A/N:Glad I could get another Chapter up so soon! Thanks for the Reviews, guys, keep 'em coming! This chapter finally informs you why the UN are here. It'll speed up next chapter, so bear with me!

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Forget what you think you know. Every last ounce of it is wrong. You are not special, you are not worth anything; you are cannon fodder. You will either die a nobody, live a nobody, or make something of yourself, through sheer hard work and effort. That is the Rifles.
Piston remembered those words. Most of all, he remembered thinking 'I'll make something of myself'. These days, though? Was seeming less and less likely. But he didn't mind all that much. There was a certain, low-life pride in dying a nobodyHe sat in the old Avatar-Program capsule...place. He was not some square; he was proud of being a simple grunt. Damn proud.

Across from him, was that damned woman. She was called Emily, and he really wasn't too fond of her. So when she came looking for a mindless grunt to help her with the heavy lifting, guess who the Sarge assigned? Unfortunately, now she was asking him to give Military Jargon. Look, he'd already pulled a dozen vines as thick as your arm off seats, capsules and whatnot, and he really wasn't in the mood to be drilled by some feisty square with an attitude problem!

"What does ASAP mean?" She asked him, noting on her clipboard. Anal Square Annoying Piston? No, he couldn't say that. He wasn't that stupid.

"Anal Scientists Annoying Potter?"

Oh, the look she gave him. In his combat vest and camouflage trousers, it was obvious he was muscular; not for a Rifle, but still. Yet she looked at him like a little girl.

"Okay, As Soon As Possible."

She grumbled under her breath, and went back to writing. For the first time, Piston wondered what the hell she did.

"What do you do, anyway?" Standing up, he went over to an Avatar capsule and tapped the rusting metal. It let out a solid thud, which almost amused him.

"I was a Neurotechnician. I made sure the capsules linked up the right people to the right Avatars." She looked up from the paper and sneered.

"I'm sorry, a Neurotechnician is-" He cut her off, glaring at her.

"An analyst of the Nerve System. Don't patronise me."

Okay, that brought a surprise. She figured he was just an annoying grunt.

"Erm...What's a Rifleman?"

That brought a lowered glare down upon her.

"A Rifleman is a Light-Infantry Soldier, designed to traverse ground on foot,with maximum stealth and minimal equipment. They are usually armed with Assault Rifles. Perfect for jungle-terrain."

"And what were the men from SecFor?"

"Dog-soldiers. Men who were classified either too brutal or too stupid, so the Army let them go. Minus Quaritch, of course, but he's the exception." Why was he telling her all this? He'd asked the Sarge these very questions only a few days ago, but still!

"What's so special about you guys?" She wasn't writing anymore. Just asking.

"We're the General's personal Battalion. He was a Colonel with us; that means a lot to some Officers." As he told her this, Piston was carefully examining the capsule, looking over the panels and buttons.

"And who is he?"

That brought an amused chuckle.

"General Greyson is the toughest, most hardassed man the UN has ever had the privilege of training. Lost his edge during the British Campaign, though."

"British Campaign?"

Piston looked her dead in the eyes, shocked. She didn't know? Oh god. He took a deep breath in, and begun.

"6 years ago, 50 meteors hit England. Only about the size of one of these capsules. But from them spewed insects. Well, I say that. They were like men, in the way they had a torso, legs and head. Roughly our size too. But they had claws instead of arms. Long stilts instead of legs. Tentacles embroidered with suction pods all over their face. Only one came out of each rock, and it was all it took. They escaped; starting eating children. Grew big in sewers, spawned. Their children were like...Giant centipedes, but with lots of talons, and claws, and teeth, about the size of buses. Worst thing was? They grew bigger as they ate. And, before we knew it, the things were all over us. Greyson had just subjugated China, and he flew over with most of the Army. But there were too many. London and Manchester fell, with 5 Corps, that's 40,000 men in a Corp. Stopped them at Cardiff, but the things they saw..." He shook his head. "It broke the General, they say. Only Jon Demar wasn't affected; and that's because he was born without a heart, they say. Had no choice, they realised. Firebombed England. All of it. An entire island nation reduced to ashes. Took 3 months of constant pounding from every single bomber we had; sub-atomic nukes, incendiaries that effected 500 miles, you name it. At the end, the only English, Welsh and Scots alive were those serving in the Military, or living abroad. I'm English. Born in York, raised in York, went abroad to study advanced astro-physics at MIT..." Piston shook his head, clearly struck by guilt. "I joined the Rifles. Because..." He was going to tell her what he shouldn't, because she wasn't looking at him with hate anymore, but shock, pain and pity. "Because another meteor shower exactly like that is coming. 30 of the gits; all landing on this landmass. And they'll eat this Planet. UN wants us to turn it into a Victory. Because they have a theory; that the Roaches eat a planet from the inside out, multiply their Royal Caste and then detonate the Planet; meteors fly out at around the speed of light. Guess what planet these lovely little things will be hitting if Pandora goes up?" He said it cynically, and rightly so.

