Pathfinder || OC X Neteyam

14 - Quaritch Strikes Again

She continued to dodge the recom's swings and kicks, slicing her knife against sensitive spots all over their body. She opened deep cuts on the backs of their knees, ankles, and arms, slowly but steadily debilitating the recom. Finally, they stumbled to their knees, unable to move much of anything anymore and quickly losing blood.

Aha'ri jumped behind the recom, pulled their head back by the queue, exposing their neck, and pressed her knife against the exposed skin.

There was a commotion around her as the recoms primed their guns, but with Aha'ri using the recom as a shield, their weapons wouldn't do much good if they wanted their friend to live.

She spared a glance over to Neteyam as he threw the recom's lifeless body to the ground with an aggressive shove. Spatters of blood already covered his face and arms but somehow he was barely out of breath.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," a now all too familiar voice said in broken Na'vi.

Quaritch sauntered out from behind the wall of recoms still surrounding them and locked eyes with Aha'ri.

She made sure not to break her stare as she pressed her knife hard against the recom's neck and cut across in one lethal swipe. She let the recom topple forward in front of her.

Lurei still struggled against the recom's grip behind Quaritch as he stood there menacingly.

"What do you want?" Neteyam asked, stepping in front of Aha'ri. She just held her stare.

Quaritch put his hands on his hips. He called something in English and Spider was shoved by a recom into the circle. Aha'ri didn't know if she was happy or angry to see him.

Spider translated what Quaritch said in English into Na'vi. But Aha'ri understood what Quaritch was saying from watching old video logs of Grace with Kiri all the time.

"What I want is Jake Sully. We know that he's here so where is he?"

"We don't know where he is," Aha'ri barked, her tail twitching violently behind her.

Spider translated for her.

"Right," Quaritch chuckled, "like we're supposed to believe that. This will be a lot easier for all of us if you just tell us where he is."

"Stop fighting!" The recom hissed as they pulled out their knife and pressed it against Lurei's throat. Her eyes went wide with fear and she stopped fighting, unable to do anything else.

A violent fire lit inside of Aha'ri and she pushed past Neteyam. Her feet began to move before she even knew what she was doing; she was only focused on getting that recom off of her little sister.

But before she could get very far, Neteyam caught her by the waist and held her back despite her protest. He was much stronger than she was.

"We don't know," he said straining against Aha'ri. "He didn't tell us where he was going. He just left."

Quaritch's gaze lingered on Aha'ri as she pushed herself from Neteyam's grip and gave him a glare.

His nostrils flared and his lips pressed into a frown. "How about you give Jake a message for me then? Tell him that he needs to turn himself over to me or you'll never see this girl again. And we won't stop taking your people until he does," he said gesturing to Lurei behind him.

Aha'ri's heart dropped. No, she whispered to herself. No, she couldn't let him take Lurei. Everything was falling apart. What about the promise she made to Eywa? The thought of all the awful things the humans would do to her made Aha'ri shake with fear.

"Call your ikrans and go tell him!" Quaritch ordered them.

Neteyam called his ikran and tried to grab Aha'ri's hand to pull her away but she pulled away without fully thinking through what she was about to do.