Prism and The Red Wolves

The roof of the security station was still and quiet when Prism returned to it. The light from distant fires flickered across the nearby buildings as smoke rose into a haze that slowly filled the newly-night sky. Prism hated the strangely-sweet smell of the smoke, no doubt a result of the extensive biotechnology that composed Surmil’s buildings, he thought. His eyes glowed blue as he walked to the center of the roof, near where the Sphingid sat.

He sat down cross-legged on the rough surface beneath his boots and began to focus on the unknown streets and structures around him. After fully expanding his perception of living things in all directions, he hit his limit at about five square kilometers. He began to feel the strain of stretching what he could perceive all at once to such a large area, but he just gritted his teeth and focused. Prism knew that he’d probably need to repeat the process several more times in quick succession as the night progressed.

Prism sensed numerous life forms in the area, such as cockroaches, centipedes, and crows, but narrowed his attention to humanoids. A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead while he rapidly checked each street, hallway, and room for the infiltrators. After several minutes, all he could sense were his allies beneath him and the few people who’d ignored the evacuation orders, most of which were cowering in their homes in fear of more explosions.

“The infiltrators aren’t here. I’m moving six kilometers eastward, to the closest station to this one.” Prism told his team telepathically.

Prism jumped from the roof and created a strong stream of wind to carry him through the air in an arc towards his destination. As he flew silently over the darkened streets beneath him, he was suddenly struck by a bullet that tore through his right arm with enough force to send him spinning. He crashed through a window and soon felt shards of glass scratch the exposed skin of his face and cut into the exposed wound on his arm. He struck the floor of the office hard, skidding a short distance on his belly before slamming headfirst into a wall. Fortunately, he was still wearing his standard-issue Red Wolves helmet.

Prism’s adrenaline kicked in as he rolled under a desk to avoid being shot again. He’d managed to keep his mind alert enough to maintain his telepathic magic, but he decided against contacting his team until he was sure that he couldn’t deal with his attacker on his own. He looked down at his left arm and saw that his triceps muscle had been shot off. Blood ran heavily down his still-armored elbow as the gaping wound began to hurt Prism a lot more after he’d seen how bad it was.

On top of that, he noticed that his PAW was missing. After a quick glance around the shadowy room that he was in to be sure, Prism felt certain that his weapon had been shot off along with the clip that once connected it to the left side of his chest armor. Prism also became certain that the weapon that had shot through his armor could shoot through the desk he was hiding under.

Prism closed his eyes so that the light of his irises couldn’t be seen. He placed his right hand over the wound and sent healing magic within it, causing the damaged flesh to quickly regenerate until it was back to normal. Prism felt himself grow tired, as using such significant healing magic was especially strenuous. He was unsure how much longer he could hide, and didn’t want to risk gathering mana there. For a moment he contemplated shrouding himself in protective magic, but he figured that the armor-piercing power of the bullets was too great for such magic to prove effective without an abundance of mana being available to him.

He sighed before deciding to find his enemy the old-fashioned way; by drawing out their gunfire and figuring out the trajectory of their bullets.

“Here I go.” Prism thought to himself before dashing out from under the desk.

He ran past the shattered window and soon felt a bullet graze his cheek. He was impressed by the skill and precision of his assailant, even as his heart raced from nearly having his head blasted off. The armor-piercing bullet that missed him ripped through the wall behind him. Prism rapidly glanced along the path that the bullet had traveled as he fell to the ground and rolled behind another desk.

He’d seen the location where he expected the sniper to be, in a building across from the one he’d crashed into. But to Prism’s amazement, the other building only had two small bullet holes running completely through it, and with no sign of anyone within. Even with his magically-enhanced vision, Prism couldn’t see what was on the other side of the building. He desperately and stupidly tried to peer through the bullet holes to find his target. He was simply at the wrong angle to do so while he hid behind the desk, and he didn’t dare to pause again to use any complex magic.

He quickly realized that the shooter was using a weapon that could somehow shoot through entire buildings, and that he was not safe hiding behind anything.

“AHHHH!!!!”

Prism cried out as another bullet shot right through his gut, perforating his intestines and causing him an incredible amount of pain. He refused to look down at the injury when he felt his blood begin to flow into his lap. He gritted his teeth and began to move, determined to get out of the office alive. His body could naturally heal twice as fast as a normal human’s could, but that wouldn’t help him much with such a severe wound. He choked back his grunts while he crawled along the ground, unsure if he was being detected by sound or some other non-visual cue.

