Prism and The Red Wolves

Prism was the first to get up and run out of the lecture-style briefing room. Etrysian soldiers began to run down the hallway outside and make their way into the courtyard to see if they were under attack. Getla Base’s alarm began to sound, and it became clear to Prism that the infiltrators were already ahead of RED-1 and the Etrysians in carrying out their terrorist plans. While Prism stood in the courtyard amidst dozens of soldiers awaiting their commands, a second cluster of explosions were detonated within Surmil. The explosions were so powerful that they caused the earthquakes that they’d all felt.

Throwing secrecy to the wind, Prism decided to act in a way that only he could.

Prism’s eyes shimmered green before he kneeled down onto the ground and placed his hands on the asphalt. He poured his magic into the very foundation of the base, strengthening it as much as he could. When the shockwaves from the second round of explosions reached Getla Base, there were no quakes felt by anyone within. Prism stood up and relayed what he was seeing to his teammates through their telepathic link. He saw the panic and confusion on the faces of the soldiers around him, and prepared for them to try and apprehend him. But soon a voice blared over the base’s intercom system.

“Surmil is under attack by Monarchist terrorists. Detachments B and C will leave immediately to contain the situation there. This is an order from Base Commander Maginae. I repeat…”

Prism glanced around the courtyard and saw sudden looks of clarity and focus on the faces of the soldiers. They began marching orderly back within the buildings surrounding the courtyard. Prism had a moment of relief, but knew that it wouldn’t last.

“They aren’t going to do anything to stop you. They’ve already been briefed not to interfere with the operations of the Red Wolves or the Roses, regardless of what strange things they might see you do.” Ursun’s voice echoed in Prism’s head through their telepathic link. “There’s a high likelihood that the attacks on Surmil are just distractions to pull forces away from this base. Srell, Jaik, and I are staying on the base to help defend it. Leanna and Lorias are going to the city with two of the Roses on their ship. Surmil's Chief of Security will be joining them, and guiding them to where he suspects the infiltrators are. If you can get to the city faster than them, then do it. We still need to make sure that the infiltrators can’t do any more damage there. We’ll update you when we learn more.”

“I understand, sir. I’m headed there now.” Prism telepathically replied.

Prism checked the strap of his helmet to make sure that it was on tightly enough. Then, with a shimmer of blue light from his irises, Prism altered the air around him and directed it up beneath his feet with great force. It was an inefficient way to send himself flying, but his capabilities still hadn’t improved enough to finely manipulate gravity over a sustained period of time for smoother flight. By the time he was shooting into the sky in the direction of the setting sun, Leanna, Lorias, Remades and a tall, muscular orange-haired woman were stepping out into the courtyard. A strong gust of wind whipped past their group, causing them to look up and see Prism just as he propelled himself forward in the air to get enough momentum to arrive in Surmil.

“Wait, was that someone flying unassisted? I didn't see a wingpack on them or anything like that! That must be Kingdom tech, or maybe even a plasma soldier!” The large woman shouted.

“Calm down, Testa. The Queen wouldn’t deploy those sorts of forces out here, and our infiltrators definitely wouldn’t be flying so haphazardly and kicking up wind like that. We would have easily found them by now.” Remades reasoned.

“That was our teammate Prism. We’ll meet him in the city.” Leanna said matter-of-factly.

"Hmmm, alright, then. You Red Wolves really do have a lot of secret tech that you're keeping to yourselves..." Testa said while crossing her arms and looking reproachfully at Leanna.

"I told you they were!" Remades smiled and gave Testa a slap on her armored lower back.

"If you say so..." Leanna smirked.

Lorias rolled his eyes at Testa and Remades' youthful exclamations before the middle-aged bearded man who'd been in the briefing with them walked through the door behind their group. He wore a brown three-piece suit and a short-brimmed brown hat, which was a bold choice for Athea's sub-tropical clime. He approached the others at a leisurely pace, which caused Leanna to furrow her brow at him.

"I never liked these living ships. Being in the belly of a giant bug gives me the creeps." He said while looking over at the nearby Roses aircraft, which was smaller than the Titian and comfortably carried six passengers in its bay.

