Prism and his teammates felt a rush as the door to their final event room began to open. They had amassed 460 points over five rooms on the especially difficult fourth level of the Battle Undercity. There was little that they could do to fail to gain the last 40 points they needed to complete the level, but they were prepared for anything, nonetheless.

“How fitting that our last challenge is Target Retrieval.” Lorias said when they stepped into the first small portion of the event room.

“Looks like an office building mockup.” Srell said while looking around and noticing the familiar setup of a standard reception area.

“Makes more sense why our target is a data-drive hidden within a pen.” Jaik said with a smile.

Though the interior of all the event rooms had bluish-colored metallic walls, flooring, and fixtures, many of the rooms were arranged to mimic real-world interiors. Prism had learned that the rooms were composed of modal tiles that could be shifted quite rapidly into a variety of configurations. Such modality was a cornerstone of engineering commander Gnapp’s design principle.

Prism’s irises shimmered as they became an electric blue color. He stretched out his hand towards a closed door beside the metal desk facsimile in front of them and shot off several waves of fast-moving blue magic. The pulses of magic struck the door, but moved through the metal barrier unimpeded as Prism channeled more mana into his spell. After several seconds, the magical pulses returned to him, filling his mind with the shape of each space and hallway within the event room. He could even detect stationary androids in each room.

Prism then turned to Leanna and tapped the rim of her smart glasses with a glowing blue forefinger. A 3-D model of the event room’s interior with markers for its hostiles was instantly downloaded into Leanna’s glasses, allowing her to then disseminate the map to the rest of the team’s arm displays.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to how incredibly useful that ability of yours is.” Leanna said to Prism with a smirk. “My bug drones can scan areas and make maps too, but not through EM-shielded doors.” She added.

“It takes a bit out of me, but I’ll be fine.” Prism said with an appreciative nod.

He’d only used the empowered version of his echolocation magic a few times since reaching the fourth level of the Undercity, where everything seemed to be EM-shielded and toughly-armored. His team had paced themselves, taking extra time in each prep room so that he could gather what little mana he could from his increasingly mana-barren underground environs. Prism had been able to pace himself so that he could remain an effective tool for his team to wield.

“No traps?” Srell asked while tapping away on his arm display.

“None that I could detect. I’ll prepare my electromagnetic sight magic just in case.” Prism replied.

“This is still going to be tricky. All of these androids are in ambush positions.” Lorias said while he looked over the map he’d received on his own lit-up arm display.

“Looks like each room has three of them. The moment we open the door, they’ll start shooting.” Jaik reasoned.

“At least Prism identified the location of our target. The pen is sitting on a desk several sub-rooms ahead of us.” Leanna marked the item on her map, which updated the shared maps of her team.

“Prism, you’ll create your one-way bullet shields before we open each door. The moment Leanna opens each door, Srell and I will take out the androids with impunity. Lorias and Jaik will then enter the room after Prism does a visual sweep to verify its contents before we proceed.” Ursun ordered.

“Sounds like a plan!” Srell shouted while holding up his PAW.

Prism took a deep breath as he prepped himself to use two taxing spells simultaneously. His right iris glowed red while his left iris shimmered with golden light. Leanna approached the door beside the metallic block that represented a desk in front of them. Prism stood at her side, and soon created a door-sized barrier of golden energy that could block a set amount of force directed at it from its opposite side. Srell and Ursun ran up behind the barrier that lined the closed door, and Ursun soon gave a hand signal for Leanna to open it.

With a tap of the small door control panel on the wall, the door slid open. A long hallway with many rooms along its length revealed the three androids that Prism had already detected. As the androids started moving and began to raise their own rifles, Srell shot two of them in the head while Ursun shot a burst of rounds at one’s torso. Each of the hostiles fell limply to the ground.

“Not even a warm-up.” Srell said cockily as Prism looked around the hallway from the safety of the reception area.

“Sensors in the walls. Once we step through this doorway, the doors within this hallway will open.” Prism said a bit guiltily.

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He hadn’t gotten a whiff of such a trap, but luckily his other teammates had.

“Why do you think I told you to pull up your barrier at the doorways?” Ursun said gruffly before reaching his hand out beyond the shimmering barrier of golden light and past the doorway.

The trap was unavoidably triggered, causing six doors to open. Androids within the side-rooms began to whir to life, and were soon running out with weapons at the ready. Srell and Ursun were even more ready for them as they unleashed a barrage of bullets at the approaching hostiles. The few androids that managed to fire their weapons had their own bullets harmlessly strike the golden barrier that RED-1 stood behind. It wasn’t long before 18 bullet-ridden android bodies were squelching white fluid on the metal floor of the hallway.

“Just like target practice!” Srell shouted again, sounding even fuller of himself than before.

“Are we good to proceed?” Ursun asked Prism.

“Yes, sir. No more traps here.” Prism said with a simple nod.

“Alright kids. Just like this for the rest of the event room.” Ursun rallied his team before Lorias and Jaik stepped into the hallway first.

It only took their team ten more minutes to retrieve their target pen and make it to the exit of the mock office building event room. They’d truly become an elite fighting unit, able to intuit each other’s actions and work in unison once their orders and objective were clear. Prism felt one with the team, and even felt his body act automatically while they cleared each sub-room of threats. He’d finally reached a point that he’d been striving for since he started the rigorous bootcamp.

“That’s it. We’ve done it.” Lorias said calmly once they’d entered their final prep room.

“I can barely even believe it…” Srell was the first to reply. “We should’ve died twenty different times these past two weeks.” He said with an irritated shake of his head.