He closed his eyes again just long enough to use a quick, simple healing spell to seal his gut before his insides could spill out. He dulled the pain, though he knew that his injury would need more significant treatment than what he could perform at the time. He had very few options with the small amount of mana that he still had available to him. Fortunately for him, it only took a second for Prism to figure out how he could make it out of the office alive.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve used illusion magic, but this is as good a time as any.” Prism thought with his eyes still closed eyes.

Prism raised his arm slightly out above him as he lay on his belly amidst the shattered glass that sprinkled the thinly-carpeted floor. He caused a bald, blue phantom to appear, which had a passing resemblance to himself. He heard a bullet pass through it, causing it to dissipate immediately. Prism smirked upon seeing that his plan could work. He began conjuring several of the glowing blue phantoms, until the room was full of them. Their empty ephemeral forms required only a tiny amount of mana, and he still had enough mana to make several more of them.

He carefully got up onto his knees in a crouched position as the shooter began to take out several of the phantoms at once. With a closing of his fist, Prism caused the remaining five phantoms to lose their glowing, ethereal appearance and become just as real in their appearance as he was. The silent bullets began to stop, and Prism figured that the shooter was trying to figure out his game. Prism directed his illusions to begin acting chaotically just when he decided to begin his escape. Some of the illusions jumped out of the broken window, while some of them ran to different corners of the room.

Prism leapt out of the building behind one of his illusions only to begin running along the structure’s exterior up to its roof, which he saw was only four stories away. Two illusions that he made had jumped out of the window to run alongside him. While he used a simple spell to adhere his feet to the building’s chitosan windows, he also created four more illusions that ran farther away from him up the building. Prism figured that he needed to get to a higher place than the shooter, or at least to get to the same elevation as his foe. Once Prism made it halfway to the roof, the shooter started firing at him and his illusions again.

Prism became very worried when he saw how rapidly his illusions were being destroyed. He hadn’t thought that the sniper could fire at such a fast rate, or that their accuracy would be seemingly unaffected by so many moving targets. Prism clenched his jaw as he made one final sprint, knowing that the next shot could be the one that ended his life. A few seconds later, he was crouching down, grabbing the edge of the roof, and pulling himself up onto the roof in one quick, fluid motion. He fell onto his belly painfully, rolled several meters, and hid behind the raised edge of the roof. He saw several bullets pierce through the area of roof where he’d pulled himself up, which made him certain that the sniper was at a lower elevation than he was.

Prism wasted no time in gathering as much mana as he could as quickly as he could. He gave himself a single minute to do so, sure that the sniper would somehow figure out where he was lying by then. It was enough time for Prism to get what he needed to execute the second part of his plan.

Prism leapt up from the roof and looked in the direction of the sniper’s shots. His eyes began to glow red as he walked slowly and purposefully. A bullet veered away from him and flew into the night sky behind him. Though the pain was still present in his gut from the damage that he had yet to heal fully, Prism smirked at the success of the powerful electromagnetic barrier that surrounded him. The magnetic field was so powerful that it could diamagnetize almost any sort of projectile that came into contact with it, repelling them just enough to spare Prism any injury.

It was his last ace in the hole, but it gave him the confidence to pursue his attacker. Prism soon leapt from the roof and used his electromagnetism to levitate enough to reach the neighboring rooftop of the building that divided him and his attacker. The act of using electromagnetic magic to levitate weakened the barrier that surrounded Prism, as it used an increased amount of mana. He needed the magnetic barrier to last, so Prism did his best not to use it to levitate again.

Another bullet was fired at Prism, but it veered around his left ankle and up into the sky. Prism glanced in front of him and smiled as he had enough information to locate the sniper. He dashed forward, ignoring the sharp pain in his belly, and headed directly to the other end of the roof he was on. In mere seconds he was staring down at the eighth floor of the building that he hadn’t been able to see clearly while he was in the office. Prism saw the sniper with their strange rifle-like weapon pointed at an extreme upward angle toward him. The sniper wore a turquoise skin suit that shimmered slightly in what little light shined into the window that they kneeled in front of.

The sniper wore a full-face mask that had a single silvery hose that wrapped around their neck and led to a small metallic device on their lower back. When the sniper glanced up at Prism, who leered at them from the edge of the rooftop, Prism noticed that they had a feminine body shape. Prism’s attacker quickly abandoned their weapon and took off running behind themself to a darkened section of the room that Prism couldn’t see due to the angle that he stood at. Prism leapt down from the ledge and slammed himself boots-first into the window beside the slightly-opened window that the sniper had been firing from.

