The air thrummed with the distant whine of the Scorpion's engines, its rotors churning the smoke into violent spirals. Quaritch's blood still streaked the ash, but his laughter seemed to linger, taunting. You turned to Neytiri and Jake, your scales flickering like live coals, the dragon's pulse in your throat drowning out the screams of the retreating clan.

"Get them out of here," you growled, talons flexing as embers dripped from your jaw. "I'll burn that Sky bitch to cinders."

Jake's avatar lunged forward, his cerulean hand seizing yours—and immediately hissing as the heat blistered his skin. He didn't let go. "No," he snarled, his voice raw, human and Na'vi edges colliding. "You're not doing this alone! We fight together—!"

Neytiri stood silent, her bow taut, arrow aimed at the gunship's floodlights. Her eyes, though—those molten gold pools—betrayed her. Fear. Not of death, but of you. The way your shadow stretched, clawed and winged, across the scorched earth. The way your pupils bled from gold to Urge's venomous red.

You wrenched your hand free, leaving smoldering fingerprints on Jake's palm. "You can't fight what's coming," you hissed, the dragon's timbre shredding your voice. Above, your ikran circled, its shrieks desperate. It could smell the change in you—the rot of Urge's promise.

"Y/N, please—" Jake's tail lashed, knocking over a shattered stump. "This isn't you! That thing inside you—it's lying!"

The thanator emerged then, its flank still oozing from Quaritch's knife. It pressed its massive head against your thigh, a low rumble building in its chest. Not alone, it seemed to say.

Neytiri's arrow finally loosed, piercing a gunship searchlight. "The clan is safe," she said, her voice steel. "But you will not be if you face the Sky People as... this." Her gaze flickered to your claws, the scales creeping up your neck.

The Scorpion opened fire.

Plasma rounds cratered the earth, and you moved. Wings unfurling, you snatched Jake and Neytiri, hurling them behind the thanator's bulk as the barrage tore into its armor. The beast roared, but held fast, shielding them.

"Go!" you screamed, leaping skyward.

Your ikran dove, but you didn't mount it. Instead, you gripped its crest, pouring your fire into its veins. The creature shrieked, its feathers igniting into a phoenix's plume, eyes burning crimson. Together, you spiraled toward the gunship, a comet of scales and fury.

Jake's roar followed you—"Y/N!"—but it was swallowed by the inferno.

Urge's voice purred through the flames. Yes. Burn.

You did.

SCENEBREAK

The Scorpion gunship listed sideways, one rotor spewing black smoke, its hull pocked with claw marks and scorch patterns that glowed faintly orange—dragonfire, still eating through the metal. Quaritch clung to the open hatch, his face a mask of blood and sweat, prosthetic arm sparking where the thanator's jaws had crushed the circuitry. Below, the forest burned. Above, you blotted out the sky.

"Kill that whore!" he bellowed, slamming a fist against the gunner's chair. The soldier fumbled with the targeting array, hands shaking so badly the crosshairs danced over the canopy, never locking on. "She's not a goddamn ghost! Shoot!"

But you weren't a ghost. You were myth.

Your wingspan eclipsed the twin moons as you banked, scales shimmering with borrowed starlight, the air around you warping from the heat of your rage. Quaritch's remaining eye—the human one—widened as you surged toward the gunship, your shadow swallowing the cockpit.

"Do it!" he roared, voice cracking.

The gunner fired. Plasma rounds tore through the night, but you twisted, serpentine and impossible, the shots grazing your flank and igniting a fuel depot below. The explosion painted the gunship's windshield in hues of hellfire, and for a heartbeat, Quaritch saw it—the thing coiled behind your eyes. Red. Hungry. Familiar.

"You," he whispered.

Then you struck.

Claws sheared through the Scorpion's tail rotor, sending it spinning into a death spiral. Quaritch clung to the hatch as the gunner's screams merged with the rending metal. "Hold it together!" he lied, knowing it was over. Knowing he was over.

Your talons closed around the hull, molten rivets popping under the pressure. Through the cracked glass, Quaritch met your gaze—or Urge's. The dragon's grin split your muzzle, fangs dripping with venom that ate through the gunship's armor like acid.

"Burn," Urge hissed through your throat, the word a promise.

Quaritch did the only thing he had left. He laughed. "You first, lizard."

His remaining hand jammed the throttle to full, aiming the spiraling wreck toward the heart of the burning forest—where Jake and Neytiri's silhouettes darted through the smoke.

Urge roared. Yours roared.

The night erupted in fire.

SCENEBREAK

The air reeked of ionized metal and burning wood, the forest floor trembling as the Scorpion gunship crumpled like paper in the grip of your shadow. Jake skidded to a halt, his avatar's lungs heaving, the bond to his human body fraying under the weight of raw grief. He couldn't look away—couldn't breathe—as your draconic form, wreathed in smoke and embers, tore through the ship's hull.

Then came the scream.

Not a roar. Not a battle cry. A raw, guttural sound that split the night—half dragon, half you—before it was swallowed by the detonation.

"No," Jake choked, collapsing to his knees. His fingers clawed at the soil, as though he could dig through Pandora itself to pull you back. His chest burned where the bond had been, a phantom tsaheylu ripped violently from his mind. "No, no, no—"

Neytiri staggered beside him, her braid lashing like a wounded serpent. She reached for him, her voice sharp with panic. "Jake! We must go! The fire—"

"She's gone!" he roared, slamming a fist into the ground. Ash billowed around him, sticking to the tears streaking his blue cheeks. "You heard it—you heard her, 'Tiri. That wasn't... that wasn't just the dragon."

The forest seemed to grieve with him. Bioluminescent fungi dimmed, their glow snuffed out as if mourning. Somewhere, a lone direhorse wailed.

Neytiri seized his braid, her grip unyielding. "Jake Sully," she hissed, yanking his face toward hers. Her golden eyes blazed, but her lower lip trembled. "You are Toruk Makto. You do not kneel to despair. My father's spirit rides with the wind today—he would beat you for this weakness!"

Jake laughed, a broken, wet sound. "Weakness? I just watched her die, Neytiri. For us. For me."

Above, the gunship's carcass plunged into the treeline, igniting a fresh inferno. Neytiri flinched as flames licked the sky, their reflection dancing in her tears. "Then honor her!" she snapped, hauling him upright with a strength that belied her slender frame. "Do not let her fire fade in vain. Stand."

He swayed, his tail dragging through the ash. "How? How do I—?"

A thunderous crack cut him off. The burning ship split, and from the wreckage, a single wing emerged—charred, skeletal, but unmistakably yours. It twitched once, then stilled.

Jake's breath hitched.

Neytiri pressed her forehead to his, her voice softening. "We survive," she whispered. "We remember. And when the time comes... we burn the Sky People with her name."

Somewhere in the smoke, a thanator howled—a dirge for the dragon they'd lost.

Jake closed his eyes. When he opened them, the grief hadn't lessened, but his fists had stopped shaking. "Okay," he rasped. "Okay."

Together, they ran, the forest sealing its wounds behind them.