The RDA's gunships descended like steel vultures, their rotors shredding the mist that clung to the Tree of Souls. The great tree's bioluminescent tendrils recoiled, their ethereal glow dimming as Colonel Quaritch's exo-suit crunched over sacred ferns. "Burn it," he ordered, voice colder than the void between stars.

But Pandora answered first.

A roar split the sky—not sound, but pressure, a primal frequency that shattered cockpit glass and ruptured eardrums. The sun itself seemed to rupture as Tawne plunged through the clouds, her wings trailing coronas of blue flame. She was no mere beast; she was cataclysis incarnate, her scales bleeding from volcanic black to raging crimson as she banked. The air screamed around her, superheated into shimmering mirages that warped the RDA's targeting systems.

"What the hell is that?!" a pilot shrieked, seconds before Tawne's tail snapped his chopper in half. The wreckage erupted, raining molten slag that fused with the soil, birthing jagged obsidian teeth.

Quaritch's comms exploded with panic:
"—it's igniting the fuel lines—!"
"—eyes, look at its eyes—!"
"FALL BACK! FALL—"

Tawne inhaled, her chest swelling like a dying star. The flames she exhaled weren't fire but liquid ruin—a napalm-like slurry of molten unobtanium and bio-acid. Gunships dissolved midair, crews reduced to skeletal silhouettes etched in smoking alloy. The stench was unholy: scorched metal, seared flesh, and the ozone tang of Pandora's vengeance.

But Quaritch grinned inside his mech. "Focus fire on the wings! Bring. It. Down."

The RDA's remaining forces rallied, lasers and missiles strafing Tawne's underbelly. She faltered, a pained shriek tearing from her throat—until the forest moved.

From the canopy surged a hurricane of ikran, their shrieks harmonizing into a war hymn. Not just blues and greens, but eldritch hues unseen by human eyes: iridescent whites like shattered glaciers, voids so deep they drank the light. Among them rode Jake and Tsu'tey, their banshees' claws glinting with venomous resin.

"For Eywa!" Tsu'tey bellowed, loosing an arrow dipped in stingbat toxin. It struck a mech's visor, the cockpit melting into a coffin.

Below, the earth itself rebelled. Hammerhead titanotheres plowed through barricades, their crests shearing steel as if it were parchment. Viperwolves flowed like shadow-rivers beneath AMP suits, dragging soldiers into the undergrowth where piranha-moss awaited. And through the chaos, the Tree of Souls pulsed—its roots channeling Eywa's rage into every claw, hoof, and fang.

Tawne, though, was the storm's heart. She seized a Valkyrie shuttle in her jaws, shaking it like a terrier until its fuel core detonated. The blast stripped the air of sound, leaving only the thunder of her triumph.

"She's not just fighting," Jake radioed to Neytiri, his ikran spiraling to avoid a hail of shrapnel. "She's teaching. Showing us how fire can cleanse."

Quaritch's mech staggered as a sturmbeest herd rammed its legs. He roared, emptying his railgun into the fray—but Tawne dove, her talons shredding his weapon's barrel. Their eyes met, human and dragon, as her mane erupted into a solar flare.

"This isn't over, lizard," Quaritch spat, ejecting skyward as his mech crumpled.

Tawne's response was a plume of fire that incinerated his parachute, sending him crashing into the muck of his own hubris.

As the RDA's remnants fled, Jake landed amid the carnage. Bioluminescence already bloomed where blood soaked the soil; Eywa's menders—butterfly-lizards and nectar-worms—swarmed the scars. High above, Tawne circled, her wings painting victory runes in the smoke.

"You see?" Jake murmured, pressing a palm to the earth. "She's not a queen. She's the first spark."

SCENEBREAK

The battlefield breathed. Bioluminescent mosses crept over smoldering AMP suits, their glow refracted by pools of spilled fuel. Quaritch staggered free of his mech's carcass, the mask's filter hissing like a serpent as he sucked down Pandora's poisoned air. Above, the Tree of Souls wept amber sap over its scars, the droplets sizzling where they struck RDA wreckage.

Then—her.

Tawne landed with a tectonic crunch, her dragonform's talons crushing a human carbine to slag. Her wings folded like collapsing stars, scales shimmering between russet and blood-black. Six eyes locked onto Quaritch, their pupils vertical slits reflecting his battered face—small, sweaty, mortal.

"I heard you wanted me," she growled, her Na'vi accent thick, jagged, as if language itself were a cage. Her Basic was broken, but her sneer needed no translation.

Quaritch's hand drifted to his sidearm. "Damn right I did." He spat blood, the crimson swallowed hungrily by carrion-vines snaking from the soil. "Gonna mount your head on the Venture Star's bow. Give the natives something to pray to."

Tawne's laugh was low, melodic, a predator's purr. "Kuru si, sky-general." Her body rippled, scales dissolving into embers that swirled like fireflies before coalescing into humanoid shape. She stood taller than any Na'vi, her hair a cascade of living flame, skin dusted with iridescent ash. The knife she drew wasn't metal but fangsong crystal—a shard from Pandora's molten core, its edge singing with harmonic fury.

Quaritch froze. For a heartbeat, he wasn't a colonel, just a man staring into the abyss—and finding it beautiful.

"Come." Tawne beckoned, the crystal blade painting arcs of light in the gloom. "Take me. If your hands are brave enough to hold fire."

The forest watched. Viperwolves paused mid-feast. Ikran silenced their cries. Even the wind died, as if Eywa herself leaned in.

Quaritch charged, a guttural roar tearing from his throat. His combat knife flashed—human steel, cold-forged, dead.

Tawne moved like quicksilver. Her blade met his, and the clang became a chord, resonating through the trees. The shockwave stripped leaves from branches, sent spore-motes fleeing in luminous clouds.

"Weak," Tawne hissed, her free hand seizing Quaritch's wrist. His skin blistered under her touch, the stench of burnt flesh mingling with her smoky laughter. "You break forests. Break tribes. But cannot break me."

Quaritch twisted, slamming a grenade against her ribs. "Eat this, princess!"

The blast hurled them apart. Tawne skidded through mud, her form flickering—dragon scales bleeding through human skin. Quaritch crawled, ear ringing, toward his fallen pistol.

"Enough."

The word wasn't spoken. It grew—from the roots, the air, the neural tendrils now coiling around Quaritch's ankles. The Tree of Souls' pollen swarmed him, searing his eyes, choking his mask's filter.

Tawne rose, her wounds steaming shut. "No, Eywa," she murmured. "He is mine."

Quaritch fired. The bullet struck her chest—and melted, dripping harmlessly into the soil.

"You... you're not real," he rasped.

Tawne knelt, her crystal blade hovering over his heart. "Real?" She smiled, fangs glinting. "I am earthblood. I am first fire. When your metal cities are dust, I will burn eternal."

She slashed—not flesh, but his oxygen tank. The hiss of escaping air drowned his curses.

"Run, little killer," she whispered, flames dancing in her palm. "Tell your hive-queen... Pandora's heart has claws."