With a dramatic showering of chitosan glass, Prism slid across the length of the storage room’s floor until he came upon a closed door. He leapt up with an acrobatic flip from his slide and expanded his perception enough to detect the sniper running down some nearby stairs within the building in an attempt to escape. He could see that the sniper had activated their cloaking technology, rendering them invisible. But Prism could see the very incorporeal essence of the person who ran away from him, regardless of the technology they were using.

Prism sneered before he burst through the door and ran rapidly down a pitch-black hallway to reach the same stairway. Fortunately for Prism, he could naturally see in the dark.

Prism was fast, but the suspected infiltrator that he pursued was faster. He figured that he was dealing with an android, despite having been told by the Surmil security officers that he’d recently met that such machines would have been detected immediately upon coming near to Athea’s coast due to the signature radiation that their plasmagnetron power sources put out. The possibility of a human genemod entered Prism’s mind, but he had yet to encounter such a person as an enemy to know what their physical capabilities may be. He thought of Leanna, who didn’t seem to be much more powerful or athletic than the other normal humans he’d seen on Æba.

As he jumped down each flight of stairs like his attacker had, his dogged determination to catch the sniper overpowered his good sense. When he jumped down the last couple of stairs, he stepped onto an anti-personnel mine, triggering an explosion that sent his body flying through the door leading to the ground floor’s lobby. He skidded across the hard, shiny tiled floor, barely able to cling to consciousness. If he hadn’t focused his electromagnetic barrier to his feet in the split-second he had to respond to the trap, he’d surely been killed.

As he felt his severely-damaged lower body grow numb, he sent a series of telepathic images to his entire team that relayed the gist of what he’d experienced since encountering the sniper. He looked around the partially-lit room and saw no sign of his attacker. Prism was too weak to magically-sense their presence, and he did his best to simply keep his line of psychic communication open to his team. He remained as motionless as he could manage, hoping to appear dead to any enemies that may be nearby.

“I’m hurt really bad…I didn’t tell you guys what was going on because I didn’t want to put anybody else in danger.” Prism’s voice echoed through the minds of his distant teammates after he was sure that they’d all seen the violent montage that he’d sent them.

“You aren’t too far from Lorias and me. We’re coming to get you. Just hold on.” Leanna’s disembodied voice was calm and assuring to Prism.

“We’re under attack here! They came from underground, just like you guys thought they might!” Srell’s panicked voice blasted through the telepathic link.

“Make sure that Prism is seen to immediately. We’re probably going to need him here soon. These freaks are already putting up one helluva fight. They’re heavily armed with Kingdom-tech and we won’t be able to hold them off for much longer.” Ursun communicated.

Prism detected a terror from Srell, Ursun, and Jaik that he hadn’t imagined they were capable of. Prism wanted to stand up, but he knew that his legs were a mangled mess. He needed to focus on gathering the mana he’d need to heal himself, a process he knew would take more time than his team probably had.

“Be strong, Prism! Help is on the way!” The hope of Jaik’s words gave Prism strength.

Prism worried that the sniper was still within the lobby that he laid in, cloaked and waiting to kill him or anyone who attempted to rescue him. He closed his eyes, calmed his mind, and soon entered a deep state of serenity. In the dire situation that he found himself in, Prism believed that only a peaceful and orderly mind would keep him alive.

He felt the myriad magical energies flowing all around him, untapped and untamed. He reached out to them with his mystical essence, pulling the mana towards him to rejuvenate his physical body. As he started to absorb the mana from his surroundings, he sensed something strange, vast, and alive. The being’s alien wails were barely-perceptible, but Prism’s Elementeitan nature allowed him to hear and oftentimes understand the voices of many different forms of life. The cries seemed to come from all around him, and yet also from far away.

As Prism quieted his own internal voice, he began to realize the meaning of the cries; they were the animalistic cries of a sort of pain that can only be caused by a deep wound or illness. The pained wails were so quiet because they came from the electrochemical nerve-cables that ran through the walls and floors of Surmil’s buildings and streets. The sound was a product of the complex interchange of electrical impulses and biochemical reactions that traveled through the city. If Prism hadn’t entered a state of heightened calm and focus, he would probably have never noticed the whimpering of the city-spanning organism.

“What are you? And why are you in so much pain?” Prism thought to himself.

