Prism and The Red Wolves

“Over there!” Leanna yelled to her teammates.

They were several meters away on a wide street covered in twisted metal, small craters, and concrete debris. Leanna stood on top of a burnt-out car, doing her best to shoot down several small quadcopter robots that were hot on their trail. The vicious flying robots had shot her insect drones out of the bright blue sky. It would take her dronepack several hours to grow new ones.

A large robotic spider tank had jumped from an intersecting street and had set its sights on Leanna and the rest of RED-1. It quickly approached them with its surrounding contingent of smaller eight-legged robots with guns mounted on their backs, crushing everything in its path with its massive metal legs.

“Stand back!” Prism shouted when he saw the spider tank that Leanna was warning them about.

Prism made a mad rush towards the spider tank, breaking away from the rest of his team. Once he’d gotten between the approaching machine and the other members of RED-1, Prism’s eyes shined with a brilliant emerald light. He pushed his hands out before him just when he saw the tank and its robot allies begin to open fire on the area around him. A wave of green light shot out from Prism’s body, engulfing the surrounding street in a verdigris cloud of pure corrosion.

The bullets that streamed from their enemies’ weapons were reduced to fine particles that sprayed across the ground before they could strike anyone. Leanna watched as the flying machines that she’d been firing at quickly fell apart and then fell to the ground. Any pieces of metal that were within the green cloud quickly turned to brittle rust that was carried on the cool wind.

Leanna jumped off of the vehicle she stood upon and ran back to join her other teammates. She feared that the green cloud would spread to her and destroy her metallic equipment. The rest of RED-1 then made their way several meters up the street so that they could view Prism’s attack at a safe distance.

Mere moments later, Prism caused the corrosive green haze to flow forward at great speed until it had engulfed the spider tank and the robots that were around it. The metal machines were soon little more than rusty bits of scrap metal as their components oxidized at a rate far faster than the machines could handle. Prism let the green cloud linger on the road while he ran back to his team.

“Good, but more will come from all around us if we stay here. Let’s go.” Ursun said to his regrouped team.

They stood in the middle of the narrow Inner-6 zone of Battle City, an area that featured multitudes of aggressive and highly-developed enemy machines of all shapes and sizes. They’d been forced off the rooftops of the middle city when long-range sniper fire began coming from the Center Building in spite of RED-1’s elimination of the zone’s aerial patrol robots.

The team had spent the past two days slowly avoiding being detected while trekking through the middle city. But upon entering the inner city, RED-1 was immediately detected by a hidden proximity sensor. They’d spent the third day of their week in Battle City fighting random groups of machines that were hastily alerted to the team’s presence in the inner city.

When the six members of RED-1 began to walk north on the wide road towards the Center Building, they could feel the ground start to shake from behind them. The buildings that had lined the streets where Prism had unleashed his corrosive cloud magic started to collapse. Though the green haze had dissipated, it had caused the metallic support structures within those buildings to sufficiently corrode enough to the point where they could no longer keep the buildings standing. The team ran for dear life as four skyscrapers behind them fell at an angle and crashed into each other, sending a beige cloud of particulate building materials and other debris flowing down the surrounding streets.

“Never do that again!!!” Srell screamed to Prism while they all continued running for cover from the rapidly moving particulate dust cloud.

Lorias ran ahead of the rest of the group and quickly discovered a street-facing shop-front whose glass windows were still intact. He tried the door, which was unlocked, and beckoned for everyone to follow him inside. They all rushed into the empty shop, closed the door, and watched the dust cloud rush down the street outside the wall-height windows at the front of the shop.

Prism’s eyes flashed white before he created a thin magical barrier around the window to make sure that it held up against the bits of building that were carried in the dust cloud. Srell sighed loudly and sat down on the tiled floor of the old dingy room, holding his PAW close in case they got a surprise intruder during their impromptu respite. Lorias leaned on a wall near Srell while Ursun, Leanna, and Jaik stood around Prism by the window at the front of the room, near the entrance.

“That green cloud you made must’ve corroded the steel beams that kept those buildings standing. Incredible…” Leanna said passively to Prism as she marveled at the aftermath of his mistake.

“I guess you aren’t used to using magic like that in an urban environment. It’s good that this happened here instead of in a populated city.” Jaik said in an attempt to be positive.

