“Oh… oh no,” Martin uttered as he looked up.

His skinwalker-enhanced eyes could see perfectly in the darkness of the ruined gymnazium. The roof had long caved in, exposing the sky. Martin's new eyes allowed him to see past the motes of dust that were fogging up the atmosphere. He somehow saw past the broiling supercell storm, as if it wasn’t there at all, as if it was just a layer that his mind could simply bypass. Martin realised that the little skinwalker in his brain was somehow connected, integrated into the greater network of other skinwalkers all around. He could see what they saw, feel what they felt and thus his horizon of understanding, of perception constantly expanded out and out.

Behind the storm he saw something he had never expected to witness - the ruin of the ring of Titanomachy. Remnants of a segment of the great SCA superstructure jotted out of the earth, looming high over the ruins of Saint Mary.

Alexa prodded him for more information with a comment he could barely hear.

“I know ...what happened here. I know why everyone is dead,” Martin whispered, immersed in the ever-expanding consciousness. “Titanomachy… it fell from the sky.”

The ravaged segment of Titanomachy right above him was covered in leviathan, otherworldly things - spheres of white bone mesh with colossal black limbs stretching away from them. Before, Martin saw skinwalkers as alien, dark things, but now he could feel life and energy pulsating within them, dots of silver stardust intertwined, interconnected with webs of colorless light. The nests were made from the same stuff as the skinwalkers. Martin also saw multitudes of smaller creatures crawling all around the ruined station. Beneath the dark exoskeleton they all looked like silver nebulas filled with glittering, shining stars. They acted akin to a million ants, laboring together with some great purpose.

The limbs in the sky were diligently moving back and forth, working without rest on building yet more similar spheres atop the shard of Titanomachy.

The more Martin saw, the better he understood, knew what they were, information flooding into his head translated from a deep, subconscious feeling that was emanating from the little skinwalker in his head. The skinwalker nests became bigger the higher they went, eventually becoming magnified a million times. They were new life clinging to an otherwise dead planet.

His perspective expanded even further and suddenly flipped upside down. He was no longer standing on the ground, he now saw what the nests saw from up above - ruins of the ravaged planet. In the perception of the new, omnipresent life, he was but a tiny mote observed by something far greater than himself. Something terrible and vast that cared little for the tiny, insignificant speck of life inside Martin's head.

Through the uncountable number of eyes of this leviathan, interconnected organism Martin could see a globe shattered by the fallen rings of Titanomachy. The SCA station was made from materials reinforced again and again by the Supers. It was far tougher than anything found on Earth. When it had collided with the planet hundreds of years ago, it had carved it in twain, reduced mountains to dust, vapourized the oceans and boiled the atmosphere. Parts of the world were now completely gone, obliterated, flung out into space.

Some utterly microscopic, irrelevant bit of him was being bothered. Where was it? Martin’s consciousness was lost, diluted by the endless multitude of minds of the prodigious life that held the shattered planet in its grasp.

“Martin! Martin!” Alexa’s voice yelled at him. “What do you see? Tell me more, damn it!”

“The SCA has fallen… Titanomachy is no more? It can’t… I don’t...” His sister’s voice trembled. “How?”

Martin blinked, disconnecting from the greater awareness of everything. “Huh?”

“What do they want?” Alexa shook Martin. “Tell me, damn it!!! Why do they keep murdering me?!”

[TERMINATE - DEVOUR / UTILIZE - PROPAGATE]

A terrifying message, made not of words but of a scrambled, somewhat coherent idea poured into Spiderbro. Martin’s human mind interpreted it as a command, a demand that was resonating back and forth across all of the skinwalkers.

“They… uhh... it wants... me to kill you... to make more of itself. It… the skinwalkers… they’re not animals driven by instincts, they’re all connected, working together for a single goal. They’re all over the wreck of Titanomachy, all over the Earth! Multiply? Propagate? Why?!” Martin articulated the jumble of demands in his head.

“Crapsickles. It’s no wonder they keep finding and murdering me. I can’t compete with a goddamned planet-wide hivemind!” Alexa said.

[REPAIR - FIX - RENEW - REGENERATE - CONSUME - INTEGRATE - MULTIPLY]

The bits of the multitude nearest to him responded, returning to the same repeating track that demanded replication and murder.

“Repair? Regenerate? Consume? Multiply? Huh?” Martin rubbed his aching head, not understanding. His awareness jumped all over the ruins, all over the choir of want and need, finally settling on the gargantuan spheres of bone and alien flesh. They were breathing! Breathing in the poisoned, irradiated atmosphere and spewing out clear air. They were the source of the unending, planet-wide supercell storm! They were the reason why the four humans could breathe here at all!

“They’re ...cleansing the atmosphere!” Martin proclaimed, heaving as he nearly lost himself once again. He realised that he was now hastily trying to breathe in and out for purposes of recycling everything in the air, just like the billions of titanic, spherical lungs in the sky.

“Hrm… It sounds like they’re trying to terraform the earth and see us as a renewable resource. Do you mind telling them that we’re cool and just wanna be friends?” Alexa elbowed Martin. “Think of friendship and magic or something. Positive first contact biz!”

Martin thought positive thoughts of friendship of humanity, of first contact, but he was ignored. His skinwalker shard was far too small, too insignificant, too unimportant. It was just an amoeba in an ocean of the great omnipresent superconsciousness.

[INFECT - CONSUME - MULTIPLY] Spiderbro sang back. It no longer had a determinate personality. It was but an infinitesimal singer dragged into repeating the unceasing choir. Spiderbo tried to wield Martin’s body to attack his friends, to claw out their eyes, to end them. They were just organic building blocks to be remade, recycled, cleansed alongside with the rest of bacteria that once inhabited and ruled the earth.

