“…Ursun?” Prism murmured as the red-bearded mercenary commander’s scarred face came into focus.

Prism slowly began to open his eyes when his senses became flooded with the sounds and smells of the forest all around him. The warm sun shimmered through the tree branches that Prism saw passing by overhead. The wind felt kind as it blew pleasantly across his face. He became aware that they were moving quickly along a bumpy surface, and that he was lying in Ursun’s arms.

“I’m going to need you to stop passing out, kid.” Ursun said in his gruff way.

Prism managed to smile, which only caused Ursun to smirk back at him.

“Sorry, sir.” Prism said with a quirky salute.

Prism lifted himself up out of Ursun’s lap and into a sitting position in the backseat beside the much larger man. The hoodless solar-electric vehicle that he found himself in was surprisingly comfortable. Prism could feel his energy levels rising, and began to feel healthy for the first time in a long time. He could sense the abundance of magical energy flowing all around him. He could practically taste it.

"What's our ETA?" Ursun leaned forward to ask the man driving the reddish-brown off-road vehicle that they rode in.

"We should be there in ten minutes, sir." The security officer said curtly.

Two security officers sat in the front seats, while the other two sat in the raised row behind Ursun and Prism. Prism looked behind himself and saw the two guards with their guns at the ready, watching the road vigilantly for any danger.

"So are you part-plant, or what?" Ursun asked after giving Prism an attention-grabbing shove.

"I'm more reliant on the world's latent essence than most living things are." Prism explained.

"You need "mana", right?" Ursun said.

Prism could tell that Ursun was still skeptical of him.

"That's right. Normally, I can get it from practically anything; eating, drinking, even breathing. But I haven't made a connection with this world yet, so my body hasn't been able to keep up with the amount of mana that I've been using lately." Prism further explained. Ursun had won enough of Prism's trust for the alien to be more forthcoming with him than he'd been during his impersonal interrogations with strangers.

"Why couldn't you establish this "connection" back in the mountain? That's just as much a part of nature as anything else." Ursun reasoned.

"I need to be someplace where most of the natural elements converge; light or heat, water, wind, and life itself, to name a few. There wasn't enough of that elemental convergence within the mountain for me to commune with this world. At least, not in that room that I was put in." Prism clarified, trying not to sound spiteful.

He felt good sharing such information for the first time in a century. It made him nostalgic for all of the other times he'd done so on much friendlier worlds.

"I see. And I'm assuming you've already begun to commune with Æba? It's faint, but you're starting to glow." Ursun said while examining the strange phenomenon that unfolded beside him.

"Yes. I'm getting ready. We're getting close to somewhere perfect." Prism practically cooed while lying back in his seat. A mixture of euphoria and relaxation washed over him. “You must have correctly guessed exactly what I needed.” Prism beamed at Ursun, who simply scoffed and turned away.

“You didn’t give me much to work with. It was foolish of you not to tell us any of this stuff. You could’ve died just now. Then you would’ve made a fool out of everyone who worked to get you off of that island.” Ursun’s voice was a strange mix of anger and concern.

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“I’m…sorry…this world hasn’t been too kind to me since I got here…” Prism said dejectedly, sobering up just enough to understand the gravity of Ursun’s words.

Ursun stared at Prism long and hard before looking away from the youthful alien. Ursun’s mind was an uncertain maelstrom of emotions, though Prism’s words had quieted his anger. There was still a war waging beyond his peninsula’s shores, and Ursun didn’t have the luxury of feeling too sorry for the innocent multitudes that were dragged into that war each day.

Ursun sat back in his seat, closed his eyes for a moment, and then crossed his burly arms. He tried not to let Prism’s plight take priority in his mind over the many other things that he needed to get done for the Red Wolves. Ursun simply cleared his mind of the distraction and refocused on the task at hand.

After a few minutes of silence, Prism looked out at the horizon above the trees and saw several large, black, tower-like structures far away in the distance. Each of them had pyramidal spires that gave them a solemn appearance. He counted five that he could see. He’d noticed the tall buildings on the panoramic display of the surrounding forest within the command center. They had to be several hundreds of meters tall, and were equidistant from each other as well.

“What are those?” Prism asked Ursun while pointing to the structures.

“Laserliths. They defend our peninsula from missiles, aircraft, and other such threats.” Ursun seemed disinterested in saying anymore on the subject, so Prism let him be.

It only took a few more minutes before their vehicle pulled off onto a hidden path where the trees were a bit denser. Their bulky vehicle rocked back and forth on the dark unpaved road for a few moments before entering a well-lit area with a beautiful view of the mountains on the horizon in front of them. The dirt road that they rode onto ran parallel to a wide river, which led to a secluded waterfall. Prism gasped when he saw the majestic view of the ice-capped mountain range just above the top of the waterfall.

