Spider stood on a cliffside high above the lush valley where the mountains eclipsed the brilliant light and cast dancing shadows on the green sheet below. He took in a great amount of air, filtered through his EXO pack and let himself be invigorated by the fragrance of his benevolent homeland. Spider knew her inside and out, respecting her dangers and making peace with her mysteries. He thanked Pandora for all she had to give before braving his descent down the cliff.
Sliding himself along a slim edge, he had the attitude of a mountain goat, as he was always one misstep away from plummeting two thousand feet. Spider leapt for a jutted outcrop, landing on all fours, then shuffled further down the mountainside. He used the lianas growing off the rockface and slid down the ropes till he reached the underside of the floating fortress. Dangling high in the air, the trapeze artist swung on the vines to spring for the next liana, snatching it in his grip and using the momentum to leap for the next.
The king of the jungle would not give fear an audience and carried on, unburdened by its prattling counsel. With Txurseng now behind him, he looked back for one last reflection, then readjusted his pack and carried on his way.
Jake followed Norman all the way to the edge of the sweeping valley where the trees petered out on a slope, and the waters became falls. His ikran landed on a cliff that overlooked the inlet. Numerous cascades poured over different levels into a turquoise lagoon that kissed the open sea. Palms shaped like hand fans grew on the shore; their orange trunks, shifting into indigo, sprouted green bouncing fronds that swayed to the singing breeze. Filter-feeding austrapedes stood in the many elevated pools whose placid waters were so clear one could admire their pink opaline basins.
Jake loved the undisturbed pockets of paradise found all over the world. It was hard to believe that hugging the same coastline was the dystopian city of Bridgehead.
Norman eased in to bring the field cabin down, unintentionally startling the wildlife. Once it was grounded, Jake clambered on top to aid in the unlatching process. After, he went over to his banshee and unstrapped a backpack of plastic explosives.
It was time to set up the last trap.
Back at High Camp, Neytiri sat in her tent, looking upon the bow that her son bequeathed her. She felt the slender finish of the wood and admired his talent. Before her, was a screen that displayed the interior of one link shack. Every so often, her eyes left the bow to check the disappointingly empty scene.
The Wasp transporting Quaritch glided under the rock arches that were numerous across the Hallelujah Mountain range. Quaritch conveyed to the pilot directions to their destination, whereas Wainfleet flew alongside the gunship, actively searching the area for predators. One ikran that dared to go after the pilot was quickly deterred by the sniper's excellent aim.
Lyle moved towards the Wasp, where his commander was leaning out, and banked away to flaunt his ride. The show-off pressed his throat mic. "Jealous?"
The ikran-less officer gave the upstart the finger and, with a grumble, resumed his humble sightseeing; he was not happy about the idea of having to make a second Iknimaya if Gloria was going to insist on being AWOL.
Spider fell through the understorey, sliding off gigantic fronds and letting their sleek, oversized vegetation slow his descent. With his jungle savvy, he made the drop without sustaining any damage and plopped safely onto a soft carpet of moss. His dreadlocks had stolen a few twigs, which he decided to leave for camouflage, finishing the ensemble by smearing more earth over his body. He winced slightly while getting dressed, but the cooling properties of the mud also soothed his chafed skin.
His watchful eyes surveyed the jungle where hundreds of predators roamed. With bow in hand, primed with an arrow, Spider boldly set forth. He scaled trees and bounded over branches, avoiding the hazardous ground whenever he could. Though he had only made the journey once before, the route was forever burned in his memory. He was knee-high to Jake, who spoke to him the entire trip, retelling the epic tale so vividly that Spider identified the exact boulder they passed when Neytiri released her final arrow.
Reliving these old memories, Spider reflected on what possessed Jake to bring him there in the first place. Innocence said it was for dramatic effect, but now he suspected it was meant to scare him.
His flashback ended with himself standing before the glade opening, and there, in all its former glory, was the infamous AMP suit, conquered by greenery, and the storied link shack off to his right.
Knowing cameras were hooked up inside, Spider purposely maintained a wide berth from the cabin as he inched towards the metal remains. Not a sound could be heard in the glade, only the rhythmic breathing emitting from his EXO pack as he neared the vanquished Titan. Glimpsing faded letters on the arm, Spider brushed away the obscuring vines.
"Beyond Glory…"
The boy climbed onto the suit and squatted on its gorilla-sized chest. He angled his acrylic visor to see the occupant and not himself, and when he finally had that unobstructed view, Spider's heart skipped a beat—He only came to collect a bone, not dwell on deep thoughts as he gazed upon the remains of a man he never knew. Unwittingly, his fingertips ran up the two pivotal shafts that were left to torment the demon king.
