By the time Prism made it to the small town of Spibo, the sun was low in the sky, setting on the coastal horizon to the west. He felt only a small bit of tiredness from the day’s travels, but it was drowned out by his excitement to see his team again. He saw the town as he descended from an especially elevated portion of the hot and humid Viga rainforest.

  The jungle had become quite mountainous since he'd left the True Twins' cave base. Even the small, many-colored buildings of Spibo sat on a sea-facing hillside. Small boats dotted the bay while only a few ships sat in the town’s small dock. Tall palm trees scattered around Spibo swayed in the breeze.

  He’d made psychic contact with the rest of RED-1 shortly after parting ways with Jimah, once he’d sensed their presence a hundred kilometers away. His team had spent half an hour making fun of him for sleeping for two days. It had happened often enough to give his teammates multiple stories that already sounded nostalgic. Prism’s need for a day or two of sleep after absorbing mana confluences or exhausting his body’s mana was something that the Red Wolves regularly planned around.

  "I'm finally here, in Spibo. I mean, on the outskirts." Prism communicated to his team through their link.

  "I've told the town guards to look out for a tall, dark, handsome man who's only wearing a pair of red pants, so you should be good." Leanna sniggered in the dank room she and the others were waiting for Prism in.

  "But really, stay invisible. We don't know who we can trust out there." Ursun ordered. "This is the path we took to the safe house."

  Ursun relayed memories of his walk through the town's narrow brick streets. Prism briefly saw through Ursun’s point of view, experiencing the feelings and impressions that Ursun had when he’d first arrived in Spibo. The directions ended with the commander entering a small tavern through its faded blue backdoor, then into a large basement that served as a True Twins safe house.

  In Ursun’s memories, Wadaw had revealed to the others that his mask could blend into his face and give it different appearances. The biomolecular mask could even change the texture and color of Wadaw’s hair.

  Wadaw had led the way through Spibo, visible and friendly to the town’s locals. He played the role of a black-haired young man who was the traveling son of one of the town’s tavern keepers. The barkeep in question, a middle aged man who’d moved to the town around 10 years earlier, was a lifelong True Twin.

  “Got it.” Prism shared. “You’ve gotten really good at memory-sharing, Ursun.”

  “Plenty of practice these last few months.” The commander shared in turn.

  An abrupt sensation of vertigo overtook both Prism and Ursun. Prism’s surroundings morphed into a small bedroom with a large wooden frame bed that took up most of its space. The room was of Sguvan design, with blackstone floors and fragrant softwood walls.

  On the bed, a younger Ursun laid on his back in the nude, with a thin white cotton blanket covering his lower body. The large feet and hands of his massive body hung out of the bed while his buzzed, red-haired head was propped up on a pillow. A pink-haired woman who was also on the bed was kneeling beside his waist, looking down at him with sweet eyes filled with adoration. She too was nude, with nothing covering her curvy body. The morning sunlight reflecting off of her lily-white skin gave her an angelic appearance.

  “Is that…Theda?” Prism thought while he stood in a corner of the room, viewing the memory like a ghost haunting the intimate scene.

  The younger version of Ursun reached up and cupped Theda’s delicate face. He used his rough thumb to stroke her temple and her cheek, eliciting a loving moan from deep within Theda’s chest. Prism knew that the memory was deeply personal and he didn’t want to be within it any longer.

  Prism closed his eyes and pushed against the contours of the remembrance, realizing that its nature was separate from his telepathic link. He used the little natural psychic power he possessed to free himself from the forced experience. The escape caused a violent release of energy that sent waves of sharp pain through his and Ursun’s heads.

  “What the hell was that!?” Prism heard Ursun’s voice boom in his head once they’d both been brought to their knees upon returning to reality.

  Prism panicked when he noticed that he’d lost his invisibility. He was still outside the town, but still close enough to it to be seen by anyone looking up at the nearby footpath leading down from mountainside. Prism shook off the remnants of his dizziness and restored his spell of invisibility, hoping that the few seconds he’d been visible weren’t long enough to be noticed.

  “We felt something weird too.” Leanna shared.