Prism looked at Leanna and Jaik as they spoke. He’d felt a sinking feeling in his stomach the moment that he saw the buildings begin to collapse, and that feeling hadn’t abated. He’d gotten the urge to try and keep the buildings standing with his magic, but such a titanic effort risked killing him and his teammates if he failed. He’d chosen to run with the others, but still wondered if he’d made the right choice.

When Prism looked at Ursun’s placid face after the others were done talking, Prism became even more worried. Ursun, who’d been staring out of the windows behind Prism, turned his implacable gaze onto the small armored alien. Prism gulped nervously.

“It’s been a while since Battle City’s lost a building, let alone four.” Ursun said with a quick glance out of the window. “Be more aware of your surroundings, kid. You could’ve cost us a lot of lives instead of just a lot of money.” Ursun said with a slight frown.

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” was all that Prism could say.

After spending half an hour in the faux shop, RED-1 left and made their way down the dust-ridden street once the debris cloud had mostly dissipated. They looked back to see the aftermath of the collapsed buildings, and how the particulates from their destruction covered everything around them. They were fortunate that the buildings hadn’t caused even more destruction than they had. They’d also been fortunate to have survived after retreating to a building so close to the mayhem. Srell kept mentioning that fact while they walked over assorted chunks of concrete.

Jaik coughed a few times, as he was sensitive to the dust that lingered in the air. When Prism heard Jaik’s coughs, his eyes flashed blue before he swept his right hand in a backhand-motion. A mighty gale swept around him and the others harmlessly while gathering and sweeping the dust and contaminated air down the street behind them. The resulting blast of wind cleared the area and created a loud BOOM that echoed through the wide street that led south to the outer city.

“By the Twins. Was that really necessary?” Lorias said reproachfully to Prism after being startled by the unannounced maneuver.

“What did I just say to you!?” Ursun yelled back at Prism.

“I don’t want any of you to inhale any toxic materials in the air now. And the sound can distract the robots and make our journey safer, right?” Prism was quick to reply.

They soon saw several machines scurrying out from the buildings behind them, tracking the loud sound that had echoed across the city. The mercenaries each raised their weapons and went on high alert, again made aware of the numerous murderous machines that could be around each corner. Leanna paid close attention to the skies and Ursun eyed the nearby buildings for potential ambushes. It wasn’t long until they both found what they were on the lookout for.

Several large worm-like machines burst out of the buildings on each side of the major street that RED-1 walked down. The metallic worms were each ten meters long, and their exteriors were composed of spiked rings. The mechanical worms burrowed through the concrete buildings and burrowed along and through the asphalt ground by spinning their spiked rings at high-speeds, cutting through anything that made contact with the drill-like spike mechanisms.

Prism’s teammates reflexively raised their PAWs and began firing at the fast-approaching worms. They watched as their bullets harmlessly struck rotating spikes. Prism raised his PAW a short time later, and took aim at the fastest worm. His eyes flashed green again before his firearm began glowing with a green light as well. Prism briefly closed his eyes while he visualized a series of effects that he wished for his magic to cause. The complexity of the sequence made it difficult for Prism to create the spell quickly, but he still managed to. As Lorias reached for his variable sword and Srell reached for his shotgun, a green spell circle appeared on the side of Prism’s PAW before he pulled its trigger.

Prism’s bullets were enwreathed with a green light that allowed them to eat through the metal that they came into contact with. The bullets then exploded with small green flashes of energy when they reached the innards of the lead worm. The worm made several loud clunking noises when its internal mechanisms began to rapidly corrode. In a matter of seconds, the worm and its carapace of spiked rings had stopped moving. Prism smiled to himself when he saw that his spell had worked.

“Keep firing!” Ursun yelled to Prism, who’d stopped shooting to admire his own handiwork.

“R-right!” Prism yelled as he shot at the other dozen worms that were mere meters from him and his teammates.

With each shot he took, he felt his own stamina drain away. The enchanted bullets were highly effective against the machines, but the elaborate magic behind their creation caused a great strain on Prism. After firing a few dozen bullets at the remaining worms, he felt himself become lightheaded. He fell to his right knee and mustered enough strength to fire one last burst at the mobile worm, which soon stopped moving like the others had.

“Looks like that’s all of them…” Lorias said while poking one of the motionless machine worms with the tip of his sword.

“I guess whatever you did to them is stopping them from splitting into two smaller spikewurms, like they usually do once their deactivated.” Leanna speculated, making Prism aware of that dangerous aspect of the worms in the process.

