Prism, Lorias and Srell found Ursun, Leanna and Wadaw buried amongst varying levels of debris within the increasingly frigid laboratory that had been used to remove Wadaw’s face hours earlier. Lorias and Srell had clicked on their shoulder-lights before they’d stepped into the room, providing much needed visibility for the two of them. Prism was the first to “see” their allies. The telepathic magic that connected him to them served as a visible trail that only he could see.

  The trio carefully got to work digging the other trio out. Every few minutes, the ground shook slightly, making the three mercenaries stop what they were doing for fear of being buried themselves. They didn't want to drop any debris they were clearing out of the way and potentially injure their allies further.

  Ursun’s bulky body was the first they freed. His 202 centimeter frame, made bigger by his armor, only had a smattering of rubble upon it. Lorias pressed a few buttons on the commander’s suit and activated its onboard resuscitation functions. With a few jolts to his heart, Ursun’s torso jerked up with a loud gasp that startled Srell enough to make the much smaller man leap backwards. It only took their leader a few seconds to realize where he was and what had happened to him.

  “There was an earthquake…” Ursun said groggily, stroking his forehead as he slid his helmet back higher up on his head.

  “I’m not sure that was the cause.” Lorias said while squatting down to Ursun’s eye level. “We’ll talk about that later. We need to help Leanna and Wadaw now. Are you good to stand, sir?”

  “With some help.” Ursun nodded almost bashfully before Lorias and Prism pulled him up to his feet.

  Srell was the first over to Leanna, whose gloved hand hung out from a pile of ceiling tiles that had fallen on her. It didn’t take much to clear the light debris off of her body. Prism, however, had to be careful not to cut himself on the sharp edges of glassy lighting covers. He was still nude; the impracticality of his state of undress came into stark focus.

  Srell tossed the last panel off of Leanna’s chalky armor, revealing a deep gash across her left cheek that nearly sliced into her mouth. The powdery substance that covered her body had stymied the bleeding. The question of its toxicity soon came to the men’s minds.

  “Can you heal her?” Ursun asked with a worryingly wet cough.

  “No, not right now.” Prism admitted.

  Ursun nodded to himself as he looked down at Leanna’s motionless body. “We’ll use the resuscitator functions, then.” He motioned to Srell with a gestured command.

  With Srell’s help, Leanna regained consciousness like Ursun had, though without the startling body spasm. The first thing she did was grab her injured cheek.

  “I take it that you can’t help me with this?” She looked up and said to Prism. His slow, guilty nod confirmed what she’d suspected. “Guess I’ll have to do it myself.”

  She opened the small canteen on her belt and splashed some of its water on her face, then used a small folded rag she also retrieved from her belt to wipe the white powder from her wound. She hissed at the pain while reminding herself that it was only temporary. She pulled a small canister out of a pocket on her belt, shook it a few times, and then removed its cap. She sprayed its contents over her face wound. A regenerative gel formed over the gash like a transparent bandage, further staunching the bleeding and kick-starting the healing process.

  “Alright, looks good enough.” Ursun held Leanna’s soft chin between two of his thick fingers and bent over to examine her handiwork. “Wadaw should be under that machine over there.”

  The commander pointed and the rest of them moved to the fallen rectangular piece of equipment only two meters away. The base shook more severely than it had been though not as badly as the initial quake. Each of them braced themselves for a few seconds until the shaking stopped.

  "This place is being bombarded." Lorias surmised aloud. His teammates nodded to him in silence, not yet ready to discuss what that actually meant for their prospects of making it out.

  Prism sensed that Wadaw was alive, as much good as that did him. He wasn't sure how badly the guerilla's unarmored body would be after having such a heavy object fall upon it. All five of them stood around the machine before lifting it up until it was leaning back against the wall it had originally sat against. To their collective surprise, Wadaw looked entirely unharmed. He lay prone on his back with his arms and legs splayed out.

  "He looks like he's just sleeping..." Srell whispered as he leaned over to get a better look. His shoulder flashlight shined on Wadaw like a spotlight.