  “Sounds like it was a lot worse for you and Prism.” A miniature version of Srell appeared in the minds of his teammates to say. It was his favorite form of communicating through the link, despite Ursun telling him many times not to use the silly avatar.

  “Some kind of…psychic disturbance…” Prism shared as he stood back up. He was wincing from the aftershocks of what he believed to be some type of attack. He didn’t want to alarm the others, so he kept that assumption to himself. “I saw one of Ursun’s memories…from when he was last in Sguvi, I think.”

  “And I saw one of yours. You were zipping through a nebula in a red spacecraft of some kind. You were escaping from somewhere…” Ursun’s strong interest in the memory leaked into the link. It was as if he hadn’t heard what Prism had shared.

  “That sounds more like something an alien would do.” Lorias shared.

  “What would have caused this weird memory-sharing? Are you still feeling out-of-sorts, Prism?” Leanna shared along with her sense of concern.

  “I felt completely fine…” Prism placed his hand on his head and closed his eyes. “Maybe I wore myself out getting here without realizing it.”

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  “Meet up with us immediately. I’ll share the directions again if you think it’s safe.” Ursun returned to his normal authoritative self. “I would’ve had one of us meet you out there, but we all used up the last of our cloaking enchants just getting to this cellar.”

  “No problem, I remember the way. I’ll see you all soon.” Prism said.

  Prism’s headache quickly faded as he leapt through the city, making it to the safe house in only a few minutes. He liked that the small town provided numerous poles and ledges to jump onto.

  Prism found the back door of the tavern unlocked when he landed in front of it. He simply walked in and opened the house cellar doors on the tiled floor to access the basement. He made himself visible once he’d walked down the stairs far enough to close the double wooden hatch behind him. He was met by Ursun, who’d been standing at the bottom of the stone steps the entire time.

  “Tell me exactly what you saw when you were in my memory.” Ursun asked without any hesitation.

  “You were just in bed with Theda…all I saw was you rubbing her face…” Prism tucked in his chin and only spoke loud enough for Ursun and Ursun alone to hear.

  “That’s all, huh…” The much taller man stroked his red goatee and looked down at Prism. Prism felt as if he was looking right through him.

  “Glad you finally made it.” Leanna said. She, Lorias, and Srell walked over from behind Ursun. All of them were out of their combat armor and wore only their black undershirts, red pants, and black boots.

  “You know me; slow and steady.” Prism rubbed the back of his head and bowed with a goofy look on his face.

  “Says the guy that took only a day to travel over 200 kilometers on foot. We had a truck half of the way and it still took us two days to get here.” Srell whined.

  “Idiot, he was being sarcastic…” Lorias rolled his eyes and said.

  He gave Srell’s head a good poke from behind, making the wild-haired Srell turn around and swipe at Lorias’ hand. He was too slow, however, and nearly fell over into Lorias instead. Srell then looked up at Lorias like a defeated, bullied child.

  “Where’s Wadaw? Or should I say…Simo?” Prism said, recalling the alias Wadaw went by in Ursun’s memories.

  “He should be back any minute, supposedly. He said that he had to make his usual rounds, since his Simo character has certain relationships he has to keep up with people in town.” Leanna explained with a shrug.

  “He’s been gone for two hours. We’ve been chatting with you to alleviate the boredom of being cooped up in this moldy old basement.” Srell said, now leaning against Lorias’ chest while the taller man clasped his hands around Srell’s belly.

  The two of them rarely did such things in clear view of everyone else. Lorias and Srell’s teammates were never quite sure what stage their relationship was in on any given day.

  Ursun looked over at the two of them, then back down at Prism and said, “While we continue to wait…”

  Ursun tossed four comm-clasps at Prism, who caught them on reflex. Prism looked the clasps over, glad that his team had at least washed them before giving them to him. Prism’s irises shimmered slightly as he caused the clasps to hover above his palm and slowly rotate around his hand. He began charging them with his body’s own mana, more refined than the ambient mana around them.

  “Get Lorias’ and Srell’s clasps charged up first. They’re going to be keeping watch at the road leading into town tonight while the rest of us stay here.” Ursun ordered.