Jaik helped Prism up as the green glow left Prism’s eyes and PAW. Jaik smiled at Prism and patted his chest after he’d helped Prism stand. Prism smiled weakly up at Jaik before taking a minute to gather mana from his surroundings. Jaik watched as wisps of multicolored light appeared nearby and flowed into Prism’s body.

“Stop using your bombastic magic without consulting us first! Any of us could have told you that it was a bad idea to alert every robot in the area with a blast like that!” Srell shouted at Prism, who looked ashamedly at the ground after restoring his body’s mana reserves.

Ursun looked around at the worms suspiciously. He and the other mercenaries on his team knew that the spikewurms were some of the deadliest and most resilient machines in the monarchists’ arsenal. Gnapp had made Battle City’s training replicas no less dangerous than their real counterparts. Ursun had been prepared to use a howler on the group of spikewurms once his team had sufficiently distracted the machines with their bullets. He was glad that Prism had been able to incapacitate the spikewurms, but Ursun didn’t want RED-1 to linger in the area any longer. Ursun couldn’t be sure that Prism’s magic had fully disabled their splitting ability.

“We need to keep moving. We have a few more hours until we’re at the Center. And there’s a good chance that more robots are on their way from further down this street.” Ursun shouted.

Before Prism and the others could reply, a series of explosions began to make their way towards their group from a dozen meters ahead of them. The ground shook beneath their feet once again. Each of them scattered to avoid the blasts that rained from the sky above.

“Cannoneers on the rooftops!” Srell shouted and pointed while he ran within a building for cover with Lorias.

Prism looked up and saw four large blue figures high above them atop two neighboring skyscrapers. They were out of his range and the range of his teammates’ weapons. At least, that was what Prism believed.

“Cover me!” Ursun shouted to Prism.

Ursun stood behind the pillar of a sheltered entryway. He clipped his PAW to his armor and swung his coilgun off his back and into his arms. He then leaned over slightly and looked up at the long-range machines that had bombarded his team’s area. He confirmed that the machines were cannoneers, especially deadly quadrupedal machines that acted as mobile explosives platforms. Cannoneers usually featured a single large cannon on their backs from which they launched their salvos of explosives.

Ursun’s team fired their PAWs up at the cannoneers that were nearly thirty stories above them. Ursun then took aim at the two bulky yet distant machines that were narrowly in his line of sight. He felt his coilgun grow warmer in his hand as it charged. Ursun could even feel a buildup of static electricity in the air around him, which he worried would be detected by the cannoneers and any other machines that might be nearby.

Prism stood alone within an alleyway opposite to Ursun’s location. Prism could see his commander preparing to fire the advanced electromagnetic weapon that he usually carried on his back. Prism wondered how the coilgun could possibly reach the cannoneers, though Prism knew that there was still much he didn’t understand about the Red Wolves’ technology.

Prism saw the pinnacle of a laserlith in the distance, peaking from above the rooftop that hosted the two cannoneers that he could see. A thought occurred to Prism, and he soon realized that he too had the ability to strike at their enemy. His eyes began to glow white as he gathered a bit more mana from his surroundings. He then peaked around the corner up at the cannoneers, which’d begun to rain explosives down closer to his location. He felt the heat and pressure from the blasts radiate towards him, and he quickly ducked further into the alleyway to avoid the worst effects of the attacks.

Prism knew that it was now or never for his attack. Ursun, who nearly had the air knocked out of him by the blasts, had the same thought at the same time. When Ursun pulled the trigger of his coilgun, Prism stepped out from around the corner, stretched out his arms up above him, and pointed his right and left forefingers at the opposite rooftop that Ursun was aiming at. Each of Prism’s two fingers pointed at a different cannoneer.

When Ursun’s coilgun unleashed a pulse of invisible microwaves in a cone, Prism shot two beams of white light from his two pointing fingers. The coilgun’s microwave burst fried the electronics of the cannoneers on the eastern rooftop, while Prism’s light beams shot through and destroyed the two cannoneers on the western rooftop in a fiery explosion that sent chunks of rooftop flying onto the streets below. And when even more machines began to appear from side streets ahead of RED-1 to investigate the commotion, Ursun was ready for them.

“Keep back, kids!” Ursun yelled from behind his pillar.