"We shouldn't waste any more time getting to your city, Chief Goginae. We need you to navigate us to the last known location of the terrorists." Leanna said curtly.

"That goes without saying. I'm ready to leave whenever the rest of you are." The chief said a bit rudely.

Remades gave a quick nod to the rest of the group before walking out ahead of them and approaching the ship at a brisk pace. Lorias smirked when he noticed how much pep the young man had in each step he took.

"Sphingid!" Remades shouted after stopping at the rear of the ship.

The white carapace of the living ship began to shimmer before a wide ramp lowered from its rear abdomen section. A cloud of warm humid air blew out of the opened section as the ship prepared itself for its human passengers. Remades glanced behind himself and waved his hands to beckon the others to join him before he walked up the carapace ramp and into the ship's bay. When each of them was within the bay, the carapace ramp closed behind them, sealing them inside.

The ship's light-pink and white interior was lit by luminescent nodes that lined its ceiling, and had six soft seats that lined its walls in rows of three on either side. The ship's internal structure was symmetrical and well-balanced, giving it a grand yet simplistic design. The pink carapace that formed its flooring and accents was paired with white bone-like material that formed the ship's rib-like frames that looked like the arches of ancient cathedrals along its ceiling. A linear section of the walls above the seats were translucent and could be made more transparent by swiping ones' fingers across their surface, allowing the passengers to see the ship's exterior surroundings. The window surface worked one way, only allowing those within the bay to look out of it while it appeared opaque to those outside of the ship.

Unlike the Titian, the cockpit was open to the transport bay, and the group watched as Remades plugged the pilot seat's control nerve cable into his armor's spinal port adapter by scooting back into the seat. Each of them had been aboard such living ships, but it had been quite some time for both Lorias and Leanna.

"He's the pilot?" Lorias asked worriedly. He had never seen such a young man with so many critical team roles also be a pilot.

"Yup! He handles pretty much anything relating to biology.” Testa said while moving through the bay so she could look out of the cockpit's transparent walls for a better view of the city when they approached it.

The Sphingid rumbled as its large pink and white scaled wings unfurled from within the outer carapace of the ship. The ship's wingspan was slightly wider than the length of the ship itself, and the wings stretched out straight at the sides of the ship. Soon after, the wings began to beat quite rapidly, like the wings of a hummingbird. In mere seconds, the Sphingid was lifting off the asphalt and flying rapidly through the sunset air towards Surmil. The small white legs it had been resting on then dangled beneath it before being retracted up into its lower abdomen beneath its transport bay.

"Can you contact Hypergeneral Aksos?" Chief Goginae asked Remades as he walked over to the cockpit area.

"No, I can't. It seems that those explosions flooded the area around the city with some sort of disruptive electromagnetic field that's disrupting our radio communications. And the winds are too crazy right now to even use terpene communication. I'm going to have a hard enough time just keeping this ship steady." Remades' shouted while he was analyzing the vast amount of data that the ship was relaying to him.

"We need to head towards the Scava district, in the north part of the city. That's where the last anomalous readings were detected before the explosions. There will be a security station nearby where we can land. Some of my security officers will be there to meet us." Chief Goginae said as he leaned over Remades' pilot's chair.

"Alright. We should be there soon." Remades said softly with closed eyes.

"Did you get that, Prism?" Leanna asked over their telepathic link. She’d kept it open once they boarded the ship, so that Prism could hear any pertinent information.

She and Lorias sat quietly across from each other.

"I'm headed there now. I've been putting out fires in the meantime." Prism said telepathically to the members of RED-1.

Remades was one with the Sphingid, and was seeing through its sensory organs. He saw the fires raging throughout Surmil, and smelled the smoke that billowed into the sky. Only the smaller buildings had been engulfed in flames, as the city's larger skyscrapers were made using organic materials that were highly resistant to heat and concussive force. Remades wondered why he didn’t see the city’s bioorganic fire suppression systems quenching the flames, but chocked it up to more sabotage by the infiltrators. Before long, he began to see a few of the fires suddenly die out. He figured that some of the automatic fire suppression biotech was still working, so he shifted his focus back on navigating the volatile winds over the city in crisis.

