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 13: Tales of the hermit
Somehow, he had succeeded, and yet it didn't feel like it. He was allowed to stay, but he had no idea what to do now. The clan leader didn't like him and now Ney'ite had her doubts about him as well. The others, who had sided with Ney'ite, however, kept looking at him with curiosity, although none of them dared to say a word to him. He turned to Ney'ite and asked her what he had to do in order to not disappoint her again. John looked her in the eyes, but she turned away. After a long pause, she told him that they could use a helping hand with the gathering of food, outside the village. Ney'ite didn't want to deal with him right now, which was why she had made this suggestion. She only pointed him in the right direction, with no further instructions, while claiming she had no time for him, as she had to check on her brother. In truth, she just wanted some alone time.
John didn't question her, however. He headed into the direction Ney'ite had given him, until he could see several Na'vi, who were gathering seeds from a specific type of plant in this area. Hoping that they would understand English, he announced to them that he would be helping them, if they didn't mind. Nobody said a word back to him. Some began whispering to each other, while others just stared at him. A few even seemed to ignore him completely. Nevertheless, John didn't let himself be bothered by this, and scoured the area for plants just like the ones they were harvesting. At first he only found plants that were already picked. Once he had found one that hadn't been harvested yet, he had trouble finding the right technique to get the seeds. He carefully watched the others from a distance and copied what he saw, with some success.
After about half and hour had passed, one of the Na'vi in the area, a teenage boy, tried to approach him as inconspicuously as he could. John had already spotted him, however. He deliberately turned away from him, so that the boy would believe that he could approach unnoticed. When the boy had come several meters closer, John suddenly turned around and faced him, which startled him. It was John's attempt at scaring him away, but it didn't seem to have worked. The boy began speaking to him in basic English. He admitted that he didn't believe what the rest of the clan was saying about him. He didn't believe that John was a spy. John kindly thanked him for his honesty, but then asked him to move along, as he still had a lot of things to do. The boy didn't comply and instead showed him how to harvest the seeds properly.
Several hours later, John had his pockets full and joined the others as they headed back to the village. Even though most of them still acted as if he wasn't there, he had made at least one friend: Hatuyo, the boy who had helped him. By the time they were back in the village, it had become evening. John had never been out in the jungle this late. He had always returned to his outpost around dusk, even in times before his Avatar had been completed. While he was aware of the bioluminescence of the environment of Pandora at night, he had never witnessed it himself from up close. Its beauty reminded him of the fact that even though he had been on this planet for over ten years, he had only seen a very small part of it during that time. He had been in the same environment for so long, that he had actually started forgetting that there was much more to see and experience.
It appeared that they were just in time for the evening meal. Hatuyo made sure that John got something else to eat, besides the seeds. He even managed to convince one of the hunters to trade some meat of his freshly killed Hexapede. But John had his thoughts elsewhere. He couldn't stop wondering where Ney'ite could be. She had been given the task to guide him, and yet he hadn't seen her all day. And now, she wasn't present at the fire pit either. The clan leader Ranu'ut and the warrior Selyat were both present, however. John was sure that they were discussing him. It surprised him that Selyat approached him shortly thereafter to ask him several questions. First, she wanted to know whether he was a scientist, or a warrior. John revealed to her that he was neither; he was an engineer. Hatuyo looked at him, puzzled, but Selyat seemingly did know what that word meant. She wasn't interested in finding out more about it, though. What she wanted to know was whether or not he had encountered additional Na'vi, besides Wukan on his way to the village. John told the truth: he hadn't. Selyat then expressed to him that that was strange, considering Wukan told her that he had seen additional captured members of the Uvora clan make their escape. John suggested that they were probably hiding in the jungle, or perhaps they had headed off into a different direction. When John wanted to clarify his statements, Selyat rudely interrupted him to inform him that he had spoken enough for now. She then promptly returned to Ranu'ut, presumably to tell him of her findings.
Once she had gone, Hatuyo wished to know what the word 'engineer' meant. John briefly summarized it as someone who creates and repairs tools. Hatuyo seemed slightly disappointed. He had probably expected it to be something epic. Seeing his reaction, John revealed to him that some tools of the humans were very complex. For example, tools necessary for them to leave their own world and reach this one. The last bit caught Hatuyo's attention, and he demanded John to tell more about it. John explained that while he was willing to do that, it was a very long story, which could best be told another time.
