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chapter one!
ONE SMALL STEP
FOR MAN
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ARES WOULD REALLY LIKE to know what the fresh hell is going on.

One instant, he's staring at the wall in his cell, waiting for the guards to deliver one of his last lunches at exactly noon — the only way he keeps track of the days, really — and the next, he's buckled into a dropship with a shitload of other teenagers. The thing is dark. The fluorescent lights mounted to the walls do next to nothing to illuminate the spacecraft, devouring the edges of every face in shadows. He's been placed on the third floor. Fitting, he thinks, because the guards probably wanted him around the least amount of people possible. The dropship shrinks the higher up you go, so the top floor only holds about twenty-five kids.

Only. How many other people have been forced onto here?

Ares ticks his left hand against his leg in a nervous habit and immediately winces at the sharp sting. Before yanking him out of his cell, the guards had slapped a metal bracelet on his wrist. It also happened to have needles on the inside. Those same spokes pierce deeper into his pale skin every time he moves his arm, making him grimace before dropping his hand with a satisfying smack against his black denim-clad thigh.

He's seated at the very end of one of the rows, meaning there's nobody on his left side except for two scrawny-looking kids left to stand against the wall. One of them is so pale his skin actually illuminates the darkness around him for a few inches. The younger boy's raven hair is half-obscured by a pair of goggles for some reason. Beside him is an Asian kid timidly standing with his hands clenching the bars of the only thing keeping him secured to the ship.

"Hey," Goggle Boy hisses. Ares ignores him until the sound comes again, this time followed by more words. "Hey, psst! You, kid with the curly hair. Do you know what's going on?"

"I don't know what prompted you to talk to me, but please don't do it again," Ares drawls before looking up at the kid with a closed-lipped smile that does not reach his eyes and that he does not mean. Being surrounded by so many damn people is already nerve-wracking enough. Being friends with them? Even worse.

"Jesus, dude, I was just asking," Goggle Boy mutters.

Luckily, any further conversation is prohibited by a violent shudder of the dropship, followed by the overhead lights flickering. A few people around him give surprised screams. He just sets his jaw and tries not to let the lap bar crush his thighs— the guard had set it too tightly.

They're going to Earth, no doubt, because why else would a bunch of teenage prisoners be thrown onto a ship? But why? Why now, when humans have been surviving in space for nearly a hundred years?

Ares' eyes automatically dart to one of the screens mounted on the walls as they flicker on simultaneously. A grainy, glitching image of the Ark's Chancellor, Thelonious Jaha, appears, causing the boy to curl his lip in distaste. Jaha, the man who agreed to lock him up for the murder of Merritt Santiago, a guy Ares had never even met before he woke up in a pool of his blood. Jaha, the man who didn't seem to think that the security cameras going out the same time as the murder was unusual. Jaha, who separated Ares from his father, the only living family member he had left, even though he wasn't much of a dad.

The dark-skinned man launches into a tirade that Ares zones out of the instant he addresses them as "Prisoners of the Ark." It's true, but couldn't he at least have called them something less demeaning? Or, you know, maybe spoken his mind? "Listen up, you little shits," would have been a more effective introduction. He barely catches the words "expendable" — ah, so that's why they're being sent down — and "Mount Weather."

"Hey, your dad's a dick, Wells!" he calls out to the boy sitting toward the center of the floor, who shakes his head and appears to heave an inaudible sigh. Too bad he's facing the opposite way from Ares— his serpentine grin could have caused the Chancellor's son to have nightmares. The blonde girl beside him, of whom he can only guess is Clarke Griffin, because who else would it be, completely ignores him, something that takes him by mild surprise. She's never been one to stay quiet.

Jaha drones on about how they'll be pardoned of their crimes if they don't burn themselves alive in the largest human barbecue in a century. Ares scoffs, wondering if that's supposed to make them feel better about themselves. Being pardoned now doesn't lessen the pain of being wrongly convicted and locked up for a year and a half, anxiously awaiting the arrival of his eighteenth birthday in a few days, nor does it mean they'll ever truly blend into society. If the rest of the Ark follows them down, it'll be the same way it's always been— the terrible divide between rich and poor, and they'll be treated like outcasts.