"I've heard about you two. You both were raised in Etrysia." Testa said loudly to Leanna and Lorias as she leaned on a wall between the bay and the cockpit area. "I can tell that you were, Leanna. But a Rvljsan like you being raised by one of the noblest Etrysian families is quite something. Did you know that they made a movie based on you?" She then said to Lorias. Testa smiled widely at him the entire time she spoke.

"Spare me." Lorias said with a dismissive wave of his hand at her.

"You really are just like Dimnos portrayed you in the movie! Amazing!" Testa yelled jovially. "He must've met you at some point. Otherwise, he's an even better actor than I thought."

"Are you not one of the Roses, renowned for their class and grace? By the Twins, you are insufferable." Chief Goginae said while walking into the bay after hearing Testa.

That's...!" Testa began to yell, but reigned herself in as she remembered who she was speaking to. "I'm sorry. I don't think I'll ever get used to acting "classy" or "graceful." I wasn't raised like the rest of you."

"I wasn't raised within any sort of noble family either. And as you can probably tell from my brown hair, I'm GMO-free. But that didn't stop me from learning restraint and rising through the ranks." The chief said sternly to the orange-haired young woman who towered above him.

"Yes...you're right, sir. You're a model for us all. Very few GMO-free folks become leaders in our society." Testa nodded softly to Chief Goginae.

"And very few Myo are let into the Roses. How'd you manage?" Leanna spoke up.

"You're right about that! I was only allowed in because my family got rich during the reconstruction of Clisina fifteen years ago. We are a family of construction workers you see, like a lot of Myo, and my parents were in the right place at the right time." Testa happily explained. "I'd always wanted to be a Rose since I was little, and I was able to get in after I completed my studies at Xandi military academy as a heavy weapons specialist."

"New money. That explains everything." Lorias said snidely.

"It sounds like you worked hard to get where you are. I had similar challenges when I tried to become a member of RED-1." Leanna said in a softened voice.

"I can't imagine! It must've been so hard just leaving Athea and making the trip across Ruskeda to get to the Peninsula! It's still a treacherous journey for a civilian." Testa leaned towards the seated Leanna and said. Testa had a glint in her eye and an exuberance that charmed Leanna.

"Oh goodness yes. I was only 17 when I made that trip. Our busfly was almost shot down when we were going over the Kasiper Mountains. Not even by Monarchists, but by a group of tribal separatists who thought our ship was there to clear them out." Leanna said with a smile on her lips.

"You are such a legend." Testa listened in awe.

"No, not me. I'm just a girl that wanted something different for herself, just like you." Leanna said with a recusant shake of her head.

"Those separatists are still living up there in the Kasiper Mountains. They've built a sizable town that trades with Wolf City from time to time." Lorias said wryly.

"Ruskeda is just too big for their government to put down every group that doesn't want to pay taxes or make nice with their nation's neighbors." Chief Goginae stated plainly. "Anyway, enough of this. We should be talking about the infiltrators."

"And what can you tell us about them?" Leanna asked.

"Not much. We believe that they are utilizing some sort of cloaking technology to hide themselves. Not even our gene-gates are detecting them, which means their cloaks must be completely masking all traces of their physical presence. I'm guessing that they are wearing bodysuits with self-contained breathing units. Otherwise our gene-gates would’ve at least picked up some DNA from their exhaled breath." Chief Goginae explained.

"That's possible, but I think that it’s improbable. That's a lot of gear to wear and be able to move so quickly around the city. And the extensive coastal detection grid that Athea has surely would have detected people arriving on land from a vessel of some kind." Leanna reasoned.

"The quakes...they must've come from underground! The explosives they used shouldn't have created such powerful seismic activity that could damage Getla Base kilometers away from where your people detected the anomalous readings!" Testa excitedly surmised.