After the clan had finished eating, John finally noticed Ney'ite sitting on the ground near one of the cyan colored lanterns. It appeared that nobody was with her. He stood up and walked towards her calmly, so that she could see he was approaching and then sat down about a meter away from her. Not knowing what else to say, John asked her how her brother was doing. He was alright, but still recovering, according to her. Wukan couldn't quite remember what had happened to him exactly, other than the facts that he had been sealed inside a transparent container of some sort and that he nearly starved to death in there. While telling the story, Ney'ite avoided eye-contact as much as possible. John decided not to ask her why she was disappointed in him, and instead asked her where he could sleep tonight. Ney'ite pointed out that there were a few unused single person hammocks on the edge of the village. He could use one of those. John decided to let her be and rest now, so that he could get up early tomorrow. Hatuyo was kind enough to help him locate the hammocks. Luckily, one of them was near the ground level, so he didn't have to climb that high. Once he had lied down, he looked up at the sky for a moment, before he closed his eyes and cleared his mind.
In an instant, he could see the inside of the link chamber again. He opened the lid and sat upright, clutching his stiff back as he did so. It was still kind of strange to him, living in two separate bodies, in two separate worlds. If one stayed to long in either of these worlds, one would be tempted to think that that was all there was. No matter how beautiful and exotic the world of the Na'vi was, John was still a human, living in a human outpost, all alone, on a planet far away from his homeworld. And that wouldn't even be that bad, were it not for an imminent attack of self-aware machines. He took a deep breath and tried to let it go, as there was nothing he could do about it. Tomorrow, he would attempt to get Ney'ite back on his side.
Deep in the jungle stood an abandoned log cabin. Years ago, it had been used as an Avatar station, where scientists of the RDA could study the environment without being restricted by fences, as was the case with the station near Hell's Gate. However, it had already been abandoned by the time the RDA was driven off Pandora, as the area had been marked as a high risk territory. Despite several sentry turrets guarding the perimeter, an Avatar had once been killed by a pack of Viperwolves there. Even though the driver had been alright, the financial loss made the RDA reconsider its priorities to prevent another such incident from happening. Today, the cabin was still structurally intact, despite the jungle having almost completely overgrown it. Inside, it was a bigger mess. All equipment had been removed and recycled by the RDA prior to abandonment. Some furniture had been knocked over then, while the rest of the interior had been ravaged by various creatures throughout the years. In the middle of the main room, there was one chair still standing. In it sat a man with white hair, who was wearing a suit. But the suit wasn't like John had last seen it anymore. It had been ripped at multiple places and the jacket was even missing a sleeve.
Joseph sat motionlessly in the chair, seemingly staring at a specific point. In reality, his machine mind wasn't processing his current surroundings. Instead, it was processing several video recordings he had made earlier, most notably those of his struggle with the Type 1000. He had encountered this machine for the first time as an enemy right after he had released the captured Na'vi. Just as he had guided the last few of them towards the exit of the building, the Type 1000 had leaped towards him. Were it not for his speed, he would have certainly lost his head to the claws of that monster. In a fraction of a second, he had scanned the ground and located a metal rod that he could use to defend himself. After he had snatched it, he managed to block several hits of the Type 1000, but he wasn't able to effectively counterattack. That was why he decided to flee the battle and escape into the jungle.
Before the Type 1000 was able to damage him, he ran off in the opposite direction of the direction the Na'vi had taken, in order to lure it away from them. He then sprinted as fast as his design allowed, which meant that the joints of his arms and legs ripped the suit he was wearing. The Type 1000 did all that it could to keep up with him. Joseph could see that it was using all four limbs to run, kind of like how an Earth Gorilla would. Just as it was beginning to catch up on him, Joseph could see the edge of a ravine approaching. While Joseph suddenly halted, the Type 1000 leaped forward again, and tried to grab him. It got hold of his arm, but only ripped off a sleeve, as it was going to fast to stop itself. It then rolled over the edge and fell down about thirty meters, landing on a treetop. Joseph knew then that it wasn't over. This enemy had survived. But he hadn't gone after it. Instead, he had used this opportunity to head back and attempt to locate the Na'vi he had freed.
Once he had located them, it was relatively easy for him to convince them not to head back to their original village and instead stay hidden in the jungle for a while. Particularly the elders had no reason to question him, because they believed he had been sent by Eywa to show them that even among these new invaders, there can sometimes be good. After enough time had passed in Joseph's opinion, he let them know that they could now move safely to the other village they had told him about. Joseph and the Na'vi had then gone their own way. If all had gone well, they should be arriving at their village right about now…