Under the silvery darkness of night, the Martian army was a brilliant display. A technicolor light show which marched on over the white landscape beneath me, straight with the bellowing chants of war; their pulsing cries meeting with the lockstep of their many limbs and shaking the Earth. Even the clouds flashed with these chants, and the humans would know from a long way off that we were coming. Sol would have it no other way, as we moved bold and proud for conflict. Because that meaning was more important than any pretense at surprise, he made us a garish sight.

I was housed with Hickory in the passenger compartment of one of the walking Scarabs, swaying dully with its motions. From where I sat at the top of its shell, looking through a permeable shield, I could see the whole mass of our army. Over a million soldiers, spread carefully out across a mile so as to remain ready for large scale attack. They moved relatively quickly. Faster than a human army might have. But it was a fraction of their top speeds, each.

And so, when the first glimpses of men flying high in the air became visible on the horizon, they would not stay in formation. They were far more ready for chaos than that.

The battlefield for this grand fight was a city, I saw. The perfect place for terrible and twisting warfare. It was not a city which I knew the name of, moreover, but one which stretched high with skyscrapers scarred by another, older battle. Just one more forgotten ruin which stood as a monument to the old-world order of steel and soulless concrete. With any luck, our fighting would turn it to ash and dust.

Watching as the army began to scatter, I stood up from my chair and grabbed on to one of the handles above me. The Martians moved in patterns that were concerted. Brilliant, even. But to the humans, it would just look like they were scattering into the city and into the forest outside it. Breaking ranks.

The first Seraph attack came in the form of a strafing run. Several jets flew quick and low over the ground in the distance. But our own ships intersected to break up their formation, keeping them from lining up to drop their bombs.

Explosions started to rock the sky, and I stumbled back to my seat.

The last thing I saw was the beginnings of the dogfight which ensued. Strange and black alien ships collided with grey military jets above the icy pines.

Hickory grabbed my arm where I fell beside him and started dragging me away from the window, deeper into the vehicle’s interior.

“What is it?” I asked. “Where are we going?”

“To pick a vehicle, boy. You don’t think I’m just gonna let you sit out the greatest fight of your life in the pilot compartment, do ya?” He was practically glowing with excitement.

“I kind of assumed that’s what I’d do, yeah,” I admitted. Personally, I was more interested in knowing how it all ended than taking part in the mire, despite all the glory of it. Meanwhile, my friend here was the exact opposite.

Hickory laughed maliciously, throwing me down a ramp towards the cargo bay. “You were born to live, Walter. You weren’t born to just hear about living. So, pick a damn weapon already.”

I could see my selection laid out in the big vaulting room which was situated along the Scarab’s belly. There, a smattering of land and air vehicles sat ready to be deployed straight out the opening at the room’s back end. “These aren’t made to accommodate our physiology,” I groaned. “We can’t even fit in them.”

“Not my problem. I’ve got my Powers back.”

“What’s going on?” Daniel asked. He came out of a different walkway inside the Scarab with the others at his back.

Hickory informed them while I looked at the vehicles before me. “We’re hittin’ the fighting grounds. You four can join us if you like. And by if you like, I mean you’re gonna come too and don’t bother arguing about it. Unlike this special boy here, oh chosen by God, y’all don’t get to bitch.”

“Yeah, alright,” Daniel shrugged. “I wanted to fight anyway.”

I turned around to face Hickory, walking carelessly backwards as he started stalking towards me. “You’re right. Life is about living. And so, I’ll go, but not at least without a fighting chance for survival, okay? Otherwise, it’s just a waste of life.”

Hickory grimaced, looking around at the vehicles and thinking for a minute. “Creep’s a smart one,” he muttered, and he reached up for one of cockpits. It was an eight-legged suit with a very small chamber in the center body for a Martian to squeeze into. As Hickory forced the thing to lower, he peeled open its driver’s compartment and grabbed my throat.

“Hey, you-!” I shouted. He was treating me like a piece of meat, but in the end, I couldn’t put up any resistance. So, I shut up.

He moved me so that the eight-legged device was pressed up against my back and suddenly I felt an icy stabbing. Tendrils slithered underneath my skin, deep into my flesh and spine, and all at once, I was fused to the vehicle. An electric shock marked the awakening of my nervous system to its inputs, then I could feel it as a part of me, and we were one.

“There,” Hickory gloated. “I knew it’d work.”

“It’s compatible," I said, pushing him off me to catch my breath. Gaining new limbs was an unsettling sensation, to put it mildly.

Without any thought, I was able to raise myself up off the ground with its eight spider-like legs. It was as natural as anything I’d ever felt, and it brought me to hover four feet off the ground over Hickory with a smile on my face. This thing had a number of tricks up its sleeves, I understood intuitively. It would come in handy for sure.

“Where would you be without me?” Hickory sighed, lamenting, “Such a fuckin’ nerd.”

“Alright, alright,” I waved him off. “I’ve learned my lesson plenty of times. I share your worldview, bucko. It just doesn’t come as naturally for me. I need reminders.”

