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Hades had been walking for a while. He wasn't sure how long he had been there. His internal clock was usually good at keeping track of time, but he wasn't so sure anymore given the circumstances.

Hades reached into his chest and pulled out his phone. Hitting the power button, he was thankful to see that it still operated in the alien environment. After the startup sequence, the clock screen showed that it was ten thirty two p.m.. It was around eight o'clock before Dana visited him, so that meant he was on the moon for two and a half hours.

He listened to the sound of his steps as he walked. To say that there was no sound because of the lack of atmosphere would be wrong. Sound needed a medium, be it solid, liquid or gas. In this case, he could hear his gentle footfalls on the lunar soil through his own biomass, like putting one's ear to a wall and tapping on it. Walks like these always served to help lessen anxiety for him. However, no matter how hard he tried the anxiety never died down completely; not this time. It felt like a small, constant vibration in the center of his core. It felt so unreal. It felt like he was stuck in a dream.

Hades stopped walking. No, he didn't dream of things like this. He dreamed of…

He shivered.

Hades shook off the feeling. That wasn't what mattered right now. What mattered was returning home, to New York. But how was he supposed to do that? It begged countless questions in his mind. He was spontaneously, and inexplicably, dropped onto a moon orbiting an observably alien planet; how would he get back? What could he do? Could he go back? What if he was stuck here... Permanently?

The vibrating feeling spread. He could feel it throughout his chest now. The idea of staying in some strange place forever didn't scare him. He was Blacklight; he would survive, adapt, and thrive. He could own that planet the moment he set foot on it... if there weren't other people on it; then ethics would be under question. No, it was the idea of losing everything he worked hard to get that scared him. All the relationships he made... all the pain - the sacrifices - he made…

For nothing... Absolutely nothing...

He refocused his gaze onto the planet above the horizon. He'd would have to go there. He didn't know whether or not there were people, or anything that could be described as a "person", on that planet, and he didn't know if going there would even help him get home, but he didn't want to stay on the moon. He could survive without much trouble, living off the soil and ice, but he had no intention of living such a pitiful existence.

He stared at the planet, studying its features. he didn't know how big it was. It seemed to be like photos of Earth taken from its moon as far as size went, but it could be far larger than Earth and only appear just as big due to distance. Getting there wasn't a problem; he had a few methods in his head. From simply jumping off the moon hard enough, to biomass ejection, to getting hydrogen from one of the pole's ice to burn off in thrusters. He'd done it before when flying when regular wings got boring. He was required to fix the pavement and buildings from his first couple landings, though.

Good times. Better times.

Hades checked inside himself. The moon's low gravity made it impossible for any of the soil to naturally compact or become dense, which meant that while he could technically jump out of the moon's gravitational field, the force of the jump would do more to shove his legs into the loose, dust-like soil than actually propel him. He really didn't want to sacrifice his biomass either, but he currently didn't have enough hydrogen in him to create any kind of thrust. That left getting ice, but he wasn't sure where on the moon he was and that meant he'd have to search for the poles.

Assuming the piece of moon he was on was even attached to the poles.

Hades let out an airless sigh. It could take a while depending on how close or how far away the closest pole was, again; assuming the hunk he was one was connected to them to begin with, but he would just have to look everywhere for it.

Hades lightly pushed off the ground. As he did so, his body was overtaken by black growths that appeared and spread all over his body. In an instant, he morphed into a convulsing mass of tendrils, black as pitch with bioluminescent patches that glowed a deep red. A thick tendril shout out from the mass, embedding itself into the dirt before pulling the rest of it down. The mass dug deep, going further and further down before spreading out like the rhizoids of a great, all-encompassing mold. The liquid flesh fed on the soil, using it to facilitate its ceaseless expansion. It blazed through the moon's surface at shocking speeds, scouring through it for any signs of frozen water.

In his search for ice, Hades was able to find more information on where exactly on the moon he was, or more specifically, where he wasn't. It turned out that he was indeed not on the main body of the moon, but rather a chunk hovering above it if the sheer, gargantuan white thing underneath the floating lunar island he was on was any indication.

Fortunately, it would seem the chunk was once part of the moon's poles as scrounging along the edge revealed ice deposits. The amount was less than he wanted, but it would be enough to get off the moon with a good amount of speed. It wouldn't leave much for slowing down once he got there, though.

He consumed more soil; if he couldn't avoid an impact, he would take it head on.

After spending a few more minutes checking for any ice he may have missed, a great reaction took place inside the mass. Thick coils of tendrils swelled as powerful electrogenic organs rapidly grew inside them. Electricity sparked and ran between the tendrils like living, writhing jacob's ladders. A complex network of conductive nerve cells developed within the tendrils, directing the powerful volts toward the ice contained in the mass as the flesh around them heated up, reducing the ice to water. As the ice melted, the liquid water was diverted to smaller, numerous tendrils where the water and electricity met. Making sure to keep the surface area of the reaction as high as possible, Hades began the electrolysis process.