"Earth...But, why are you here? It sounds like a suicide mission."

"Don't you get it? It is."

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Jake was awe-struck by the footage he had just seen...It had been of an entire city, encompassed by those..things. They ate everything; metal, people, plants, even soil, then crapped it out their behinds for the workers to drag off to the Royals. Or so the Colonel said. But he believed him. You couldn't fake this. You just couldn't.

"So, you're here to fight those things? Why?" Jake's glare was no less daunting in a bound chair. Greyson dipped his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. Tears were welling up in those eyes. Eyes that had seen millions die, cities burn, and children tortured without shedding a year.. Demar answered.

"We want revenge. We want to save your world. And our's."

With the usual tact, Demar explained the theory revolving around how the Roaches spread through the Galaxy. It was brutal and succinct.

"This sounds an awful lot like a Suicide mission..." A thought passed through Jake's head. Maybe these were the guys you talked about in Basic. The Heroes. The bunch of heroic soldiers who traversed great distances to save planets against impossible odds? No. Humans weren't like that. And those people didn't exist.

"So what? You're gonna wait until they arrive and then decimate the Planet from orbit?"

Demar chuckled, standing infront of the General to try and hide his shame. It was an awkward chuckle, even for him.

"What do you think this is? A science-fiction novel? We can barely transport Rhino Tanks over here, let alone heavy ordnance. No. We have to beat them on the ground..." Demar looked up, dead into Jake's golden eyes. "...And you're our ticket to winning." Greyson seemed to grasp himself once more, and straightened himself.

He turned to stare at Jake.

"Lad, I 'ave no wish to see wha' 'appene' to my 'omeland 'appen 'ere. I promis' you, from the bottom o' me 'eart. I will figh' to tha' las' breath."

He didn't know why, but Jake really thought he would. He had that same look in his battle-scarred eyes that Eytucan had had when he prepared to face The Dragon Gunship with nothing but a bow. It was a last gasp attempt to save something that they knew would probably be destroyed.

"Jake Sully. Every single man we've brought here does not care about the Unobtanium. They don't want to stay, or colonise, or wipe out your Race. They're here, because they believe that, across those stars, there's a Planet called Earth. And it's good. And it's worth fighting for. "

Jake made a decision that could very well curse his entire people to slavery, death or worse. Or it could save them

"Alright."

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The 6 other Na'vi prisoners eyed the tiny human, without a breath mask, with a mix of awe and disgust. Together with Jake Sully and the human, they obediently trotted through the Pandoran Bush. They had been given back their weapons, but the human seemed perfectly at ease. Well, he was. He would hear them moving and be able to respond in 1.2878 seconds. Kill them; knife through the oesophagus, second one down with a kick to the groin, knife into the frontal lobe. Death; instantaneous. Simple as that.

Jake began talking to Longfang as they crossed a thick, luminous tree trunk across a ravine.

"You're not human, are you?" He said, as he observed Longfang prancing across it with perfect balance.

"You guessed? I was, for alittle while. I can see why you gave it up." The Na'vi followed as Jake led the way deeper into the forest.

"I didn't give it up. I had my legs taken from me in some dumb war." They moved into a simple valley, with trees hanging everywhere.

"Whatever you say. But why did you give up the chance to get your legs back?" The young man replied, even as he scrambled up a thick tree trunk.

"How do you know all this?"

He laughed.

"Don't deflect the question."

"Well, I suppose I was a Na'vi at heart. I didn't want to see all this...lost."

A smirk spread across Longfang's face, causing him to seem very strange to the Na'vi.

"I can understand. You remember Wolves, don't you?"

"Yeah, I saw the pictures."

"Well, Paps said I was always a Wolf at heart. That's why..." With stunning speed, Longfang produced his knife, dropped to the floor, and cut a nick in his finger. The Na'vi pulled weapons, but lowered them once they saw a shape emerge from the bush.

"A...A Nantang? So you're the Runner?" Jake stated, as amazed as the rest of them.

"Nantang? Nah, he's a Wolf to the core. Loki, I've called him."

The other Na'vi stepped closer, but Loki growled and moved away, putting Longfang between him and them.

"He thinks you'll protect him." Jake stated, to which Longfang's response was unusually sharp.

"I will."

"Let's just get going, shall we?"