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.

This is an extra long chapter, enjoy!

Chapter 20: On the edge of the apocalypse

Ney'ite was making her way through the forest, leaping from branch to branch. John was doing his best to keep up with her. They were running and jumping at a level of about ten meters high. After a while, they reached a clearing near a cliff side. Ney'ite decided that they could use a break and climbed down from the last tree, while John followed shortly thereafter. He didn't do it as clumsily as he used to, but he could still use some more practice. When John approached the edge, Ney'ite was already sitting in the long grass on the ground near it. He sat down beside her and they both silently admired the view. After a few minutes, Ney'ite told him that if she sat still for even a moment on such a warm and beautiful day she always got very lazy. Before John could respond, she lied down in the grass, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then, her breathing resumed to be as calm as her surroundings.

John now hesitantly lied down beside her. He noted that her people were always busy doing something useful and so it was strange to him seeing her almost taking a nap during day-time. But according to Ney'ite, everyone needed to have some time to just relax. He just hadn't been among them long enough to have really witnessed it. However, that wasn't what she wanted to talk to him about. She explained that she had been thinking about something he had said to her a few days earlier, when he had told her what had happened at his outpost. Ney'ite admitted she didn't understand why one human would want to kill another. The concept of killing one's own kind was strange to her. John explained that there had always been tensions between him and Mark. He didn't know what had happened to Mark after the machines had shown up, however. Mark seemed to have changed significantly since then. It was possible he otherwise wouldn't have attempted to kill him. But there was no way to be sure of that.

Ney'ite didn't seem to be satisfied with his answer however, as she said he hadn't explained why his rival would even think of killing his own kind, especially since most humans had returned to the sky and almost none of them were left. John didn't really know what to say to this, and said the first thing that came to mind. Possibly this was because it was in the human nature to do so. Ney'ite repeated the words "human nature". She was wondering what the differences were between this and the nature of her own people. John sighed, and said that he could tell her a brief story about their original home and history in order to give her a global idea about what he meant by the "human nature". However, he noted that history had never been one of his strong suits and that this story consisted mostly of his interpretations.

Many years ago, the planet Earth was much like Pandora. It had vast rainforests and was populated by thousands of species, humans being one of those. There were a few important differences, though. The Earth was much harsher to live on. The gravity was stronger than the gravity of Pandora for one. Aside from that, the climate was colder and more unpredictable. And on the surface, there were many threats to the human population, not only from wild animals, but from other human tribes or clans as well. Often, there were wars over food or territories, as no human was ever truly satisfied with their way of life. The cause of this was that nature did not give them anything for free. In fact, nature did not ensure any balance at all. The plants and animals of the Earth had evolved without a 'bonding' mechanism such as the one used by creatures on Pandora. Humans were thus unable to directly communicate with the natural world around them. If they wanted to survive, they had to take care of themselves, and taking things from nature was the only option they had. The more resources a tribe had, the higher the quality of their life and the lives of their children would be. This meant that tribes would attack and attempt to kill each other's members, so that they could take their resources and belongings and improve their own life.

Eventually, having food and land wasn't enough for humanity. Smart humans invented new tools in order to improve the quality of life even more. Then, humans would start to kill each other over these new tools, because having a tool meant having power over the natural world and over other humans. Essentially, this cycle had continued up until the present, though things had changed a bit over the years. When the first villages and cities had formed to create a safer society, systems of law and order were devised to keep people from stealing belongings or killing one another. This made the world somewhat less harsh. Also, throughout the years, many different tribes had come up with tons of different ways to live. Some of them had even managed to live somewhat in tune with nature. But the majority of the human race was never satisfied. They wanted to keep improving their lives, even if their current ones were not all that bad. Eventually, the majority extinguished almost every other cultural group that wasn't compatible with their own beliefs. With this majority of humanity in control, the surface of the planet Earth was completely reshaped as their population kept growing uncontrollably due to the ever improving quality of life. Nature was harvested until near extinction. Only tiny bits of the natural world remained as a reminder of the past.

