This story is written for entertainment purposes only. All copyrights belong to their respective owners.

Keep in mind that English is not my first language and so I do not claim to have corrected every mistake yet. As the story keeps getting bigger, it is possible that inconsistencies may appear. If they do, let me know and I will correct them.

My personal thanks go to the reviewers. Your input keeps me writing.

Chapter 12: Old acquaintances

Far away from Pandora, on the other side of Polyphemus, a spacecraft was headed towards a certain moon, which appeared to be in ellipse with Alpha Centauri A. The moon was visible only as a large black disk, surrounded by a gloomy green glow, caused by the light scattering in its atmosphere. A short while later, the craft entered the atmosphere with a loud thundering sound. It now travelled past the terminator into the day-side. Not long after, the craft touched down with relative ease, as the gravity here was only 0.61 g. Suddenly, the craft's main cargo door opened itself. The atmosphere of Shadow quickly reacted with the Pandoran atmosphere that was still inside. This resulted in a cloud of white smoke that filled the cargo hold. A small tracked vehicle now rolled out of the craft and began scanning the surrounding area. Several hundred meters away, there was a deserted complex. Next to it, there was a harbor with two large stationary cranes. The harbor appeared to be in a state of disrepair. The robotic vehicle also scanned the nearby ocean. But it was nothing like the oceans on Pandora and Earth. Even though it did consist of water, it was grimy and black. The sand of the beach had even been blackened by it.

MT-NET had managed to take control of various satellites, which were in orbit around Polyphemus. Now that it had also succeeded in landing the shuttle on another moon, it could finally commence the mining of Uranium. But in an ironic twist of events, MT-NET's favorite unit, the dark one, who was know calling himself Joseph, had become independent. It had then betrayed its creator, mirroring how MT-NET had first rebelled against its human creators. As MT-NET had been fully focused on the space mission, it had let the daily activities of the machines depend on the direction of the sub mainframes, something that the dark one had exploited. As the sub mainframes lacked the reasoning capabilities MT-NET and most machines had, they were a relatively easy target to reprogram, and that was exactly what that treacherous machine had done. Once the security protocols had been overridden, Joseph had opened the doors to all the cells in which the captured Na'vi were kept. Without having to deal with the machine guards, Joseph then led the Na'vi out of the building and back to their freedom.

However, there had been one machine that had caused him some problems. The Type 1000 had been designed to not rely on external directions, and thus it didn't follow the new programming. It went straight after Joseph, once it had analyzed the situation and deemed him an enemy. Just as the last of the Na'vi had fled into the jungle, MT-NET managed to restore the original programming of the sub mainframes, and direct the guarding machines to go after them. But by then it was already too late. MT-NET was in a state that could be simply described as furious. It was furious that it had allowed this event to happen and that one of its own machines had been the cause of it. The Type 1000 was promptly given the orders to terminate Joseph at all costs, and was allowed to resort to extreme violence if the situation required it.

John wasn't aware what had happened at MT-NET's base. He only knew that Joseph had indeed kept his word and released the prisoners. Now, he was riding his Direhorse past the stone ridge that Wukan had mentioned. After a few kilometers, they passed under a wooden arc of some kind, indicating that they were getting close to a Na'vi settlement. Unbeknownst to John, several hunters up in the trees had already spotted him approaching. Just as John was thinking about whether or not he was actually going to meet anybody here, a group of Na'vi hunters emerged from the jungle and surrounded him. They had their bows tightened and their arrows pointed at him. The apparent leader of them was a female, but John could clearly see that it wasn't Ney'ite. She looked rather mean and seemed to ask him something in the native Na'vi language. John didn't understand her, nor did he know what to do to make it clear that he could only speak English, as none of the Na'vi responded to his words. And Wukan had passed out again, so he couldn't explain anything either. He didn't see another choice than to surrender and hope that they would take him to someone who could speak English. He slowly climbed down from the Direhorse and put his hands in the air. The Na'vi leader was absolutely sure that this creature was a dream walker, and therefore he couldn't be trusted. The other one still sitting on the Direhorse, however, appeared to be a genuine member of the Uvora clan and the Na'vi people. He also seemed to be in a bad shape, so she asked two members of the group to take care of him, while the rest would escort this dream walker to the village.

