Before Prism could even begin to attack the soldiers, he felt an incredible and abrupt pain travel up through his feet and legs. The floor in the room became a sea of high voltage electricity that brought Leanna and Ursun down to the ground. Their bodies became wracked with pain as they seized almost as badly as they’d done earlier.

  Prism gritted his teeth and kneeled on the ground as the electricity flowed through his body. Every energy-absorbing cell of his skin struggled to acclimatize to the voltage. He felt like his nerves were burning. But soon, pain gave way to pleasure, and he began to drink deep of the power that streamed directly into his body.

  The guards stepped back away from the indented door frame. It looked to them like Prism was smiling in an act of crazed defiance. When he began to rise from his knees, the soldiers pulled the triggers of their black rifles.

  Prism reached his right arm out ahead of him and sent the same electricity that flowed through the floor at them in l blinding white arcs. The bolts leapt from one enemy to the other in the blink of an eye, stopping their hearts and burning their skin to the point of incinerating them. Prism drew forth so much power from the electrified floor that the lights throughout the base began to flicker.

  Prism stretched out his left arm behind him and sent forth fast-moving strands of white radiance towards Leanna, Ursun, and Wadaw. His three allies were both protected from the trapped floor and cleansed of all their injuries. The elementeitan’s dual-natured body simultaneously converted the electrical energy into both offensive and healing magic. Electricity arced from the floor up to his chest as he started floating a meter above the ground.

  The overflowing surge of converted mana was too much for his conscious mind. Light as bright as the sun flared from his eyes just as the room’s lighting dimmed entirely. As the yellow emergency lights began to strobe, Prism slowly floated out of the room and over the bodies of the dead soldiers as lightning occasionally pulsed around his body.

  Ursun rose to his feet and placed his hand on his helmet. He felt no pain, and was only a bit dizzy. He watched Leanna stand up a few meters away, and she too looked only a little frazzled.

  “He did a better job of healing us this time.” He said to her.

  The two of them heard men screaming in the corridor outside of the room. They both smirked at one another, remembering the plethora of similar experiences they’d shared with Prism. Ursun’s face contorted into a look of abject confusion when he glanced down at Wadaw, however.

  “This is…No, I…” Ursun, as big and as bulky as he was, became a flustered mess.

  Leanna walked over to the medical bed that her commander stood over and stared down at Wadaw. The guerilla fighter’s eyes were closed, and his face was once again unfamiliar to her. She lowered her head to examine the new visage as the yellow lights flashed across it. “Do you reco-“ She started to say to Ursun.

  “Wha…?” A feeble sound escaped the lying man’s mouth.

  Leanna leaned back when she saw Wadaw open his eyes and groan weakly at her. Ursun reached down and gently wiped a mess of Wadaw’s white curled hair from the confused man’s unblemished face. Wadaw’s grey eyes widened when he saw how warmly Ursun looked down at him. The mercenary commander carefully freed Wadaw's arms and legs from the cold metallic clasps that had restrained him during the macabre face-removing surgery he’d been subjected to.

  Wadaw sat up in the medical table and frantically touched his own face. He’d been rendered unconscious just before he'd seen the scalpel-wielding robotic arms moving towards his head. Wadaw’s eyebrows shot up as his fingertips traced over a face that he hadn’t worn for many years.

  “Jiwa, you fucking bastard.” Ursun said with tears in his eyes. “I had a feeling. I had a fucking feeling it was you.”

  “It is indeed fucking me…” Wadaw turned away from Ursun and Leanna as he swung his legs off the table. Ursun reached out to stop him but hastily reconsidered and withdrew his hand. Wadaw sat with his back to his old friend for a moment and then said, “I’ve forgotten what this face even looks like.”

  He stepped on the ground with wobbly legs but quickly steadied himself. He walked over to a reflective part of the wall and stood before it in silence. Even in the strobing yellow light, he saw himself.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  His gray eyes and white hair had never been a part of the face he’d had as a young man. Though he’d worn many faces, the sight of himself with his original countenance disturbed him. His mind raced with competing memories of his life before the True Twins Gospel and his life after it. The sound of thunder rumbling through the walls drew him out of his own head all at once.

  “Goodness, that must be our magical savior.” He twisted around and said to the two mercenaries that were now standing guard near the door.

  Leanna nodded to him and motioned for him to open a storage locker near him. It only took Wadaw under a minute to get dressed in the same simple hemp shirt and pants that he’d been wearing in Spibo. He then ran over to the door frame beside Ursun and peeked around the corner.

  They watched Prism unleash an arc of white lightning at a small group of soldiers that rushed out of a stairwell at the end of the hall. The magicked electricity vaporized his enemies in an instant, leaving behind fleeting clouds of black ash where their bodies had been. Prism just floated forward like an incandescent specter, delivering painless deaths to each soldier that was foolish enough to run into his view.

  “He looks like he’s on auto-pilot.” Wadaw said as he watched Prism float down the edge of the corridor with glowing white eyes filled with power.

