New York City

1 week later

The outside of the United Nations Secretariat Building in Manhattan was swarming with members of the press from across the globe. The NYPD and Secret Service had worked to cordon off the area immediately around it to allow visiting dignitaries and hosts to arrive in peace.

Anya arrived in a hovering car along with Samaira, Pan, and Chell. President Hanover and Director MacDougal were in a similar sleek hovercraft ahead of them. The vehicles were courtesy of some engineers at Lockheed who had been reverse engineering pretty much everything Gary had given the government since day one. They were sleeker versions of the old black SUVs, more heavily armored, lighter, and almost entirely silent. They also had a number of defensive features which were totally redundant with four hosts in the car, but might be of use to normal people.

“I don’t think I should be here,” Chell said. “I mean, I still can’t…y’know…do much.”

“You’re one of us,” Samaira said. “You fought with us, risked your life. You should absolutely be here.”

“How’s the recovery going?” Anya asked. Chell shrugged as the hovering SUV passed through a blockade manned by a pair of Secret Service agents.

“I got a bunch of points from the fight in Antarctica, but it’s like I totally got reset. My level at the start of the fight got up to 90, and now I got bumped back down to 45. The skills and stuff work fine but I still feel like something’s off. I dunno how to explain it. I’m using the same skills as before but they feel…sluggish.”

“Maybe get some new skills!” Pan said. “Renn’s a good enough psychic for two people!”

“Yeah that’s what I’m afraid of,” Chell said and sighed. “Dr. Immonen says I’m fine physically and my brainwaves are normal and everything, I’m just…weak. Like somebody whose muscles have atrophied.”

“We’ll figure it out, and until we do, we’ll make sure nothing bad happens,” Anya said and patted her on the shoulder. Chell gave her a smile and a nod. Their SUV came to a stop in a parking garage a few minutes later and Anya and the others disembarked just as President Hanover and Director MacDougal got out of their ride. Hanover immediately began checking his reflection in the window nearby while MacDougal strode over to Anya.

“You know the plan: you and the other hosts are here today as guests, not participants. We’re dealing with policy today, not aliens. Honestly I’d rather you hadn’t come but it was the only way we could get these other hosts to agree to a meeting. Nervous bastards,” MacDougal said.

“Can’t blame them. They’re going to be underpowered compared to most of us, and they don’t have a whole government behind them,” Samaira replied.

“We’ll behave ourselves,” Anya added.

“I wouldn’t know what to say anyways!” Pan said. Chell giggled and patted his head while MacDougal favored Pan with a subtle glare.

“Is it safe to have all these world leaders in one place like this?” Chell asked. “I mean, I hope nothing goes wrong but we don’t know anything about these new hosts.”

“They’re probably safer with us than if they were somewhere else,” Anya said. “Besides, the whole place has been super beefed up with new security gadgets and such. And Gary told me a couple days ago that he’s got some orbital satellites in place keeping an eye on things.”

“Speaking of Hendricks, is he still holing himself up in his lab?” MacDougal asked as they all walked toward the nearest elevator.

“Gary’s busy. I would’ve gone to visit him but I’ve spent the last week in meetings,” Anya said, pointedly. MacDougal glanced at her but said nothing. “Is there going to be any policy to make today? This all seems like another dog-and-pony show.”

“You’re finally learning,” MacDougal said as they rode the elevator up. “We’ve discussed some potential scenarios with the President and key members of Congress and the Joint Chiefs. Since you and the other hosts aren’t working for the American people in a leadership capacity you don’t really need to know what they are. However, today is mostly a kind of meet-and-greet. We’re sure these rogue hosts will make some sort of request, possibly even a demand. We’ll listen and agree to consider whatever they want within reason, hopefully to everyone’s benefit.”

“Hmm,” Anya said. MacDougal was a lot of things but she wasn’t a fool, nor was she very charitable. Still, she wasn’t going to be the only one with authority in the room during the meeting.

The elevator dinged to a halt and they all emerged into the lobby of the UN Secretariat Building. The white-marbled hall was full of security and small news teams from America, the UK, China, India, Saudi Arabia, and pretty much everywhere else. The lobby was a jumble of footsteps, languages, and radio chatter. Anya caught a glimpse of a few hosts being interviewed——notably Mona, Galtero, Kemuel, and Bernard——before she and her other fellow Americans were escorted into the main hall of the UN.

