sort of electro chemical connection between the trees. Imagine it like a giant computer network, the Na'vi can access this network and upload and download information from it." She said. I was surprised that I couldn't understand the reasonably well explained statement she had just made.

"Okay, so the trees are connected... some how. And the Na'vi can use them like giant computer hard drives?" I asked, still confused.

"Basically, yes." I was still pretty confused, but I got the gist of it.

Suddenly a voice came over the intercom. "Get ready to go guys, were touching down in 30 seconds." It was our pilot, Trudy Chacon.

Jake seemed very excited. "Okay lets do this!"

We hit the ground and Jake was the first one out. He immediately started pointing his assault rifle everywhere, scoping out the area. I didn't know what the hell he was doing, I was never in the military. On top of that I wasn't even fairly experienced with guns. My years of vigilantism left me extremely experienced with melee weapons, close quarters combat, running, climbing, and most importantly improvising. However the only time I used guns was when I found one on a dead drug dealer I just executed with a machete, and I discarded it as quickly as I could. I couldn't get caught, I couldn't make a big difference in prison and guns were easy to trace.

I let Jake take point, I would back him up if things got bad, but I would make sure to seize the first chance I got to do some machete work.

"Okay Doc, lead the way. Me and Jake will cover you." I said.

Suddenly Norm interjected. "Okay I'm getting confused calling you both Jake, Striker can we call you something else?"

Then Jake had a light bulb moment. "Why don't we call you Striker?"

I paused for a second. "Striker, Striker, Striker. I am Striker. I like it, no, I LOVE IT!"

"Okay, from now on your Jake, and your Striker." Norm made sure we both got it.

Augustine chimed in, pissed off. "Okay if you three are done acting like kids and giving each other nick names, we got work to do."

"Alright, lets go... do some science." Said Jake cocking his gun.

"Just remember Jake, once that bullets left the chamber, there's no taking it back." Jake seemed like a good guy, but I didn't know how trigger happy he was, and I didn't want him doing something he would regret. I knew a thing or too about making careless mistakes, but that's a story for another time. His nod of recognition was enough to know he had at least acknowledged what I just said.

We walked for awhile, eventually we got to a clearing and Grace and Norm decided to take some samples. Jake started to wander off and I followed him.

"Hey dude where are you going?" I said, a bit confused by him wandering away.

"Just checking things out." He started touching these weird barrel flowers, and when he did they disappeared in to the ground.

"Are you sure about that? The doc said not to touch anything." I said, cautious.

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing." He continued to touch them, until they all disappeared at once and a giant dinosaur with a hammer head appeared, very pissed off.

"Nice work." I said sarcastically. He pointed his gun at it and was about to shoot, when suddenly Norm and Augustine showed up.

"Don't shoot, you'll only piss him off." Said Grace, trying to sound calm.

Jake tried to sound confident. "What do I do, dance with it?"

"Its a territorial threat display, just stand your ground. There's no way your bullets will pierce his armored skin." Grace made it very clear that shooting it would be a very bad idea.

Then Jake did something so stupid I was kind of impressed. He Charged the damn thing.

"RAHHH!"

Then all of the sudden it stopped in its tracks. Jake then started taunting the thing, I couldn't help but be amused.

"Oh yeah that's right! Who's bad? Yeah why don't you get your punk ass back to mommy, you ain't got nothing! Yeah why don't you come back with some of your friends!"

Then out of no where a Thanator jumped out in front of us. This thing was pissed and it wasn't backing off. I only had one thing to say.

"Oh shit."

Well this was just great. I thought that after six years of fighting crime on the streets I had fought everything, I fought drug dealers, assassins, mercenary's, psychopaths, even a wide variety of animals. Never in my life had I ever seen something like this. It was like a combination of a tiger and a wolf, and it was pissed. I took one look at this thing and I instantly knew what I had to do.

"Come on Jake, we gotta get the shit out of here!"

We started running, but this thing was right on our tails (literally) and I had no where to go. No alley ways I could use to get away. No buildings I could scale to lose it. No dumpsters to hide in. This was an environment I was completely unused to. Hell, not many people on earth have even seen a tree. All I could I do was run, well I wasn't the only one.

"Well Jake, you know what I think? I think you were wrong! I don't think you knew what you were doing!" I said pissed.

"I'm sorry!" He said.

"Sorry! Your sorry? There's a giant tiger thing chasing us, that will probably end up killing us, but its okay because your sorry!" I said, sarcastically.

"What happened to The Great Jake Marcus Striker? The guy that slaughtered a room full of armed mercenary's with nothing but a machete! The guy who killed three guard dogs by ripping out their throats!"

"I never fought something like this! One time a tiger was chasing me and I got away from it by running up a building! There are no buildings to run up!" Before I could argue with him any longer, I saw a tree trunk that I could fit under. "Jake over there!"

We jumped underneath it, me and Jake started shooting at the thanator, but our bullets just didn't stop it. "This is why I hate guns!" I angrily threw my gun at the ground and ran. Jake followed behind me realizing that shooting this thing wasn't going to do anything.

The thing grabbed Jake as we were running out, but Jake unlatched his backpack and ran away. We finally got to a waterfall where we could make our escape. Jake jumped and got away, I wasn't so lucky. The thanator jumped on me, I don't know what happened, I went in to a rage.