  “Yippee…” Lorias said while Srell groaned.

  “I’m starving! Wadaw better get back here soon with that food he promised us.” Srell tilted his head up along Lorias chest and yelled. Lorias patted Srell on the belly and smirked down at him. They both walked to the back of the room and started to put on their combat armor.

  As if reading Srell’s mind, Wadaw gave a familiar knock on the cellar door to warn them of his arrival. A minute later, the disguised guerrilla fighter was staring down at the entirety of RED-1 from the stairs leading into the cellar.

  “The band’s back together.” Wadaw said with his signature flair, but in a voice that Prism didn’t recognize. “And my goodness, look at you, Prism. All that running today through my nation’s rugged jungles, and not a single scratch on your naked torso.”

  “Good to see you, “Simo”.” Prism smiled.

  “Oh yes, of course you already know about this character I’m playing…the son of a small town barkeep with a thirst for adventure who occasionally drops back into town to visit his dear ole dad.”

  Wadaw leapt from the top of the stairs and landed in front of Prism with his arms raised high. “He truly is a performer,” Prism thought.

  Wadaw’s face was foreign to Prism, giving the alien a peek into how his own teammates must’ve felt when he’d changed his own face days earlier. Wadaw stared at the glowing pieces of jewelry that flew around Prism’s hand, marveling at the magical show they provided.

  “Where’s our food!?” Srell shouted. He and Lorias were standing in their previous positions, now suited up and ready for battle.

  “Just a little while longer. I don’t want myself or my “dad” to get caught sneaking all that food down here. The townsfolk will think the two of us are feeding a family of rats.” Wadaw bowed apologetically.

  “Prism will bring the food out to you once it’s done. You two should get out there to stand guard ASAP.” Ursun said, eliciting another loud groan from Srell.

  “Any more news on the boat we’ll be taking?” Leanna stepped closer to Wadaw and asked.

  “Dad, I mean Mibul, was able to secure our passage on a fishing catamaran that leaves tomorrow morning. The captain and crew are all True Twins, so you all shouldn’t need to be invisible once we’re out of view of the coast.” Wadaw said with a self-satisfied nod.

  “Excellent work.” Ursun patted Wadaw on the back hard enough to nearly knock Wadaw off his feet.

  While Wadaw began talking in more detail about the plans with Ursun and Leanna, Prism sent two of clasps he was charging over to Lorias and Srell. The small dark red earrings glided gracefully through the air and onto the right ears of the two men.

  “That was fast.” Lorias said as he checked the fit of the comm-clasp on his ear.

  “I’ve been perfecting the charging process. By shaping some of the mana within me beforehand, I can basically have enchant charges ready to go.” Prism explained.

  “I guess we’ll see you later, then.” Lorias nodded to Prism before making himself invisible behind Srell.

  “Make sure we get our dinner sooner than later. Hell, conjure us up something if you can.” Srell moved his head closer to Prism and spoke almost directly in the taller alien’s ear.

  “You don’t want magicked food, Srell. It’ll only satisfy you for a little while before making you feel even hungrier. Your world doesn’t let me reconstitute matter into complex forms for very long, remember? The best I can do is alter things slightly, or change the way things look.” Prism smiled gently, not wanting to make fun of the hungry man.

  “Yeah, yeah. See you soon…or else.” Srell gave Prism a nasty look before also becoming invisible. A minute later, Prism heard the cellar door open and close.

  “So Wadaw,” Prism heard Ursun’s voice turn serious all of a sudden. “What do you know about Jiwadi Stipde Agdawma Zazi Samanan?”

  “Goodness, you’re using the man’s full Sguvan name. Who is this gentleman?” Wadaw crossed his left arm across his chest while propping up his chin with his right arm. His voice was playfully coy.

  “The man whose words you relayed to us when you sent that secret message to the Peninsula; the True Twin we’ve been working with for over ten years.” Ursun’s eyes narrowed while he spoke. He stared at Wadaw, unblinking, waiting for the man to respond.

  Prism feared what Ursun would do if Wadaw’s response wasn’t to the commander’s liking.