“Well, now that I’ve reminded you, you ain’t got an ounce of excuses left. So, stay close and follow me!” he shouted, and then he was off down the ramp.

“Ariba!” Daniel manically raced down the track, following after. The rest were more reserved in their responses, but they went all the same.

I saw them all jump out the back of the cargo bay and go falling into a darkness punctuated by explosions. Only for a moment did I wonder how funny it would be if I stayed behind. It would have really pissed Hickory off. But ultimately, I wasn’t a coward, just feeling a little mischievous.

As always, Hickory woke me up from my over-intellectual posture. It was too easy for me to sit out a fight. I needed to get my hands dirty. Before, I had copped out by letting he and Creep take the wheel with Alejandro. I couldn’t stomach the killing and that had made me unfit in my Power’s eyes. A coward.

Only, it was still my Power after all, and I had to own the adaptation it had chosen as fitting and true for me, no matter the cost. That was the only way forward, unless I wanted to cease existing entirely. Which, honestly, wasn’t a choice that I was capable of making as an embodiment of life. It was the same reason I always thought anti-natalists were a joke. You can’t make anything out of that which chooses to extinguish. Least of all a way of life.

Which meant it was time to get a move on.

I dove as the last of us from the Scarab’s belly to land in a plume of snow below. My many legs softened the impact.

Immediately, I was stricken by the cold and the confusion. It was dark, even with my night vision, and there was a heavy smell of smoke on the air. There was a road just off to my left, and the trees had begun to thin out into a suburb. Many were on fire, already.

Finally, the denser urban sprawl was up ahead, lit by constant rumbling flashes. The fight, it seemed, had already begun in full force. Now, it was waiting on us.

“Over here, Walter!” I heard Hickory call.

“We need to move,” Foci was saying as I approached. “This whole area is going to be turned into red hot magma in just a few minutes.”

“Sounds exciting,” I called, skittering up on my long legs with my original limbs hanging freely.

“I am not much use in combat,” Paradise reminded us, “but I will do what I can from above to encourage our troops.”

I nodded before Hickory could chastise her. “You and Foci would be better using your flying to stay out of major combat, yes.” I beat my chest and showed them as a series of lights dazzled over my skin. “Use this to communicate with the troops below. Foci, you warn them when a big strike is coming. That would be incredibly helpful to frustrate Seraph.”

“I can do that,” he said, taking off without a moment’s delay. Hopefully he wouldn’t attract attention to himself that way and become a target. He just had to use his Power liberally, but I’d never seen what his limit was before. Tonight, we would surely find out.

Paradise took off as well. “That’s for the best,” I told Hickory. “Meanwhile, we need to get moving.”

“We’re destined for the front line,” he agreed. Then, looking to Daniel, he took on an evil eye. “What about you, Mexican kid? I forget your name. But… Are you up for dying today?”

“I could take you, gringo. But there’s more interesting people to fight out here.” Daniel smirked.

Well alright then, I thought. I’ll take that alliance, no matter how precarious.

We couldn’t chat any longer. There were Martians all around us in the forest, zooming by over the ground at breakneck speed. Yet, they’d picked up on Foci’s warnings above, and their numbers had started to thin out. Very soon, we would be the only schmucks standing in this part of the forest. And that was a very bad sign.

In order to put some distance behind ourselves, we didn’t bother trying to navigate the forest. We stuck straight to the nearby road, the three of us sprinting as fast as we could to get up towards the developed land. Back behind us, the strike came like clockwork.

It was a big and obvious target in hindsight.

The Scarab began to glow, and cracks spread over its surface. Then all at once after that, it underwent a complete phase-shift, turning straight from solid to liquid and spilling in a red mess over the Earth. Trees combusted and a great plume of vapor rose, obscuring the whole sight. It was all the same, as we couldn’t slow down to gawk.

On the outskirts of town, the first signs of shops and houses rose up. Many were long reclaimed by nature, with old trees growing up and through them. Corpses were laid here and there around the buildings, stacked in neat piles from where they had been rounded up for later burning. It was the earliest signs of this land being reclaimed by civilized society.

Sorry to rain on the parade.

Strangely, there were no Martians around us here. Either, they’d simply not come this way, or they were avoiding us. Or, I wondered, perhaps it was worse.

Three men in colorful uniforms were standing up ahead in front of a burning building, staring into the flames for some reason.

“We’re the only friendly humanoids in this fight,” I told Hickory beside me. “You know what that makes them.”

“Enemies,” Daniel responded in his place.

The Southerner just shrugged. He looked down at his hands, smiling pleasantly and thinking about how much he looked forward to this, I knew. He was ready to fight, but not without one last word of warning. “If they’re alive and this close to our main forces, they’ve got to be tough. Gotta have respect for that, so be careful.”

“I’ll try my best,” I said, lowering myself down and curling up my legs behind my back. Ready for a surprise attack.

Daniel called out as we were approaching. “Hey!”

We needed to know quickly what their Powers were, and we weren’t disappointed, as they were more than happy to show us. They were more than ready for a fight.

Suddenly, I exploded.