Prism and The Red Wolves

Goran’s jet landed on a small airstrip situated on a remote Vadamite island in the Eizic Ocean, just as the Red Wolves’ intel had indicated. RED-1’s ghostly male members hovered out of the unsynced Titian and quickly made their way aboard the jet. During their flight, Prism had connected the tiltjet’s pilots to RED-1’s telepathic link since their conventional radio comms wouldn’t work in their unsynced state. The invisible Titian returned to the skies, awaiting Ursun’s telepathic order to pick up his team once they retrieved Leanna, captured Goran, and investigated the secret island base.

As Ursun and his men passed through the door of Goran’s gilded jet, they were overcome with a strange sense of dread. Prism, on the other hand, felt nothing out of the ordinary. The team had no time to discuss the feeling once they saw the scene unfolding within the cabin of the grounded aircraft.

“After that much needed rest, it’s time for my fun to begin!” Goran said while he began to unbuckle his pants.

He stood slovenly before Leanna, who was still pretending to be asleep in her puffy seat. Goran seemed to pay no mind to the four bodyguards who sat around her. His disgusting mind could only focus on one thing.

“Resync us right now!”

Ursun’s overwhelming authority blared at the same intensity as his telepathic words through the minds of his teammates. Prism immediately felt compelled to obey his order without doubt or hesitation, despite being the controller of the psychic link. In seconds, Prism had caused the male members of RED-1 to become visible and corporeal once more.

And to Prism’s dismay, each of his male teammates fell to the ground and began to convulse wildly. They were overcome with a simultaneous wave of agonizing pain, gut-wrenching nausea, and mind-body disassociation. The feelings were so significant that they ripped apart Prism’s telepathy magic, dispelling it completely.

“No! I…” Prism shouted, realizing his huge error in judgment.

But before he could finish his exclamation, Prism was quickly jolted back to his wider surroundings when he heard the cocking of guns. Goran’s well-trained bodyguards had been shocked by the sudden appearance of five men in their cabin, but that hadn’t stopped them from reflexively drawing their pistols. Goran still stood in front of Leanna’s seat, but he was shuddering with his pants around his ankles. He was both terrified and confused by what he’d just seen.

“Sh-shoot them!” He soon shouted to his bodyguards.

Prism’s eyes flashed white before he erected a barrier of light to stop the barrage of bullets that came from the bodyguards’ guns. At the same time, he created an aura of silence around the plane’s interior to prevent the gunshots from being heard by anyone on the tarmac, just as he’d been told to do during their mission prep. Prism figured that he could at least salvage that much of their mission’s stealth. With another white flash of his eyes, Prism shifted the defensive attributes of his barrier. It began to reflect bullets back at the bodyguards, quickly killing all of them.

Prism glanced worriedly down at his unconscious teammates, whose convulsions began to stop. After witnessing so many unbelievable things, Goran started to relieve himself where he stood. Prism knew then that the only remaining threats aboard the plane were the pilots.

“Leanna, see to the cockpit! I need to heal the rest of our team!” Prism yelled to the fake-sleeping Leanna, who’d been completely aghast at what she’d heard take place around her.

Leanna opened her eyes and quickly looked around the room. When she saw Goran whimpering in front of her, she kicked him out of her way, grabbed a pistol from one of the dead bodyguards, and dashed to the cockpit door. She shot the lock off the door and kicked it open. In under a minute, she'd shot both the armed pilot and co-pilot dead.

Prism got to work restoring his other teammates to some semblance of health. His eyes flashed green as he channeled healing magics through his hands and into the bodies of the incapacitated men around him. He felt how bad their conditions were, and he knew that healing them completely would leave him barely functional. But in his mental calculus, he knew that four healthy, living mercs were better than an already-limited magic-user.

Prism gathered as much mana as his body could contain and then unleashed a burst of healing magic to Jaik, Ursun, Lorias, and Srell. As Prism fell weakly to his knees, he saw the four men open their eyes and slowly begin to stand.

