CHAPTER 48

       Erìhe did not know how, but by some miracle - perhaps Eywa's grace or the battle that suddenly broke out - Neteyam and herself found themselves able to shake off the submarine persistent on catching them. But even though they had time to take a breather, they weren't naive enough to not know what was happening around them.

The taking of the others had just been the start to a truly horrific tragedy, as the two of them came to fully understand when their heads emerged from the water. Erìhe looked at the great mothership with a terrified expression before leaning forward to speak into Neteyam's ear.

"They have taken them. They took Tuk, Tsireya, and Lo'ak," she gasped, still recovering from having held her breath for such a long time. "They've taken them - we must get them back," she repeated herself, not really sure wether she was speaking to Neteyam or herself.

Neteyam turned his head to meet her frantic eyes which he noticed were darting back and forth between the large ship and just about everything else in eye sight. "I know. I saw them."

It was as if Erìhe had not even heard him. "Quaritch took them. Is he holding them for ransom? What does he want? We have to save them." She had a bad feeling that she knew exactly what he wanted to achieve by taking the kids but she did not wish to dwell on that fact right then.

The boy could see that there was no point in trying to calm her - he had a hunch that she would finally think straight once she saw the other again. Neteyam took a hold of her hand, placing it around his waist so that she would get the hint and hold onto him so as to not fall off the ilu. "Let's go get them," he offered her a small smile instead of showing her how fearful he truly felt at that moment. He wanted to stay strong. He had to - it was what his father had taught him to do.

For the first time, Erìhe met his eyes and gave him a determined nod while fastening her grip around his middle before the two returned under water to race toward the ship.

₊˚.༄

       The next time Erìhe and Neteyam emerged from the ocean, Neteyam willed the ilu to jump high into the air right next to the mothership. Simultaneously, the two teenagers leapt off the animal and grabbed onto the metal railing of the ship and pulled themselves up and onto the deck.

Erìhe could hear Tuk before she could see her: "Neteyam!" The girl called hopefully as she watched her brother run over to them, his knife in hand to cut them free of their restraints. When the youngest saw Erìhe run to them behind Neteyam, she squealed in excitement and relief of seeing both of them okay.

"Hey, baby brother," Neteyam teased as he bent down to cut Tsireya free, "Need some help?"

If it were any other situation, Erìhe would have scoffed and rolled her eyes. But with the situation being what it was, she only hurried to kneel beside Tuk, pulling out her own knife and begun hacking at the fabric cuffs - ignoring the snarky conversation going on between the two brothers.

"Erìhe, you're alright," Tuk sighed with a large grin, squeezing her newly released hands into fists as if to make sure they were still working after being so tightly bound.

"Of course, I'm alright," Erìhe assured her, realising her voice sounded breathless from the relief of them all being well. She pulled the little girl into a quick hug, not having time to dwell on any feelings - relief or any other - she had to pull away soon. "Let's get out of here, okay? Let's get you safe," she rose to her feet and pulled Tuk toward the railing from which her and Neteyam had climbed to get aboard.

Erìhe halted in her steps and waited impatiently for Neteyam to free Lo'ak, which would have happened much quicker had they not been so cocky with each other. Letting out a frustrated sigh, Erìhe turned to Tsireya who stood between her and Tuk and the two boys, looking like she did not know what to do. "Get Tuk to safety," Erìhe told her, pulling Tsireya toward the railing before hurriedly pushing the two on - egging them to move faster. "We'll follow you two, just go," she said hurriedly when Tuk seemed like she would protest.

Tsireya nodded and held Tuk's hand as the two of them jumped off the ship.

Erìhe turned around to Neteyam and Lo'ak, who seemed to have been freed in the time it took Erìhe to get Tsireya and Tuk to go ahead. "Let's go! Quickly!" She urged.

Neteyam pet Lo'ak's hair teasingly before taking Erìhe's hand and starting off toward their exit route. "Come on. Let's go," he told Lo'ak in a voice so calm, Erìhe wondered how he managed to pull it off. She was fairly certain she sounded like she was about to have a panic attack whenever she as much as opened her mouth.

But Lo'ak did not follow the two. Erìhe turned her head to see him instead jog off in the other direction to grab one of the fallen RDA mercenary's guns.

"Lo'ak!" Neteyam called as he pulled Erìhe into a crouched position upon realizing they wouldn't be getting off the ship quite yet.

"They've got Spider," Lo'ak told them as the two rushed toward him. Erìhe's ears perked up at the mention of Spider, and her eyes immediately darted out across the deck to find herself a weapon to defend herself with. "We've gotta get him. Come on," Lo'ak gripped the gun tightly and began to lead the way across the deck.

Erìhe let go of Neteyam's hand to hurry over to another gun identical to the one Lo'ak was carrying, and held it tightly as she rushed back to Lo'ak's side.

"Come on, bro," Lo'ak was saying, "We can't leave him."

"We have to get him," Erìhe told Neteyam, fixing him with an intent gaze. The ships alarms were blaring, the ship was sinking, and no matter what all these sky people believed, not many of their life boats would make it out of here with all these angry Metkayina taking them out. Spider looked like the enemy: if he was seen, no one would hesitate in shooting him down.

