"Sky People cannot See."
Pandora
It felt like a dream, except for the ringing in his ears and the way his heart beat so hard it hurt. Light moved strangely. Everything felt… slow.
Shards of metal and glittering droplets of blood spun around them like an asteroid belt. Fire burned and boiled with no heat, twisting through the air like a thing alive.
The ship had been blown apart. From where he sat - lay, hung, dangling from one arm clenched tight by a white-knuckled teen with glowing eyes and a vanishing humanity - he could see most of the rest of it spinning away and falling beyond sight.
Men and women fell with it, blood spraying behind them. He could see a man at the edge of their strange epicenter, still buckled into his seat, a jagged plate of metal punched right through him. He was choking, but not on blood. Here, the air was clean and stale, a moment caught in time. No hint of the taint that saturated Pandora's sulphuric atmosphere. At the edges… that clearly wasn't the case.
He looked back at the kid. His charge. The boy who had already changed so much from the angry, betrayed, grieving thing he'd been assigned to. Changed, yet somehow stayed… soft. Stayed kind. Something you didn't often see in real life these days.
Something Michael knew, for a fact, would get the damned kid killed some day, fancy magic powers or not.
But here and now… this wasn't the kid he'd supported as much as protected. This wasn't the weirdly composed replacement he'd come back to after his little vacation with brain damage. This was… something else. Something more.
Green eyes slid down to meet his own. The light… it wasn't just shining from his eyes, it was dripping. Wisps like fog crept from the edges, slid free with every blink, floated away.
"Harry" he called, trying to bring something human back. It took more courage to speak than it should've. "Harry?"
Dark eyebrows furrowed slightly. One last blink and he knew that Harry - or something close to him - was back. The head of inky hair whipped around and the kid's one free hand reached out, fingers curled.
Commanding the world to bend for him.
The world obeyed. It felt like minutes had passed but it must have only been seconds - or maybe time itself had gone strange here. Blooms of fire started reversing, sucking themselves back into broken fuel lines which sealed up behind them. Great chunks of aircraft wrenched themselves up against gravity and stitched back into place.
Some of the seats attached to them were empty.
"HARRY!" He shouted. He didn't need to say more. He didn't know how he knew but he knew. He'd been heard. Like a prayer sent faster than thought. Faster than a bullet spat from a barely-seen muzzle flash. He'd been heard.
The repairs paused. Bodies began to flow back, as gracelessly hauled in as they had been blown out. Most were limp. Dozens were bleeding or outright missing bits of themselves. The bits came flying in after, right before the walls finally closed and the interior lining stitched itself together.
The moment ended. Harry slumped, straps still securing him to his seat. Michael felt his guts rise as the ship seemed to only just now begin to fall, spinning as he scrambled to re-hook his own once-snapped harness. A minute of freefall later and the lights came back on, the engines roared and the shuttlecraft came to a hard brake halt in mid-air.
Harry stirred.
"Hey," Mike croaked, throat aching like he'd been screaming. "You okay?"
"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" Harry groaned. "Ow. That hurt a little."
Mike huffed an incredulous laugh.
"Somehow, I'm not surprised. It only looked like your blood went nuclear."
Harry opened his eyes, wincing a little like he had a headache but otherwise not too bad off for having single-handedly unmade a total hull rupture in mid-flight.
Green eyes, no longer glowing, looked around - and widened sharply. Mike followed his gaze and winced himself. Because yeah - everyone was back - but their injuries hadn't gone anywhere. The guy who'd had a piece of wing punched right through his guts no longer had a stopper for all the blood that wanted out. He wasn't gasping anymore. He wasn't moving at all.
The click of opening buckles snapped his attention back to the kid who'd saved at least most of their lives today.
"Harry-" He started, only to be dismissed almost instantly.
"I learned, after what happened to you." Harry's eyes shone, not with inhuman light but with regular old determination. "I've practiced. I might not be a doctor - but I can help."
Mike watched him go, unbuckling his own harness to follow in his wake.
