"What's a skurakshyuh?" Prism asked.

  "Shouldn't you know, Fairy Prince? It's in the ancient tongue, after all." Jimah mocked, his eyes scanning the ground several meters below them for any soldiers who may be hiding.

  "I'm not really a fairy." Prism rolled his eyes and leaned against the trunk of the tree.

  "Of course you aren't. Fairies aren't real." Jimah chuckled.

  Prism hissed at the man, which made Jimah look over at him with wide eyes. Jimah had heard all sorts of stories about Prism, but he never thought that the being would be a hisser.

  The moment Jimah took his eyes off the jungle floor, Prism was knocked off the branch by a sudden kick to the side of his head. All Jimah saw was a dark flurry of figures moving quickly in front of him. Five black androids with sleek, featureless bodies and gold-seamed joints had leapt over the branch. As they flew through the air, each of the machines took turns delivering powerful strikes directly to Prism's head, knocking him out before he could respond. In their single-minded pursuit of Prism, they completely ignored Jimah.

  "By Ewa!" Jimah cursed as he raised his rifle at the falling group. He fired a few shots at the androids, but they easily dodged his bullets even as they fell. The androids fell gracefully onto the ground, two of which held Prism firmly within their rigid arms.

  Jimah reloaded his rifle with a magazine he pulled off his belt. He was well acquainted with the military androids and their superhuman capabilities. His only defense against them in the past had been setting EM traps around the areas he'd hunt soldiers. He would then hide in the mud and clay of the jungle floor, exploiting a weakness in the androids' sensors. Jimah knew that if the androids got their hands on him, then they'd likely rip him apart.

  Jimah slid down the slick trunk of the tree and then tucked himself into a soft patch of ground he found only a few meters from the stationary androids. He didn't know why they stood perfectly still as they restrained the unconscious Prism, but he would make the most of the opportunity.

  Jimah stopped his breathing as he lay on his belly, looking through the sight of his weapon before firing precisely at the neck joints of the two androids that held Prism. The disruptor bullets embedded deep within the machines, then released a pulse of special radiation that made the complex systems that kept the androids running go haywire. The androids released Prism as their bodies writhed on the ground as if they were experiencing seizures.

  The other two androids turned their eyeless heads in Jimah's direction before charging in the direction of the shots fired at their teammates. Jimah fired a few more shots at the fast-approaching enemies, but they dodged each one. Once they were only three meters away from him, Jimah laid his rifle flat against the ground and covered his face with his hands. The androids soon stepped on disruptor mines, sending a surge of radiation that caused the plasmagnetron cores within them to overload.

  A flash of golden light emanated from their joints before the androids exploded. White deuterium fluid and bits of their black composite carapace went flying in all directions. Seconds later, the two humanoid military machines on the ground near Prism also exploded in a similar fashion.

  Jimah rushed to Prism's side, kneeled over Prism's head, then pulled a small pouch of dried herbs off the belt of his loincloth. He opened the pouch and waved its contents over Prism's nose, causing Prism's body to shudder. Prism opened his eyes and pushed Jimah's hand away from his face. The harsh smell of the herbs made the inside of Prism’s nose burn.

  "Come on, we need to leave this place. There are more coming, I'm sure of it." Jimah stood up and offered his hand to Prism.

  "Yeah, okay." Prism was still disoriented by the many blows to the head he'd taken, but he obeyed Jimah and took the man's hand.

  Jimah helped Prism up, then grabbed the larger man and carried him on his back. Jimah then began to run as fast as he could through the tangle of vines and trees, through the mess of leaves and damp soil.

  As Prism regained his wits and became more aware of his surroundings, he was not only surprised that he was being carried by the smaller man, but by how fast they were moving. Prism easily weighed 80 kilograms, but that didn't seem to slow Jimah down much. Prism could feel the hardness of Jimah's muscles flexing beneath his own bare chest, muscles that Prism had noticed were lean yet strong.

  "You're a tough little guy." Prism said to the man that was only 5 centimeters shorter than himself.

  "And you’re well enough to talk like that, eh?" Jimah turned his head to say before letting go of Prism.

  Jimah laughed and kept running while Prism fell on his butt. He was at least fortunate that his butt was large enough to cushion the fall, and that he’d been playfully discarded in a soft bed of plant matter. Prism sat on the patch of dead leaves and watched Jimah disappear through a patch of ferns. Prism's head still ached, but a quick healing spell mended the hurt. He then cast a spell of invisibility upon himself, then leapt through the air to close the distance between himself and the not-Ranger.