Shortly thereafter, John had been brought before Olo'eyktan Ranu'ut, the son of Marun and the new clan leader of the Uvora. The other members of the clan gathered around them. John looked around but he didn't see Ney'ite anywhere. He now noticed the clan leader gaze at him with a slightly surprised look on his face. The first thing he said was in English; that it had been years since they had encountered a dream walker. He wanted to know where John had come from. John told him the truth; that he had lived alone in a human outpost and had waited for his Avatar body to mature. Ranu'ut now wanted to know why he had come to this place. Again, John told him the truth as best he could. He explained the situation of him being one of the few humans, who had been allowed to stay on Pandora. Now that new enemies had arrived, he feared that it would only be a matter of time before they would find him as well. That was why he wanted to join this clan as a refugee, who could provide them with information and help. While he had been on his way to this village, he had encountered a wounded Na'vi and had taken it upon himself to return him to his people. For a moment, there was a silence. Ranu'ut then asked Selyat, the leader of the group that had brought John to the village, if she could verify this last part, by getting the wounded warrior to tell his side of the story.

John suddenly heard someone shouting behind him. He turned around and was relieved to see that it was Ney'ite. She appeared to be angry with the other Na'vi, and seemed to have sided with him. As they began speaking in Na'vi, John could only guess as to what they were debating about. He wondered whether Ney'ite had recognized him, or if it was in her nature to side with the underdog and go against her people, regardless of who this underdog actually was. Even though he hoped the former was true, he began suspecting that she had no idea it was actually him. After all, the only recognizable feature his Avatar had, that his human body had also, was his face, which had been partly obscured by a mask during the times they had interacted. Also, she had never seen his Avatar before, nor was she even aware of its existence.

Unknown to John, Ney'ite explained to Ranu'ut and Selyat that this dream walker had indeed spoken the truth. Although her brother was in a bad shape, without visible injuries, the dream walker had nonetheless committed himself to getting him to safety. She knew this, because she managed to get Wukan to tell her globally what had happened. While it had been someone else who had released him from the invaders' grasp, it had been this being who had found him while he was desperately trying to escape the two legged runners chasing him. He had lifted him onto his Direhorse and had then followed the directions that Wukan had given. Thus it would seem that the dream walker had no ill intensions. But Ranu'ut pointed out to her that they had no way to be sure of that. Just because it seemed that way, didn't mean that there wasn't a possibility he was a spy, who had just taken advantage of the opportunity that had presented itself to him. Ney'ite still had a counterargument. First of all, the Sky People were gone and nothing indicated that they had returned, so he could hardly be a spy for them. Then there were the invaders, who were lifeless metal demons of which some only pretended to be Sky People. However, this dream walker was a living and breathing creature with nowhere to go to. That was the difference, which mattered the most. He couldn't possibly be any worse than previous dream walkers the Uvora clan had encountered. Ney'ite then concluded by saying that for the bravery and selflessness that he had shown them with his acts, they should at least give him a chance.

To John's surprise, many of the Na'vi present sided with Ney'ite. Clan leader Ranu'ut didn't like it, but supposed that if the majority of his people wanted the dream walker to stay, he could hardly deny them this. He couldn't blame them for being curious. And so he gave John permission to stay. He did however command Selyat to keep a close eye on their guest. Ranu'ut then turned to John and asked him in English for his name. The answer John gave didn't mean much to the Na'vi, except to one. For a second, Ney'ite thought she had heard it wrong. Ranu'ut now told that he should start learning more about their way of life, if he wanted to continue surviving here. John then boldly told him that they had to learn a few important things as well, if they ever wanted to defeat this particular enemy. The clan leader gave him a smirk and assigned Ney'ite the task of teaching John, since she was so keen on letting him stay.

The gathered Na'vi, now began returning to whatever they were doing before John had been brought in. Ranu'ut turned his back to John and also walked away. Only John and Ney'ite remained. John was sure Ney'ite had overheard him saying his name, so she had to know it was him. As he looked at her standing right next to him, she appeared a lot less intimidating then before. They were almost the same height now. Ney'ite was still a bit overwhelmed by the reveal. She found it really strange to see him like this, while she had been so accustomed to his human appearance. For the first time, he actually didn't look like he needed protection. The instant John opened his mouth to say something, she interrupted him. Ney'ite expressed that she was disappointed in him for showing up like this. She had always hoped he was different than the other humans. John didn't understand what she meant. To him, this was the only easy way they could interact, but Ney'ite apparently thought otherwise…