It had been only a day since they left Venus behind, yet it felt like another lifetime. The air on this new world was thin but breathable, faintly tinged with metal and dust. As the ship descended through the red haze of the upper atmosphere, streaks of blue water glinted in the distance. Vast canyon-like trenches split the land, with veins of ancient rivers running between valleys of red stone and blackened glass. From the sky, the planet looked like a cracked gemstone — beautiful, fragile, hiding its secrets.
Noir pressed his face to the window, eyes narrowed at the thin clouds floating above crimson landscapes. He wasn't sure what he had expected, but this wasn't it. "Looks a little too... Earth-like," he muttered.
"Not quite," Cloud replied from the cockpit, fingers dancing across the controls. "Less ocean. Gravity is slightly lighter. The atmosphere's artificially maintained in major settlements. Still, breathable outside the domes, at least for a few hours."
Kyi sat silently in the back, her eyes closed. Her breathing was steady, but every now and then her fingers twitched, a nervous reflex she hadn't fully controlled since waking. The tension in her body wasn't lost on either of them. Whatever this place was, she didn't trust it. Neither did they.
They touched down in a vast landing zone surrounded by metallic scaffolding and dome-shaped towers stretching into the sky. Other ships came and went, each one scanned by flickering blue gates. As they stepped onto the landing deck, a dry wind brushed past them, carrying the smell of metal, rust, and something faintly chemical.
This was not a place built for comfort. It was built for commerce.
The first layers of the city were noisy, chaotic. Streets buzzed with multilingual traders shouting over one another. Food vendors offered fried protein slabs from mobile carts. Neon signs in four different alphabets flashed half-legible deals. Drones zipped overhead, adjusting power lines and scanning faces.
Yet, beneath the surface energy, there was something mechanical about it all. Every noise felt rehearsed. Every face was smiling too precisely. The longer they walked, the more they noticed the eyes watching them — cameras, yes, but also people. Traders glanced too long. Drones hovered just slightly out of sync with traffic. Someone had noticed their arrival. Someone already cared.
Cloud led the group through the lower market sectors, down winding metallic alleys and blinking light corridors. Occasionally, they passed public message boards, their holograms filled with images and announcements.
One of them caught Noir's eye. A red banner hovered above the display: "WANTED: UNAUTHORIZED SURFACE EXPLORATION."
Below it, a faceless silhouette. No names, no details. Just a bounty.
He frowned. "This place really doesn't like explorers."
"Explorers find things," Kyi said, her voice low. "Things that weren't meant to be found."
They said nothing more.
Eventually, they arrived at a temporary housing block tucked away behind a fabrication zone. The inside was barebones: steel walls, polymer floor, a single tinted window looking out over the lower industrial sectors. Kyi wandered into the corner, brushing dust from a bench and sitting cross-legged in silence.
Noir leaned against the window, watching the smog rise between the towers. "How long are we staying here?"
"Until we know what this place is really hiding," Cloud answered. He placed a flat data disk on the table, its screen flickering with static maps and encrypted logs. "This city is the center of interplanetary trade. But half its economy is hidden in black markets and experimental tech zones. We stay cautious. We stay quiet."
But that was the problem. Noir could feel it again. That itch beneath the surface. The quiet wasn't safe. It was suffocating.
Later that evening, Cloud left to make contact with someone in the central district. Noir stayed behind, unsure if it was to protect Kyi, or because he wasn't sure what he'd do out there.
He looked at her. She hadn't moved in over an hour.
"Hey," he said softly.
Her eyes opened slowly. "What?"
He hesitated. "You alright?"
She didn't answer immediately. When she finally did, her voice was tired. "I don't know what 'alright' is."
He sat across from her. "You're not a weapon, Kyi."
Her gaze darkened. "Aren't I?"
The silence between them said more than words.
Meanwhile, above the planet, far beyond the reach of cameras or human eyes, a shadowed figure stood within a circular observatory. He watched as a small drone entered Mars' atmosphere, its signal tethered directly to the screen in front of him.
"They've landed in Sector 4B," a voice said behind him.
"Confirmed identities?"
"The blue dragon-hybrid is Cloud Solslade. The human anomaly with white hair is unknown. The female... markings suggest she is the adaptive weapon. Kyi."
The man clasped his hands behind his back, staring at the footage.
"So they survived Venus," he muttered. "And now they walk blindly into the second gate."
"Shall we intercept?"
"No. Let them taste what lies underneath. This world runs on buried history. Let it consume them."
He turned to the console and typed a single line:
> Initiate passive tracking. Observe all non-native anomalies.
Back on the surface, Noir sat at the window, staring into the distant lights. The city glowed like it was alive, pulsing softly under an endless sky. Somewhere far off, machinery hummed like breathing.
He didn't know what they would face here. He didn't know what would come.
But whatever it was, he could feel it moving beneath the streets.
Waiting.
Watching.
Mars had never stopped being red.
It just learned to cover it with gold.