“Consume. Multiply. No. Stop that! Shut the hell up!” Martin snapped back, resisting the skinwalker shard, wielding control over it.

[REFUSAL? - BROKEN - FIND - TERMINATE / REINTEGRATE] The voices of the choir nearest to Martin answered, skinwalkers around the city turning towards him. Several of the thousand-elbowed arms turned from their jobs in the sky, heading towards the ground to smite Martin.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Martin gasped. “They aren’t listening! They saw me, us! They’re coming to kill us all!”

“Oh well. First contact pancake got burned. We’ll try again next time... twice as hard.” Alexa sighed.

“Take us back! TAKE US BACK NOW!” Ember screamed at Alexa, grabbing at her.

“Noppers. It doesn't work like that. I don’t control the time jumps. Welcome to 2424. Try not to die.” Alexa winked at the golden-eyed hero.

“I’ll murder you!!!” Ember screeched, shaking Alexa. A hundred off-color ghostly arms reached out towards the villain.

“Stop. Cooperate. NOW.” The Equalizer pressed her railgun against Ember’s head, her finger on the trigger.

Ember growled as a response, her avatars retreating.

“I do believe it's in our best interests to work together, hero.” Alexa said. “How would you get back if you kill me, hrmmmm?”

“Fffffffinggg fineeee!” Martin’s sister hissed, letting go of Alexa. A perimeter of ghosts formed a constantly moving circle, a river of green and blue flickers around the group of humans.

“That’s the spirit! You can always murderize me later! We’ll be bestest friends till then!” Alexa hugged Ember with half an arm, the other still handcuffed to the hero.

“Hey, Resonance. If the space elevators and the orbital rings fell from the sky, then how is the town of Saint Mary still intact?” Cottie asked, trying to distract the extremely agitated hero from Alexa’s antics.

“What? Uhm.” Ember looked at the Equalizer. “SCA-designed catastrophe-barrier, fusion-reactor powered shields activate in every town or city downtown with a big enough population during an emergency situation. We’re always ready for villains and their dumbass acid hail or piranha-tornado bullshit. The shields must have held while the world burned, but even they eventually failed from what I can see.

“Ah yes. A shield for every hero’s earth-based residence. Gotta protect them precious heroes.” Alexa grinned.

“Alexa, would you do me a favour and please stop agitating my sister?” Martin said. “Guys, we have to move, NOW. I’ve blinded my shard, so it won’t report back.”

Ember looked at Martin. “You know things,” She stuttered. “How do you know all of these things? What shard? ...Wait. Your eyes are glowing silver… Are you awake?!”

Martin nodded back at her. Ember looked lost, broken at this admission.

“You wanted this did you not?” Martin asked.

“I.. uh…” She uttered. “I wanted you to be a hero, but not like this. You’re too young, damn it!”

“Complain about it bloody later, okay?” Martin growled. “Take the handcuffs off Alexa, it will interfere with our escape!”

Ember blinked.

“For fucks sakes! COTTIE! Shoot the handcuffs! NOW!” Martin snapped at the Equalizer. Unlike the others he could feel the swiftly approaching doom coming from the sky.

Cottie aimed the railgun at the handcuffs and fired, shattering the links before Ember even made a move for the keys.

“Run! Run! NOW! OUT OF THE BUILDING!” Martin grabbed Alexa’s hand and pulled her towards the nearest hole in the wall that had the least skinwalkers present in the area.

“Aww! My little hero’s all grown up and bossing people around. How lovely.” She smiled.

. . .

Just as the quartet of humans rushed out of the decrepit building, gargantuan limbs emerged from the storm clouds overhead, smashing into the remnants of the school, pulverising the gymnasium in a detonation of ancient rubble, sending shrapnel fragments all around. Several brick and steel pieces flew right into the group. They froze in mid air before they sliced through any of them, caught by several of Ember’s avatars. She paled as she saw the multi-elbowed arms through the eyes of her ghosts.

“What the fuck are those arm things?!” Ember cried, for the first time in her life truly afraid of death. “I can’t stop something that big with my avatars!”

“That’s the hands of the builders.” Martin said.

“They sure ain't doing no building right now. More... eehh… demolishers than anything.” Alexa added.

Cottie, switching something on her gun so that it wouldn't disrupt Ember’s avatars, turned to the side and fired Eva into the darkness. The railgun lit up the street ruins with a flash, cutting through a three-meter sized skinwalker that was in the process of advancing towards them. The beast toppled over, punched back by the supersonic bullet. It started to howl as it fell, despite not having a mouth, instead somehow rubbing together its joints to produce the horrid sound. Others joined in, announcing themselves.

“Shut up! Will you all shut up!” Martin yelled, realising that even if he now knew what the skinwalkers were, he couldn’t do anything about them, couldn’t stop the tide of monsters heading towards them. “We are not prey!”

Cottie fired again, flinging another skinwalker backwards.

“They’re coming! There’s too many of them and they won’t listen!” Martin turned to Alexa. “What do I do?!”

“Hrm? Oh, I dunno.” Alexa shrugged.

“Come on! You always have an answer! You planned this all!”

“Did I, really?” Alexa bit her lip, seemingly pouting. “Give me like five minutes to think it over, k?”

“We don’t have five minutes! They’re coming!” Martin yelped, his voice drowned by Cottie’s repeating gunfire.

“Hrm. Promise to bring them a million cows wrapped up with nice red gift bows if they don’t slaughter us now?” Alexa suggested, not sounding too sure of her idea. “Maybe green bows? Ask them what their favourite color is!”