𝐄𝐒𝐂𝐀𝐏𝐄 ➻ 𝐓𝐬𝐮'𝐭𝐞𝐲 ✔

[- chapter eighty one -]

the tide is high, but hopefully, so is the tension!! (i also apologise for any rises in blood pressure that may have been a result of it 😭)

Charlie was moving under his own strength by the time they reached the junction, one of Nate's arms slung around him, the other gripping his bow. He didn't argue when Tsu'tey told him to stay behind with a pair of Omatikaya warriors who had breached through a banged up wall moments earlier.

"We will return," Tsu'tey told him.

Nate squeezed Charlie's shoulder once. "Stay put. These guys will keep you safe."

Charlie grabbed his wrist before he could turn away. "Bring her back, Nate, please."

Nate's throat tightened. "I will, of course I will."

Then they were moving again. Thick blast doors segmented the corridor ahead. Floodlights burned white and merciless. The hum of power conduits vibrated through the walls. And beyond the final security barrier—

Movement.

Rows of AMP suits stood powered and ready, their towering frames bristling with mounted cannons. Soldiers formed layered firing lines behind portable barricades. More patrolled elevated walkways above. It was a choke point by design.

Quaritch hadn't hidden Eleanor somewhere vulnerable.

He'd buried her in the centre of a fortress.

Tsu'tey's gaze sharpened as he took it in. "This is the heart," he said quietly.

Nate flexed his fingers around the grip of his weapon. Heart leaping erratically in his chest as he clenched his eyes shut for a moment as they prepared to charge.

Outside, something struck the other levels of the base — Toruk, maybe, or another wave of Na'vi pressing the assault. The structure trembled.

That was their moment.

The first AMP went down before its pilot understood what was happening. Tsu'tey's arrow pierced through the exposed cockpit seam as Nate sprinted low along the wall, cutting the power feed to a secondary unit. Sparks exploded upward as the suit convulsed and collapsed sideways into its neighbour.

Gunfire erupted instantly.

The corridor became thunder.

Metal screamed as rounds ricocheted off reinforced walls. Nate dove behind an overturned crate as Tsu'tey vaulted forward with terrifying speed, using the chaos of falling machinery as cover. Another AMP suit powered up as the pilot grit his teeth, clearly ready for the bloodshed.

But Nate popped up just long enough to fire, striking the joint at the rear knee where armour thinned. The suit buckled mid-step. Tsu'tey finished it with a second shot to the cockpit.

A burst of gunfire shredded the crate Nate had been using for cover, forcing him to roll clear. He slammed shoulder-first into the floor, breath knocked from his lungs, and barely twisted aside as a soldier lunged for him.

He countered fast, disarmed, redirected, incapacitated, and didn't look back.

An AMP suit swung a massive mechanical arm toward Tsu'tey.

Nate saw it. "Tsu'tey!"

Too late to shout a warning that would matter.

Tsu'tey pivoted at the last possible second, the metal fist grazing his shoulder instead of crushing it. He staggered, caught himself, and drove an arrow straight into the cockpit viewport at point-blank range.

The machine froze mid-motion and collapsed, but more soldiers flooded in from a side corridor.

For a moment — a single, razor-thin moment — the odds felt crushing.

They were two warriors against an army built of steel.

Nate felt the pressure building in his chest again — that edge, that terrifying efficiency — but this time he didn't fight it.

He channelled it, for them.

They advanced step by step.

Every AMP that activated was dismantled with precision — targeting joints, power cells, cockpit seams. Every wave of soldiers was forced back, disarmed, driven into retreat. The floor became littered with fallen metal frames and abandoned weapons.

It wasn't clean, and it certainly wasn't easy, but they did not stop. And at last, the firing slowed, the smoke curled toward the ceiling.

The final AMP suit stood between them and a reinforced blast door at the end of the chamber — larger than the others, heavier plating, entirely massive and practically indestructible to the naked eye.

It stepped forward with deliberate calm as a voice echoed through the chamber speakers, likely the pilot, who Nate immediately recognised as someone high up in command. "You blues just don't know when to quit."

Tsu'tey stepped forward, blood streaked across his shoulder, posture straight despite the exhaustion lining his movements. "You sky people hide behind machines, you hide, because you are afraid, because you know it is not your right to be here, because deep down, you know you are wrong, you know you are not Eywa's children," he called.

The AMP's cannon arm rotated. "Well, right now, you're standing in my turf, sky people turf, taken from your precious Eywa, so you can obey my damn rules," he replied evenly.

The fight that followed was brutal and direct — no more waves of soldiers, no more distractions. Just power against will.

The AMP swung.

Tsu'tey avoided one strike but was forced back by the second. Nate seized the opening, sliding beneath the mechanical frame and slamming an arrow upward into a vulnerable seam beneath the cockpit housing. Sparks burst outward, but the suit kept moving.

The pilot adjusted fast as the cannon roared to life.

Nate shoved Tsu'tey clear as the blast tore into the wall behind them, shattering reinforced plating. Heat washed over them in a violent wave.

They regrouped instantly as Tsu'tey went high while Nate went low.

Another coordinated strike — two arrows, one heartbeat apart — hit the cockpit seam from opposite angles. The reinforced glass spiderwebbed as the AMP staggered.

Tsu'tey leapt onto its arm mid-swing, using its own momentum to launch himself upward. He drove his blade down into the fractured viewport with a shout that carried every ounce of rage he had carried since Hometree fell.

The cockpit truly, completely, shattered.

The pilot slumped as the AMP remained motionless,  silence rang in its wake.

Nate stood there, chest heaving, staring at the fallen suit.

But the blast door behind it remained sealed, and Nate knew, he knew that deep down that's where she must be, in the tallest tower, waiting for her knight, like in the old storybooks she had smuggled from Earth.

Tsu'tey stepped down from the ruined AMP, breathing hard, blood still caking his blue skin as he trembled.

He walked to the reinforced control panel and tore it open without ceremony. Sparks flared as he ripped free the override mechanisms.

The blast door groaned as it slowly began to open.

And cold air spilled out from the chamber beyond.