Eventually, the ice was successfully reduced to hydrogen and oxygen. Hades decided to keep the oxygen in the event he needed it. No point in wasting material he worked to get. Now was the time to put it to use.

The lungs containing the two gases began to constrict as heat was vented from them. The lungs constricted tighter and tighter, bearing extreme force onto its contents until there were reduced to a fraction of their size. After a few minutes, the gaseous oxygen and hydrogen in the lungs were condensed into liquid state.

The mass shuddered as the its roots upheaved themselves from the soil. The miles of viral biomass covering the surface of the moon suddenly converged before shooting out across the ground like a long snake. The body sped across the lunar surface at an extreme pace, heading in the direction of the planet. It would be best to be facing the planet directly at takeoff to avoid wasting what little fuel he had in a course correction.

The slithering mass surged until the planet loomed directly overhead. Countless, lidless eyes appeared across the top of Hades' form, making sure the spot was appropriate for his intent. The long body shortened and fattened into a mound. Inside, the lungs containing the hydrogen fused into a single one at the center as large pockets opened from the bottom and connected to the lung via long trachea-like tubes.

Several minute addendums and everything was in place. The mound of viral flesh had adopted a short, wide shape. Fat, stubby tendrils spread out across the ground, shoved the mass up off the ground a short distance, and held it there. Hades gave one last look at the moon's surface, committing it to memory. He'd wondered what it was like to be on the moon, and while this wasn't Earth's moon, it was close enough. In fact, it was… cool to think that he was probably the very first living organism to be on this alien moon. If only the situation were different.

'Speaking of which,' he thought.

A space opened in the side of the mass and a tendril holding his phone came out. Smaller tendrils on the end accessed the phone's camera and took a few pictures of the scene and the planet above.

'Documentation is important, especially now,' He thought, returning his phone to his flesh. With everything finally out of the way, he began the launch.

The mass' tendrils shoved off the ground as the thrusters activated, sending copious amounts of lunar dust all around in a massive cloud. The jellyfish-like mass quickly shot off the surface of the moon toward the planet at a speed uncanny for something of its size. The hydrogen lung constricted further and further as the moon fell away beneath it.

Within just a few minutes of burning, the lung was spent and the thrusters fell silent. Fortunately, Hades was more than far enough from the moon to not worry about falling back, and had enough speed to where he didn't think he had to worry about the planet orbiting out of the way and making him miss. It did, however, mean he had practically no way of predicting his landing spot at this point. Not that it would matter as far as landing difficulty, but certain environments were objectively better than others when it came to civilization building, and the more efficient he was with his time, the better.

In the space between spaces a bearded man sat in his chair, staring at a large screen featuring what he liked to call a "massive space jellyfish". He continued to stare at the screen for a few more moments before letting out a short sigh.

"Welp. Not much to see here," as he picked up and pressed a button on a remote from the arm of his chair. Immediately, the gentle movements of the tendrils trailing behind the creature were greatly exaggerated as a high-pitched whirring sound came from the screen.

As he was waiting for the right moment, a door behind him suddenly barged open.

"Well now, what's the program for tonight?" a loud, gruff voice interjected.

The bearded man simply smiled as he continued to fast-forward his entertainment.

"Nothing much… for now. He just arrived."

The room was filled with the heavy footfalls of boots on the wood floor as the figure approached the second chair and took a seat.

As the figure did so, the bearded man turned his head to look at his guest. The figure, male, was of more significant bulk than he was, wearing a stained, red t-shirt and cargo pants secured by a thick leather belt with a huge iron buckle. However, the man's facial features were a perfect copy, from the color of his hair to his beard, jaw, and cheekbones. The only difference was that his hair was shorter and loose.

The guest looked back at him, noticing their similarities with a risen eyebrow.

"What inspired this mimicry?"

"Well, you just seem so full of yourself all the time so I wanted to see what the fuss was about. I have to say it's pretty overrated," holding back a chuckle.

"So sayeth the man who'd rather be a second-rate version of me than himself."

The man threw his head back as he barked out a sarcastic laugh. As he looked back at his guest, his past features were gone and the mimicry was broken. The beard receded into a sharp, hairless chin and his hair turned a deep black. The once gruff features on his face became sharp and blemishless. His clothes became a pitch black suit.

"With looks like these, I've nothing to envy. If only you knew half of my grace."

A quiet moment passed as a smile slowly grew across his guest's face, until he spoke a single word in response.

"Sleipnir."

The fair man's eyes widened considerably a moment before averting to the floor, a grimace formed on his face.

"We promised to never speak of that again…"

"Ohhhh… is he a little embarrassed of his past graces?" his guest laughed.

