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.

Chapter 28: The beginning of the end

The battle for the village of the Uvora clan was over. The Type 400 machines were checking the bodies of their victims for signs of life, and killed anyone who wasn't already dead. A tank rolled into the village while the machines were dragging all the bodies to the deepest crater to pile them up and incinerate them. One Type 400 found the wreckage of the Type 1000 and informed MT-NET that it had been lost in the battle. MT-NET considered this unfortunate, but it knew that despite its effectiveness, the Type 1000 had never been invincible. The fact that it had always chosen to face enemies alone had been its greatest weakness. MT-NET had already been developing a successor to the Type 1000, namely the Type 500. It was designed with the goal to combine the versatility of its predecessor with the quick and easy production of the Type 400. Also, it was designed to work together with other individuals of the same type in order to take down enemies. Several units had already been completed and were currently undergoing a test phase in MT-NET's main base. In several days, the first units would be ready for battle.

Far away from the ruins of the village, the surface of a calm sea was disturbed. A head emerged from the water, followed by a body that was covered with seaweed. John, who was sitting on the beach, could see it from a distance. He turned around and shouted into the jungle that Joseph had returned. Ney'ite had been busy finding a pair of Pa'li for them to ride back to the village. She had just succeeded in doing so, when she heard John. When the three of them were together on the beach, Joseph informed them that the shuttle had crashed into the water and that it had sunk to the bottom. John was quick to insist that they should go back to the village immediately. Joseph had something else to say on that matter, though. According to him, getting back to the village of the Uvora clan would take at least two weeks if they would go on foot. This prompted Ney'ite to proudly announce that she had found two Pa'li for them to ride. Joseph pointed out that despite this, it would still take several days at least to get back. Also, according to Joseph's calculations, John's outpost was nearer so they should head there first to finish the mission by analyzing the mysterious photograph of the wall with the carvings. However, he did not see why they would have to start the journey immediately and recommended that both Ney'ite and John rest for a few hours because they had deserved it.

John suddenly realized that he couldn't even remember the last time he had slept. Also, he had almost forgotten that he still had a human body that was lying in a link chamber. Somehow, he was now more used to his Avatar body than to his human body. The fact that he even still had a human body was beginning to seem strange and out of place. The only other human he knew was still alive and on Pandora was his nemesis Mark Dodgson, who worked for MT-NET and who wanted to kill him. This meant that there were no other humans to interact with anymore, so in that sense his human body no longer had a function. John had never believed he would ever come to this conclusion. He did not say a word to Joseph or Ney'ite about this.

Somewhere deep in the jungle, the remaining members of the Uvora clan had gathered near a tree with a yellow colored piece of cloth tied around it. The clan leader Ranu'ut had marked this location to serve as a meeting point. This had been a part of the plan he had formulated to save as much of their people as possible in case of an attack on the village. Four hours after the attack, which was enough time for anyone near the village to get here, not many Na'vi had arrived. Wukan and two children had been the first ones to arrive, followed by Wukan's mate Elynin, who was supporting an injured Selyat. An hour later, the elder Na'vi Onorak and a group of children had arrived. While her wounds were being treated, Selyat told them that she had seen their Olo'eyktan Ranu'ut die after winning a fierce battle with the most monstrous invader. She was also fairly certain the invaders had not taken anyone prisoner.

All of them had remained hopeful that more people of their village would get here. But when three more hours had passed, the adults began to realize that this small group was probably everyone that had gotten away. The mood had been far from cheerful since the beginning of the attack, but now it was getting even worse. The adults didn't say anything to each other. Selyat was staring at the sky, while Onorak was praying. Elynin was busy crafting some makeshift toys and played together with the children in order to keep them distracted. Although Hatuyo saw through her attempt, he played along, because he did not want to think about what had really happened to the rest of the clan. Wukan remembered that he had prayed to Eywa to keep his sister safe on her journey with John and that he had initially disliked her decision to go. He was now glad that she had gone. If she hadn't, there would have been a large chance she wouldn't have made it.

After several additional hours, the adults started to discuss what they were going to do now. Eventually, most votes went to Wukan's proposal of heading to John's outpost. Several days later, the remainder of the Uvora clan reached the outer end of the quarry and arrived at the building shortly thereafter. Wukan initially thought he saw John standing over there, but as they moved closer, it appeared that it was someone else. The figure looked like it was one of the human imitating invaders. It had an emotionless fake-looking face with a large grey beard. Also, it had a somewhat overweight posture and wore ragged brown clothes with holes in them. With its weapon aimed at them, it kept staring. Selyat aimed her bow at the invader, but Onorak pushed it down again. The figure now lowered its weapon and announced loudly that he worked for the one who called himself Joseph. Onorak had expected this, since the invader had had plenty of time to shoot them, but had chosen not to do it. While the others were a bit confused as to what was going on, Onorak asked the figure if he could take them to Joseph. The figure replied negatively, but suggested they wait here until he would return.

