*Rrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggg*
The walls shook and the floors quaked throughout the vast underground network of hallways and rooms that made up Getla Base’s core section. The soldiers standing guard throughout it had lost count of how many times their facility had been rocked that night, but all of the sudden disturbances still made them uneasy. The sturdy brown-walled corridors, with their flexible and adaptive organic materials, were designed to withstand such forces. The island of Athea was no stranger to earthquakes, though they tended to occur only a few times a year.
“More infiltrators!?” Srell yelled to his teammates.
“Or maybe even the same one.” Lorias said with a smile.
The two of them ran with the rest of their team down the hallway that led to the CCC, passing several soldiers who were guarding the busiest hallways of the underground base. The quakes grew worse, just as the storm above them had. Prism could sense that the two things were related due to the disorientation he’d felt on the surface making its way a kilometer underground.
Jaik appeared out of a medical room when he heard Srell and Lorias speaking in the hallway. He’d been helping treat some of the soldiers injured by the infiltrators’ earlier blitz attack. Once everyone within the room had been stabilized, he had begun to grow restless about what was happening on the surface. When Jaik saw Prism walking sluggishly behind all of them, Jaik left his temporary duties and joined Prism on his way to the CCC.
“You don’t look like someone who just saved a bunch of lives.”
Jaik gave Prism a small push with his elbow, but Prism just kept walking without acknowledging Jaik. After he noticed Prism’s poor state, Jaik took out his medscanner and waved it over Prism while they walked. The results the device showed Jaik made no sense to him.
“Your heart-rate, blood pressure, blood sugar, and your hormonal levels, to name a few, just keep going up and down. Some of these shifts can be explained by stress, while others defy logic.”
Jaik’s concern and confusion only made it harder for Prism to keep himself together. Prism tried to tune out Jaik’s loud mind but it had somehow seemed to grow more intense, despite Prism believing that the raw magic that ensorcelled the man’s body was diminishing over time. While being bombarded with Jaik’s thoughts again, Prism realized that Jaik was being affected by the mana maelstrom as well.
“And how are you feeling? Anything weird going on with your own body?” Prism stopped in the hallway to ask Jaik.
Jaik stopped in front of Prism and eyed his teammate like someone who was being made fun of. Jaik heard the irritation in Prism’s voice and could tell that Prism didn’t like the interruption. But there was real consideration in Prism’s strained brown eyes which seemed to faintly glimmer with a myriad of colors the more that Jaik stared into them.
“Yeah, I have a slight headache. Also, the air started looking slightly iridescent about ten minutes ago, like there’s oil and water floating in it or something. It’s starting to swirl and rush around, but I don’t feel any wind. I asked a few people if they could see it, but I’m the only one. I chocked it up to stress.” Jaik said after a brief pause.
“That’s the turbulent mana that you’re seeing rushing around us. It must be your magicked eyes. Your brain isn’t adapted to perceive of mana, so it’s straining to make sense of what it’s seeing.” Prism explained before rubbing his forehead to relieve the pain of his own headache.
“Prism! We need you in the CCC right now!” Ursun’s telepathic voice felt like it was ripping through Prism’s sore mind.
“I’ve got to keep going.” Prism said softly to Jaik.
“I’m coming to, in case you collapse.”
Jaik rubbed Prism’s clothed shoulder adoringly, causing Prism to cock his head and look up slowly at Jaik. Prism sensed Jaik’s true feelings for him being broadcast from his magicked mind at full-power. Prism’s eyes grew wide, and he even blushed. Seeing Prism’s light-brown cheeks redden made Jaik smile.
“Oh, okay…” Prism said awkwardly before taking Jaik’s hand off of his shoulder and looking down at the ground to avoid the young man’s lovesick gaze.
“I’m sorry, it’s just that…when you disappeared, I f-”
“No time. Gotta go to the CCC.”
Prism walked briskly past Jaik as he sensed the complicated thoughts that Jaik wanted to share aloud. Jaik was hurt by the sudden departure, but was soon following close behind Prism. Lorias’ harsh words yet again replayed in Prism’s head, and Prism was of the mind to agree with them given the present situation that Prism found himself in.
“He’s trying to make an admission of love to me now, of all times? Doesn’t he realize how we need to keep our heads focused on the mission?” Prism thought almost angrily to himself. “I see why Lorias called us all children.”
When Ursun and Theda’s teams entered the Command and Control Center, they were met by Deriges and his senior staff, who were still preoccupied with the numerous calls for aid and information updates across the region of Eastern Athea. Deriges looked up from his round tactics table at the center of the room when he saw Ursun. The jolly base commander was quick to unload on him since Ursun had been ignoring his terp-comms.
“Just when our radio communications were starting to work again, a hurricane appears out of nowhere with lightning so powerful that it’s causing even more EM interference. And I hear that your mysterious teammate is to blame for this and for destroying our best line of defense against invasion. What an absolute mess he’s gotten into.”
The room grew quiet when its inhabitants heard Deriges loud words being directed at Ursun. Ursun crossed his arms as he stood across the tactics table from the base commander. He’d planned his words carefully, no longer wanting to give into his anger like he’d done earlier.
“The guns were completely under enemy nanite control. They had to be destroyed or they’d destroy our allies.” Ursun stated with complete confidence. His voice was deep and comforting. “As for the storm, it delays any invasion plans our enemies might have had, giving us more time to plan out our defense, especially in light of our changing capabilities.”