  Jimah took a few more long strides before his ankle made contact with Prism's invisible outstretched leg, causing the man to nearly fall onto his face. Jimah was agile enough to break his fall and instead rolled when his body struck the ground. He then jumped back up onto his feet and grabbed the rifle that he had strapped across his back.

  "Calm down, it's just me, "Ewasha"." Prism said before making himself visible to Jimah once more. Jimah's finger tensed upon the rifle's trigger, but he stopped himself just in time.

  "What are you, really!?" Jimah shouted to Prism with sudden harshness.

  "I'm an alien, from another world." Prism raised his hands to show that he was no threat.

  "And I'm Ewa!" Jimah's lips curved up into a smile, though his eyes were still alight with anger. His sarcasm confused Prism.

  "What does "Ewasha" mean?" Prism asked, hoping to take the man's mind off of whatever was bothering him.

  "It means "Enemy of Ewa," which is a lie the skurakshyuh tell about me. I may not walk in Ewa’s footsteps, but I am of his people. I was raised in his ways. It's only because they killed my father that I..."

  Jimah stopped himself from speaking further. He lowered his rifle as his eyes did the same. In an instant, Jimah's anger had turned to sadness. Prism wanted to comfort the man, but he didn't know how. In the silence that followed, a sound of snapping twigs forced Prism to step forward and embrace Jimah. The elementeitan pulled the man's forehead against his own in a sporadic attempt to bridge their minds together.

  "Be quiet and be still." Prism's voice whirled into Jimah's head like a warm breeze.

  Prism enveloped Jimah in a field of invisibility as the two of them stood wrapped in each other's arms with nothing but an assault rifle between them. Prism could feel the Sguvan man's heartbeat pounding in his chest. He could feel the warmth of Jimah's skin even through the muck that covered them. They both tensed up when they heard and then saw several Sguvan soldiers run past them, back towards the mangled androids and dead bodies they'd left behind.

  "Our tracks!" Jimah's fear and anxiety screamed in Prism's mind.

  "I got rid of them. Be at ease, Jimah."

  With Prism's words echoing in his mind, Jimah began to relax his arms, which had been squeezing around Prism's back. Jimah became transfixed by the strange inversion of color that the world around them had taken on. The green trees were red, and the darkened areas of the jungle took on whitish-gray hues. All at once, Jimah was confronted with an entirely new way of existing in the world, and he took it in with slack-jawed amazement.

  Prism started to see images of Jimah's father stream through their telepathic link. Feelings of safety and love radiated alongside the vision of the powerful man with kind eyes who wore the same attire that Jimah wore. A series of scenes then played out in mere seconds, some showing Jimah's father teaching him to forage and find his way through the jungle when he was a small boy, and others showing how the man taught a teenaged Jimah to evade soldiers, androids, and even plasma beasts.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  But just as quickly as that vision entered Prism's mind, a violent scene of Jimah's father being shot pervaded their link. The weight and shock of the memory nearly caused Prism to lose his focus and dispel their invisibility.

  Jimah, then a young man, sat up in a tree as he watched his father be gunned down for not allowing himself to be arrested. Arrest by the Sguvan military meant only one thing; being placed in a reeducation camp and brainwashed into worshipping the Queen. Jimah witnessed his father's murder a mere day before he was to start his Ranger Rite, an intimate ritual carried out by the father that would make his son a Viga Ranger too.

  The uncontrollable deluge of trauma caused tears to run down Prism's face. The hot wetness then fell down Jimah's back, yanking the younger man back into waking mindfulness.

  "This...you...you're in my....you're in memories..." Jimah's voice was shy and fearful in Prism's mind.

  "I had to create this telepathic link in a hurry. I didn't have time to safeguard it from this kind of reflexive sharing. I'm sorry." Prism explained.

  Images of Jimah stalking the soldiers through the jungle started playing in Prism's head next. Bloody memories of gratuitous violence played over and over again, revealing Jimah's night of vengeance against the men that killed his father. The soldiers had been foolish enough to camp out in the area of jungle that Jimah called home.

  He'd found it oh so easy to kill them. Prism could feel the simple carving knife Jimah had made with his father's help cut into the men’s throats. He could feel the warm blood drenching Jimah's once-clean hands.