“Gnapp really outdid himself.” Leanna sighed while taking off her helmet and undoing her hair bun. “I’m going to file a Command-level complaint when we get back. Far too many resources went into this beefed-up deathtrap.” She added while she let her dark-green hair down with a quick shake of her head.

“Hey guys, don’t forget why we’re all down here.” Jaik said loudly before turning around to look at Prism.

Soon Prism saw that all eyes were on him. The weary group of mercenaries looked upon him with a variety of other emotions, but they were all sure that he’d accomplished a great deal in their presence. They’d come to trust him, and in his ability to adapt with them in mind. When Prism looked over at Ursun, he could see a sort-of pride glimmer in the tough man’s eyes.

“Good job, Prism. You’ve done right by us these past four weeks.” Ursun said sincerely while walking over to the prep room’s kiosk display. “Now that you’ve completed your team training to such a high degree of skill and determination, someone special wants to meet you.” He added before inputting a secret code into the kiosk.

Prism saw the center of the prep room’s floor slide away and soon heard the familiar sound of the relief room elevator approaching. But to his surprise, the round elevator that appeared was not the basic one that he’d seen thrice before. The elevator that arrived had golden filigree accents across its mostly- transparent glass frame. The filigree that wrapped around the exterior of the elevator was in fact gold that had been fashioned as ornate vines that Prism couldn’t help but touch. Its round doors slid open, revealing a booth with dark-red wooden flooring and wood paneling that came up to half of the elevator booth’s interior wall height. Prism marveled at the artistic nature of the elevator’s design, since he hadn’t seen such a thing within the Undercity or within the Red Wolves main base.

“This doesn’t lead to a relief room, does it?” Prism asked Jaik quietly. Jaik, who’d kept close to Prism since entering the prep room, smiled widely at Prism and simply shook his head no.

“All aboard. I’m sure you kids are exhausted and ready to get all of this over with.” Ursun spoke like a cranky old man.

After a moment of scurrying, RED-1 all stood within the softly-lit ornate elevator that began to descend without notice. Prism felt an odd sense of magic about the situation, as if he was being taken to a mystical land of some sort. It didn’t take long before his eyes became bathed in a bright yellow light that caused him to raise his arm to cover them. When his eyes adjusted to the light, he lowered his arm and became amazed with what he saw outside of the glass canopy of the elevator.

They were descending into a large domed chamber that had four massive circular lamps affixed within the cardinal points of the dome’s ceiling. The light was warm and bright like the sun, and Prism was soon able to see that the ceiling was decorated with a massive and beautiful painting that featured numerous humans flying through the cloudy blue heavens in various states of undress. The dome itself was round and separated into four parts by gilded buttresses that ran down to the floor of the room.

When the elevator finally stopped, Prism was left breathless by the room’s beauty that he could see above and around him. Every fixture and protrusion in the ceiling and walls seemed to gilded or silver-plated. The artificial sunlight made the room glow as if it was touched by the divine. The beige stone walls and white marble floor that Prism observed once he stepped out of the elevator lent even more opulence to the chamber that was so rich in painting and heroic sculptures.

Four large columns framed the center of the room where the elevator sat and RED-1 stood, seemingly being the end of the buttresses that held up the dome above their heads. The areas around the columns had numerous free-standing large displays that had streams of data flickering across them. There were blackboards and walls covered in bookshelves, as well as dark-red wooden tables full of scattered papers, computers, chemistry glassware and other instruments. There were even silvery tables that contained the flesh and viscera of what Prism assumed were biocomputers.

“What…” Prism tried to speak, but he became even more flabbergasted as his eyes continued to dart around the chamber.

None of his teammates spoke for whatever reason. They all stood around the elevator as if they were waiting for the arrival of something that commanded their deference. Ursun was even bowing his head slightly, which perturbed Prism to no end.

“If this is some sort of hazing prank, then I am genuinely impressed.” Prism turned around and said to the others. He was growing tired of their strange silence.

Just when Prism was about to complain again, he began to sense a strange presence enter the room. He hadn’t felt such an entity before on Æba, and he couldn’t be sure that it was even human at all. He placed his left hand on his PAW, and primed his right hand with a small surge of mana.

“I assure you that the time for fun and games is over,” an androgynous voice echoed through the chamber from one of its shaded outer areas. “You and RED-1 are needed on a real battlefield, Prism.”

An olive-skinned person wearing white robe-like attire stepped into the warm yellow light of the inner chamber. The person looked as androgynous as they’d sounded, with an angular face and high cheekbones. The person’s nose and mouth were thin and slight. Their overly-large eyes were an especially light purple, and they had no eyebrows or eyelashes. In fact, Prism could see that they were just as bald as he was. Though the person’s most striking feature was that their head was unusually large, and protruded several more inches behind their neck. Several prominent veins even bulged across the skin of their head.

“Prism, I’d like you to meet Bighead, lead tactician of the Red Wolves.” Ursun soon walked between the two of them and stretched his arm out to present Bighead.

“A pleasure.” Prism reached out his hand to shake Bighead’s.

Bighead looked down contemplatively at Prism’s hand before deciding to shake it. Prism felt a strange neural shock when he made contact with Bighead’s skin. Bighead, who was the same height as Prism, glanced at him when they felt the shock themselves. They tilted their head curiously before finally letting go of Prism’s hand.

“Your brain is complicated enough to directly receive information from my own. Not unexpected.” Bighead spoke dreamily to Prism. “And despite their feigned deference, the few that know of my existence are far more likely to call me “Lead Biocomputer” than to honor me with more prestigious titles.” Bighead said with a far off look towards the domed ceiling.

Prism didn’t know how to respond to the mysterious person that stood before him. What he was somehow sure of was that the shock that he’d received had contained images of a place that he knew just as little about; The Kingdom.