One of the NCOs was already rousing the military fit to shake off their near-death and provide first aid to as many of the others as possible. Harry moved between them all like a seasoned officer of old. Or, hah, maybe like the King of Old the media tried to paint him as. Born to lead, a figure of myth, men twice his age and thrice as salty stepping out of his path like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Think they caught that on radar?" He overheard one marine ask another.
"I fucking hope so." The other replied. He only half paid attention as Harry bent over a man cradling four severed fingers and made the missing digits leap up and re-attach with nothing more than a frown of concentration.
"'Cause I'm pretty sure that didn't just happen - and I lived it."
Pandora
"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!" Max screamed at his friend. Jake Sully, looming over him in his new body, just stared him down unflinchingly.
"We warned them." The Marine replied, cold and hard as the killer Max had always known he technically was, but hadn't somehow noticed until now.
Until Jake Sully, the wheelchair-bound marine who took no crap from Dr Augustine herself but still snickered at their science puns and put his life on the line for people he'd only met two months before, had coldly shot down a shuttle craft full of helpless people. Until he'd murdered dozens of total strangers just to prove a point.
"We only asked for one thing." Jake asserted calmly, firmly, the voice of strength that had gotten them through the insane period of sedition that saw them break ties with their own world and people in the name of moral righteousness. The same voice that didn't waver now as it supported something so inherently, morally, wrong.
"We told them to power down the craft's weapons. Deliberately not doing it? They were sending a us message. We had to send one back. Warfare 101 Doc. Meet force, with force, or they'll run right over you."
Max stared at him, speechless. One corner of his brain, suddenly aware of danger, couldn't stop thinking about how close he was standing. How large those Avatar hands were - how strong the body. How easily Jake could snap his neck if he got it into his head that Max was now an enemy he was at war with.
He stepped back and tore his eyes away. There were a full dozen of them in the room, most of everyone who'd chosen to stay behind. Most of them wore expressions of horror. A few were carefully neutral.
Max looked back at a man he'd thought vaguely of as a friend. Someone he'd judged as a cheerful, snarky, nice-guy cripple and never looked beyond that charismatic starting point. But then, why should he? It had only been a few weeks before everything escalated and Jake had spent most of that time either lying in a link pod or lying in bed, barely pausing to to eat and piss in between. They hadn't really known each other. Not ever.
For the first time he wondered if things had escalated because Jake had come to Pandora. If his presence had been the complete opposite of the lucky coincidence they'd all assumed it to be.
It was a chilling thought.
He opened his mouth to say… something, when a chirruping alert drew the room's attention.
The shuttle. The shuttle they'd all seen blip out of existence on the scanners and explode in a ball of fire and shrapnel on the vidscreens, was whole and unharmed, angling away from the base as it continued its descent.
"What, the, fuck?" One of his colleagues summarized succinctly.
Pandora
When the back of the shuttle was opened, Harry alone didn't don a mask. He didn't need to. After he first got his hands on some unobtanium he'd taken to wearing a bubble-head charm instead of a mask every time he stepped outside. Any time he forgot, it only took a whiff of Earth's terribly polluted air to remind him - and Pandora was very similar in that regard. It was just rotten-egg brimstone instead of sour-metallic poison.
"Sir?" A younger soldier held out a line with a carabiner on the end. Harry didn't argue, taking it and clipping it to the harness Mike had forced on him before letting him near the gaping rear doors.
The plane was hovering over a mass of treetops, deep green and lush and thrashing violently back and forth under the wake of the giant craft above them. Peeking out from between the canopy was a silvery stretch of metal. One of the bases they were hoping to pick up and move.
He thought for a moment of just levitating it - the air here, it wasn't as rich and pure as unobtanium but he could still pull from it, pull and convert and it was the conversion of so much so fast that hurt - but he thought better of it a second later. He wasn't sure how well he could control a levitation if he couldn't see where it was relative to him. Unlike the repairo for which he only provided intent and power, levitation required direction.
At least, for now it did. He'd have plenty of time - and magic - to practice.