“Damn, it feels like I’ve been shot in the head…” Srell said with a wince while gripping his forehead.

Ursun’s first instinct was to grab Prism and scream at him for almost getting them killed. But when he saw the small Elementeitan exhausted and kneeling before him, Ursun reined back his anger. Ursun then saw the dead bodyguards nearby, and the shuddering Goran standing pants-less. Ursun gave the arms dealer a look of utter disgust.

“You screwed up, but looks like you’ve mitigated the consequences of your mistake. Can you keep going?” Ursun asked Prism.

“He has to. If our ship is visible again, then we’ve probably got a fleet of Vadamite ships headed this way.” Lorias interrupted and said matter-of-factly.

Lorias softly massaged his right eye in an attempt to minimize the pain from his sudden headache. Ursun took a step forward and got into Lorias’ face. Lorias avoided making eye contact with his commander. Lorias quickly got the message that he shouldn’t be putting anymore unneeded pressure on their magical contractor.

“The Titian is fine. It’s still unsynced, and the pilots were unaffected by the resync shock that you all experienced.” Prism said guiltily as he casually put words to the trauma that the men around him had just went through. “I also silenced the plane’s hull so that anyone near it wouldn’t hear the gunshots.” Prism added with a shrug.

“We almost died! On top of all that pain, it felt like my soul was leaving my body!” Srell shouted angrily at Prism. “I knew we couldn’t trust that “unsyncing” garbage!” He added spitefully.

“It isn’t like Command gave him enough time to test it out on anyone.” Leanna said calmly while she walked back into the cabin. “Area secured, by the way.” She said with a hint of irritation after she saw Goran shuddering on the ground.

Jaik squatted down in front of Prism and looked him in his big, brown eyes. Prism’s eyes grew wide when he realized that he could still sense Jaik’s feelings and fleeting thoughts, even without the telepathic magic flowing between them. It was a strange realization, made stranger when Prism soon noticed that Jaik didn’t seem aware of their connection.

“Will this “resync shock” happen to our pilots? And will it happen to us again after we unsync to get back on the Titian?” Jaik asked softly, not wanting to make his friend even more insecure about the issue.

“Yes, it probably will. It seems that the humans of Æba aren’t suited for resyncing back into physical reality.” Prism said worriedly.

His shame forced him to turn his head away from Jaik. But Jaik wasn’t going to let Prism feel sorry for himself. Jaik grabbed him by the waist and helped him to his feet. Prism leaned against Jaik for support, as he was still too weak to stand on his own.

“We’ll deal with that later. Leanna, get that asshole up and on his feet so that he can tell us about this Vadamite base.” Ursun ordered while pointing to Goran.

Leanna nodded before kicking Goran and pointing her pistol at him.

“You heard the man. Stop your disgusting sniveling and get up!” Leanna yelled.

Goran slowly and pitifully got up and raised his arms in the air when he saw Leanna’s gun. Lorias and Srell laughed when they saw his wet underwear on full-display, with his pants still around his ankles. Leanna motioned with her gun for him to pull his pants up, and he carefully obliged.

“They’ll know something’s up if they see his stained pants.” Lorias said.

Prism’s eyes flashed white before he reached out his right hand in the direction of Goran’s soiled pants. With a few white sparkles, the pants were clean and dry. The cleaning magic was very easy to use, even in Prism’s weakened state. Goran, whose arms were raised, looked down at his crotch with a look of complete shock.

“Well that solves that problem!” Srell said with a chuckle.

Srell's anger with Prism had waned as his headache quickly diminished. In fact, all of the men soon felt completely healthy again, as if their bodies hadn't been wracked by violent seizures just minutes earlier.

"Mr. Tinit, tell us everything you know about the facilities on this island." Ursun ordered.