Ares' attention is snagged by the guy next to him unbuckling his seatbelt. His eyebrow, scarred from a fight long ago, quirks upward as the boy somersaults in mid-air. The lack of gravity causes him to float aimlessly around the dropship. Grabbing onto the seats for guidance, he folds his arms over his chest and stops in front of a bewildered Wells.

"Check it out," he says smugly. "Your dad floated me, after all."

Several chants and cheers by some other kids inform Ares that the boy's name is Finn, which triggers a distant memory in his mind. Finn Collins, the boy arrested for going on an illegal spacewalk shortly before Ares himself was imprisoned. The move is pretty ballsy. It's something that Ares can admire. He even finds a tiny, tiny grin worming its way onto his face.

"You should strap in before the parachutes deploy," is what Wells responds with, which is not surprising. Ever the diplomat. Those Privileged kids wouldn't know what fun was if it bit them in the asses.

Two other kids unbuckle themselves as well, but it's not amusing anymore by then. Only a dumbass would go too long floating like that. They're bound to hit the ground soon at the speed they're going, but if they want their brains splattered on the floor of the dropship, it's their own faults.

"Ever heard of curiosity killed the cat?" Ares calls out to the two other boys in the same half-bored tone he's learned to adapt over the years. Sound like you don't care about anything you're saying, and people are less inclined to talk to you. Easy peasy.

But the kids don't listen, too giddy about the thrill to realize the stupidity of their actions. Christ, this is why it was a dumb idea to send kids down. They'll all be killed by their own idiocy in a week.

As the Chancellor's bland tone echoes around the dropship, the lights flicker chaotically, and whatever grand speech he's prepared is falling on deaf ears. Then the parachutes deploy exactly as Wells said they would. Collins slams into the floor, the other two boys crashing into the only empty wall in the ship. Their bodies slump to the concrete ground. Ares is too busy squeezing his eyes shut to check if they move, the ship vibrating so vigorously that he feels like his brain is rattling in his skull. Sparks fly into the air and singe his bare hand as it grasps onto the seatbelt in a bone-white grip. Luckily, his thick bomber jacket prevents him from getting the brunt of the pain. But as smoke pours out from something below, Ares chuckles darkly to himself. Shit, this is how they're going to die.

A few miserable seconds later, everything stops. There's a slam that makes him feel like his stomach just detached from his esophagus from the force of it. And then blissful nothingness. It's so silent after so much noise that Ares can feel his ears ringing.

"Listen," the Asian kid on the side of the wall says. "No machine hum."

"Whoa," Goggle Boy whispers, wide-eyed.

Ares releases an involuntary sigh of relief as the seatbelts unlock. He raises the bar on his lap before unbuckling the belt, shaking his legs out to regain some feeling into them. When he stands, his vision goes black around the corners from sitting for so long. He shakes his head to clear it before glancing toward where the boys had landed. Collins crouches near an unmoving body, staring blankly into space.

Ah, shit.

"Hey, the doors are on the lower level!" a voice shouts above all others, prompting Clarke to move into action with a cry of dismay that Ares doesn't pay attention to. He's too busy staring at the two lifeless bodies on the floor.

Kindness is not something he's very good at, so his steps toward the Spacewalker boy are a bit awkward. He clears his throat and waits until the boy looks up. His shoulder-length hair is covered by a knit hat that he tears off, sending his brunet locks into disarray. His round-shaped face is pale from both the lighting and the overwhelming sensation of death now smothering the third level. Glassy brunette eyes meet ones the same color as his.

Crying makes social interactions worse for Ares, so he speaks quickly to get it over with. "Don't blame yourself— it was their stupid choice."

"A stupid choice they made because of me," Collins points out in a choked voice.