He watched as a small subset of soldiers abseiled down, swinging back and forth as their own bodies started getting buffeted. They seemed used to the whole thing, landing at just the right time and moving quickly to secure new ties to a dozen anchor points along the large H-shaped module. They stayed put as the ship lifted slightly, slackening the old (far more numerous) ties so the soldiers could go about disconnecting them. In less than five minutes, everyone was back inside and the shuttle was lifting the first of many modules that would soon become their home away from home.
It was an oddly comforting reminder that not everything depended on him and his magic. He still remembered Hagrid telling him so confidently that if Muggles knew about Witches and Wizards, they'd 'want magical solutions to every problem' and that… well, it was and wasn't true. The GLF and others had been very eager to know more about magic and it was absolutely for the purpose of solving the many problems they faced - but only in the same way they'd ferociously researched the new flora and fauna of Pandora. Only in the same way they still researched the non-magical mysteries of their own world.
Muggles were curious and clever - and not afraid to work hard for what they wanted. Unlike most wizards. Maybe Hagrid had reflected a Wizardly problem, all those years ago. A Wizard's inclination to want an easy magical solution for every problem, from cooking and cleaning all the way to defeating a terrible evil. Maybe it was why the whole Boy Who Lived nonsense had persisted, even after people started thinking the worst of him.
He unclipped himself and went back to his seat, swiping Mike's little crossword booklet and pencil to gemino himself a copy.
"'Aunty' is spelled with a 'y', not 'i'." He helpfully informed him. Mike snatched the book back with a scowl.
"That's old-fashioned." The man groused, surreptitiously checking the clue for the space that ran through the contested letter.
"Old-fashioned and right." Harry claimed loftily. A twist of will had a chilled glass of butterbeer in hand. Conjured food: All taste and body, no actual sustenance. The first sip was more sadly nostalgic than he'd expected - but the rest went down real smooth.
He could come to like this place.
Pandora
Most of the group that had come down in the shuttle were either soldiers or builders, the ratio weighed heavily in favour of the latter.
The sun was setting by the time they'd ferried all their desired modules to their new temporary base, hooked them up in a defensive pattern and made sure all the power, water, air and sanitation components were working. Several of the modules hadn't been used in too long.
The soldiers did most of the work that required coordination and cooperation but the builders and engineers had them beat for sheer amount of work done. No-one was ever allowed beyond the protective perimeter the soldiers set up first and plenty of dark, fearful looks had been shot towards the base just visible in the distance.
Being shot down would do that to you.
The story had trickled from group to group soon after making the first H-module drop. How the rebels had ordered the shuttle to disarm its weapons and the Captain had agreed to do so - but the 2IC had interpreted his order as switching the guns from active to standby. 'Weapons Hold' - they could not be manually used - disarmed, in a way - but would engage automatically as part of the ships' local airspace management. From banshees to space debris, they were so automatic as to go almost without thought.
A lack of thought had almost gotten them all killed.
Well, some people felt that way. The rest placed the blame firmly on the traitors for outright firing on them without even a warning first.
There was no more talk about making nice.
A few soldiers had vanished for most of the afternoon and showed up later with crates and crates of weapons from some hidden stash nearby. The scientists busied themselves with setting up the various food-dedicated modules and Harry had accio'ed a whole bunch of fruits, roots and alien vegies at their request.
Tomorrow the construction workers would be setting up the specialised drilling equipment they'd brought down with them. They'd been hoping to use the mining stuff already on Pandora for the big work but for now... The smaller one-man units would have to suffice.
Now, as the last rays of evening streamed through the dining modules' chubby windows, Harry sat with a group of other men and women too tired to do much more than pick at their food - and talk about how they couldn't believe they were still alive to do so.
"I mean, I heard about you." Pastel gestured. He was one of several who'd elected to have a re-hydrated MRE for that taste of home rather than digging into alien supplies - even the large furry purple-yellow things that really did taste 'just like bananas'. "'King Arthur'. Gotta say, I did not believe it until now."
There was a round of nods.
"That I was a King, or about the magic?" Harry asked idly. He'd gone for an MRE as well. It wasn't half bad. Bit salty.