He knew that his questions couldn’t be answered without interfacing with the being directly. He was intimidated by such a prospect, and how it might make matters worse. The being was so alien to Prism that the possibility of doing it more harm than good concerned him. Prism again began to focus on gathering as much mana as he could, setting the matter of the strange lifeform aside.

After several minutes of lying still in silence, Prism heard footsteps approaching from outside of the building lobby. He checked his telepathic link, and learned that Leanna and Lorias were about to enter the building with three Surmil security officers. Prism used a small bit of the mana he’d been absorbing to detect any human presences within the room he was in. When he felt nothing, he expanded his perception to the adjacent rooms within the building. Prism felt relieved when his second attempt revealed no signs of his attacker or any other hidden people nearby.

“It’s safe to enter. No infiltrators are nearby.” Prism communicated to Leanna and Lorias.

“Alright. The security officers that are with us will keep guard outside, just in case.” Leanna psychically replied to Prism.

Both Lorias and Leanna ran through the lobby’s doors and soon found Prism lying on his side in a pool of his own blood. Leanna almost gasped when she saw the state he was in, with his leg armor bloody and cracked as if he’d been crushed. Lorias noticed that Prism’s left foot was facing the wrong way, and that his right knee was bent backwards.

“This is…” Leanna began to say.

“Can you heal yourself?” Lorias asked Prism with a harsh, impatient voice.

Prism opened his mouth to speak, but he instead coughed raggedly until blood spilled onto the corner of his lips. Leanna kneeled down to lift up Prism’s head to prevent him from choking. She knew that he wasn’t invincible, but she could still barely believe the state he was in. She looked down at his fatigued face and truly worried if he’d survive. She then began to worry for her own safety as she realized that their enemies were truly on another level of deadliness if they could do so much harm to their super-powered ally.

“I just need…ten more minutes…” Prism said weakly as he looked up into Leanna’s eyes.

“We don’t have that much time. Chief Goginae and his officers are under attack back at the security station, most likely by the same person that attacked you. If they could do this to you, then the others will be dead soon.” Lorias explained bluntly.

“Then take me…to a…nerve…” Prism’s voice grew fainter.

“A nerve?” Lorias asked pointedly.

“The city’s…big…organism…” Prism struggled to say.

“He must mean Surmil’s nerve grid!” Leanna said excitedly to Lorias before looking back down at Prism. “You want to connect to it, don’t you?” She asked him.

Prism nodded slowly, giving Leanna and Lorias all the confirmation they needed. Leanna carefully picked up Prism and followed Lorias over to a meter-long panel on a nearby wall that was labeled with a stylized yellow lightning bolt. Lorias shot off the panel’s lock with his PAW and then removed the slat, revealing a thick bluish-green cable that pulsed with light. The cable was strapped onto the wall and had several smaller tendrils stretching up the wall to unknown locations. Leanna then laid Prism along the wall, so that he could reach up and touch the nerve-cable.

Prism grunted as he raised his left arm, but managed to muster enough strength to grab the living power line. The nerve-cable was warm and lightly throbbed beneath Prism’s hand. He immediately began to be overwhelmed by complex information that streamed through the nerve-cable’s epineurium surface. As Prism did his best to weather the torrent of biological signals he was receiving, he began to tap into the spate of bioelectrical energy that glowed through the nerve-cable as well. The energy was in a form that Prism’s body could easily utilize, and the abundance of energy let him rapidly heal himself. His body started to glow as he began manipulating the bioelectricity that flowed through him.

“But that isn’t mana, is it? Surely we would have discovered mana by now if it had just been a form of electrochemistry.” Leanna inquired quite keenly.

“I’m able to absorb and manipulate many forms of energy. Some are harder than others to use, though. This “nerve grid” is easy for me to tap into, since it creates and distributes the same type of energy that our bodies generate.” Prism explained with an increasingly bright voice. “I sensed this being here…it called out and I reasoned that we could help each other.” Prism added.

“Called out? This is just a power generation and distribution system. It isn’t sentient.” Leanna stated emphatically.

“You’re wrong. This organism that you have incorporated into your entire city is conscious, and it’s in pain. And after connecting with it like this, I think I know why it’s suffering.” Prism said strongly.

