This is absolutely insane. Even for you! Are you out of your mind?! No. You've been out of your mind since you were born, and you don't even know when that was! What if you didn't land on the moon, Adam?! You would've been fucking lost in space forever!
Adam could feel it. The sudden and harsh shift in temperature as they pierced through Mars' atmosphere. Just moments ago, he'd felt a chill biting onto him—he was already wearing the suit provided by Sisa to withstand the cold, but even then, he felt it trying to devour him.
But now, a sudden extreme heat threatened to scrape his skin off. But of course, it remained only that, just a threat.
His fingers felt the brunt of the heat… as they were actually lodged into the silver hull of the bellether ship. Aside from the heat, he could feel the ship's shield regenerating on him, the violent air blasting across his face, compressing and seemingly turning solid.
Or perhaps it truly was turning solid. As Sisa stated numerous times before, the technology of the bellethers would be completely foreign to them. If they were capable of doing things like this, then he now understood why they would eliminate their own Heroes—aside from the chaos they would put in the picture, they simply had no use for them.
But of course, no matter how alien their technology was, as long as Adam could grab it… then it meant he could destroy it.
Adam's left hand slipped out from the hull, and its surface started to crawl and reach out to close the holes he'd made. He stared at this in bewilderment for a moment, then turned around as the blue haze of the ship's shield started to completely blanket him.
He breathed out, and the heat coming from his breath fumed out from his oxygen mask. And before the fumes could fully escape him, he gritted his teeth and slammed his fist into the regenerating shield.
His strike thundered as it made contact with the shield, completely shattering it and causing a deafening crack to explode throughout Mars' skies. Its clouds cracked from the impact, literally. Miniature fractals formed like a web, almost like lightning, as they connected with each other before completely shattering the planet's almost solid clouds into pieces, causing rain to fall down its dry air.
Adam also felt himself digging deeper into the ship's hull, its descent becoming more violent from the impact.
With how large the ship was, he actually had no idea what was happening around him at all—the only thing he could really see was a part of the ship, and the sky.
But soon enough, with the help of gravity and his surprise attack, Adam caught a glimpse of the planet's mountains. No. Not just a glimpse.
The mountains were colossal, and even with everything Adam had seen through the Leaks, he'd never truly seen anything so massive. Unfortunately, he didn't have any time to enjoy the sight at all as he was still spiraling down along with the ship.
He was fully expecting the ship to crash down on the surface of Mars—but no. Once they neared the ground, the ship started to stabilize before softly landing on the rocky but oddly flat terrain.
Well, Adam didn't really know whether it truly landed, but it didn't really matter to him as he quickly pulled out his hand from the hull and started running.
"Wha—"
He almost shot through the air, creating skirts of wind much more easily as he flew meters above the ship. Although there was an obvious change in the force of gravity, Adam still felt too light, not to the point where he would lose balance.
In fact, a hint of a smile started to creep onto his face when he realized it felt like he'd grown stronger. He knew he didn't and that Mars' gravity was just lighter than Earth's, but it had been a while since he felt an actual change in his strength.
He gritted his teeth and put more force into the point that the ship beneath his feet shook.
Thousands of kilometers above, Earth's ship finally caught up.
"Agh!" Carmen, who'd been stretching and preparing herself for action, practically hugged the wall with her forehead as she watched the ship fall to Mars. "He's hugging all the glory again, this motherfucking midget! Ah, puta! You, creepy animal lady! Why aren't you opening the fucking door yet?!"
Sisa was completely ignoring Carmen's incessant complaints, her eyes that didn't close also stared at Mars as its skies still rippled. When Sylvie rushed to her, saying she couldn't find Adam, she already had an idea that Adam was preparing to launch an attack on the enemy.
But she initially thought he would wait for the ship to be within striking distance, or perhaps go ahead with the rest once the hangar was opened.
But, no. Adam used the ship as a launch pad to shoot himself thousands of kilometers toward Phobos, and then used Phobos to launch a sneak attack on the enemy's ship… using his own body.
The lack of air resistance and gravity made it easily possible for someone like him, but still.
He… wasn't this strong the first time they met. She would know; they fought back then.
If she and Adam were to fight right now, she would probably just explode into pieces. Just… how is he doing that?
"Open the fucking door or I'll fucking break it!"
"There is a change of plans!" Sisa raised her voice. "As Adam had taken it upon himself to strike first. Our chances of winning had grown significantly! We will be attacking and fighting the bellethers on Mars! Prepare yourselves!"
While Earth's ship changed its trajectory, Adam had now officially become the first human to step onto Martian soil, giving an extremely light thud as his heels slightly bounced from the ground.
His long, luscious hair, waving stiffly as he stared at the almost endless silver wall in front of him—that was the only way he could describe the bellether ship. Like Sisa's design, it had no windows at all… perhaps that was a staple for space ships. It definitely wasn't like that with the sci-fi movies he'd watched with Leona when she had the crazy theory where he might not be from Earth at all.
That was immediately scrapped since, weird as his DNA might be, it was still closest to humans'.
Focus.
Adam shook his head, focusing on the silver wall in front of him. And soon, a quiet hiss whispered in the air. Adam could see lines forming across the ship's surface, which soon opened up—like circular teeth blossoming open, its bottom part morphing into stairs.
And there, several figures started showing themselves. Adam could only see their silhouettes and shadows at first, but they soon stepped down at the same time.
He had to squint since the inside of the ship was incredibly bright, but as soon as his eyes adjusted, he saw them.
The bellethers. They were easily identifiable, but not quite at the same time, since all of them were wearing the same thing—presumably similar to what he was wearing, a suit to keep him alive. The difference was that they were wearing a full, glass-like helmet.
Their faces weren't human at all, but instead completely cubic, with their eyes slightly bulging on the side like alligators. They also didn't have a mouth Adam could identify—but most importantly, their skin color was different from each other.
One had blue, the other pink, the other yellow—one even glittered.
Adam's eyes trailed, but soon, his breath paused. He blinked several times, but no matter how many times he did so, it didn't change what he was seeing.
Three of the individuals in the suits were humans.
"What…" He was about to step forward when one of the bellethers pointed their gun toward one of the humans.
Hostages.
"You…" Adam muttered. If there was one thing the bellethers had in common with the humans, it was the inability to hide their smugness. Even without lips to curl, their eyes squinted enough, and their shoulders bobbed to let Adam know they were snickering.
"I see," he continued to whisper. He closed his eyes, his loud sigh turning into muffled echoes through the empty fields of the planet. But his sigh… wasn't of resignation, no. Not at all.
If anything, the smile that crept onto his face as he opened his eyes made it seem like he was… relieved.
The hostages seemed as confused as the bellethers, one of them whimpering as she looked at her unfortunate co-hostages. But as soon as she turned her head, what she saw wasn't her companions at all, no.
It was Adam.
"Huh…?"
Adam was already there, his arm stretched and pierced through the neck of the bellether next to her.
"That's good," Adam whispered as he pulled his hand out from the alien's neck, cleanly slicing it apart.
"I'm glad the ship didn't crash with you guys in it."