Xilo felt it before they understood it.
They were standing at the edge of one of Arakko's living basins, a vast, slow-breathing biome grown directly into the Martian crust.
Coral-like growths pulsed with soft internal light, roots drank minerals from the red soil, and symbiotic organisms drifted through the thin atmosphere in lazy spirals.
Xilo was the system.
Every leaf, every microbe, every adapted organism on Arakko spoke to them, not in words, but in balance. In pressure. In rhythm.
And the rhythm… skipped.
Just once.
Xilo stilled..
The wind continued. Warriors trained in the distance. Laughter echoed from a nearby terrace where younger mutants sparred and argued about honor.
Everything looked normal.
But deep beneath the surface at the level where cells whispered to cells, something foreign had entered the song.
…not Martian…
Xilo closed their eyes, consciousness sinking inward, spreading across their living components like roots through stone..
That's when they felt it clearly.
Replication.
Fast. Quiet. Purposeful..
Microscopic structures too small for conventional sensors, too adaptive to be accidental and they were embedding themselves into native Arakko biota.
They weren't attacking outright. They were listening. Mapping. Learning chemical pathways, power-expression markers and metabolic weaknesses.
Xilo recoiled internally.
This is not a disease.
Diseases were chaotic. Hunger-driven. Blind.
This was intent.
One of Xilo's outer growths withered suddenly, just a thin vine, snapping and dissolving into inert ash.
Xilo's eyes snapped open.
They knelt, placing a hand against the ground.
The planet answered but hesitantly.
Arakko had been forged through war, through apocalypse, through Amenth and endless bloodshed. Its ecosystem was resilient, brutal, proud.
And yet
Something was slipping past its defenses.
How…!?
Xilo quickly isolated the signal, tracing it back through air currents, through pressure shifts, through gravity distortions so subtle they barely registered.
That's when they felt it.
Not a presence.
A shadow.
Something vast, folded in on itself, wrapped in gravity and silence. Not standing on the planet, hanging just outside it, like a predator watching prey test the air.
Xilo's breath caught.
This thing is already here.
Their internal systems began rejecting the sporesbut the rejection lagged. The spores adapted mid-process, altering structure faster than Arakko's bio-defenses could respond.
Xilo stood abruptly.
Nearby, a pair of Arakko warriors turned toward them.
Warrior: "Xilo? What troubles the garden?"
Xilo's voice came out slower than usual, layered with the echo of many organisms speaking at once.
Xilo: "The air is compromised."
The warriors frowned.
Warrior: "By what enemy? We sense nothing."
Xilo shook their head..
Xilo: "That is the danger."
Their gaze lifted toward the sky, toward the red expanse where nothing should be hiding.
Xilo: "Something is feeding without teeth."
A sudden pulse rippled through the basin.
Several plants shuddered.
One collapsed entirely.
That got attention.
A sharp wind cut across the terrace.
Far above, clouds twisted unnaturally.
Storm felt it.
So did Isca, who froze mid-step, her expression tightening as probability itself began to blur around her.
Xilo clenched their fists.
Xilo (urgent): "Sound the call. Now."
Warrior: "For what threat?".
Xilo swallowed, something they almost never did.
Xilo: "For the kind that ends worlds quietly."
High above Arakko, unseen, Derrick watched the reaction unfold, data streaming into him in real time.
Detection achieved.
Subject: Xilo — planetary biosymbiote.
Response speed: acceptable.
His spores adjusted again.
Smarter. More aggressive. More personal.
Good, Derrick thought calmly.
Elsewhere..
The training terraces rang with impact.
Stone shattered beneath bare feet. Blades of condensed energy clashed with fists hardened by centuries of war. Arakko mutants did not train for sport, they trained to survive extinction.
Isca watched from a raised platform, arms crossed, expression bored but attentive. Storm stood nearby, listening to the wind, feeling Mars breathe.
Below them, Bei the Blood Moon sparred against two younger warriors at once.
Bei moved like violence given grace, spinning kicks, crescent arcs of crimson energy trailing every strike. One opponent was sent skidding across the stone. The second barely blocked before being disarmed.
The crowd roared approval.
Bei straightened, chest rising slowly, calm and controlled.
Then
She faltered.
Just a fraction of a second.
Her next step landed wrong.
Stone cracked not from impact, but from miscalculation.
Bei frowned, confusion flashing across her face. She flexed her fingers, then her jaw tightened as a sharp tremor ran through her arm.
Bei: "…Again."
She stepped forward.
Her leg buckled.
The arena went silent.
Bei dropped to one knee, palm slamming into the stone to steady herself.
A ripple of red energy flickered around her and then collapsed inward, snuffed out like a flame in vacuum.
Storm felt it immediately as her instincts told her this felt familiar..
That wasn't fatigue.
Bei tried to stand.
Her breath hitched.
A second tremor wracked her body, stronger this time,not violent, but invasive, like something rewriting instructions faster than her mutation could respond.
Her eyes widened.
Bei (low): "Something... "
She collapsed fully.
Not unconscious at first.
Just… failing..
Her limbs refused to obey. Muscles locked, then softened unnaturally, as if her body no longer agreed on what strength meant. The crimson markings along her skin dimmed, pulsing erratically.
The younger warriors backed away instinctively.
Warrior: "She's injured... "
Another: "No. She wasn't struck by anyone ."
Storm descended from the platform in a blur of wind, kneeling beside Bei. Lightning danced faintly across her fingers not attacking, diagnosing.
She recoiled.
Storm: "…This is not poison."
Isca's expression sharpened for the first time.
Isca: "Then what is it?"
Bei gasped, eyes unfocused now.
Bei: "My power… it's being answered."
That made Storm's blood run cold.
The ground beneath Bei's hand sprouted thin, vein-like growths, Arakko's living stone reacting without command. The growths immediately blackened… then adapted… then began mirroring the same internal instability as Bei's body.
Xilo's voice echoed across the terrace, layered and urgent.
Xilo: "Pull away from her. Now.".
The warriors hesitated then obeyed.
Storm lifted Bei carefully, already feeling resistance inside the mutant's cells not decay, or simple corruption, but assimilation. Something was learning how Arakko mutants worked by dismantling one from the inside and she has a feeling she might already know who..
Above them, the sky twisted subtly.
No portal. No flare. No presence.
Just pressure.
Storm looked up, eyes narrowing.
Storm: "This is an invasion."
Isca clenched her fist.
Isca: "By what enemy?"
Storm's answer was quiet but absolute.
Storm: "One man that does not need to announce itself because his power does it for him."
Far beyond Mars' thin atmosphere, hidden within layered gravity distortions, Derrick observed Bei's collapse with clinical interest.
Baseline Arakko physiology confirmed.
Resistance higher than Earth mutants.
Adaptation ongoing.
He adjusted the spores again and made them smarter.
Thank you, he thought calmly.
You were the perfect first lesson.
On Arakko, alarms finally began to sound.
And for the first time since escaping Amenth, the mutants of Mars felt something far worse than war approaching Being studied and assimilated