"Oh, both." Pastel waved his spork to another chorus of nods. "I mean, you can't trust the media and who the hell would let something like you go free if you were legit? I mean-" He amended hastily "I'm glad they did, I just woulda never expected it."
Harry shrugged, tucking the sentiment away.
"Well, I guess there wasn't any point in the beginning." He admitted. "They as much as said to my face that they'd already done a bunch of tests before I even woke up and back then… I couldn't really do anything. Not like I could later, or now."
"But still." Someone muttered. There were a few agreeable sounds before silence fell again. One guy was writing a digital letter home, pinky finger tapping intermittently with a small clicking noise. Harry had re-attached his foot back on the shuttle, igniting something closer to bewilderment than gratitude. Judging by the amount of cyborg bits and pieces replacing parts of his body, maybe losing a foot just hadn't been that big a deal.
Several other people had already come and thanked him privately. Most of them had hugged him, including a massive soldier who looked like he'd find 'good morning' to be highly offensive. A couple had cried.
He'd never been good with thanks.
It didn't help that he hadn't… really noticed them. At the time. Not at first. Not until Mike had brought him back. Until he'd heard the man's thoughts like they were his own. Until he'd realised he was closing up a shell absent most of the lives abandoned outside.
It was just… it had been…
When the ship had ruptured, fire and force and fear, he'd reached for his magic and his magic had reached for more.
Pandora. It really was a world overflowing with energy. It radiated down from Prometheus overhead, from the sun beyond that, from the ground far below. Unobtanium was like calcified power, accruing more and more with nowhere to go. It saturated everything, thinnest in the air but still present.
His own presence had been like a black hole, taking everything it could, his body burning hot as it processed and converted the alien energy into his own native magic.
He hadn't initially meant to stop the ship from collapsing. To fix it. To save anyone. It hadn't been that organised. He'd just reacted, as they'd all reacted, but his reaction came with magic that by its very nature tended to warp reality. Mike had mentioned to him later that he'd felt like time had passed more slowly and Harry wouldn't be surprised if that had been the case. Magic laughed at the concept of time. Things had floated because gravity was suddenly optional. His animal instinct had been to stay alive and that had been accomplished 100%.
After that… he'd been… distracted. Because the magic, as much as it hurt to convert so much so fast… it had felt so good. Impossibly good. Like sinking into the Prefect's bath after a five-hour match in freezing Scottish rain. Like the moments when he, Ron and Hermione had met each other's gazes and just understood each other.
It had felt like power. Like no-one and nothing could stand before him. Like he could do anything. He was annoyed at himself for it now, but in the moment… he hadn't wanted it to ever stop. And worst of all?
It had felt right. Natural. Normal.
Like this. This was what he was supposed to be. Should have been his entire life. It had been like realising he had eyes that he'd never used before, wings he'd never spread, ears that had always been deaf.
Mike's hadn't been the only voice he'd heard back then, unspoken and all the stronger for it. He remembered being… confused. Almost, annoyed, at the buzzing little sounds at the edge of hearing. Tiny voices. Tiny, desperate, terrified voices.
But Mike… his voice had resonated up his arm, louder and stronger and-
And he'd said his name. Had reminded Harry of who he was, where he was. Had reached a hand to the sense of self drowning in it all. Had helped him remember his old eyes, remember the present, remember that the tiny voices weren't insignificant irritants but real living people who were dying right now.
So yeah. In a way, he'd saved their lives. But really… Mike had. He doubted it'd do anyone any good though, to say 'hey, don't thank me, I was too drunk with power to even notice you at first!' so he kept his mouth shut and just deflected the gratitude he received as best he could.
"How long do you think it'll take to build the gate?" He asked. He knew the schedule but the schedule had gone out the window on arrival.
"Months." Pastel opinioned glumly. "Depending. Less, if they hand over the big rigs. More, if we have to go down and get some unobtanium ourselves."
Briefly, Harry considered the possibility of generating Avalonium by drawing ambient energy only but he doubted it'd work. Having now experienced them both, unobtanium was absolutely more potent than the ambient energy found on Pandora and they would need a lot for the size of the gate they had planned. He might well kill all plant life on the planet before he was done.