Spider detected a glint around the spine and plucked out an ID tag. He wrapped the ball chain around his fingers and let the grainy image of "the Colonel" dangle before his eyes. A new question birthed in his mind, and that was not if he was his son but whether or not he minded it.
The fear that surfaced was his answer.
Spider slipped the tags into his pouch and pulled the string latch taught. Taking a deep inhale, he reached down and dislodged the left humerus, exploding off hundreds of little particles. He raised it in the air to observe it through sunlight, where he felt a strange heat radiating from the relic. Quizzically, he scanned his palm after slipping the item into his quiver when he was alerted by a pair of Cat Ears. Slowly, he turned his head in their direction and spied, in the forest beyond, a black, glossy hide. Spider very steadily climbed down the AMP suit, mindful of his every movement. His only hope was the link shack. In a flash, he bolted for the shelter right when the palulukan erupted from the bush. Outstretched claws ripped the earth as Spider lunged for the broken window and vaulted himself inside the cabin. The beast rammed the exterior, and the human prey was tossed around. Frustrated, the hungry predator changed tactics and worked its paw through the window. Spider sucked in his gut to create distance, doing all that he could to escape the manic flying claws.
Neytiri looked up and witnessed the harrowing scene before her. She set her hand on the screen and immediately pressed the communicator.
|"My Jake! My Jake! Spider is trapped at our link shack!"|
|"What did you say? Our link shack?"|
|"A palulukan hunts him!"|
|"Get your hunters and scare it off. I'm heading over there now."|
Quaritch recognized the section of forest coming up. He sighed first before telling the pilot to land, but as the gunship hovered, his sharp eyes spotted the frenzied beast. "Whoa, we got a thanator down there!" he alerted through his mic.
"I'm on it," the pilot responded. He aimed his turrets and, with a simple thumb press, rained bullets upon the nuisance. The assault was too much, even for its strong armour, and the animal ran off limping into the jungle.
"Permission to go make a rug out of it?" Wainfleet requested.
"Permission denied, Casanova. It'll never fit in your den." Quaritch then addressed the pilot. "Hover for a moment, then bring us in to land."
"You got it."
Although Jake's skin burned from the high-velocity winds, he still worked his mouth to get an update from Neytiri. |"How is he?"|
|"I think the palulukan moved on because Spider is at the window. There is something in the sky that has his attention."|
|"He's looking up? Did you send out your hunters?"|
|"Yes,"| she breathed anxiously over the mic. |"Jake, Spider left the window and now hides in a link bed!"|
The man swore and waved to Norman to go faster, suspecting they were going to need Trudy's artillery.
The Wasp landed gently in the glade, and Quaritch ducked out, gesturing to the pilot to kill the engines, while Wainfleet perched his banshee on a limb before jumping down.
The corporal strutted around what he dismissed as another fly-infested crop of jungle; however, when he noticed the AMP suit, he dropped the attitude and stood respectfully.
For a long while, Miles was still, honouring his death with a moment of silence. Afterwards, his mournful expression became brazenly self-assured, and the Marine sneered at his own skeleton. He seized one arrow and ripped it out, holding it high in the air like it was his kill, and Lyle bore witness as his confident leader proceeded to take that arrow and snap it across the leg, following it up by giving the other the same treatment.
With the ritual complete, Lyle stepped forward; it was a chilling reminder that his own remains were out there, somewhere, strewn about the jungle—the last of his humanity—rotting away. "Do we…collect the tags?"
"They don't look to be here anymore," he noted as he tossed aside the useless sticks.
The leader was busy rubbing his chest in satisfaction when Lyle spotted something in the grass and plucked it up. "Look at this."
"A bow?"
"Dinky bow. Reckon it's a kid's?"
Ears on alert, the recombinant took in the air, resulting in a leer. "You know, we should do the neighbourly thing and return it to him."
"Jake!" Neytiri quaked. |"It's him! The Chief of Demons! He is there!"|
|"Inside the link shack?!"|
|"He is at the window. His nostrils detect Spider."| Neytiri's eyes trailed to the red button stationed in front of her. She was reminded to look up again when the screen updated with movement.
The hunter swung himself into the cabin. His hulking body bumped against the narrow interior, and shards of glass crunched beneath his heel. Taking a second to appreciate his advantageous position, he moved towards the undamaged link bed and deliciously raised the lid. In a split second, he was bludgeoned across the jaw, then a pink blur sped for the window, but Quaritch reached to snatch its heel.