"But they would have still needed a ship to reach our coasts undetected, and then they would need to dig lengthy tunnels underwater without alerting any of us. How is that any more probable?" Chief Goginae said as he began to pace around the bay. The idea intrigued him, but its implications were too dire for him to accept it so easily.

"We're landing atop the security station. Prepare to disembark." Remades voice hummed through the interior of the Sphingid, amplified by the same bulbous nodes that supplied the bay with light.

"We'll discuss this with my men. They'll be able to confirm your hypothesis." The chief turned and said to Testa before the ship landed and the bay's ramp lowered.

Their group was met on the rooftop landing pad by several men and women dressed in brown uniforms that signified their role as Surmil security officers. Prism walked out from the middle of the group, glad to see his teammates safely exit the living ship. Leanna smiled when she saw him confidently approaching them with his hand on the PAW that was clipped to his chest armor. She was glad that he was starting to become comfortable with the weapon that he’d not-so-secretly shown disdain for just weeks earlier.

"Nice of you to join us out here." Prism said when he walked up to Leanna.

"Our contractor is also a firefighter, apparently." Leanna couldn't hide her admiration for his spontaneous heroic efforts as she smiled while she spoke. "Did you find any survivors?"

"Only a few. I brought them back here after healing them. I didn't have enough time to do much more than that." Prism said guiltily.

"Don't you dare undersell what you've done. No one else could've saved those people, not with the evacuation orders and the chaos that's going on." Leanna said in no uncertain terms.

Prism nodded to her and smiled sheepishly while looking at the ground between them. He saw the attacks as a way for him to prove himself after his training, and her words told him that he was on the right path.

"Come on you two. We have a lot of ground to cover if we're going to find who did all this." Chief Goginae yelled as the rest of the group started to leave the roof and head inside the security station. Lorias stood beside him, discussing something in hushed tones.

Once everyone was inside the station, Chief Goginae made a point to pull up an interactive map of Surmil within a large open meeting room in the center of the station's fourth floor. A three-dimensional model of Surmil expanded from a large round table at the middle of the room, and everyone took their places around it. The fires were shown upon the map, as well as icons that represented where the anomalous readings had been before the explosions rocked the city.

"It seems fair to say that the anomalous readings were cloaked bombs that have been detonated across the city." Chief Goginae was the first to say.

"Yes, sir. We have confirmed that most of the explosions emanated from where we discovered the anomalies." A lean green-haired man in his thirties replied. His uniform and badge showed that he was the chief's deputy.

"Most of the explosions?" Lorias asked as Chief Goginae was opening his mouth to speak.

"We detected several of the explosions underground." The deputy waved his hand over the hologram, causing the city map to be raised to show the sewers and other underground areas. Icons showing the additional blasts then appeared. "Some were within our municipal sewers and subway tunnels. But some were in newly-created tunnels."

"Who created those tunnels?" Leanna asked while leaning in and examining the map intensely.

"We don't know. There's no official record of these tunnels even existing. We are simply calling them tunnels because there wouldn't be another way for the bombs to be at those locations. Our sensor grid's nerve-network doesn't even reach down that far underground, so we don't have any definite readings of what's there other than the seismological calculations that predicted those blast areas." The deputy said with a furrowed brow.

"This is unbelievable. Our enemies have actually managed to bypass our detection system and reach us by tunneling beneath our feet..." Chief Goginae's voice was thick with subdued rage and intense concern.

Prism was surprised that the man hadn't yelled at the top of his lungs. As Remades, Testa, and the security officials began to brainstorm ways of locating who they believed to be cloaked infiltrators, Prism felt a familiar tingle at the back of his mind. The feeling told him that his team wanted to communicate with him through their telepathic link.

"Prism, you need to find these infiltrators. They are using cloaking technology too sophisticated to be detected using conventional means, so it stands to reason that we need to use your unconventional abilities to detect them." Leanna telepathically said to Prism while making eye contact with him from across the hologram table.

"That's fair. This city is very big, so I will need to go to multiple areas to scan each region individually. I'll need to find somewhere quiet and open to a large area in each region. It'll make my job a lot easier." Prism communicated to his team through the telepathy magic that linked them all together.