And so they did. All heads had turned to Onorak as he explained what he knew. Selyat was the most eager to know. Onorak recounted the story of his capture by the invaders some time ago. It had been one of the invaders, the one who looked the most human, who had turned against the others and had freed all the captive Na'vi. After the escape, this individual had introduced himself to them as Joseph. He had also advised them to stay hidden in the jungle for a while before moving on to their other village, so that it was less likely that they would be followed. The final thing he had said to them was that there was a chance they would someday come in contact with another one like him. They would know if this individual was like him, if it refused to attack them or any other Na'vi. Onorak now expressed his belief that Joseph had been influenced by Eywa to break free from his destructive ways and use his skills and knowledge to help them. Selyat was a bit skeptical about this last statement. Nevertheless, Onorak seemed to genuinely believe that Joseph and his followers only wanted to help them.

Within the next few hours, John, Ney'ite and Joseph arrived at the outpost. John was initially happy to see the Na'vi, but the smile quickly faded from his face. He did not need to hear what had happened. Their faces told him everything he needed to know. John had always naively believed that their village had been far enough away from MT-NET's main base to avoid an attack. Even though they had eliminated a few strategically important assets of MT-NET, its presence here on Pandora was like a spreading virus. John and Ney'ite silently joined the last Na'vi of the Uvora clan, while Joseph returned to Benjamin.

The next day, John had awoken early to link up with his Avatar. Joseph was inside the outpost and busy with some office equipment. When John asked what he was doing, he revealed that he was scanning the photograph of the wall with the strange carvings in order to make a few copies. He would also try to find anything comparable to it in the old RDA database. John doubted that anything like it could be found in there, but nonetheless let Joseph do his thing. After starting up the link unit, John lied down, closed the lid and woke up in his Avatar body a few seconds later. Today, they would determine who would become the new leaders of the small remainder of their clan. The position of Tsahìk had been open for a very long time, but the position of Olo'eyktan had only become vacant when Ranu'ut had died without any offspring. John didn't see why these elections were such a big deal right now. If it were up to him, there would be no leaders and they would all live as equals. However, the Na'vi valued tradition, since it was the only thing they could hold on to besides each other in times like these.

During breakfast, John overheard Wukan and Ney'ite talking to each other about some strange dreams they had had. Wukan claimed he had had the same one for three nights in a row now. When Elynin heard them describing the details, she admitted that she was experiencing the same thing as well. In the dreams, they were all seeing a large grey cloud in various situations. John became a bit nervous, since he had seen the same thing in a dream last night and in another dream he had had the night before they had left to go to Shadow. In his version, he saw the thing right after having seen a man giving a speech on Earth. Last night, he had seen the man in a close-up. The man's face was monstrous and he had a white walrus-like mustache. At first he had had a neutral expression on his face. This expression had soon changed into a grin, not unlike the one of Mark Dodgson. The grin had kept growing until it had become a twisted and inhuman ear to ear smile.

Joseph joined the group a moment later and distributed a number of copies of the photograph among the adults. Then, he asked whether anyone had ever seen something like the wall or the carvings before, or if they knew of any legends that described the entity that was depicted. No-one knew anything about it, not even Onorak, who knew many old legends. John kept staring at one of the copies. He couldn't help but wonder whether the grey cloud that appeared to be present in many dreams, yet unseen in real life, had any connection with the depiction of that thing on the wall.

Unknown to any of them, MT-NET had once received a message from the mysterious entity. The message had consisted of a modified blueprint for a human invented device to generate large amounts of electrical power from concentrated geologic magnetism. A set of coordinates had also been given. The coordinates pointed to a location near the Tree of Souls, but on the other side of a mountain, in a cave. MT-NET had already spent a large amount of time and resources to get to this place and set up the device and a base to protect it. Right now, the location was about 80% complete. However, the construction had been temporarily halted, since MT-NET had other worries. MT-NET had been monitoring the areas surrounding its main base using an old RDA satellite. Large groups of Na'vi had been gathering at several locations. MT-NET had already abandoned the outer factories, which could not be defended effectively. All crucial construction machinery had already been moved to the new base. MT-NET planned to use all active machine units to defend the two bases. It would wait until the Na'vi would strike first, so that MT-NET had the home field advantage…