  Prism then saw flashes of the days and weeks after, spent hunting both man and woman, soldier and supporter, until Jimah was nearly killed by a detachment too big for him to handle on his own. Then came memories of Jimah’s rescue from a reeducation camp by the True Twins Gospel, then guerilla training in secret bases with guns and rifles, mines and grenades.

  He'd found a new family, full of other believers in the ancient and untainted wisdom of Ewa. But that chosen family didn't stop the bloodthirsty rage that compelled him to slaughter Sguvan soldiers. He'd chosen to live on his own in the jungles as he would have if he'd become a Ranger, only meeting with True Twins when he needed more weapons, or if he'd been injured too badly.

  The stream of memories forced Prism to pull his head away from Jimah's, nearly causing them to become visible again. Prism looked down into Jimah's eyes, only to see the same look of confusion that he had on his own face. "Your memories...they make no sense." Jimah's lips moved as he broadcast his voice into Prism's mind.

  "So, it worked both ways." Prism looked away from Jimah. "What did you see?"

  "Only flashes. A large city with numerous skyscrapers...a dark, misty world with enormous gray rocks...a hazy void filled with stars..." Jimah tried to share images of what he'd seen, but their link was too weak for that sort of intentional sharing.

  "Just places, then?" There was a bite to Prism's voice that concerned Jimah even more than the soldiers that weren't far off.

  "Just places..." Jimah shared. Prism couldn't be sure if he was lying or not.

  "Hold on tight. We're getting out of here." Prism then felt Jimah's arms squeeze him again. The two of them began to rise into the air, staying below the canopy and still invisible. They were soon soaring at several kilometers an hour, swerving around branches and vines that could slow them down. They didn't share a thought between them for the ten minutes it took them to get well out of the vicinity of the soldiers.

  "It's smart that you stay under the trees. The soldiers would shoot you out of the sky, invisible or not." Jimah said when Prism placed their feet back on solid ground in a small clearing six kilometers away. "Their ladar doesn't work as well with all the trees and things in the way."

  "Ladar, huh?" Prism turned his back to Jimah and stared up at the bits of sky he could see through the treetops. "Trained by the True Twins and talking like them too. You really are one of them."

  "You think that because you got to peek into my head that you know me?" Jimah shook his head back and forth, causing the feathers on his brown headband to jostle and sparkle. "So much power, and so little wisdom."

  Prism turned around to see Jimah glaring at him. Prism bowed his head in a show of humility. "I don't know how you did it, but you saved me from those androids. Thank you."

  Jimah gave Prism a broad smile and then nodded. The sudden change in body language confused Prism. Unbeknownst to Prism, Jimah believed that they were engaging in a fun bit of repartee.

  Jimah walked closer to the dark-skinned alien and placed his long-fingered hands on Prism's bare shoulder. He then stared into Prism's eyes, stirring something deep inside the elementeitan.

  "You're right; I'm a member of the True Twins Gospel. They took me in, made me whole again. They give me everything I need to wage war against the skurakshyuh, or soul traitors, that took my father and my potential life as a Ranger away from me. I will kill and maim and destroy as many of Gusa's thugs as I can until my body gives out." Jimah paused to squeeze Prism's broad, meaty shoulders. "I know who you are, too. You're our salvation from the evil that has taken root in our land. That's why I saved you, Prism. I saved you because you can kill more soldiers in a single day than I've killed in eight years."

  Prism looked down into Jimah's brown, hooded eyes while the man spoke. Prism’s own eyes showed a mixture of pity and revulsion.

  “He’s physically striking,” Prism thought, “but he’s probably rotten to the core.”

  The historical Ewa had been described as a gentle, kind-hearted man who spread the original Eizavoba’s message of peace across ancient Sguvi. Jimah, on the other hand, merely wished to spread death to all who stood on the side of Gusa’s government and military. Prism had seen memories in which Jimah had butchered nurses working in Sguvi military hospitals, where Jimah had bombed military bases where families full of children lived.

  Prism merely nodded down to Jimah and hoped that his disgust for the guerilla terrorist hadn't been too clearly communicated.

  "He may have saved my life," Prism thought, "but I mustn't forget that this man is demented."

  Jimah gave Prism a final pat on his shoulders before taking a step back from the taller man. Jimah then pointed towards the southeast, to an area leading out of the clearing that looked to be a footpath. "I'll be headed back through there. I need to restock my supplies, and there's a small village full of True Twins only a kilometer from here. You're welcome to join me." Jimah said in a friendly tone.