He leaned over and aimed his coilgun at the street as dozens of assorted machines began to flood the street that led to the Center Building. When he pulled its trigger again, the coilgun unleashed another microwave pulse that rendered all of the approaching machines inactive. Some of the machines even exploded, causing even further damage to the wide street that had already been reduced to a cluster of craters.

“With me!” Ursun shouted to his surrounding teammates when he ran out from the pillar and took to what was left of the street again.

RED-1 regrouped and made their final dash to the large roundabout that surrounded the Center Building. Prism’s eyes continued to glow white as he created a temporary barrier around the team to deflect any projectiles or explosions that came their way. He’d been afraid that he wouldn’t be able to maintain such a wide-ranging magical construct, but he had little choice but to try.

“This is one ballsy formation, boss!” Srell shouted after he shot a quadcopter drone out of the sky while they ran.

“Prism is keeping us well-defended. We’ve lost enough time as it is. We don’t want to be in the inner city after dark.” Ursun said before he fired a few destructive rounds from his coilgun at an especially large robot that tried to stop their advance.

“We’re still a few hours away from the roundabout gate. We’ll have to find a resupply station to spend the night at, and try to get into the Center in the morning.” Leanna said while shooting at a fast-moving robotic attack dog.

“Didn’t you just hear me? We can’t be in this part of the city at night!” Ursun yelled while they all continued to run.

“With these enhanced patrols showing us no mercy, I get it.” Lorias said as he and Srell held up the group’s rear.

“I can’t make everyone faster and impervious!” Prism shouted, his slender arms still outstretched while he maintained the barely-visible barrier around their tightly-packed group.

“Sure you can!” Jaik yelled with a smirk.

Prism could sense what Jaik meant before the young man could verbalize his thoughts process. Prism saw an armored military transport vehicle ahead of them that looked to be in relatively good shape. It was clearly un-drivable, as it had no tires, but Jaik figured that Prism could probably repair it with magic. Prism smirked back at Jaik, because the young doctor was correct.

While Jaik explained his plan to the others, Prism ran ahead of the group and stayed in earshot of them. When they made it to the large armored vehicle, Prism looked over it quickly to make sure that its condition wasn’t too poor. Satisfied that he could fix it, Prism nodded to his teammates, who stood by to defend him while he worked.

“I’ll need to dispel my barrier in order to work on this. Be careful. I’ll only be a few minutes.” Prism said to the others.

“You’ve got five.” Ursun said after he noticed a group of slow-moving, four-legged robots approaching them from the south, and several groups of tank-style machines amassing to their north to block their access to the roundabout. “Those tanks are EM-shielded. I won’t be able to take them out easily with my coilgun.”

Prism spent a minute gathering the mana he’d need to implement Jaik’s plan. He then spent the following three minutes refurbishing the shabby military transport, all while the rest of RED-1 held back the machines that threatened to kill all of them at once. Prism’s eyes glowed white while he created parts that the vehicle needed by transmuting and reshaping nearby materials.

Leanna was yet again amazed at Prism’s ability to understand complex machinery enough to both precisely disable it and extensively repair it. She’d realized that he wasn’t some mystical faerie that had come from some primitive culture. To her, he’d obviously been a man of war in the past. Prism was clearly someone who already knew his way around an industrialized battlefield, despite what his recent blunders may make others believe.

“He’s just a century out-of-practice.” Leanna thought to herself.

“It’s done. Get in!” Prism yelled from the passenger seat of the repaired military transport.

His team looked back at the vehicle with amazed yet determined eyes. Ursun jumped into the driver’s seat after tossing his coilgun at Prism, while the others took seats in the second and third rows. Ursun started up the vehicle and pressed his foot on the throttle for as far as it could go. In a matter of seconds, they were speeding down the road at over 100 kilometers an hour.

“Amazing, it’s actually working.” Leanna said breathlessly while she sat in the middle row with Jaik.

“It even handles pretty well.” Ursun said loudly before he drove around a small crater in the road.

Prism’s eyes shined with a bright white light while he enveloped the bulky, gray, six-person armored vehicle in a shimmering layer of projectile-proof magic. As the vehicle took more hits from an increasing number of enemy robots that pursued them, Prism found it more and more difficult to maintain the barrier.

Lorias and Srell slipped their PAWs into gun ports that were at the rear of the vehicle and fired at the group of fast-moving robots that chased after them while looking out of the bulletproof windows of their vehicle. Jaik and Leanna shot their own weapons from the transport’s side gun ports. Ursun sped down the road at full speed, doing his best to avoid the numerous potholes on the extensively-damaged road.

