“Huh?”

  Srell stared up at the rain of bullets striking his body. He was confused by two things; why he wasn’t dead, and why he didn’t feel the bullets tearing through his body. It took him a second before he looked down and saw that the bullets were harmlessly striking his armor, or more accurately the thin black field that surrounded it. The bullets fell away from the field and then fell down onto the ground as though they’d lost all of their momentum. It took his brain another moment to register smidgens of pressure from where the bullets had struck him.

  “Careful there!”

  Prism pluckily called out to Srell before sending faint wisps of light blue energy from his hands up at the machines, encasing each of the gun turrets in clear blocks of ice. Prism smirked and snapped his fingers, causing the ice to shatter along with its contents. The sparking platforms with what remained of the automated guns withdrew into the walls, making a whirring sound that sounded to Prism like a whine of defeat.

  “Tsk, tsk.” Prism walked over and sucked his teeth at Srell, who still stood dumbly in the middle of the well-lit metallic corridor. “Those guns took a big chunk out of your shadow field. Try and be a bit more careful.”

  For whatever reason, Lorias decided to leap several meters through the air of the corridor. He landed in front of the sealed mechanical doors leading to the stairwell. “Peculiar…” he muttered to himself.

  “Hey, you’ll use it all up too if you keep doing stuff like that!” Prism shouted before dashing over to the tall, lean man in full combat armor. Srell slowly made his way over, hopping over fragments of the destroyed turrets as he walked. “You two may feel like your worst memories are trying to drag you down into a pit of despondency. Don’t give into that feeling. Focus on your surroundings and you’ll make it through this next bit.” Prism looked up at Lorias, then back at Srell.

  Prism's own senses were returning to him enough for him to see how out of it the two of them were.

  “What was I thinking?”

  In a flash of red, Prism jerked his hands from in front of his chest to his back. The doors, with their many electronic locking components, started glowing the same red that shined from Prism’s irises. The mechanisms came to life, clicking and twisting until the doors were sliding open, revealing a bright, gray-walled stairwell. Gunfire immediately came from the rifles the Sguvan soldiers standing guard behind the doors had readied.

  “I don’t think so.”

  Prism caused the same red light on the doors to travel to the enemy’s weapons, causing them to jam. Prism felt a breeze blow past him before he saw Lorias cut down one of the men. The swordsman then slid several meters to kill the other with an arcing technique that left a spray of blood on the wall behind the soldier.

  Prism, sensing smart-bombs strewn along the corners of the ceiling, sent what was left of his crimson-colored machine-disrupting magic to disarm them. One of the soldiers obscured by the stairs pressed a red button on a small device on his belt. The royalist then crouched down and buried his head between his legs. When nothing happened, the man raised his head long enough to see Lorias’ variable sword cut it cleanly off.

  “One with the shadows.” Prism thought with a whistle as he watched Lorias tear through the stairwell like a gale.

  By the time Prism had leapt down the stairs, Lorias had killed the remaining soldiers that had guarded the mril doors. Prism laughed at how trivial the whole affair seemed. He watched the blackness undulating from the blade that Lorias held out lowered to one side.

  “The walls…” Srell’s languid voice rang in Prism’s head like a heavy iron bell. The dopey shotgun-wielding merc was still on the top level of the stairwell, directly above Prism and Lorias.

  Prism looked up at the stairs, then around the large area that he and Lorias stood within. Sections of the walls slid away to reveal head-sized metallic holes that were equidistant from each other in horizontal line. Prism raised his hands again and caused a blue shimmer to light his irises. He worried about Srell, who was out of his reach.

  “That damned junior officer. How could he not have known about this door or these traps?” Prism cursed to himself. “I’d open these doors, but I can’t let whatever this is endanger the rest of the team.” Prism then shared.

  Lorias raised his sword up over his head in a defensive pose, with its blade pointed down directly over his face. “Brace yourselves.” He shared.