Better to just dig up some rocks and do it properly.
"Well, let me know if I can help." He yawned. "I've got some things of my own to do but I'm here if you need some help blasting or transfiguring rubble or something."
"I am gonna look up what that word means," Pastel declared "and get back to you. For now, I've got a bunk calling my name. G'night all."
A round of mutters followed him out, shortly followed by several people. Harry stayed back, waiting until everyone was gone before conjuring some Honeyduke's chocolate to share with Mike. He was happy to do it for everyone eventually, but, baby steps.
He switched the lights to emergency and moved closer to the window to watch the massive blue-green gas giant rise over the horizon. It all but glowed against the black night sky. He couldn't see any stars from this angle, just Prometheus and - in the distance - the lights of Hell's Gate.
"Are we safe here?" He asked his bodyguard quietly.
"You're never safe on Pandora." Mike snorted. "But if you mean from a missile? …Then yeah. Probably. For now."
"Reassuring."
"Well, they did call us instead of firing another round." Mike observed dryly. "Some might call that diplomatic."
"Did they apologise?" Harry wondered. Mike shrugged, alternating bites of chocolate with sips of coffee.
"I doubt it. The Major didn't mention, in either case. Apparently the whole thing is being officially recorded as a 'failure of communication'."
"'Whoops, let's try that again?'" Harry suggested. Mike snorted in agreement.
"Wouldn't be the first time." He said eventually, gaze half-distant in that way it got when he was remembering something he'd rather he wasn't.
"Shit happens when people on opposing sides both have weapons - and grudges. People acting on orders that come from spite, or a puffed up officer looking for glory at the expense of his men and whoever he sends them against. Frightened, tired people hearing a rodent rattle the bins outside and thinking they're under attack. Civilians sick of soldiers stomping all over their lives on the way to somewhere else. Regular Joes striking first 'cause they think they might not have a chance to strike at all if they wait.
War is fought on the front-lines, battles breaking out like a rash. Peace is only ever made a thousand miles away, in a backroom full of people who've never gotten their hands dirty because they're high up enough to get other people to do it for them."
Harry… couldn't find anything to say to that. Cynicism was common in the future but Mike's was bitter with lived experience.
The silence lingered.
Harry tried to imagine what he would do, if the native people - the Na'vi - showed up at their camp tomorrow and tried to kill them because - for them - the war was fresh and devastating and real. Because to them, they were just more enemies come from the sky to hurt them.
Would it matter that Harry held no ill-will for them? Would it matter that he saw them as something similar to Centaurs - proud and rightfully angry at his people who kept trespassing on their lands and then acted shocked and outraged whenever the Centaurs dared react to their trespass.
How could any of that matter, if neurotoxin-tipped arrows were raining down on the people around him and he had the power to stop them? What could he do if he disarmed them, or banished them, but they kept coming back?
Where was the line between the right to self defence and provoking an attack only to claim injured party?
He looked away from the view.
"I'm off as well." He muttered, well-used to the way Mike fell in at his heels. He'd been quartered in one of the smaller modules. He shared most of it with storage but that was a small price to pay for the relative privacy. As it was, the sound of Mike's snoring kept him awake a long time.
His body ached.
He missed his bots.
And somewhere in the middle of his chest, underneath his heart, was a terrible emptiness. A place where something was missing.
Home.
Pandora
No! Nonononono! I LIKE Jake Sully! I swear! I wouldn't love the movie so much if I didn't! :)
The way I see it, the movie showed only one facet of him as a character. I'm hoping to look at other facets that were only hinted at before.
A Marine, a trained killer, who is used to a certain style of warfare. Who is shown to be ruthless against anyone he identifies as an enemy. Who is quoted as wanting to fight 'his whole life' for a cause he could feel good about.
Somehow, he never found this on Earth. I think that says a lot about him.
I don't think all of it will be good. (But hey, I'm always interested in your thoughts and it wouldn't be the first time I've been swayed by them).