  “He’s in a trance. Happens when he uses too much magic or absorbs too much mana.” Ursun shook his head and said down into Wadaw’s ear while leaning over the smaller man.

  “It’s been happening ever since he absorbed a pretty big mana confluence deep in a chasm in the Disduti desert. He just…loses control of himself and solves our problems in the process” Leanna remarked while she watched the other end of the corridor for any stragglers that might try to attack them.

  “Usually.” Ursun raised his finger towards Leanna, who shrugged and shook her head upon remembering the first time Prism had entered such a trance. She’d nearly lost her life.

  “Can we follow after him? He’s probably our only way out of here.” Wadaw looked up at Ursun and said.

  “Sure, but we should keep our distance. He’s not currently in his right mind. As you said, he’s on auto-pilot. We’re lucky if he remembers us at all.” Ursun explained. He stepped out of the room and into the flashing hallway, then beckoned to Leanna and Wadaw. “Follow me, and stay close.”

  The three of them quietly pursued Prism as the bright alien slowly made his way to the doors leading to the base’s ground level. After a dozen soldiers exiting the stairwell were blasted from this world by Prism, the doors were sealed shut. A stream of pink gas was then released from tiny holes in the walls.

  Leanna and Ursun tapped the left side of their helmets, triggering retractable respirator masks to cover their faces. Ursun yanked a small black cylinder from his utility belt, turned around, then pulled Wadaw close to him. Ursun pushed the cylinder against Wadaw’s face then squeezed it. The device rapidly unfurled into a respirator similar to the ones that protected the mercenaries from the sedating gas that filled the corridor.

  The light that shined from Prism’s body began to dim. He descended until he was standing on his bare feet again. Even his eyes returned to their dull brown color. He looked around the hall for a moment, increasingly occluded by pink gas.

  “It doesn’t put me to sleep anymore, but it brings me out of my trance…” Prism thought as he waved his right hand through the air before him. He watched the pink substance swirl around his fingers. A sound of footsteps made him turn around on reflex. “What am I doing!? My friends need my help!”

  Prism swung his left hand in a quick arc and sent out a vacuum wave that cleared the corridor of the gas, creating a wind stream that pushed it all out into the stairwell leading to the second basement level. Prism then saw his three allies huddled together in the middle of the corridor. Ursun crouched down and wrapped his arms around Wadaw and Leanna to stop them from being blown away by the winds that blew around them.

  “Sorry!” Prism shared with Leanna and Ursun telepathically before turning the wind stream into a gentle breeze.

  “Did your trance protect you from the sedative, or…?” Leanna shared as she used her dronepack to check the air for any traces of the gas. She then motioned to Wadaw and Ursun that it was okay for them to take off their masks.

  “This new body of mine is immune to it, it seems. Me leaving my trance might have just been a coincidence.” Prism shared as he approached the three of them.

  “Stay alert! We’re still in danger.” Ursun shared with severity. He let go of Leanna and Wadaw, stood up straight and walked to meet Prism halfway.

  “Are you going to key me into what you three are “talking” about?” Wadaw looked at Leanna with a furrowed brow.

  She frowned at him, but immediately empathized with his awkward position. “I think it’s time we add Wadaw to the link.” Leanna shared.

  Prism glanced at Ursun as the two of them stopped in front of each other. The mercenary commander nodded down at the alien, giving him the go-ahead. Prism walked over to Wadaw, grabbed the back of the man’s head, then brought Wadaw’s forehead to his own.

  “Would you mind connecting your thoughts and feelings to our own? You’ll only share the thoughts you want to share with us. Feelings aren’t so easy to hide, though.” Prism shared with Wadaw and Wadaw alone.

  “Sure, but tell me one thing; why did you restore my original face?” Wadaw asked through their magical psychic link. He could sense a nervousness coming from Prism’s mind, and could see Prism’s lips quiver.

  “My healing magic normally restores cells based on the DNA of whoever I’m healing. I recall picturing a face different from the one you have now when I was preparing to restore the skin of your face. But when I started healing you, I entered a trance. I’m not entirely sure why I healed your face in this way. If I had to guess, I’d say that this face is a reflection of your inner essence. It’s the way you truly see yourself.” Prism shared.

  Wadaw smiled and started into Prism’s eyes. “Connect my mind to the rest of yours. I’m ready.”

  The irises of Prism’s eyes became an electric blue as mind magic flowed from him into Wadaw. The guerrilla fighter started to hear voices that weren’t his own speaking into his mind, welcoming him into the fold. Two voices came as a surprise to him.

  “Are you guys okay? We’re in the base but we don’t know where you are.” Lorias shared along with images of a wide, dark drainage pipe and a narrow entrance that led into a large water treatment facility connected to the base. A stream of memories showed his and Srell’s journey sneaking through the facility and into the first floor of the mountain base.

  “Whoa, is that Wadaw? Is he in our link now?” Srell shared.

  “He is.” Ursun was short and stern. He too shared mental images of where he and the others within the corridor were, along with a map of the layout of the base that he’d gleaned from the young officer’s memories. “We’re here. Stay put and stay out of danger. We’ll meet up shortly.”