Red Dragon Spaceship Awakening: I Gain Alien Abilities on Mars-Chapter 205: First Steps

Due to his enhanced mind, Tatehan’s thoughts began to race through a dozen different threads at once, turning over the Viking’s words and testing them against everything he knew.

The Viking had just asked him what he thought was the best way they could stop the obscuron working together.

Was there really a creator responsible for the fall of Earth? The idea felt absurd to him. The fall of Earth had not been some divine judgment or cosmic punishment. It had been a tragedy born from circumstances that no one could have predicted or controlled.

Earth had become the battleground for the Space Dragons, cosmic-like creatures whose war with each other had spilled across the surface of humanity’s homeworld like a tidal wave of fire and destruction.

When the dragons died, they had ravaged the planet in their final throes, tearing through cities and ecosystems, scorching the oceans, leaving nothing behind but ash and ruin. They had fought each other to the death, believing that whatever they were searching for (the Red dragon spaceship) was hidden somewhere on Earth.

But it had not been there. It had been on Mars all along, buried deep in the wastelands where no one would ever think to look.

That was the bitter irony of it all. Earth had been destroyed for nothing. Billions of lives lost because the dragons had been wrong about where the Red dragon spaceship was hidden.

Tatehan pushed that thought aside and focused on the more immediate problem. The Viking had turned the conversation back to him, asking what he thought was the best way to work together to stop the Obscuron.

It was a fair question, and Tatehan had expected it. In fact, he had been preparing himself for this moment ever since he decided to call the meeting in the first place. He had known that eventually, someone would ask him for a plan, for a strategy, for some kind of concrete roadmap that would lead them from where they were now: scattered, vulnerable, barely holding on, to where they needed to be: united, coordinated, and capable of taking the fight to the Obscuron.

The problem was, he did not have one.

To be completely honest, he had not decided on anything concrete.

Maybe if he had spent more time playing kingdom-building strategy games back on Earth instead of just skimming through them casually, he would have had a better sense of how to approach this kind of large-scale coordination. Maybe if he had studied military tactics or political theory or any of the dozens of things that would have been useful right now, he would have had something more coherent to offer.

But he had not. And now, sitting here with the eyes of four city leaders on him, he was forced to confront the fact that he did not actually know what the next step should be.

He did not know what the west of Mars looked like. He did not know the layout of the Obscuron’s territory, the structure of his forces, the locations of his strongholds or supply lines. He did not know where to hit and where not to hit. He did not know which targets would cripple the enemy and which ones would just provoke retaliation without accomplishing anything meaningful.

And right now, in these few seconds where his mind was running at full speed, cycling through scenarios and possibilities and trying to piece together something that resembled a coherent strategy, he still had not come to a conclusion.

There was no brilliant plan waiting in the back of his head. No sudden flash of insight that would solve everything.

There was just uncertainty.

Tatehan exhaled slowly, his hands resting on the table in front of him. He met the Viking’s gaze, then looked at each of the other leaders in turn.

"I have no idea, to be honest," he finally said.

The room went silent.

He could feel the weight of their attention on him, the shift in the atmosphere as they processed what he had just admitted. It was not the answer they had been hoping for. It was not the confident declaration of a leader who had everything figured out and just needed them to fall in line.

But it was the truth.

Tatehan straightened slightly, his voice steady. "But that’s not the reason this meeting was called. The reason for this meeting is so that we all agree, really agree, that we have to work together to stop the Obscuron. And that we have to do it fast, before he gets any stronger or expands any further."

He paused, letting that sink in.

"I don’t have all the answers right now. But I know that if we keep operating separately, we’re going to lose. And I know that if we pool our resources, share intelligence, and coordinate our efforts, we have a chance. Maybe not a great one, but a chance."

The room remained silent for a long moment. No one moved and no one spoke.

And then Tatehan leaned forward, his gaze going across the table one more time.

"So I’m asking you now. Are we all in on this?"

Five seconds passed. Five long, heavy seconds where Tatehan could feel his heartbeat in his chest. Where he could feel the tension coiling in the air like a spring wound too tight.

And then the Viking spoke.

"I’m in."

The words were simple. The man did not hesitate, neither did he agree with any conditions.

The leader of Loenitt nodded, her expression calm but resolute. "I’m in."

The man from Iron Haven glanced at the others, then shrugged slightly, a faint smile at the corner of his mouth. "I’m in."

The leader of Reon Outpost exhaled, running a hand through his hair, and then nodded. "I’m in."

Tatehan felt something in his chest loosen, just slightly. He had done it.

They were all on board!

He brought his hand down softly on the table, the sound echoing faintly in the quiet room.

"We’re in," he said, his voice steady and filled with quiet conviction. "We’re in this together. And we’re going to stop the Obscuron."

———

As Tatehan flew back to Waython Hollow city on his Skyblade, his three guards seated around him in their usual positions, he found himself replaying the meeting in his mind over and over again.

It had been successful. Not perfectly so, not without its rough edges and moments of uncertainty, but successful nonetheless. The primary aim (the main goal he had set for himself when he called this meeting) had been to convince the cities to work together. And he had done that. They had all agreed...they were all committed, at least for now.

He wasn’t sure they would ever pull out from this alliance though, maybe after the obscuron was dead, but not now.

Even the Viking, who had initially looked at him with such skepticism and doubt, had been won over. Tatehan could still see the man’s expression when he had summoned his armor, the way his eyes had widened just slightly, the way he had sat back down as if forced to acknowledge something he had not expected.

That moment had felt satisfying in a way that Tatehan had not anticipated.

But satisfaction was not the same as success, and Tatehan knew that the real work was still ahead of them.

The meeting had ended with all of them leaving the Crosspoint as something that resembled friends. Or at least allies. People who had agreed to trust each other, even if only out of necessity. That was something.

But they still had no actual plan for stopping the Obscuron. They could not just launch some bloody, chaotic war against him without knowing what they were doing. They needed to identify weak points in his territory. They needed to figure out where to strike and where not to strike. They needed intelligence, reconnaissance and coordination. They needed a strategy that went beyond just "work together and hope for the best."

So they had decided to meet again later, to hold another summit focused specifically on how to take the fight to the Obscuron. But in the meantime, Tatehan had collected all of their contact information.

He had collected their contacts on his phone like device so they would be able to chat and stuff like that.

He had even suggested opening a group chat—a shared place where all of them could talk in real time instead of waiting for occasional meetings like this.

The others agreed it was a good idea actually. Though not so openly, the conclusion was that they would go with it.

Now, the main aim was to find ways to defeat the Obscuron. But before they could do that, they needed to know more. They needed information. They needed to understand what they were actually up against.

Tatehan leaned back in his seat, staring out through the viewport at the endless expanse of Martian landscape rushing past below.