Outside, Wainfleet caught only a brief glimpse of the assailant before he was yanked back inside.
The giant threw the brazen opponent down, but the underdog escaped the blue hands, skipped behind the back, climbed up the braid and began clobbering the head.
Quaritch hissed and cursed a blue streak, which was about as effective as everything else he tried doing.
"Do you need help, sir?" Lyle called out.
"No—ngh!"
The recombinant tore the weapon out of the human's hands, but the quick-thinking attacker then swung their legs around Quaritch's abdomen and grabbed his tail.
Waiting on the sidelines, Lyle witnessed his commander suddenly drop from view—that was his queue. He jumped through the window and pulled the snarling primate off his colonel.
|"Jake…he has him."|
Neytiri was answered with silence and knew, miles away, her mate was cursing in anger.
The culprit dangled in Wainfleet's grip like a side-show spectacle.
"The Boy Wonder," Quaritch remarked, coming to his knees while wiping the blood from his snout.
Lyle honed in on the bone clutched in his colonel's fist. "Is that…" He gulped. "Yours?"
Quaritch threw his head back and swore, then waggled the weapon in front of his assaulter. "Look, kid, you got fight, and I can respect that, but when someone rips off my arm and starts beating me upside the head with it, I take issue!"
The thief would have spat in retaliation if it weren't for his visor. "Yem tsat nemfa ngey txìm, ma la'ang!"
The impudence triggered a smirk. "Var pirmlltxe ulte fì'u kaya kxamla ngeya flew 'evi."
After blinking once in surprise, the boy returned to sneering. "Your accent sucks."
"Well, whaddya know? You are civilized."
"What do we do with him?" Lyle wondered, keeping the feral creature at a distance.
"Cuff him. We're taking Tarzan back to Bridgehead," Quaritch declared while pocketing the bone.
"You're keeping that, sir? What for?"
"To make a witch's brew! Now, get him out of here!"
The recombinant soldier moved the human's hands behind their back, then snapped the restraints around the small wrists. Hoisting him up, the giant manoeuvred out the window with his captive in tow.
|"Spider has been led out by one of the demons! He remains! Jake, the Chief of Demons remains alone inside!"|
|"Neytiri, do not detonate! Spider could still be within range."|
She stared at the beckoning red button as frantic warnings repeated in her ear.
Spider squirmed with all his might, bedamning his captor in both English and Na'vi, but there was no shaking the demon's hold. The closer he was forced towards the flying machine, the more desperate he became, his eyes constantly returning to the link shack with a strange feeling harpooning his heart. Going against everything he had been told since birth, he opened his mouth to cry, "Get out of there! It's a trap!"
The boy's sudden lurch prompted Wainfleet to spin around right as something flew past his cheek. The wobbling arrow, halfway deep in the ground, was the recombinant's only warning. Eyes on the tiltrotor, he grabbed his hostage and ran for its cover from the volley of arrows landing in his wake.
Quaritch immediately crouched before the window and primed his revolver. Dismissing the kid's warning as a ploy to lure him out, the marksman opened fire and began hunting the camouflaged devils.
Neytiri saw Vrrtepeyktan on the defensive and deduced her warriors had arrived. She looked at the screen, then at the trigger. Jake's warning was at the forefront of her mind as her indecisive eyes darted between the great evil and the means to an end.
As Quaritch fired back at the Na'vi, a woman's tone came through his earpiece. From the plane beyond his reach, he heard the distressing sounds of coughing and fire crackling. "S-sir…" a voice shook.
He pulled away from the window to anxiously answer the call. "Casey, what's your situation? Casey? Casey, do you copy?"
"Sir… The link shacks are—" Her coughing interrupted her message, and to the man, it sounded like she was dying. She recovered only enough to utter, "Rigged…"
Her voice broke off, and no amount of petitions would bring her back online. Finally understanding the danger, Quaritch ran for the exit. He made it only several steps before a pressure wave threw him across the glade.
Wainfleet shielded Spider as warped metal crashed around them. Without time to waste, he cuffed Spider to a gunship seat, then dashed for his commander. Beyond the walls of flame and smoke, he spotted him: unconscious and on fire. The corporal acted fast, rolling the body over to smother the flames before hoisting Miles over his back and hurrying for the tiltrotor. Lyle laid him down delicately, all the while shouting at the pilot to get them out of there.
The engines started, the blades spun, and over the noise of chaos, Miles Socorro was completely silent, just staring at the shut lids of his motionless father.