  The lighting in the room dimmed as thick purple smoke was pumped out of the holes in the walls. Prism slammed his hands together with a loud SLAP! The numerous holes within the stairwell became covered by invisible barriers of solidified energy. Only a small amount of the purple smoke that had escaped lingered in the darkened area. The dense gas settled along the lower level and floated up to Prism’s ankles.

  “It doesn’t seem to be a sedative, or to be toxic…” Lorias shared what the instruments on his suit showed him on his arm display.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “This is-!” Leanna, who was observing the scene through Prism's eyes, exclaimed.

  Prism stopped hearing Leanna’s voice when the lights in the stairwell began to strobe with a violent intensity. Reds and blues flashed so rapidly from the room’s ceiling lighting that Prism’s eyes began to hurt. He covered them with his right hand as he did his best to maintain the seals he’d placed over the smoke nozzles upon the walls. But he soon realized that he had a new surprise to deal with.

  “My feet!”

  Prism tried to take a step but nearly fell over instead. He looked down to see that this bare ankles and feet were both incased in a hard, semi-transparent violet material.

  “…Light-activated deposition…” Prism became aware of Leanna’s voice again. “It turns the seredien gas into a durable solid using an intense spread of light. They’re trying to trap you guys in seredite. It’s not as messy as gluifying smoke, but it’s a heck of a lot more stable.” She explained.

  “Well, we’re trapped in it now.” Prism shared.

  “Speak for yourself.” Lorias smirked and shared.

  Prism looked over at the stairs and saw the pale man looking down at him with Srell at his side. Both of them still had a faint aura of blackness surrounding their armored bodies. Srell seemed to be chuckling, but his physical responses were still sluggish under the effects of the black magic.

  “How do I get out of here!? I’m doing my best just to stop more of this weird gas from flooding this place!” Prism’s voice boomed through the team’s psychic link as he tried to pull his legs free. Even his enhanced strength was no match against the seredite block covering the floor. “Once they’ve realized I’m trapped in he-“

  The entire base shook so violently that the seredite cracked. Srell was knocked from his feet and onto the stairs beneath him, though he felt no pain. Lorias was able to remain standing as he relaxed his knees and rode the aftershocks like a surfboard.

  “AGHHhHHhHhHh!!!!”

  Prism screamed at the top of his lungs as the pain of ripped flesh and splintered bones shot up his body. The sudden earthquake hadn’t just cracked the material that had imprisoned him, but his feet and ankles as well. He fell on his buttocks and wailed once again when he looked down and saw his mangled extremities. Nerves and sinew dangled from where his ankles had snapped off from the rest of his legs. Jagged bits of seredite surrounded his body as it spasmed from the grisly trauma.

  As the floor stopped shaking, Lorias stepped down some undamaged stairs and leaned down over Prism’s supine body. “You’ll be okay. You can heal yourself. But the rest of us are in trouble. Get yourself together and get our allies out of that corridor.” Lorias shared, his voice calm but urgent.

  Prism looked up at Lorias’ bright blue eyes. Strands of the man’s light golden hair had escaped the confines of his helmet, streaming down above Prism’s wet face. Prism blinked a few times and gripped the slick surface beneath his hands to ground himself. He closed his eyes, stretching out his senses as far as they could go. He strained so much that more tears ran down his cheeks from the worsening pain he was still in.

  He took in one long, deep breath, drinking in all the mana he could muster from what he sensed was snowy mountainside. He held the mystical energy in for a moment, allowing it to swirl throughout his being. He gritted his teeth before opening his eyes. The mangled bits of his feet and ankles still embedded in the chunks of fractured seredite glowed until they were nothing but orbs of light. Even Prism’s blood vanished from his surroundings.

  The colorful spheres flew to the stubs of his legs, which too began to glow and hide his injuries. As seconds passed, the lights flowed to Prism’s legs until they formed the shape of his normal feet. With a single exhale, Prism caused the light to coalesce until it faded away entirely, revealing normal legs and feet. He’d healed himself, but at a great cost.

  “Good, now the doors.” Lorias shared, still unable to make contact with Ursun, Leanna, nor Wadaw.