His body was nearly healed, and it had become easier for him to understand the massive flow of information being sent through the nerve-cable’s electrochemical impulses. He got up on his regenerated legs, squatted down, and placed his right hand on the nerve-cable beside his left hand. Prism closed his eyes as his body began to glow even more brightly than it had before. He used his mind to dive into the larger nerve grid, exploring the city in a way that he hadn’t imagined that he could. It wasn’t long before he encountered the areas of the organism that were causing its pain and increasing dysfunction.

“It’s just a bunch of interconnected bio-generators and biocomputers with some other specialized biotechnologies as well. What you think of as its conscious thoughts are actually just diagnostic and operational data being distributed through the nerve grid.” Leanna said matter-of-factly, completely dismissing Prism’s observations.

“That’s neither here nor there. What’s wrong with the system?” Lorias asked Prism.

“The infiltrators have severed several important nerve-cables from the nerve grid. They’ve also introduced some sort of virus into the organism. It’s spreading fast and will start to cause some of those bio-generators you mentioned to die off soon.” Prism said softly. “I can save it. I’m fully connected to it and I can use its own power to fight the virus and regenerate its severed nerve-cables.”

“How long would that even take?” Leanna asked after glancing at a testy Lorias. “It’s important to prevent the bio-generators from failing. They’ll probably explode once they become infected. It’s a tactic that our enemies have used before.”

“Ten minutes, probably. I’m one with this…”bio-system”. It will take longer if I end our connection. I’ll have to reach this perfect synchronization of our bodies all over again.” Prism said almost pleadingly.

Lorias looked hard at Prism, whose squatting body was glowing beside him. Lorias’ cold, blue stare belied a calculus of lives and consequences. Scenarios flashed in his mind that involved a multitude of outcomes that would be the direct result of the decision he knew needed to be made. He knew that the rest of RED-1 was fighting for their lives at Getla Base, and he knew that the largest contingent of Surmil’s security force was probably being slain at that very moment.

When Lorias thought about those two disparate incidents, he had an epiphany. There was perhaps a way to solve both problems simultaneously, and Prism would be the only way to do so, Lorias thought.

“Can you use Surmil’s bio-system, what you call the organism, to track and attack the infiltrators?” Lorias asked Prism.

“I…” Prism paused for a moment to think over the unexpected question. “Yes, yes I can!”

Prism opened his eyes, and they began to brilliantly shine with a warm, white light. His lips silently formed a series of words that imbued the nerve-cable with a portion of Prism’s mystical essence. Prism sent a portion of his own consciousness into the nerve grid as he anchored the rest of himself to his still-chanting body. He surfed along the electrochemical impulses, letting them take him to the deepest parts of the organism. When Prism’s disembodied self passed through several of the being’s bio-computers, numerous images and sensations were imparted to him.

Prism perceived the birth of the organism’s many parts, from the conception of its bio-computers in sterile laboratory vats to the almost-industrial construction of its power-producing bio-generators deep underground. Prism witnessed the growth and expansion of the many organs that came to become one being, and how their nerve-cables, arteries, and digestive tubes came to connect it not only to the city of Surmil, but to itself. The burst of understanding was an intense rush to Prism, but he didn’t let it deter him from his true goal.

Prism’s consciousness continued to flow through Surmil’s bio-system, and eventually came upon the areas contaminated by the viral bio-weapon. Through his fragment of consciousness, Prism sent forth his healing magics. He converted the ample biological energies into mystical energies that neutralized the super-virus and restored the organic structures that it had ravaged. With the understanding of the organism that he’d been given, Prism was able to quickly move to the other damaged and diseased portions of the bio-system, repairing them with increasing speed and ease. He managed to bring good health and even increased fortitude to the entire organism in only seven minutes.

“It’s all healed up. I’m going to strike at our bad guys now.” Prism said aloud to Leanna and Lorias. The two of them simply stood by and watched a motionless, squatting, shining Prism continue to grip the nerve-cable.

“Can we see what you’re doing through our telepathic link?” Leanna asked Prism.

“It’s too dangerous. I’ve placed a portion of my mind into the bio-system. If I let you all enter my mind, I’d risk losing a part of myself forever. There’s even a chance that one of you could accidentally sever your own consciousness from your body while I’m using this magic.” Prism explained.

“Fair enough…” Leanna said tepidly.

Prism used the nerve grid distributed extensively throughout Surmil to massively expand his own magical range. He used his magic to detect any cloaked humans in the vicinity of the nearby security station that was under attack. Prism instantly sensed the infiltrator, and was certain that it was the same person who’d shot at him. Prism saw that the infiltrator was on the top floor of a building near the security station, since the attacker was close to a nerve-cable. That nerve-cable ran through the buildings’ wall beneath the window that the infiltrator had been shooting out of. The infiltrator kneeled behind another rifle-life weapon identical to the one they’d left behind several floors above Prism, Lorias, and Leanna.