One could say that the reason humanity was interested in Pandora in the first place, was because it offered a solution to their needs for maintaining the life quality of their vast population: the unobtanium. Their life quality had been steadily decreasing over the years because of overpopulation. When they had arrived here, they had proceeded to treat Pandora essentially as just another newly discovered continent of the Earth, and the Na'vi as just another primitive human tribe with beliefs that conflicted with their own. And they had failed to see that Pandora was not the same as the Earth. The rules of the Earth did not apply. Here, they couldn't just take whatever they wanted, because this world kept its own balance. Looking back at their history, however, it was understandable, though not justified, that humanity had acted the way it did.

John paused for a moment, realizing that he had been carried away by his own story and that he had even started referring to his own species as 'they' and 'them'. Ney'ite seemed to be astonished, but nevertheless impressed by what he had told her so far. He was thinking about how to continue, when she asked why the human race would want to make tools as vile as the invaders. John continued by saying that MT-NET was a good example a human invention that was so advanced that it could no longer be considered a tool. How it had been made or how it had gained this dreadful personality, John didn't know. What he did know, was that it now represented the darkest aspects of humanity. It was proof of what humanity was capable of. John also insisted that it certainly did not represent humanity as a whole. Not every human in existence had the same personality aspects as MT-NET, or the soldiers of the RDA, or the humans of the past for that matter. Ney'ite gently grasped John's hand and told him that he didn't have to tell her that, because she already knew…

The two of them returned to the village of the Uvora clan around midday. Ney'ite told John that she would be joining the other hunters on a hunting trip this afternoon. She thought it would be best if he used the remainder of the day to interact with the rest of the clan some more, by assisting whomever needed an extra pair of hands. This wasn't a problem for John. He didn't mind doing some simple tasks for a change. But before he went off to ask around, he first had to eat. Just when he was about to take a bite out of a piece of roasted Hexapede meat, Hatuyo ran toward him and enthusiastically revealed that Wukan had returned. Concerned, John asked him what was going on. It was nothing bad, according to Hatuyo. Several friends of Wukan had remained at John's human home. Wukan just had something he wanted to show.

After Hatuyo had taken John to him, Wukan explained that he had discovered something important that could help them out in their fight against the invaders. However, it was quite a distance from here, so they had to go by Pa'li. John was confused about what it had to do with him. He wanted to know why Wukan wouldn't just go to Olo'eyktan Ranu'ut and tell him about it. Wukan believed that this was not a good idea, because their clan leader would probably misinterpret it. So that was why he needed him instead. And it wasn't something that he could explain in words either; John had to see it himself. John reluctantly accepted, though he had no idea what to expect because of Wukan's vagueness. Hatuyo then asked Wukan in his most friendly tone of voice, if he could come along too. Wukan forbade it, and insisted that the location they were going was no place for a child. John sympathized with Hatuyo, but he knew that Wukan was probably right. That was why he didn't attempt to make him reconsider, when a disappointed Hatuyo turned around and went back to the village.

A few hours later, Wukan and John stopped somewhere in the middle of the jungle and dismounted their Pa'li. Wukan stated that they should leave their mounts behind and continue on foot. John did not argue with him, as he seemed to know what he was doing. He also seemed to know exactly where to go, probably because he could tell by the surrounding trees where they were. John was impressed by this skill, as the trees all looked the same to him. Another half hour later, they could suddenly hear a siren in the distance. It was the same siren John had heard when he had first found Wukan. This horrible sound could only indicate that something equally horrible was coming their way. However, Wukan remained calm, as if he had expected it. When he could see something shiny between the trees, he directed John to stay low to the ground and follow him. Moments later, they were crawling over the ground toward several plants. The leaves of these plants formed a thick canopy, a perfect place to hide according to Wukan. John was not fully convinced, as the sides were still very open. He was afraid they would still be spotted.

It took about another minute for the approaching threat to become fully visible. It seemed that Wukan had chosen this spot so that the threat would pass right in front of them. John could now see clearly what was approaching. A large tank-like vehicle was making its way toward them. It was completely covered in shiny chrome plating. A roughly humanoid torso with a non-humanoid head was attached to its front. It had three arms, the two on the sides carried machineguns and the one in the middle was a strange folded mantis-like arm. The head of the tank had several flashing red and blue lights, as if it was some kind of police vehicle. The tank now stopped, while the middle arm unfolded to clear a thick trunk of a fallen tree out of its path. Once it had done so, its caterpillar tracks continued pulling the vehicle forward, while the siren howled again. It kept getting closer and John was sure they would be spotted. He turned to look away from the tank and noticed that there was something lying in front of him. Lying in the path of the tank, there was a human skull. The tank now rolled past them and crushed the skull under its track. It continued moving into the same direction, without stopping or firing its weapons. It had simply not detected them.

