Mimetic | Tsu'tey

I

First run
Tultswo 'awve
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The first moments of life are painful. You breathe and you cry. It's cold. Even if you didn't have space to grow, anything was better than this. I got to be born twice. Once as a human being, once as something else entirely.

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The year before it all went to shit, was a pleasant year. At least for the RDA. The na'vi insurgency was crushed swiftly and decisively, mining operations could resume, and there was a new head of the Avatar program who they'd hope would cause less trouble than the gene splicing, human rights violating Dr. Cordell Lovecraft.

Not to mention the rebirth of Riley Quaritch.

She had been reborn.

She had a childhood that lasted a year that was full of growing pains and confusion. She didn't know if she'd been born or made, maybe a mix of both. But she was a young woman again.

She didn't remember much, but she did remember being held again. Only for a short time before the needles and supplements. The corrective measures taken to ensure her steady growth.

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Her body twisted and stretched as she sought to complete the course. By her father's request, the avatar training course was expanded to accommodate her ever expanding plethora of abilities. Strakes, gills, fin-like tails, gripping tails, tougher skin, different colors, different shapes.

She swiftly passed over the overs and unders as if they were meant to be tread across. Her body moved like a cheetah chasing prey. Her body braced against the climbing wall as she forced her way up it. She dropped all the way down onto her haunches and met the fence of the base.

She could climb it. If she wanted. The barbed wire was too small to do more than scratch. She wanted to. Like someone was tugging on her heart out and pulling it up and over into the forest.

She tore herself away from the notion and jolted back into action. She pivoted and readied herself mentally as she faced the water head on.

She felt nauseous and suffocated until she had hit the water. Her body had become so used to the feeling of change that it felt like nothing at all. She had grown gills, strakes, a tail. The swim was long, and she needed to be fast.

The sensors would pick her up in seconds and spring their traps.

She narrowly avoided a wall that put itself up, a thick black mesh. She ducked under where she knew the next one would extend. Beside the next, and out of the water. It was a few second change that was unmissable. The fading of the gills, the strakes and tail shrinking down to their basal form.

Hot coals met the bottoms of her hardened skin, toughened, and protected on purpose. And then the final obstacles to the finish.

At the end was her father, waiting expectantly.

She could remember the first time she changed her features. She'd tried to match his. Trying to shrink, trying to breath his air, walk and talk like him. The best she could do was shrink her tail and clear her skin of pigment. She had looked the same when she was born, pale and red eyed. She remembered how his eyes lit up in astonishment. The same expression when she ate solid food, walked, spoke, ran, finished the first course, finished the second, learned how to read and write, and handle a gun. It stopped shortly after that. Replaced with a scowl.

As much as she wanted to, she couldn't ignore the reality that she wasn't his daughter. And neither could he. Even if she had her dna, his dna, she also had someone else's too. It still hurt even if she wanted it not to.

"How was that?" She dusted herself off as she met his gaze.

"Slower." He said gruffly, sucking in through his teeth.

She tried not to let that discourage her, instead she stood up and stretched.

"That sucks. I was sure I'd beat my high score!" She grunted as she stretched her back out.

"Me too, kid." Quaritch replied as he began his walk back to the compound. His hand motioned for her to follow him inside. The compound wasn't built to facilitate her or any avatar unless it was a prisoner. They didn't have the resources to accommodate her, so she stayed with Grace and the avatars more often than not.

She swiped an AAS (Atmos adaptation system) on the way in, as she ducked into the doorway. She kept her head bowed in the building as she lifted the mask to her face, strapping the thing on, unwilling to keep an unclear mind due to their less dense and light air. She passed by scientists and military personnel until they came up on the maximized lab used for various surgeries and medical treatment for avatars.

Her doctor was a normal human using a stilt-like pair of mechanical legs to reach the appropriate height he needed to. They didn't share many words as he went about seating her and taking her vitals.

"You'll be with with Grace's team. Command came from Parker, I ain't got no say. But don't think I'll leave you defenseless against those aliens." Her father spoke.

"You're already pre-packed, your gear is in your locker, and everything is in its place. When you get out there, watch your six. Other kid on your team, Sully, he'll have your back. He's a marine. I think you'll like him." He finished his briefing and left her alone with the doctor.

The doctor prepared a syringe of supplements and something completely unnamed. Before asking, she was jabbed with it. It was always sore afterwards and she'd get body aches and headaches.

She got a small bandaid and a pat on the shoulder which jerked her out of the room. She passed people carefully until she reached the doorway which she squeezed into the pressurized decontamination chamber; she felt the room full with air she was used to.

It was warm and breezy; people were loading in from the newest ship.

Grace's newest students were on it. She'd meet them tomorrow when they adjust to their avatar bodies. It's not that she minded the scientists, she just needed new faces. She didn't particularly have much in common with these guys who'd come and go.

Her boyfriend wasn't her boyfriend anymore due to the fact that she had died and come back blue and big. Romance was a complicated feeling, and she was still struggling to form connections with other people.

She arrived at her bed in the avatar shack and picked up the tablet with mission information.

She would be "escort". And she'd be carrying a gun, while wearing military grade gear.

She laid down after finishing skimming through it. And she shut her eyes.