Prism’s expanded perception made him aware that the infiltrator had already killed ten of the security officers, though Chief Goginae and four other security officers remained alive. Prism could also see that Remades and Testa were not only alive, but were one floor below the infiltrator. The two Roses had somehow discovered where their attacker was and were close to intercepting their foe.

“Impressive…but it’s best if I help them. They’ll get themselves killed if they fail to subdue the infiltrator.” Prism thought to himself.

Prism caused the nerve-cable hidden within the wall beside the infiltrator to overload, sending over 15,000 volts of electricity directly at them. Prism could see the electricity arcing through their suit, causing them to shift in and out of visibility even as they fell to the ground in an epileptic fit. As the electricity struck their body, Prism received a strange sort-of feedback that allowed him to peek into the mind of the infiltrator. He learned that the sniper was a cyborg woman from the distant nation of Sguvi, and that she was fervently dedicated to the Queen.

After a few seconds of thrashing about the ground, the infiltrator lied motionless on the tiled floor of the penthouse room. Prism kept his perception focused on that area until he saw Remades and Testa burst into the room and quickly stand over the downed infiltrator with their machine pistols drawn. Prism then did a quick but extensive scan of the city using the nerve grid, but couldn’t find any evidence of other infiltrators.

“The infiltrator that was attacking the security station has now been neutralized. Ten security officers are dead there, but the Roses and Chief Goginae are still alive and well.” Prism said aloud to Leanna and Lorias.

“Excellent job.” Leanna replied. “Though we may still have a problem.”

“We just reached out to Ursun. Apparently, Getla Base has its own independent bio-system. You won’t be able to use Surmil’s to deal with their attackers.” Lorias said.

“Alright, you two can head back to the security station, then. I’m assuming you’ll use the Sphingid to get back to the base. The sniper left it intact for some reason.” Prism said after he took his hands off of the nerve-cable and stood up to face his teammates.

“Did you find any other infiltrators in the city?” Lorias asked Prism.

“Surprisingly, no. Seems like the lady I electrocuted was the only one here.” Prism said.

“Electrocuted!?” Leanna asked loudly.

“I overloaded a nerve-cable that she was in front of.” Prism explained.

“Very interesting. I’ll personally want to hear all about your experience of “becoming one with” Surmil’s bio-system when this is all over.” Leanna said.

“How do you know the infiltrator is a lady? You said it with a certain sort of…familiarity.” Lorias crossed his arms and asked Prism.

“When I electrocuted her, I was able to read her mind for a split-second. I learned that she’s a young Sguvan woman with several cybernetic body parts. She’s completely loyal to the Queen. In fact, I think she worships the Queen as a goddess or something. That’s all I learned.” Prism said while tapping on his helmet. He’d gotten a bit of a headache from the sudden and involuntary psychic intrusion of the infiltrator.

“She must’ve been a Royalist. They are the Queen’s most loyal devotees outside of the Kingdom, and are akin to a cult.” Lorias explained to Prism. “Though most Sguvans worship the Queen. Their religion calls her the “Third Coming” of Eizavoba.”

“The cybernetics she has were probably rewarded to her by the Queen herself, which would mean she’s a Constable...” Leanna mused aloud.

“Constable?” Prism asked.

“It’s a title given to Royalists by the Queen. Constables have proven themselves in battles that serve the Queen’s interests, hence the reason why they get her approval and her technology. They’re basically her secret agents.” Leanna further explained.

“The Queen’s reach is vast…” Prism said softly.

“That’s enough lessons for today. We have a base to save.” Lorias reminded them.

The three of them left the lobby and joined up with the security officers out front. Leanna and Lorias wished Prism well before leaving with the others back to the security station to help the survivors and find out more about the defeated female infiltrator.

Prism, who was fully-healed and energized, looked up at the cloudless night sky. The smoke that had been building up in the air was quickly dissipating as the restored bio-system began putting out the fires all over the city. Prism didn’t have time to examine what he’d just been through, but he knew that it had been a profound experience interfacing with the artificially-created organism that ordinarily supported the people of Surmil.

“Time to go” Prism said aloud to himself before using his magical power over wind to send himself flying into the sky toward Getla Base.