Ares decides he can't reason with the boy and heads toward the metal-rung ladder that leads to the second floor. It's less crowded when he gets down there, but he can already hear shouts coming from the main level. Part of him wants to stay here to be alone for a few goddamn seconds, but part of him wants to watch whatever drama is already ensuing.

The second ladder leads to the bottom floor. It would have been spacious, but with about a hundred kids crammed into the room, Ares has to practically wedge himself between a girl and a strikingly familiar face— one belonging to Nathan Miller, his former cellmate. He's one of the Privileged, but at least he doesn't act like he was born with a silver spoon up his ass. The kid is tolerable.

Ares and Nate hadn't gotten along at first. Apparently, being a supposed murderer doesn't land you an automatic spot in Solitary, so Ares was crammed into a two-person cell like the majority of the kids in the Skybox. In hindsight, though, he's glad it was Nate. He probably wouldn't have been able to be with anyone else without throttling them first.

"Hey, man," Nate greets him, adjusting the grey beanie on his head and clapping Ares' shoulder. His dark skin is dotted with minuscule beads of sweat near his hairline. Probably from the fear and stress of landing.

"Hey," Ares responds in a slightly strained voice. He's told Nate time and time again that being cell buddies doesn't make them best buddies, but it's been no use. "What's going on?"

"See that girl?" He points toward a raven-haired girl around their age standing near the door that leads to either their salvation or demise. She's embracing a taller man in a guard's uniform. Ares' heart jumps into his throat at the sight— they'd brought a guard down here? "That's her brother."

Ares quirks his scarred brow upward again. A brother? That's nearly unheard of on the Ark. To keep humans in space for as long as possible and not waste more oxygen than necessary, there has always been a strictly-enforced one-child rule. It's likely what got that girl locked up in the first place: being the second child makes your very existence a crime.

"That's Octavia Blake, the girl they found hidden in the floor!" someone chimes in from among the crowd. Now that he thinks of it, the long-haired girl does look vaguely familiar. He'd seen her in the Earth Skills class they'd been forced to take about a month ago. She'd been quiet. Shy. But nothing about her is quiet or shy as she lunges toward the disembodied voice, restrained only by her brother — who looks to be way older than the rest of them.

"O," he warns, then mutters something Ares can't pick up from so far away. But Octavia stands down at whatever he'd said. Brushing a dark strand of hair out of her face, she steps back to give her brother room.

The other Blake sibling places a hand on the lever that controls the door. A beat, and Ares' heart starts thrumming in his chest. The weight of adrenaline settles in his veins, and he feels a bit terrified and thrilled about the possibility of death or a new life. He swallows so thickly that his Adam's apple bobs up and down.

The lever is pulled. Slowly, the door starts to fold into a ramp, a straight line of blinding sunlight causing the teenagers to instinctively shield their eyes against the abrupt brightness. More light floods the room until they're all bathed in an unfamiliar glow. One that's warm despite the clear breeze he feels tickling his face.

Ares realizes he's not breathing. Cracking open an eyelid, he watches carefully as Octavia steps out onto the ramp and takes the first breath, so deep and serene that her shoulders slump with the force of it. The rest of them take that as a cue to do the same. For the first time, real, clean oxygen enters Ares' lungs, and he immediately realizes that it's so much better than the recycled bullshit on the Ark. This air even has a hint of what he can assume are pine needles in it, given that since his eyes have adjusted to the shocking brightness, he can see that they've landed in a forest.

Octavia's back is still to them. Slowly, she sticks a leg out and lands with a plunk on the soil. Ares thinks back to over a century ago when the humans had landed on the moon— an accomplishment that seemed so astonishing back then. He believes the words uttered were, One small step for man...

All of the criminals wait in suspense for her signal. She swings her arms above her head, bellowing with all of her might, "WE'RE BACK, BITCHES!"

One giant leap for mankind.

As if the spell has been broken, countless kids spill out onto the forest floor, jumping off from the ramp and sprinting onto the planet they've claimed once more. Ares doesn't even mind that he's being shoved around. For once, he's mesmerized, awestruck by the sheer beauty of the planet. Sure, he'd seen pictures once, but they couldn't do it justice.