"I-i-it's a forward operating base. The V-V-Vadamites use it as an early warning station to d-d-detect Conjunction attacks against their more remote n-n-northern islands." Goran struggled to say.

"Crap!" Srell cursed upon realizing the folly of their mission's secondary objective.

They couldn't risk investigating such a base, as it would surely lead to an escalation of conflict between Vadam and the Conjunction. It could lead to turning their isolated skirmishes with the island nation into large-scale war. If anything went wrong during their mission, it would be easy to spin the Red Wolves' infiltration of a small monitoring base into a surprise terrorist attack on Vadamite soil.

It became clear to Ursun that they simply needed to leave the island without attracting any attention from the Vadamites stationed there. The plane full of dead bodyguards could simply remain a mystery until the Red Wolves decided what to do with Goran.

"If we’d known you’d break so easily, we could’ve been spared the trip out here.” Ursun said to Goran, who Pack Command wrongly believed had undergone rigorous Rvljsan discipline training. “Prism, can you unsync all of us and contact the ship to retrieve us?" Ursun asked.

"I can. I’ll be forced to rest on the way back and regain what little mana I can while unsynced to heal everyone once I resync all of you. But..." Prism's voice faltered as he was once again faced with the magnitude of his misjudgment.

"Just tell us the issues. We'll figure out a way to deal with them. That's what our team does." Jaik said in a motivational tone to Prism.

"Goran is...not in the best shape, mentally or physically. He might not survive the resync shock." Prism said with his eyes locked on Jaik. Prism was not brave enough at that moment to look at Ursun.

"So be it. We don't have any other choice." Ursun said gravely. "Get to it, Prism."

Prism, still holding on to Jaik for support, began to weave the simple magics to unsync every living person aboard the plane. It only took a few seconds for him to make each of them intangible and for him to send a telepathic message to the Titian above them to fly down low enough for them to enter its transport bay. After restraining a panicking Goran, they hovered through the hull of the jet plane and boarded the Titian just a few minutes later.

And just as he'd said he would, Prism practically collapsed on the floor of the ship and fell into a deep, restorative slumber.

****

'Wake up! We're back on our own soil." Srell said while slapping Prism's cheek.

Prism was quick to rouse from his sleep. He stood up, looked around the bay, and saw that everyone looked uneasy. They knew what Prism needed to do, and that it may very well kill them. Goran laid restrained on one of the makeshift gurneys that Prism had been in not even a month earlier.

"The pilots have lowered our landing gear, and have placed the ship about a meter or so above the landing area in the Auxiliary hangar. When they become unconscious, the ship should drop safely onto the ground." Leanna explained to Prism, who simply nodded his understanding.

"You can resync us now. Do whatever you can to keep the target alive." Ursun said. His normally commanding tone seemed a bit muted.

Prism nodded silently to Ursun before following his order. Prism then began stringing together a series of spells that he hoped would mitigate the most harmful aspects of resync shock. His eyes glowed blue, and the light from them slowly grew brighter. Prism traced several ornate patterns into the air around him, causing several small blue spell circles to appear and float nearby. The circles drifted along the air, each making contact with someone aboard the Titian.

Each of the Red Wolves touched the spell circle that glowed warmly on their skin or clothing. The final spell circle that Prism created shined more brightly than the others. It flew delicately like a snowflake onto Goran's chest and lingered there for the duration of Prism's ritual. Goran could do nothing but whimper helplessly.

Once the spell circles were attached to each person, Prism breathed deeply as he slowly and cautiously resynced everything around him. He knew that making the process more gradual would make their bodies better able to handle the strain. He slowly brought his hands closer together, making himself feel the delicate nature of the process as an ever-harder ball of energy between his hands. If he clasped his hands together too soon, that ball would burst and signify that full resync shock had overcome the others. The other members of RED-1 looked at him with curious and anxious eyes. They had no real idea what he was doing, and they could only put their trust in him.