"The security stations. Most of them are four-stories high and all of them have landing pads on top that should give you some measure of peace and quiet." Lorias communicated telepathically. It seemed clear to Prism that Lorias had somehow already figured out what he'd need to find the infiltrators.

"I'm worried that Lorias and I will only slow Prism down. He should get to the security stations while we stay with Chief Goginae and pursue more traditional ways of locating the infiltrators, in case I’m wrong." Leanna's voice echoed in the minds of her team.

"Sounds like a plan. Execute it as soon as possible. We're alright here at the base now, but there's no telling when we'll be attacked." Ursun psychically said. "I'll tell Deriges to have his soldiers scan for any underground tunnels to see if we can catch our enemies off-guard."

"Be safe out there. There's no telling what crazy Kingdom-tech the infiltrators have been outfitted with. This new personal cloaking technology that we think they have is already bad enough." The worry in Jaik's telepathic words hit Prism more strongly than he was prepared for, though Prism was able to keep the rest of their team from being struck by the magically-amplified feelings.

"Find 'em and kill 'em." Srell mentally communicated along with sending an image of him mowing down scantly-clad Destructors with his PAW.

After a moment of shared resolve and confirming their plans with one another, RED-1's telepathic link became silent as each of them returned their focus to the world in their immediate vicinity.

"But why would they blow up the tunnels that they used to get here!? It doesn't make any sense!" Testa yelled.

"I doubt that these infiltrators have any plan to escape. They're probably a pre-invasion force sent to sabotage our defenses as much as they can, while also confusing us with seemingly-random attacks." Chief Goginae said confidently with a rub of his chin.

"They'd be seen as expendable, and that makes them even more dangerous." Lorias said softly.

"Hypergeneral Aksos should be at Getla Base in an hour or two. His troops and Base Commander Maginae’s troops will give us the manpower we need to track these terrorists down.” Chief Goginae said hopefully.

“Deputy, could you pull up the location of all of Surmil’s security stations on this map?” Leanna asked sweetly.

“Sure.” The fellow Xypno man met her request without hesitation.

With a few taps of the control console that he stood in front of, the deputy caused 20 white squares to appear on the large 3D hologram that illuminated the room. After Prism had memorized the location of each of the stations, he gave a confident glance at Leanna, who then winked at him.

"Do you think that these are the infiltrators' next targets?" Chief Goginae asked as he gave Leanna a look of sheer doubt. "Surely if that was their plan, then they would've planted their cloaked bombs on our stations instead of at random places. In fact, none of our stations were destroyed by the bombs." He said with a tinge of condescension.

"Isn't that a bit strange?" Remades asked. A few of the security officers in the room voiced their agreement.

"I'm sorry to break up this productive planning meeting, but I'm going to head out and try to find these terrorists on my own." Prism said with a raised hand and an awkward smile.

"You'll probably get yourself killed out there. We still have no idea how many infiltrators there even are." The deputy said, doing his best not to sound rude.

"Don't be ridiculous. We can't let you go on your own. If you end up going missing, then we'll have to expend resources to find you; resources that we barely have at the moment." Chief Goginae said firmly.

"Prism is uniquely able to handle himself out there. And as these two Roses saw earlier, he can cover far more ground than any of us can on our own." Leanna explained earnestly to the chief and his team.

"Don't ask us how, but he can fly." Remades said with a quick shrug.

Chief Goginae walked over to stand directly in front of Prism. The chief looked over the contractor with harsh eyes, doubtful that such a small, adolescent-looking person could be competent enough to single-handedly find their enemies.

"Right now, every second is precious. I'm not going to waste any time arguing. Go on. Just know that my men and I aren't going to save you if you get caught out there." Chief Goginae said harshly to Prism.

"I understand." Prism nodded to the middle-aged man.

With a final look around the room, Prism gave a quick salute to everyone before running up to the roof.

“Why am I surrounded by children at what may be the most dangerous time in my career?” The chief said while dramatically gripping his forehead.