Nate claps his shoulder again. Ares reminds himself to tell him to stop doing that, because one day he's going to get a bruise there. "Come on, man! What are you waiting for?"

With a vicious cry of "WOOOOOOOOO!", Nate gets a running start in the dropship and pushes hard off of the edge, raising his arms above his head victoriously in mid-air. He topples onto his ass as soon as he lands. Ares snorts and walks closer to the edge of the spacecraft, smirking wryly at the bewildered boy now sitting in the dirt.

"One giant fall for mankind?" Ares questions in amusement.

Nate glares at him before standing up and brushing loose soil off of the black jacket that's almost identical to Ares'. "They don't tell you how different the gravity is in Earth Skills."

Deciding to test this new information out for himself, the paler boy walks down the metal ramp and tentatively steps onto the ground. Immediately, he feels the difference that Nate is referring to. It's like the planet is trying to hug him close. There's a stronger pull than in space, one that has him wobbling like a baby deer for the first few steps he makes on Earth.

"Little different, huh?" a distinctly female voice questions. Ares glances up from his boot-clad feet to see Octavia Blake standing in front of him with a small yet confident smile on her face. Her eyes are a gray-green color that matches their location perfectly. She's shorter than him by at least half a head, though, so he finds himself looking down at her. The first person to step foot on Earth is... pretty tiny.

"Yeah," is all he can think of to say. Why is she talking to him? She should be frolicking around the grass like the other kids that have landed.

"I'm Octavia."

Thankfully, Nate saves him from making further conversation by brushing past Ares and saying, "Good luck making conversation with him— he has the social abilities of a brick wall. That's Ares Ortega. I'm Nathan Miller."

This is clearly not what Octavia wanted to gain from this, but she still smiles a bit anyway. "Nice to meet you."

She tries in vain to catch Ares' eye. He's not looking for a girlfriend at the moment— or anyone, really. The younger Blake sibling is shit outta luck when it comes to charming him into a puddle at her feet.

Ares stumbles backward at the force of a sudden shove, his feet instinctively wheeling backward on the uneven ground to catch his fall. He blinks and her brother is in his face. His olive-toned skin, brown eyes, and slick black hair suggest that they share only one parent, but that's still enough of a familial bond for him to eliminate any possible threat. There's a promise of a swift death in his narrowed gaze.

Octavia lets out a dismayed cry of, "Bellamy!"

"What do you think you're doing, huh?" Blake — first name revealed to be Bellamy, not that Ares really cares — demands, his sneer inches from Ares' face. "Don't get any ideas."

Ares shoves him right back, sending him backpedaling a few satisfying steps. His glare sharpens to one that could slice diamonds. He faintly remembers his father telling him to cut it out with that — the look on his face that suggests he really did murder a man in cold blood a year and a half ago, and is fully capable of doing so again.

"The only idea I have is getting away from here," he spits. Blake's narrowed eyes follow his every movement as he stalks further into the forest and away from the dropship with another lashing insult that he tosses over his shoulder. "Melodramatic assholes."

If one thing's for sure, this new home is going to end up being a major pain in his ass.

______

a/n:

if you're a frequent reader of mine, you'll know that i don't like to label my oc's as heterosexual (because i believe that their sexuality, if not openly stated, like 'bisexual', 'gay', etc, should be interpretative to the audience) so honestly? imagine ares however you want. chaotic bi?? sure!! pansexual demon spawn?? great!! is he going to have sexual tension with practically every character, male or female?? probably!! and there's nothing you can do to stop it

ares is very different from my other characters because he just... hates... everyone. but that will definitely change, and soon we will look back on the first bellares interaction and laugh

+ a quick note: ares is half mexican, but since he's lived on the ark his whole life, he's a bit paler. the boi is gonna gain a beautiful, tan glow soon!

—kristyn

( word count: 3.3k )