Neteyam let out a frustrated groan before taking off after the two that had already began to head into the hangar. "This is not a good idea," Neteyam warned them in a voice just about adjacent to a whisper.

Erìhe stood with her back against a wall, leaning forward to take a peek around the corner before motioning that the way was clear. "You're right, it's not."

"But we can't leave him," Lo'ak finished her thought and Erìhe nodded as they all crouched down and ran across the small hall to stand behind another wall.

"Yeah, we can't," Neteyam agreed as he switched places with Erìhe, forcing himself in front of her though she did not seem keen on him overtaking her. He did it for her safety. "But do we even have a plan?"

"When has Lo'ak ever come up with a plan? Let alone follow one through," Erìhe mumbled the last part as she checked over her gun while Neteyam peeked past the corner. Despite everything, this caused Lo'ak to let out a little laugh and shrug his shoulders as a way to say "she's not wrong".

"Yes, okay," Neteyam sighed and rolled his eyes, "None of us are very good at strategics, but we have to come up with something now unless we want to get caught and killed."

"What does it look like?" Lo'ak ignored the part about coming up with a plan and asked Neteyam.

Neteyam leaned forward once more to take a second glance at what was behind the corner. "It looks like people are headed this way," he groaned.

Erìhe tried to think straight, though the dangerous situation and anxiety instilling alarm made that a rather difficult thing to do. She should be focusing on what was at hand, but it was proving to be hard when her thoughts seemed to be in a million places at once. She was worried about Tuk, Kiri and Tsireya, Neytiri and Jake,
Ao'nung and Rotxo on top of just about every other Metkayina warrior putting their lives at risk.

"Hey, you okay?" Lo'ak poked Erìhe's side. He realised that she'd seemed to loose focus for a moment, and the people walking down the next corridor were not halting their steps.

"Yeah, I'm alright," Erìhe nodded and gripped her gun.

"Surprise attack. There's five people," Neteyam whispered to the other two, but perhaps an octave too loud. As soon as the words had left his mouth, the rhythmic sound of footsteps died abruptly and Erìhe's hearing could pick up on a few men hissing and whispering orders to each other.

"Fuck that," Lo'ak said before rushing in front of Neteyam, managing to surprise the group of men with his sudden appearance as he pulled down the trigger.

Erìhe stepped out from behind the corner and began targeting the people. Unlike Lo'ak, who shot wherever and hoped to hit where he intended to, Erìhe's shots were more calculated and specific. Lo'ak's messy bullets had managed to wound three of the men and perhaps kill one of them, but those who were only hit were screaming their head off so Erìhe made quick work of them.

Looking through the aim of her gun, comfortably hidden by Lo'ak - who had stupidly placed himself between the group of men and the other two - Erìhe shot single bullets into each of the wounded men's heads, shutting them up for good.

It was then that the only man, who had managed to not get shot by Lo'ak's bullets or Erìhe's calculated singular shots, seemed to be so out of it due to the adrenaline that he started running right towards them, taking both Erìhe and Lo'ak by surprise.

What got them wasn't his immense yelling nor the way he was headed straight towards them, it was the fact that he completely abandoned his gun and attempted to run right past them.

Erìhe and Lo'ak had lowered their guns as they watched the little man run between them and blinked simultaneously from surprise when Neteyam brought back his elbow, knocking the man right out cold.

Neteyam looked down at the man and then back up at Erìhe and Lo'ak. "Well done," he told them, "I think dad would be proud."

Lo'ak grinned proudly, "Yeah," he agreed. "But what do we do now?"

Erìhe let out a long exhale as she tried to drown out the ringing in her ears and the sudden exhaustion she felt by thinking up some kind of a plan for them. As she thought, she happened to glance up at the ceiling and a thought crossed her mind.

-
A/n:
Me when I post one chapter after ghosting everyone on this app 😍😍😍 (and a shitty one at that)

No but fr I love everyone so much and I'm sorry for just disappearing - I feel so bad bc some of y'all were like fr concerned and sent me messages asking if I'm okay 🧍‍♂️ IM FINE it just hit me that school is fucking serious and I was going to be thrown out of my math course if I didn't put in a little work 😍

ALSO not that anyone gives a shit but I take back everything I said ab not being able to have romantic feelings for real people BECAUSE IM IN LOVE (I'm not, I just have a crush 🤭🤭) he called me princess and I FOLDED

Update on that guy: I rejected him and got the ick so never mind that

Uhhh I went through a million phases from last time I updated. I wrote two Sirius Black fanfics that are both almost complete, started an Anakin Skywalker fanfic as well as a scream fic, resumed writing my Tsu'tey fanfic and I'm fighting off the urge to write a fic about Padme

BUT HAPPY SUMMER OMG WE ALL SURVIVED SCHOOL AND WHATEVER ELSE YALL HAD GOING ON

Update: it's now halfway through summer and it'll probably be winter by the time this fucking chapter comes out omfg kill me

This is so confusing I won't even go through this authors note just try to make sense of it or ignore it 😍 I'd do the latter if I were you BUT EW I CRINGE AT MYSELF STFU I was reading past authors notes on this book and yall.. this is just as annoying as all of them but that was not me I SWEAR