The view faded away as the vehicle went down a small slope, soon parking in an open area near the foot of the waterfall. The area was well-covered by sprawling conifers that shaded the ground. The sun peeked through just enough to keep the area relatively warm, despite the water hanging in the air from the neighboring falls. Prism looked excitedly over at Ursun, who intuited what he wanted.

"Stay close to me." Ursun said before opening his door and stepping out.

Prism leapt from the vehicle like a small child and landed beside Ursun. The two guards that sat at the back of the vehicle remained as sentries, while the other two also left the vehicle to accompany Ursun and Prism. Despite Ursun's words, Prism ran out in front of their group and made his way to the basin of the waterfall. Its thunderous sound echoed all around them.

"What did I say!?" Ursun yelled from several meters behind Prism.

"I'm sorry, but you might want to give me some space!" Prism yelled back.

Ursun and the two nearby security officers stopped in their tracks when they saw a sphere of light begin to emanate from Prism's small body. They couldn't help but cover their eyes as the light became more and more brilliant and chromatic. Prism stood tall at the water's edge with his arms outstretched, smiling widely while his body became wracked with warmth and pleasure. He began to hear the heartbeat of Æba deep within his own chest.

He breathed deeply, synchronizing his heart to the rhythm laid out by the world he stood upon. He started to wonder why the torrents of mana that began to swirl all around him seemed untouched by the people of Æba, but it was not the time for inquisitiveness. He focused on the energies that entered his body, pushing all distractions from his mind. If Prism was not careful, Æba's pure, unfiltered essence could rip him asunder.

And it was pure; it was some of the purest mana that he'd ever felt. It was intoxicating. And at the moment of connection, the only thing that Prism could feel was pure exaltation.

He could feel himself falling through the planet, plunging into its core and back out through the other side of Æba’s surface. He felt the fast-moving streams of wind high in the atmosphere, felt the powerful ocean currents circulating tremendous amounts of water, and he felt the calescent flows of magma moving crystals and liquefied rock up from the depths of Æba. And in an instant, his consciousness was back in his own body near the waterfall, slowly un-meshing itself from Æba’s powerful embrace.

Ursun and his cohorts, on the other hand, were blown back nearly a meter by the resulting burst of colorful energy that erupted from Prism's body. When Ursun got back onto his feet, he saw Prism, or what he believed to be Prism. The alien looked translucent and seemed to float instead of stand. Several long phantasmal strands of multi-colored light ran from his head and danced in the air around him. His elongated, ethereal hands were raised into the air towards the waterfall. It looked to Ursun as if he was praying.

"What on...Æba..." Ursun said too quietly to be heard.

Prism turned his luminous head, appearing to look in Ursun's direction. Ursun couldn't be sure, however, because Prism's eyes had become glowing orbs of rainbow energy. Nothing on his body seemed to be solid anymore.

Ursun saw one of the nearby security officers begin to shakily raise his firearm. It was clear to Ursun that the officer was disturbed and terrified by what they were witnessing. Ursun quickly raised his fist and gestured for the guard to stand down. The guard slowly lowered his PAW and gathered his nerves enough to stop shaking. Ursun wasn't sure what Prism had become, but the commander figured that bullets would do nothing to save them if Prism wanted to do them harm.

"It is alright. Give me a moment to...deluminate."

Prism's voice echoed in Ursun's mind. Ursun looked around, and saw that the other men had heard the voice in their heads, too. They were all rattled by the experience, but did nothing but wait like Prism asked. After a few moments, Ursun saw Prism lower his intangible arms. The strands of energy that flowed from his head began to retract, and his body began to coalesce and darken once more.

In only a matter of seconds, Prism reverted back to his human appearance. Perplexed, Ursun tilted his head when he saw that Prism’s clothing reappeared as well. Ursun immediately shook his head and smiled queerly when he realized that such a thing baffled him more than all of the other things that had just happened.

"Sorry about that. You don't have to worry about seeing me like that again. Well, probably." Prism spoke with a cat-eyed smile after putting his arms behind his head. He slowly began to walk towards Ursun and the others like nothing strange had happened. They simply stared at Prism in disbelief. "Come on everyone! We can go back to the base now!" Prism said joyfully, still on a high from his communing experience.

"Is that your true form?" Ursun managed to ask when Prism walked by him on his way back to their vehicle.

"I wouldn't call any of my forms "true". That's just what I look like when I commune with a world. The form you see now just isn't very good at handling all those different types of energy at once." Prism said with a shrug.

"…Well, if that's all you needed, then let's head back." Ursun said after he nervously cleared his throat.

It took a lot to fluster Ursun, but Prism had managed to.