“Thirty more minutes of this and we’ll be at the roundabout gate.” Ursun said to his team just as a nearby explosion violently shook their vehicle.

Prism suddenly felt winded by the explosive attack, but resisted the urge to rest. Despite his best efforts, Prism knew that he didn’t have the strength to endure a direct hit of that kind.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t take much more of this…” Prism said after his magical barrier took the brunt of the blast’s pressure wave and shrapnel.

“Just gather some mana and stick with it.” Ursun ordered.

“I can’t…I can’t gather mana while I’m using intensive magic like this…” Prism said softly.

Prism closed his eyes in order to strengthen his focus and prolong the duration of his protection spell. Ursun glanced over at Prism and saw the strain that the small contractor was dealing with. Ursun knew that they’d all be killed quite quickly if Prism wasn’t safeguarding their vehicle from the onslaught that surrounded them. But they didn’t have the option of avoiding the killer machines of the inner city anymore; their overt presence in the large speeding transport made sure of that.

“Then I’ll have to get creative.” Ursun said with a smirk. “Hold on tight everyone! We’re taking a detour!” He shouted before sharply turning the steering wheel.

Ursun’s four mercenaries each took hold of the metal handles that were beside each of their gun ports. Prism, on the other hand, seemed unfazed by the vehicle’s sudden and jerky movements. His magic was enough to keep his body stationary while he sat in the passenger seat.

The armored transport turned off of the major road that led directly to The Center and soon burst through a tall, wide glass door that led into an expansive indoor mall. Its ostentatious halls were wide enough to allow their vehicle to careen through the mall without an issue. A few of the robots that had been following them turned into the mall to chase them, but Lorias and Srell quickly dispatched the spinning, wheel-shaped attackers before they could get close enough to do any damage. Prism opened his eyes wide just long enough to see where Ursun had taken them. With a worried shake of his head, Prism closed his eyes again and resumed his spell-enhancing meditation while Ursun gripped the steering wheel tightly.

Ursun continued driving down the abandoned, faux, luxury shopping mall to avoid the roaming packs of machines on the city streets. The mall had automated turrets and hidden traps, but their armored vehicle was too fast for such defenses to threaten them. When Ursun made another sharp turn into a large roofed central courtyard, he almost hit the brakes when he saw a massive metallic statue of an idealized man begin to rise from its seated position at the middle of the room. The 10-meter tall statue was one of the mall’s most potent automated defenses, and moved far more quickly than its size would indicate.

Ursun swerved around various columns and big potted plants throughout the botanical garden within the courtyard in an attempt to avoid the miscellaneous objects that the mechanical statue threw at their transport.

“That’s right; I forgot that there is a colossus in this mall…” Leanna mused to herself while she shot at the statue when her side of the vehicle faced it between Ursun's maneuvering.

"Come on, Data Girl! That kind of information would've been very helpful!" Srell shouted back to her while he clutched a handle on the wall of the transport, waiting for the vehicle’s rear to face the colossus so that he could shoot at it too.

"We're getting out of here. The colossus is just a distraction." Ursun said calmly.

The commander drove the armored vehicle through a series of archways that framed a wide walkway on the edge of the room. The stone archways provided enough cover to avoid an especially rigorous barrage of thrown objects from the colossal machine enemy. When it became clear that the transport was nearing the rear exit of the courtyard, the colossus leapt from the center of the room towards the exit in an attempt to block the transport's escape.

"Ram it. I can handle it." Prism said calmly.

Ursun looked over at Prism and saw that the young-looking contractor was looking at his leader with confident eyes that still burned white. Ursun nodded his understanding to Prism before proceeding forward directly at the colossus. Ursun and his mercenaries knew that what he was doing was crazy, but they were all in the bootcamp with Prism because they trusted that Prism’s magic really could do what they thought was impossible.

Before the massive machine could completely bend over and prepare to stop the armored vehicle with its hands, Ursun drove into its legs with such force that the lower half of the human-shaped statue was pulverized by the impact. The armored vehicle simply kept going until it was out of the courtyard and flying down a north-facing hallway. The vehicle didn’t seem to lose any speed. Ursun grinned while the rest of his mercenaries yelled and cheered. Prism leaned back in his seat and resumed his meditation while clinging to the warm coilgun in his lap.

"Not much farther now." Ursun said with a measure of grit and excitement.