As the Titian slowly faded back into tangibility, security guards stationed within the Auxiliary quickly reported the phenomenon to Pack Command. The guards were ordered to surround the ship and to be ready to stop a possible infiltration. Each of them looked wearily at the strange sight unfolding before them. Many of the guards thought that it was some new cloaking technology that Gnapp had invented. Even many high-ranking guards and mercenaries within the Red Wolves had still not been briefed about Prism's abilities.

Prism began to feel the strain of progressively bringing so many things fully back into reality. He hadn’t been able to attain much mana since he was unconscious during their trip back, having to instead rely on his body’s passive mana-gathering ability as he slept. And since he was unsynced, it had been much more difficult to gather mana from his ethereal surroundings.

It took a great deal of effort to slowly resync things versus instantaneously doing so. Sweat beaded down his bald scalp and forehead as the process took its toll. He kept telling himself that he could do it; a voice inside of him kept yelling for him to save his teammates and safeguard their mission.

With a final labored push, Prism clasped his hands together as everything around him became fully corporeal again. He felt a great relief wash over him when he saw that his stabilization magic had kept everyone from falling over unconscious. Prism, however, soon hit the ground hard after he doubled over from his efforts.

"Get Medical up here! Jaik, do what you can for him until they get here!" Ursun yelled into his radio, and then across the bay at Jaik.

Jaik rushed over to Prism's side to check his vitals. Jaik used his fingers to check Prism's pulse and rate of breathing, which he knew from Dr. Liam's tests should have the same baselines as an average human. Jaik quickly realized that Prism's efforts had put too much strain on his alien heart. It was a serious issue, and Jaik feared that Prism might stop breathing at any time. Jaik quickly retrieved a removable cushion from one of the bay's retractable wall seats and used it to prop Prism up slightly to improve his breathing ability. It was then that the ramp at the back of the transport bay began to lower.

To Jaik's further dismay, Prism stopped breathing entirely after being propped up. Jaik responded reflexively by ripping open Prism's black shirt. Jaik started to alternate between performing chest compressions on Prism and breathing into his mouth to provide emergency oxygen. When the others within the bay saw Jaik begin to perform what they knew to be CPR on Prism, they walked over to see if anything could be done to save their newest team member.

They silently watched as Jaik alternated between breathing air into Prism's mouth and pushing on his small chest. All of them were soon joined in the bay by a group of security guards and three medical doctors with a gurney. The other doctors quickly grew impatient with Jaik’s determined efforts.

"Come on, let us have him. We'll use the defibrillator." One of the doctors said to Jaik, who was still desperately trying to save Prism's life.

"We don't know what that will do to him! He looks like us, but he's..." Jaik yelled with tears in his eyes before continuing CPR on Prism.

"We need to use more advanced techniques before time runs out." Another doctor said impatiently.

Ursun worried that Jaik was being too emotional about the situation. It was true that they had no idea what medicines to use on Prism, or what advanced technologies would be effective. But as Ursun watched Jaik struggle to bring Prism back to life, Ursun knew that CPR wasn't enough.

Ursun walked over to Jaik and pulled the young man off of Prism. Just as Jaik was beginning to struggle against the larger man's grip, Prism began coughing and gripping his chest. Jaik loudly gasped and smiled wider than he ever had.

"Oh thank goodness..." Leanna said while nearly everyone else in the room let out sighs of relief.

"Get him up on the gurney. He's still going to need our help." One of the three doctors said.

When two of the security officers lifted the still-weak Prism up onto the white gurney, Jaik looked pleadingly up at Ursun, who was still gripping the sleeve of the disguised combat medic. Ursun grunted before relenting to Jaik's puppy-dog eyes. Jaik rushed off the Titian with the other doctors as they wheeled Prism to a nearby medical room.

"Alright guys, let's get Goran a nice cell to rest in so that we can finish this mess of a mission." Ursun ordered to those still in the transport bay.