Despite all the amazing things Anya had seen in the last three-to-four months, the main assembly hall of the United Nations still managed to be impressive in its own way. True, it was essentially just a big room with a lot of desks, but that was also like saying the Statue of Liberty was just a big piece of copper. The curved desks all faced toward the central podium at the far end, behind which the enormous seal of the UN hung, and the whole room stretched up and inward to the dark, domed ceiling far above.

More than the room itself were the people: heads of state from across the planet, dozens of languages mingling, and the hosts. Brody and Jiro stood near each other, towering over everyone else nearby. The other hosts she saw were all ones she recognized, at least a little, from the news. They were all associated with their own governments in one way or another. She noticed General Huang standing amid a small group of people in snazzy, unique uniforms, all of them also wearing some form of advanced technology. Li Qiu had mentioned that there were other Chinese hosts, and Anya figured that must be them, fully integrated into the People’s Army. The other hosts were all easy enough to spot, as they were set apart by their body type, their clothes, or a literal or figurative aura around them. Amahle was speaking to the President of South Africa, the faint yellow glow of her ki suffusing her body; Kan lurked in a corner, Renn, Francis, and Zoya nearby. Renn was wearing his usual white coat and armor and helmet with the gold faceplate. The reflective golden plate turned toward Anya and Renn nodded at her. She hesitated a moment, but returned it.

“Mr. President, perhaps it would be better if you sat here so the cameras will have a better shot of you,” MacDougal suggested behind Anya.

“Of course. That’s why I like you Suzanne,” Hanover said and found himself sitting away from the primary microphone at the table for the United States. MacDougal took the seat in front of the microphone instead, while Hanover checked the sight lines for all the visible cameras. Anya and the other American hosts took seats to MacDougal’s right. Pan started to spin in his seat until Samaira gently shushed him and he sighed with boredom.

The vast room began to quiet as a small, elderly Egyptian woman took to the stage and the central podium. Anya recognized her from the news as head of the UN, Secretary General Al-Balawi.

“Good morning ladies, gentlemen, and citizens of the world. I would like to begin today’s proceedings with all expedience. As many of you know, myself and other world leaders have been in contact with the hosts who chose not to directly join with any world government, though many of them fought and died in the protection of our planet, and defended several major cities during the last push of the invasion,” Al-Balawi said.

“The recent attack on our planet has showed us that we have more in common than we thought, and that we can all do great things if we focus on the greater good. In the interest of peace, we’ve agreed to host a small representative group of the independent hosts today, in an effort to welcome them into the global community the rest of us have forged.”

“Check your map,” MacDougal muttered to Anya. Anya brought her menu map up discreetly below the table. The area around her showed a clump of multi-colored dots all gathered together within the UN building.

“Felix, are you picking up anybody else who might be new?” Anya whispered.

“Yes! Five new signals appeared just a minute ago and have entered the building. They’re about fifty yards behind the Secretary General,” Felix replied. That would put them in some kind of waiting room or antechamber behind the speaking platform. The Secretary General continued to talk about unity and coming together in the face of technological advancement and the universe opening up or something, but Anya was mostly focused on the five white dots.

Only five? She thought. She had expected most of them to be here. She showed MacDougal, who only grunted.

“Will the speaker for the Independent Hosts please come forward now?” Al-Balawi asked as a door opened behind her and four humans and a bipedal polar bear emerged from the backroom.

“Hey, another animal host! Look Brody!” Pan said excitedly as he jumped up on the table and pointed with his long claws. Murmuring and a few exclamations of surprise sounded as the humanoid polar bear lumbered into view, towering over the other hosts at roughly nine feet tall. The bear wore dark blue and black clothing, something like an open robe and loose pants, with metallic guards on their forearms and legs, and a crude necklace made of leather and what looked like either bone or driftwood. The bear also had markings on their face, some kind of primal designs in black and indigo.

The four humans, while not as obviously imposing as the bear, carried themselves with enough confidence that they managed to be just as formidable in appearance as their ursine companion.

The first to emerge after the bear was a handsome Indian man with neatly trimmed black hair and a beard. He looked to be in his thirties or early forties, and wore pieces of sleek metal with glowing green inlays on his wrists, across his chest, around his waist, and on top of his feet.

The second was a thin figure of ambiguous gender that appeared to be a living statue of pure white marble. They were dressed in loose, flowing robes that also appeared to be made of white marble but moved like silk, and covered in complex geometric designs. The only thing that didn’t appear to be made of stone were their eyes, which glowed a soft, pale purple.