  Ursun, who was standing beside Prism, leaned over and spoke into the elementeitan's ear. "Well, is he?" Ursun's question made Prism flinch and look up at his commander.

  "Yes, yes he is..." Prism scratched his chin hair and looked quizzically down at their ally.

  "Lucky bastard." Ursun said before squatting down and slapping Wadaw lightly on the cheek a few times. "Come on Jiwa." His voice was caring and slightly playful.

  Wadaw started to stretch his arms and legs like he was being roused while in a big bed. Prism laughed at the sight, triggering Leanna's own giggle.

  "I hope that laughter means that we're finally getting out of here." Wadaw said before opening his eyes and looking up at Prism.

  Prism opened his mouth to speak, but stopped himself when he saw Wadaw perform a smooth kick-up to a standing position. Each of the others exchanged glances, especially Ursun and Leanna, who were both still plenty sore and barely able to move without pain. "Kinda miraculous how that machine didn't hurt you at all." Srell took the words out of everyone's mouths.

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  "No miracle, just my nanites." Wadaw shared through their link, making some of the others think that he was joking. He flipped his hair with a triumphant flick of his wrist and walked past the others towards the room's exit. "We're leaving, aren't we?"

  The six of them grabbed their weapons and then proceeded to make their way through the corridor and up the stairwell to the base's ground level, all the while feeling the base shake every so often. Prism took a moment to find a supply room and outfit himself with a Sguvan soldier uniform that fit almost perfectly, save for its lightweight dark-green helmet that was a bit too big for him.

  Once they were near the control room that Prism had rematerialized within, they heard a chaotic mix of gunfire, yelling, and explosions. With Prism's remote sensing and Leanna's bug drones, the team became aware of the presence of True Twins guerilla fighters within the base. The base's personnel were in complete disarray from the surprise attack launched upon them. The fighters overpowered the confused Sguvan soldiers as the guerillas flooded into the base.

  "Our allies have come to our rescue, it would seem." Lorias shared as they ran down the corridor to meet up with the True Twins storming deeper into the base.

  "Comms are being jammed, but I'm getting a telepathic request from RED-2. They're outside the base…they're the ones coordinating the bombardment!" Prism shared excitedly.

  He'd given the members of RED-1's brother team comm-clasps with telepathy enchants, allowing them to use the same undetectable communication that RED-1 did. The enchanted clasps could link to Prism's own telepathic link if they were within a kilometer of him, which was exactly the case at the moment.

  "You've got the go ahead. Link us all up." Ursun commanded.

  After a mild feeling of pressure in each of their heads, RED-1 and Wadaw began to hear the voices of RED-2 speaking within their minds. They'd had multi-team telepathic links before, but it had been too long ago and too infrequent for both teams to be used to it.

  "You boys tracked our sorry asses here, eh?" Ursun shared with a smirk as he ran ahead of his team down the cracked but illuminated corridors towards the sound of gunfire.

  "Sure did. That Rvljsan of yours sent us a high-burst message telling us that you idiots had been captured and brought here last night. You're lucky we were nearby." Ruz, the muscular and wavy-haired leader of RED-2, shared. He sounded cocky and self-congratulatory while he and Cril stood on a rocky ridge overlooking the mountain base.

  "We've been here a whole day? Yikes." Leanna shared while shooting a Sguvan soldier who was about to shoot a True Twin in the back.

  "You were brought about 1000 kilometers east to one of their bases in the Adagadis." Cril, RED-2's second-in-command, shared. He pulled his arctic coat close against the dark skin of his face as an icy breeze blew past him. "That trip alone probably took about 10 hours."

  "Took us a while longer than that to track the vehicle that brought them." Lorias explained over the link after slicing off the arm of soldier who got too close to him.

  "Had to steal a vehicle or two, but we made it." Srell shared as he pumped and fired his shotgun at three soldiers unfortunate enough to get in his way.