  "I'm headed northeast, actually." Prism pointed, trying not to seem too eager to part ways.

  "To the coast?" Jimah crossed his arms and asked.

  "Yup, I believe so." Prism nodded.

  "Be careful. People have been disappearing from Spibo, the town up there. Some say it’s a lie being spread to dissuade visitors, but I personally know two people who went up there months ago. Neither of them has returned." Jimah spoke in earnest, and Prism was liable to believe him.

  "Thanks. I needed to get there before sunset, but now I'll travel even faster."

  "Stick to the treetops like you've been doing, and you should be fine." Jimah gestured above them, then made a crawling gesture with his hands. "I'll need to move as carefully as possible. I'm sure the skurakshyuh are expanding their search area as we speak."

  A tingle ran across the entirety of Prism's skin like a bad omen. Despite all the horrors Jimah had done, Prism still cared about the man's wellbeing. Prism opened one of the pockets on his utility belt and pulled out a red comm-clasp. He then grabbed one of Jimah's hands and placed the comm-clasp in it.

  "Wear this on your ear and then rub it with your right thumb. It'll make you become invisible for up to an hour at a time. Just rub it with your right thumb again to become visible again. It will slowly recharge itself every six hours, so be mindful of that." Prism was firm and specific, communicating to Jimah how special what Prism was giving him was.

  Jimah rolled the clasp in his fingers for a second or two before clipping it onto his ear. He did as instructed, swiping the grooved, dark red device with his shaky right thumb. Jimah felt the world around him take on a strange view of inverted colors, which told him that he was invisible. Prism withdrew a small mirror from another pouch on his belt and brought it up to Jimah. Jimah saw no reflection in the mirror, no matter how much he waved his hands in front of it or made silly faces at it. He swiped the comm-clasp again, and the world returned to its normal colors.

  "A bit of fairy magic for myself..." Jimah whispered as he ran his other fingers over the comm-clasp to make sure that he couldn't accidentally activate it.

  "I made this one to be more permanent. I have to charge the ones my teammates use by hand, but theirs can let them become invisible for over six hours at a time." Prism bragged.

  "I'll keep it safe. It'll...keep me safe." Jimah could barely believe his turn of luck.

  “I just have one request, if I may.” Prism’s voice took on a much softer timbre.

  “Anything.” Jimah lowered his chin and looked up at Prism with a degree of submissiveness he rarely showed to anyone.

  “Don’t use that power to kill civilians. Don’t use it to kill children.”

  Jimah raised his head after hearing the suddenly soft-spoken alien, gritting his teeth while resisting the instinct to shoot Prism. He stood before someone who knew his greatest triumphs and his worst mistakes. And in the back of his mind, Jimah even imagined that Prism might truly be Eizavoba come to pass judgment upon him. That thought brought tears to Jimah’s eyes and weakness to his knees, but he stood firm and fought back the urge to cry.

  “I…promise.” Jimah managed to say with his face turned. He clenched his eyes together and squeezed the rifle strap across his chest before staring into Prism’s dark, soulful eyes. “I promise.” Jimah said with conviction.

  Prism reached over and placed his palm on the back of Jimah’s head. He felt the silkiness of the man’s black hair before he leaned over to kiss Jimah on the forehead. He heard Jimah exhale loudly, as if a weight had been lifted from the man’s troubled shoulders.

  "Be well, Jimah. I hope that this personal war you’ve been waging comes to an end someday soon. I will do my best to end the one that Gusa is waging against your people." Prism said sweetly into Jimah’s right ear, where the comm-clasp was clipped.

  Prism stepped back and offered his hand to Jimah. Jimah looked down at the hand, not sure of what to make of Prism's words. He'd seen glimpses of atrocities committed by Prism too, but Jimah dared not even hint at them.

  Jimah knew he couldn’t judge the alien, whose way of life was perhaps entirely different from his own. And regardless of what he’d seen, Jimah felt that Prism had the power to absolve him of his sins. Jimah hadn’t even believed in the idea of sin, an idea created by the late Eizavobist Sect thousands of years ago to subjugate its followers, but he still felt “saved” all the same. Jimah knew then that he could finally begin to change into something human again, and perhaps even find a way to forgive those who’d taken everything from him.

  "You too, Prism. May Ewa guide your path." Jimah said while firmly shaking Prism’s hand.