The third human was a man of some Scandinavian descent. He was older, perhaps early fifties at the youngest, with his reddish-blond hair turning pale gray, especially in his very bushy beard. Every inch of his pale skin that Anya could see was covered in complex, interwoven tattoos. He wore thick, rough looking pants and a sleeveless coat made out of some kind of huge animal skin. His exposed arms were massive and webbed with thick, visible veins.

The last to emerge made Anya’s hearts skip a pair of beats for a moment.

She was in her thirties, taller than the others save for the polar bear. She wore black armor that gleamed with blue undertones. Her hair was shaved on the sides, but stood up in a tall, proud crest of pure white down the center of her skull. Her skin was a dark tan, and her features were lean and sharp, her brow ridge, nose, and thin lips caught in profile reminded Anya of a serrated saw.

Anya didn’t know how she had missed it before: probably the number of bodies and the distraction of the meeting itself. From within the woman’s chest were two hearts: a normal human one that pumped blood, and a Sun’s Heart beside it.

She had Flame Dominion, like her, and based on what she was seeing and sensing from her Sun’s Heart, it was at least as strong as Anya’s own.

“Thank you for hosting us,” the woman in the black armor said. Her eyes glowed a faint, crisp blue, like the teal flame from a pilot light about to ignite something. She looked at Anya, locked eyes with her for a long second, and gave her a nod. “Pun intended.”

There were a few scattered laughs at the “host” pun, and the woman cleared her throat as her colleagues stood behind her.

“I am Corva, and I speak for what some have called the ‘rogue hosts,’ up until recently. We prefer the term ‘independent,’ and have come to you in the spirit of cooperation, understanding, and mutual benefit. To start, I think it is important to disclose some basic information, and be honest. I know many are under the impression that we are all relatively low-level as we did not take part in the primary defense of Earth.

“This is false,” Corva said and leaned forward. She, and the four hosts behind her, opened their menus to the “Host Status,” page, which revealed basic information on their current health, but nothing of their stats or skills. Their names and levels were also at the top.

Anya’s eyes widened as she read the basic information presented by Corva, the Indian man, the polar bear, the Slavic man, and the statuesque figure, in order.

CORVA LEVEL 100

VAASTUKAAR LEVEL 100

URSULA LEVEL 100

ASMUND LEVEL 100

TIRESIAS LEVEL 100

“Oh shit,” Anya muttered. While many of the people Anya knew or knew of——Gary, Renn, Mona, Samaira, Yai, Jiro, Brody, to name a few——had reached level 100, her understanding from post-invasion briefings was that it was still somewhat rare for the majority of Earth’s hosts.

“Many of our fellow independents are of similar level or close enough,” Corva said. “This is because many of us left Earth during the invasion. We encountered patrols in space: small comets and meteorites that were fragments of Willis, patrolling the solar system and looking for escapees. We fought them in space, and some of us were forced to land on Mars when our ships were damaged.

“We banded together to survive, made crude structures to withstand the hostile Martian atmosphere, and were continually targeted by these system-wide patrols. Others fled Earth, many of whom found us, and some of whom did not make it.

“When Asteroid Willis altered course for Earth, myself and nearly fifty other independent hosts intentionally drew the ire and fury of two million hostile aliens. We managed to stall Willis’s movement for no more than twelve hours before it continued to alter its course for Earth, and we were forced to abandon it and focus on our defense against the alien horde that descended on our fragile makeshift colony.”

The muttering in the chamber had ceased as Corva spoke. Anya felt her mouth dropping open slightly. An additional 2 million aliens? How had they missed it? How had they missed Martian hosts?

Kinda easy to get distracted by the huge world-ending asteroid rushing right at you, Anya thought. Besides, the menus only had an effective scanning range for other menus on a planetary scale. And all of Gary’s equipment had been aimed squarely at Willis, not Mars or anything else in the solar system that seemed normal. Mars had always been there, why would he have bothered when the apocalyptic asteroid had been barreling down on them?

“We are glad to have helped our fellow citizens of Earth in the defense of our home. We are only sorry we could not have helped more, sooner. However, our time away has given us time to think, and plan, and build in the weeks since the invasion ended. While we will always be from Earth, and hope to be good neighbors in the future, we have decided it is time for us to expand,” Corva said. The mutterings in the audience started to grow again. Confused, tense glances were exchanged.

Corva cleared her throat and placed her black-gauntleted hands on the side of the podium as she leaned closer to the microphone.

“We are officially declaring our independence from Earth and claiming the planet Mars as our own.”