  "We're surprised you all are still alive. Kitra will be thrilled." Utcao, with his curled bangs and large facial birthmark, shared as he lay bundled-up on the snowy ground with a sniper rifle in his hands. He picked off some of the larger units that made their way across the growing battlefield in the circular field that surrounded the base.

  "My dearest Kitra! She must've wrangled these forces together for this daring rescue!" Wadaw spoke with a flamboyant exuberance. He had two machine pistols thrown to him by a fellow True Twins fighter before proceeding to fire at a group of approaching soldiers who quickly retreated into a room along the corridor. "We'd be dead science experiments if it wasn't for our magical ally Prism. He broke us all out and healed us all up."

  "Glad that you're all safe." Speet shared; his voice was like a deep soothing rumble in the minds of the others. He wielded his large and heavy BIGPAW as he plodded slowly forward through the fortified field immediately outside the base's side gates, mowing down any enemy foolish enough to enter his wide cone of fire. An assortment of off-road and armored vehicles drove all around him as the wide-scale battle continued to ramp up.

  "We were healed until we went and got injured again by whatever the heck you boys used on the base." Ursun shared as he grabbed a broken rib and winced from the pain of raising his coilgun a bit too quickly.

  “Hyperhowitzer. A local group of military turncoats had it tucked away for just the occasion." Cril explained over their link along with images of the advanced cannon that was nestled within the nearby woods.

  “They used their best round to put a whole in that base you’re in. Don’t let it go to waste.” Ruz shared in a serious tone that told RED-1 and Wadaw that the turncoats who’d manned the cannon were already dead.

  The next several minutes had Prism's team and Wadaw making a mad dash through the increasingly wide corridors of the base, running and gunning with all the speed and focus they had left. Even Prism, still out of mana, had picked up a rifle to shoot whatever enemy he set his eyes on. Leanna and Ursun hobbled along as fast as they could until they all entered the large room where the base's side wall had been blasted through.

  Ursun groaned from the sudden coldness that he felt from the subzero alpine air that whipped through the area. The wind was almost strong enough to drown out the alarms that continued ringing along the walls. The soldiers and the guerrillas exchanged gunfire as the two groups took turns hiding behind the large pillars that dotted the room, save for the ones that had collapsed from the mighty explosion that had seemed like an earthquake nearly an hour ago.

  “Finally!” Prism shouted.

  He strutted out ahead of everyone, even as bullets and bombs were flying around him. He tossed his Sguvan rifle on the floor, raised his arms high and let the wind blow around him until it seemed to be swirling about him exclusively. His eyes shined a brighter and brighter blue which soon caught the attention of the soldiers. They tried to shoot him, but they found their bullets being deflected back at them. Each second that went by had the air that surrounded Prism grow in intensity until it looked as if he was a shining blue ovoid within a mini-hurricane.

  “I guess we should stand back…” Ursun commented as he and his team stepped back towards the corridor they’d come from.

  Prism suffused himself with the natural flows of mana that flew all around him. He felt every pore and vein of his body open as his body became revitalized. In a last burst of power, the localized cyclone around him blasted away, sending all the Sguvan soldiers in the room flying, whether they were behind cover or not. Prism's team looked upon the alien, now clad in what looked like a winterized version of the Red Wolves’ red combat armor. Tufts of brown fur came up from where the black cloth sections normally were and down from the edges of his lightweight helmet to provide heat for his neck and ears. Prism briefly turned around to send a colorful wave of magic at his comrades, causing their own clothing to become warm and insulating like his own.

  "I feel like my normal self again." Leanna shared as she noticed that her face and body injuries were gone. She looked up at Ursun, who nodded to her in agreement.

  "It's time that I end this battle. We can't let these queenies delay our trip to Zazi any longer." Prism shared through the multi-team telepathic link. His voice was strong and fearless, carrying with it an invigorating power that made his allies feel stronger. Their eyes glimmered as Prism stepped forward to face the soldiers fighting outside the base. "I'll make this quick."