"Enough!" the man shouted, turning back toward the television.

"Damnit! Look what you've done with your petty distractions!" he said as he reached for the remote and set about rewinding his latest form of amusement.

"Meddling with the fates of others again? What is it this time?"

"A shapeshifter, impervious of body. Psyche… not as much" He replied, eyeing the screen.

"Sounds like a real entertainer," said his guest, "What's the matter, hit a boring bit?"

"Apt description for floating through space for many hours."

"Then why send him there? Why not send him directly where you want?"

"Because what I want is to see where he lands. It's more fun if there is some mys - Aha! Here we are!"

The fair man hit another button on the remote and the exaggerated movements and sounds from the television returned to their normal proportions, and the bars turned into a triangle. This time Hades form was covered in flame as he hurtled through the planet's atmosphere.

"Now we may see something interesting,"

Hades extended an eyestalk out of the smoldering crater he left in the sand and looked around.

And saw nothing but more sand.

He was hoping to hit somewhere near the lush green area of the planet, since that would be the best environment for agriculture and animal husbandry, which would in turn provide the best location for settlement building, but he… missed.

He never went to the moon and back before, and none of the Gentek or Blackwatch personnel he consumed had any helpful knowledge on the subject either. It was no surprise he failed at being accurate with guesses on landing spots.

Regardless, he made planetfall and he would conduct his investigation immediately.

Looking around the area, he was clearly in an empty, arid desert, complete with dunes, withered flora, and the occasional dust devil. It was also nighttime, with the moon he arrived from still in the sky, however edging closer to the horizon.

Now off the moon, Hades was able to get a much better look at it. The moon itself was actually mostly intact, however it was still horrendously damaged. It still retained its integrity on all portions save the right side, with most of it completely disintegrated, causing the remaining moon to have a permanent crescent shape. The larger pieces were surprisingly still very close to where they may have originally broke off given their edges matched with those of the major lunar mass, like a jigsaw puzzle, with the others getting slightly more off course and smaller the farther from the moon they went. Between floating debris, Hades could clearly make out space and stars behind the moon along the damaged edge, which meant that whatever did this exerted enough force to not only deface the moon, but punch all the way through it from front to back.

In the end, it made for a very beautiful sight.

Once more retrieving his phone from within he took a picture of the moon for later. Receding his eyestalk back into the half-buried viral mass he arrived in, Hades heaved himself out of the crater and elongated into a snake-like form like that on the moon before striking out across the sands, the outer flesh darkening and adjusting to the low light to assume minimal visibility for the huge, slithering creature. He didn't have a North Star to guide him nor any direction set, but figured that so long as he stayed in a straight line he would eventually reach a pole or coast. Both involved water, and water involved life.

Hades continued on until the moon receded past the horizon and the first rays of sunlight began to bleed through, causing the sky to adopt angry red and orange hues.

Hades halted suddenly, and slowly raised his huge, arrow shaped reptilian head and watched the sunrise. A truly alien sunrise.

On the moon, the unfiltered light from the sun reflecting off the featureless gray expanse around him caused everything to be whitewashed to the point of colorlessness, making the original discovery of the strange behavior of light here to almost go unnoticed until Hades looked at himself and saw the differences up close. Even after arriving on world moon's light was the only one around, casting everything in the same muting shade, lessening the phenomena again. But now…

Oh now…

Earlier on the moon it became apparent something was wrong. The shadows were off; the way darkness and light seemingly interacted seemed discombobulated. But now a whole new facet was revealed: color. Hades had seen sunsets before in New York. He viewed it between the smokeline and the horizon from atop a tall building in the Red Zone during the Second Outbreak and, while macabre, was a sight he will remember for a long time. This sunset however, looked oversaturated in comparison. The colors, while ordinary in that there was no strange colors or anything, were noticeably deeper and more vivid than what they should've been, especially since there was no smog or anything that would naturally change a sunset. The contrast between lighter shades and darker ones seemed more exaggerated. It looked like a painting where the artist decided to use only the deepest, most saturated colors possible with very little exceptions.

Hades mused to himself that he had barely been on this alien planet for twenty four hours and he has already been distracted by the landscape several times. Although, it being an alien planet by nature, it was natural wasn't it? This was the first occurrence of such a thing in history after all. He had an excuse.

Deciding it was yet another picture-worthy moment, Hades retrieved his phone from within his mass and turned it on. Opening the camera appli-

'Bang, bang'

Hades immediately went still.

'Dakadakadakadakadaka'

Hades drew in his phone and focused on the sounds. He was in the middle of the desert; there were little opportunities for sounds like that to happen naturally. Of course, this wouldn't have changed anything at all, because Hades knew exactly what those sounds were.

They were gunshots.

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Author's Note:

Welp, this took far too long to get done. I blame life problems and writer's block.

Regardless, enjoy the chapter and don't forget to review.