When the tank had moved out of sight, John asked Wukan if that was what he wanted to show him and Wukan nodded. He had encountered and fought this adversary on different occasions. But it was so heavily armored that it could not be destroyed by their weapons. He had once managed to incapacitate it by attacking what he had believed to be its eyes. This had only slowed it down, however. Since the time he had escaped their imprisonment while only barely alive, his perception of things had changed a bit. He thanked Eywa that this had happened, because otherwise, he would not have had the patience to make this discovery. The reason he had not told Ranu'ut about this weakness was that their Olo'eyktan might not understand how it could be exploited. Wukan wanted to prevent him from sending in their warriors under the presumption that this adversary could be beaten if one attacked its blind spots. The point was that their weapons could not inflict the right kind of damage to destroy it. He believed that if they could get it to roll over a human explosive weapon, they would be able to destroy it. John confirmed that this could indeed do the trick. However, he had a totally different idea himself. If they could drive a herd of Hammerheads, or Angtsìk as the Na'vi called them, into its direction, they could also inflict some serious damage. Wukan and John looked at each other and both smiled, when they realized that Wukan, a Na'vi, had come up with a human strategy and John, a human, had come up with a Na'vi strategy…

The end of yet another day had come. After the evening meal, Hatuyo and some of the other children once again gathered around John. He had told them a story about human spacecrafts a few days ago. Now, as agreed, he would tell them about the home of the human race. John had to think for a little while about how to describe it. He started by saying that the human home planet was named Earth and that it orbited a single yellow dwarf star named the Sun, or Sol. The Earth was the largest and densest rocky planet of this system. Unlike Pandora, it orbited the star directly; it was not a moon of another celestial body. It had its own moon, which was named Moon, or Luna. This moon was essentially no more than a dead ball of grey rock and dirt, which had nonetheless been colonized by humanity. On the surface of the Earth, one could see either landscapes full of human structures, deserts, or black oceans, depending on the location. There wasn't much more to see. The lighting in the cities reminded of the bioluminescence of the Pandoran forest at night, though it was a lot more rigid and dull. Unlike the blue sky of Pandora during the day, the sky of the Earth could be several shades of grey and brown, depending on the time of the year. The sun was often unable to penetrate this thick haze and thus very little light reached the surface. At night, the millions of artificial light sources on the planet caused the sky to light up as well. This way, it was hard to tell at any given time if it was day or night. But most humans did not notice this, as it was pretty hard to even be able to see the sky from the ground level.

While telling the story, John used some Na'vi words in his descriptions, while the Na'vi children already understood English a lot better than before. Hatuyo did no longer need to translate. When John had finished, all of them were silent, and John thought to himself that perhaps he had made his descriptions a bit too grim. But then again, it was the truth and it was good that they could now picture in their minds where he had come from. John tried to turn the story into a moral lesson by saying that they should never take their own world for granted and that they should be thankful not to have been born as a human.

Later that night, after his Avatar had gone to sleep, John had gone to sleep in his human form. It had been a busy day full of heavy stories. Perhaps that was the cause of his nightmare. John dreamed that Pandora was on fire, while MT-NET, in the form of a shadowy humanoid with red eyes, was laughing hysterically with a deep demon-like voice. Mark Dodgson was with MT-NET and was also laughing. The Na'vi were nowhere to be seen and neither was Joseph. Suddenly, the view changed to Earth. The surface was in ruins, but there was one building still standing. A large door opened itself and a shiny new tank, looking exactly like the one he had seen today, rolled outside. Every minute a new tank was produced. Surrounding the building, there were giant open fields, which were littered with human skulls. The tanks proceeded to roll over these fields, crushing hundreds of them in the process. Luckily, the dream ended soon, and John said to himself that it was not too late to do something. MT-NET was going down…