The forest floor quivered beneath the weight of Tawtute'kìm's tread, each step a seismic drumbeat that sent tremors rippling through the phosphorescent undergrowth. Her serpentine body coiled between towering pandora rhodoliths, their bioluminescent petals snapping shut as her shadow passed—a living eclipse blotting out the kaleidoscope of neon fungi clinging to the trees. Her six lava-pool eyes sliced through the gloom, pupils slitting as she tracked the panicked skitter of a sturmbeest calf separated from its herd. The beast's fear-sweat perfumed the air, sharp and metallic, and Tawtute'kìm's retractable quills flared like ignited fuses along her spine.

So small. So fragile.

Her jaws parted, revealing a furnace glow deep within her throat—

CRACK.

A thunderous, unnatural roar split the sky.

Tawtute'kìm froze, her molten veins pulsing hotter as the canopy above shuddered. A jagged scar of fire tore through the twilight as a Valkyrie-class shuttle ripped through the treetops, its thrusters scorching the delicate violet fronds of a Dragon's Breath fern. The ship's metallic underbelly gleamed like a poacher's blade as it crashed into a clearing, crushing a sacred Eywa's Veil blossom beneath its landing gear. The forest screamed—not with sound, but in the sudden death of a hundred symbiotic glows as machinery poisoned the soil.

Her prey forgotten, Tawtute'kìm's mane erupted into a corona of white-hot flames, casting grotesque shadows across the ravaged clearing. The scent of the invaders flooded her senses: acrid fuel, rusted iron, and the sour tang of human sweat. Sky-people. The same stench that had clawed at her volcanic nest, that had driven her kin to extinction.

A low, tectonic growl rolled from her chest as she melted into the shadows, her scales shifting to volcanic black—a predator becoming one with the void. Bioluminescent insects scattered like embers in her wake as she circled the shuttle, her claws sinking into the earth as though sharpening knives. Through the ship's cracked viewport, she glimpsed the squirming silhouettes of RDA soldiers, their voices tinny and alien through the hull:

"—unobtanium readings off the charts here, just need to—"

Her tail lashed, silencing a chirping hexapede foolish enough to skitter too close. Tonight, the forest would feast.

SCENEBREAK

The air inside the RDA outpost reeked of recycled oxygen and ambition. Jake's boots clanked against the gridded steel floor, the sound discordant against the memory of Pandora's moss-softened trails. Around him, human machinery gnashed and whirred—drones peeled apart on repair tables, their innards spilling wires like gutted animals, while engineers barked orders over the tinny scream of plasma cutters. His Na'vi senses recoiled; here, even the light felt sterile, leaching the warmth from his amber eyes.

Yet his stride never faltered.

He moved like a stormfront through the chaos, his human gait deliberately unpolished, a performance for the crew who still saw him as "one of them." A lab tech flinched as he passed, her coffee sloshing—he smelled of alien pollen and arrowroot, they whispered, of something that didn't belong.

Norm stood hunched over a flickering holoscreen, its blue static casting shadows under his eyes. He'd aged in the months since the war, his shoulders curving like a man permanently braced for bad news. But when he turned, the old spark flashed—a scientist's hunger, sharp and unyielding.

"Jake freaking Sully," Norm rasped, voice sandpaper-rough. His gaze flickered to the faint scars webbing Jake's knuckles—Na'vi ritual markings, not battlefield wounds. "Still playing diplomat? Or you here to remind us how to properly desecrate a holy site?"

Jake's grin was all teeth, a predator's reflex he'd learned from Neytiri. He leaned against a coolant pipe, its vibrations humming through his spine. "Missed you too, Spellman."

For a heartbeat, the mask slipped: Norm's jaw twitched, his eyes darting to the security cam in the corner. They're watching.

"Got a delivery for you," Jake said louder, tossing a palm-sized data drive. Norm fumbled it, the drive's casing carved from Hallelujah Mountains quartz—a Na'vi touch in a human tool. "Intel on the new drilling zones. Figured you'd want first dibs... or a head start."

Norm's thumb brushed the quartz, its iridescence clashing with the room's gray pragmatism. "Generous. What's the catch?"

"No catch." Jake pushed off the pipe, his shadow swallowing the holoscreen's glow. "Just a reminder. The People don't forget who fights with them... or who just watches."

The unspoken hung heavier than the air recyclers' rattle: You're still human where it counts, Norm. But for how long?

The tech's boots clicked like gunfire against the floor as she marched over, her face lit by the sickly glow of a dozen monitors. She shoved the datapad at Norm, her voice clipped. "Satellite feed just updated. She rerouted the Kali'va River again—melted an entire drilling rig into slag. Quaritch's squad is calling it 'Operation Barbecue.'"

Jake's pupils dilated—a Na'vi reflex—as he leaned in, his human posture at war with the feral sharpness in his eyes. "Who?"

The tech hesitated, her throat bobbing. She'd seen Tawtute'kìm's handiwork: RDA patrols reduced to skeletal husks, their AMP suits fused to the earth like grotesque metal sculptures. "The Omatikaya call her Tawtute'kìm," she muttered, fingers tightening on the datapad. "But the grunts have another name. Hell's Gardener."

Norm's hands danced across the screen, pulling up a thermal scan. The image shimmered to life—a serpentine silhouette coiled around the smoldering wreck of a Scorpion gunship, her scales bleeding heat signatures in violent crimsons and golds. Six eyes glowed like dying stars, their gaze fixed on the drone capturing the footage.

"She's not just torching equipment," Norm said, voice fraying. "She's targeting unobtanium nodes. Melting them into some kind of... molten alloy. Grace's old notes suggest it's a defense mechanism—like Pandora's crust is healing through her."

Jake's breath hitched. The screen flickered to a closer shot: Tawtute'kìm's claws sank into the soil, and where they pierced, bioluminescent fungi erupted in neon-blue spirals. Life from fire.

"Quaritch thinks she's a trophy," Norm continued. "Wants her skull mounted on the Venture Star. But Grace's data..." He zoomed in on a simulation—a fractal map of Pandora's neural network flaring red where Tawtute'kìm roamed. "Kill her, and the planetary symbiosis goes haywire. Volcanic eruptions. Hyperstorms. It'd make the Thanator migration look like a picnic."

Jake's hand drifted to the obsidian dagger at his hip—a Na'vi blade, its edge serrated with venomous crystal. "So we stop him. Permanently."

The tech snorted. "With what? Your bow? She's got a nuclear furnace for a stomach, Sully."

"Not her." Jake's smile was a blade unsheathed. "Quaritch. He wants a dragon hunt? We'll give him one. But the Na'vi don't hunt alone."

Norm paled. "You're talking about rallying the clans. Again."

"No." Jake turned, his silhouette haloed by the Valkyrie shuttle's floodlights. "I'm talking about giving Tawtute'kìm a new target. One she'll crave."

On the datapad, the dragon's molten gaze seemed to follow him, her growl vibrating through the speakers—a sound like continents cracking.