"That's It! I'm done with your bull shit, you stupid F#king cat!" I rolled out from underneath the thing and grabbed my machete. I jumped on top of it, and with one epic move I stabbed my machete all the way through the things head. I just stood there, looking at the now dead creature I had killed. "You were a noble enemy my brother, but I did what I had to do... to survive." I started walking forward, all the while looking at the great beast I had just killed. Unfortunately I was to focused on the thanator's body to realize that I was actually stepping off a cliff into the lake that Jake jumped in to in order to get away.

When I climbed out of the water and in to the jungle where Jake had been I was surprised to find that he was actually laughing.

"I gotta say Striker, I'm pretty impressed you killed that thing."

"So you saw that? Yeah, I was pissed." I said proudly.

"Well as cool as it was we gotta face facts. Were stranded, we need to find some place safe before it gets too dark."

Jake was right, we didn't know what the hell was out there, and the last thing I wanted was to get killed by some other alien animal. "Okay lets go. You still got ammunition for your gun?"

"uhh yeah, I lost it." He said.

"Great..."

We walked through the forest for several hours. Jake had a spear he made and I had my trusty machete. We continued walking for a while, trying to figure out a way out of the mess we were in. It would be a while before anything big happened.

Neytiri's POV

"I see them. That one has a spear, and the one with the knife was the one who killed the thanator." I said, angered and mildly impressed at the same time.

"Neytiri, I am not sure that we are to kill them. Could it be that these sky people might be different?" Said Ninat. She was my friend and she was understandably merciful, but these sky people were getting too close to Home tree and I couldn't risk putting the clan in danger.

"Ninat, we must keep the clan safe, and there is no way that we can allow them to get any closer to Home tree. It must be done."

Ninat wasn't going to give up that easy. "Neytiri, no Na'vi has ever killed a thanator single handed and lived. I don't think we should kill them without more knowledge."

"Ninat, they are sky people, they are intruding on sacred ground, and they are getting dangerously close to Home tree." I was getting angry, the sky people were starting to get ahead of us.

"Neytiri, I can't help but think that you are still angry at the death of your sister. I understand that it must have been difficult, but if it's affecting your judgment I need to make sure your not doing something you'll regret." She said.

"Sylwanin's death has nothing to do with this. They are dangerous and untrustworthy." Ninat could be right, I may have been doing this because of Sylwanin's death, but they were dangerous. Also, I knew I wouldn't regret killing skypeople.

"Very well. If you think this is the right thing to do, I wont question you anymore." She said disappointed.

I notched my arrow and got ready to end the dreamwalkers life, while Ninat took aim as well. Then all of the sudden I saw something drifting down towards our arrows, two seeds of the sacred tree landed on the tips of our arrows. We watched them, waiting for something to happen, then they just flew away.

I decided to let them live, but I was not done watching them.

"Come, we must follow them."

Striker's POV

"Jake lets go, your hearing things." I said. Jake started talking about hearing people talking.

"I'm telling you Striker, I heard someone talking." He said.

"Jake the jungles getting to your head. Now you need stop being afraid of irrational things. There are plenty of real things to be afraid of, like getting eaten by one of those mega cats, or being ripped to shreds by one of those big flying things we saw, or being lost forever..." Suddenly Jake cut me off.

"Okay I get it. Ill drop it." He said, clearly more uncomfortable than he was before.

As we continued walking I realized me and Jake hardly knew each other. It was unusual I got along with him considering his mysterious military history. I wasn't a big fan of what the military was doing back on Earth, but that's a story for later.

"So Jake, what exactly did you do in the military? I mean before your... injury."

Jake was silent for a moment. "Well, I was a marine, obviously. I specialized in reconnaissance work. My team was sent in to gather Intel on enemy forces and sites before the main force moved in."

I was intrigued. "What kind of Intel?"

"A lot of stuff. The top priority was identifying the exact level of fire power it would take to bring down the enemy. After that we looked for specific weaknesses, like which buildings were the most vulnerable, or what could cause the most problems for the enemy if it was blown up. Finally we made sure there was absolutely no chance of civilian casualty's, if there was we made sure we got the civilians out before we pulled a trigger."

The last part made me feel relieved. A lot of soldiers back on earth had become puppets for their CO's, completely unaware (or just plain unconcerned) with the destruction they caused. At least he hadn't lost his humanity.

"That's good to hear Jake. Remember, no matter what some ass hole officer tells you, you always have a choice. No matter who makes the call, no matter what the situation is, you always have a choice."

Jake looked at me confused. "I take it there's a reason for your distrust with the military, as well as that overly dramatic quote?"

I chuckled. "Yeah, but that's a story for another time. Right now lets focus on surviving."

As I said that me and Jake were brought back to reality by the unpleasant sound of wolves, viper wolves to be exact.

"Umm Striker, how did it get so dark so fast? And where did all these viper wolves come from?"

By the time he said that I had already unsheathed my machete. "You know what Jake? I think its about time I show you why they call me 'The Striker' ."

Jake stood in a combat stance with his spear. "I'm right with you Striker."

(Thanks for reading, if you got time a quick review would be much appreciated. The next chapter will involve Striker and Jake's first encounter with the indigenous. Also I would say sorry for taking so long with this chapter, but nobody's reading these anyways LOL! P.S. Sorry about the cliff hanger. I need something to make people want to keep reading.)