  Prism stood up and brushed off small splinters of the violet seredite. It reminded him of fiberglass, but he pushed such observations from his mind. He was relived that whatever had shaken the base had also caused the smoke to stop flowing, allowing him to lower his wards over what remained of the outlet holes along the walls. Prism looked back at Srell, who was beginning to get up. A thin sliver of darkness still surrounded the sharpshooter, though Lorias’ shadowy aura was much more prominent.

  “I’m sorry, but this is going to hurt both of you. I don’t have any other choice, though. The pain will only be temporary, I promise.” Prism shared with the two of them.

  Before either of them could ask him his meaning, Prism turned back towards the mril nanotube doors and stretched out his arms to either side of himself. He started drawing the inky magic from Lorias and Srell and into the doors winches, which had been sabotaged by the now-dead soldiers.

  The man-sized metal wheels were warped and their gripping handles had been cut off somehow. Prism had hoped Lorias and Srell could just pull the doors open using the winches with their magically-enhanced strength, but the Sguvans had already thought of that eventuality. Only he could open the doors, and he’d need more than just the magic he’d given to his allies.

  Prism’s mouth began to move as he silently chanted a spell he’d hoped he would never have to use again. Black glowing circles of magical energy formed where the broken winches sat on each side of the doors. The darkness continued to stream from Lorias’ body even when it had stopped flowing from Srell’s.

  “I feel like myself again.” Srell uttered in a hushed tone before observing the process continue for Lorias on the edge of the steps below him.

  Lorias looked serene as the darkness left his body; he’d even closed his eyes. After a minute or so, the shadow had faded from him entirely.

  “I’m sorry, but that wasn’t enough.” Prism shared ominously.

  The black spell circles thrummed and grew in size, then tethered themselves to Prism’s allies again with dark strands of energy. Srell’s and Lorias’ eyes widened as they felt themselves suddenly and rapidly grow weaker and weaker until they both fell to their knees.

  “You’re…killing us!” Srell’s struggled to yell using the last of his vigor.

  Lorias conserved his energy enough to draw his sword. He began crawling forward ever so slightly, getting closer and closer to Prism. He would strike at the alien’s heart only if Prism went too far, Lorias told himself. But when Lorias' vision started to fade, he knew he’d fail to stop Prism.

  “There!”

  Prism shouted as the doors slid open all at once as though they were as light as a feather. His black spell circles faded away, no longer sapping his teammates of their strength. Srell started gasping for air and clenching his chest while Lorias merely stood back up and sheathed his variable sword.

  “That was a close one, Magical Boy!” Srell yelled between labored breaths.

  “He was out of mana; he didn’t have any other choice.” Lorias shared with Srell. Prism was grateful for the man's pragmatism, and glad that the two humans began to recover their vim so quickly. “How are they?” Lorias then asked aloud since Prism was the closest to the open doors.

  The corridor was so dark that only Prism could see within it. The dim light of the damaged stairwell didn’t do much to illuminate the area, whose emergency lighting wasn’t even working anymore. Prism saw various bodies scattered throughout the ruined hall. Bits of the ceiling had broken off, leaving piles of basalt and metal piping along the corridor. A thin layer of warm water began to flow into the stairwell, filling the spaces between the cracked seredite.

  “I don’t see them.” Prism said, keeping his voice as plain as he could. “But I sense them, through the link. They’re in the room that Wadaw was being kept in.”

  “Are they…alive?” Srell asked tepidly.

  “Yes, just unconscious.” Prism said before making his way into the corridor. He walked slow enough for Lorias and Srell to catch up. All three of them were incredibly tired, but they needed to see their teammates; they needed to help their friends.

  “Follow me. I’ll keep us safe.” Prism turned his head around to say to them, knowing that he wouldn’t be of much use in his mana-starved condition.

  He didn’t want them to know that, though they’d known him long enough to know when he was bluffing. The biggest giveaway, however, was the fact that he hadn’t created a floating source of light for them, something that he’d been trained to do during search and rescue missions. They walked in silence within the shadows of the corpse-filled corridor. It was as chilling as a cemetery, and as timorous as a tomb.