The small party works their way down to the bottom of the Well of Souls. Grace is murmuring to N'deh in Na'vi, holding onto him. He looks at her with love. Josh thinks it must be strange for him to hold her real body, something he probably has never done.

Grace is laid gently among the roots at the foot of the willow at the center of the Well of Souls. Josh watches as fine, hairlike tendrils emerge from the roots and begin to cover her. The Na'vi stand solemnly in a circle, chanting. Mo'at, the matriarch, stands among the willows above, leading the chant. Her unbound queue mingles with the tendrils of the willow trees, which caress her upraised arms.

SHOT OF THE TWIN SUNS SETTING.

IN THE WELL OF SOULS the chant continues. The grotto is dark except for the light of the willows, a faint spectral glow. Mo'at still stands in a kind of trance amongst the tendrils of the central tree. She opens her eyes and says something to N'deh, who kneels down next to Grace. Grace is utterly still in her shroud of fine silk threads, like a moth in its cocoon.

N'DEH: (in Na'vi/subtitled): The Mother Tree could not save her: body.

He gently removes her breathing mask. She doesn't need it anymore. Josh feels the tears welling. They are so respectful of her, and she is not even one of them. N'deh kisses Grace on her human mouth for the first, and last, time.

N'deh says to Josh that there is no death, only change. Grace will feed the roots of the Mother Tree. A great honor.

LATER, in the Tsumongwi's temporary camp, Josh asks Tsu Te to help him get Zuleika back. He needs the best hunters for a raid on the human base. He needs a strong leader, like Tsu Te.

TSU TE: You know how to get in?

JOSH: I've got a couple ideas.

Tsu Te eyes him coldly, studying him. Then he closes his eyes, once. Opens them. They're on.

JOSH: Can you get help from the other: clans?

TSU TE: They are coming now.

Josh sees N'deh pass by, carrying Grace's unconscious avatar. What will they do with it... a body without a mind? Knowing the Na'vi, they will probably keep it alive.

DUSK, THE NEXT DAY. Crouched in the foliage at the treeline, the raiding party studies Hell's Gate. Josh opens the bag given to him by Hegner. He passes out ID badges to each of the hunters, telling them to keep them on their bodies. The sentry guns will not fire at anyone wearing a badge transponder.

The raid begins. The tractors returning from the construction site provide perfect cover. The hunters, led by Josh and Tsu Te, slip out of the trees through the dust clouds and grab onto the undercarriages. The escort troopers in their powersuits miss it.

They ride in through the double gates of the compound, then roll out and sprint for cover among some storage containers. They make their way to the avatar compound. Josh leaves the others in concealment and slips into the compound. He is dressed like a Na'vi, so he goes to his old locker and gets out shorts and a T-shirt, the on-base uniform of the avatars. He dons these quickly and then walks out boldly into the compound.

Zuleika and three other Na'vi are held in a chainlink cage, under guard. Josh walks by, nodding to the guard. Avatars all look the same to the troopers. Zuleika sees him, and her eyes go wide. He signals her to get the others ready. Josh easily overpowers the guard, knocking him out cold. He gives a trilling call and the other hunters join him. With a steel bar he and two others pry the gate open, shattering the lock.

Josh grabs Zuleika, kissing her fiercely. The other Na'vi stop to check out that action for a second.

Suddenly two SECFOR troopers see them and come running. They aim their rifles but-- THWAP. Arrows appear suddenly, stuck in the throat of one, and through the plastic mask of the other.

Josh leads the escaping group the other way, toward the incoming convoy of tractors.

They run along the line of tractors, staying in the shadows and amongst the dust clouds. A trooper sees them and opens fire, sounding the alarm. A siren goes off in the compound. Josh puts two rounds from his pistol into the trooper, and the hunters dodge between the tractors as more soldiers start firing.

Suddenly a powersuit appears, backlit by the sun. A 14 foot tall juggernaut. It opens fire with the GAU 90, blasting up huge geysers of earth as it tries to hit the running hunters, who are fast as cheetahs. The powersuited trooper breaks into a run, trying to keep his targets in sight.

ON JOSH, who has doubled back along a tractor. He whirls a bolo around his head with intense concentration. He lets if fly, and it whistles out, tangling around the powersuit's massive feet. It crashes down, skidding in the dirt. It starts to rise and Josh sprints toward it. He shoulder-slams it from the side at full run, and it rolls onto its back.

Josh leaps onto the big machine's chest. He fires the pistol two-handed into the canopy at point-blank range. The rounds whine off the lexan without effect. The trooper slams Josh with one hydraulic hand, sending him flying.

ON THE POWERSUIT, rolling ponderously to its knees as-- Out of the dust behind it the wheel of a tractor emerges, filling the frame-- The troopers turns, seeing it, and just has time to scream-- The enormous tire rolls over the suit, crushing it.

Zuleika pulls Josh to his feet and the two of them sprint full out as rounds hit the ground all around them.

INSIDE THE SECFOR HANGER there is a full-tilt scramble. Sirens blaring. Flashing lights. Troopers running to a row of powersuits standing in their gantries. Pilots running to power up the Scorpions.

VARIOUS ANGLES: Running feet. Troopers rapidly donning their armor. Leaping into the cockpits of powersuits and strapping in. Canopies closing. Gantries pulling back.

Quaritch, barking orders, runs to a powersuit and leaps into it. He slams the canopy and powers up. He is in such a hurry he doesn't wait for the boarding gantry to pull back. He surges out of the slot, knocking it aside with a powerful sweep of one hydraulic arm. It topples with a crash.

Josh picks up an automatic weapon from a fallen trooper who is stuck full of arrows. He spins and rakes it across the ranks of the advancing SECFOR troopers. They scatter like pigeons. Nobody's ever shot back at them before.

Josh empties the rifle, buying the group enough time to reach the treeline. He sees several Scorpions rising like black, angry hornets from the compound. Half a dozen powersuits are charging toward him. Josh grabs a couple of grenades from the fallen troopers as rounds stitch toward him. He turns and sprints for the trees.

WHAT FOLLOWS is a hairball, all-stops-pulled chase through the forest as the rolling thunder of war machines relentlessly pursues the Na'vi and the renegade avatar.

The gunships roar into the forest, the ballsier pilots searching below the canopy. They maneuver their thundering ships between the huge trunks. The trees are so big you can actually fly through them between the canopy and the forest floor.

And the powersuits crash through the underbrush at a full run, fanning out through the jungle. When one of the gunships spots a running Na'vi on the down-looking infrared, the pilot tells the powersuit troopers and they converge.

The forest is riddled by fire from the GAU 90 cannons. Josh and the hunters duck behind the mighty trunks, which shelter them from the hellacious fire. Then they run on, zigzagging.

Josh runs from a powersuit which pounds through the forest behind him. He leaps and rolls, dodging behind trees as the cannon rips up the foliage.

Zuleika runs along beneath a fallen treetrunk while a gunship tries to hit her with its cannon. It fires rockets and she dives into a pond as the jungle explodes. She surfaces amid burning debris as the gunship flies on.