“Funny that you should mention changes, since we’re now being affected by volcanic activity beneath and around our coastline. Could that also have anything to do with the storm that’s waging? You know, the storm that’s keeping the hypergeneral and his air fleet grounded and stuck outside of the base?”
Deriges was clearly not amused by anything that was going on, as it took away a great deal of his power over the base and its surroundings. The room shook more violently than the last time for an entire minute, which made everyone grip whatever was near to them.
“This base is supposed to be able to stay almost completely still in the event of seismic activity and explosions! Why have the springs in the walls and our supposedly “flexible” building materials done nothing all night!?” Deriges yelled to his officers.
“The spring layering in the walls has been due for replacement for quite some time, sir. They’ve lost a lot of their elasticity over the years. The only thing keeping the base from collapsing now is its flexible composite construction.” A rather intelligent-looking officer said quickly to Deriges, winning a groan and a dismissive hand gesture from his leader.
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“You mentioned volcanic activity?” Theda asked.
“Our base sits atop a fault line that has been relatively stable for the past century, with only occasional earthquakes. This entire region is full of faults and few underwater volcanoes, but we didn’t have any volcanoes close to the coast until now. We’ve just detected a major underwater subduction event only 50 kilometers to the east.”
Deriges explained the crisis well, which made Leanna and Remades believe that he had a science background, like many in the Xypno gene class. Deriges showed the live findings from the base’s sensors on a three-dimensional hologram of the area around Getla Base, which was projected from the table in front of him. The eight mercenaries within the room paid close attention to everything that he was saying and showing, especially Leanna.
After the confrontation with Lorias in the stairwell, she had something to prove to herself.
“That’s near where the naval fleet is amassed, isn’t it?” Leanna asked after she approached the round rim of the hologram table.
“Yes. We have serious concerns that some of our ships will begin to lose their buoyancy and sink as the volcano that appeared there degasses the surrounding seawater.” Deriges’ second-in-command replied.
He was a short, older man with graying green hair. He looked like Deriges’ opposite in nearly every way, being thin and mean-faced.
“Any chance of a tsunami?” Remades then asked.
“It seems not. The new volcano isn’t erupting with enough explosive force for that. But its activity is violent enough to cause earthquakes strong enough to reach us here.” The second-in-command answered again.
Jaik looked tepidly over at Prism, who’d separated himself from his team by standing amongst a group of tactical officers. Jaik saw the guilt clear on Prism’s face, serving as a reminder that he was in some way responsible for all of the crises being described.
“So, “Magical Boy,” as some of my men have heard you being called, why exactly have you done all this? Surely you can reverse it?” Deriges boldly asked in front of the room of about thirty people.
Prism glanced fearfully around at the faces staring back at him. Most of them desperately wanted to know what made him capable of such feats, though some of them dismissed the possibility that he had anything to do with what was transpiring. Prism looked at Ursun, whose hawkish eyes were trained on him. Prism thought that Ursun would telepathically tell him what to say, but no message came.
After a painful pause, Prism finally opened his mouth to speak.
“This is beyond me. It’s too complicated for me to stop. I’m so sorry.”
Prism lowered his aching head in shame while he heard the angry groans and curses begin to be uttered throughout the large room. Just when he thought he could take no more, a strange electrostatic noise began to be heard from the comms speakers set up around the CCC.
“Contact! We have contact with the highly-modified Destructor speedsub that we encountered days ago!”
A panicked soldier reported over the high-priority comms before also sharing the enemy’s latitude and longitude. To everyone’s further shock, the ship was only a few kilometers from the coast. The speedsub sat within the blind spot of the base’s cliff-cannons, right in front of the destroyed docks. An image of the surfaced submarine was displayed on monitors that lined the walls of the CCC. The portion of the vessel that they could see looked sleek and gilded. The gold portions of its exterior glowed with the familiar hallmarks of self-repairing technology, making it clear to those within the CCC that the speedsub had been outfitted with Kingdom-tech.
“What in the name of Eizavoba is that speedsub doing!?” Deriges shouted.
“Should we send out our own ships to intercept it?” The second-in-command asked Deriges.
“No, this may be another decoy. We don’t know what sort of weapons that thing has. It might even have high-yield particle beam capability.”
When Deriges mentioned the high-yield particle beam, the room grew quiet for a moment. Such weapons were devastating to the Conjunction and any others who attempted to oppose the Kingdom directly. There was little to no effective defense against them, as most of them tended to use muons as their particle ammunition. Powerful and practical particle weapons were too sophisticated to have yet been created outside of the Kingdom. Only the simplistic, low-yield variants found on certain Kingdom-made plasma soldiers had ever been salvaged and used, with wildly-mixed results.
If the speedsub did have a muon beam weapon, it could kill everyone within the base regardless of how much rock and metal separated them from the sea.
“Yes, sir.” The second-in-command said to Deriges. “Put our forces at sea on high-alert. Tell them to monitor the speedsub closely.” He then ordered a communication officer to relay to the nearby Etrysian ships and submarines.
“Dangerous.” Remades said softly to Testa.
Testa solemnly nodded down to him as Risa walked over to Theda from across the hectic CCC. Risa acknowledged Ursun with a quick nod before she whispered something into Theda’s ear beside him. Theda looked bewilderedly at Risa before dismissing her back over to the communication officers that Risa had been closely observing.
Ursun was definitely intrigued by the strange exchange, but didn’t express it to Theda. She knew that he was curious, nevertheless.
“They tracked the speedsub from where it had been hiding when it surfaced. Turns out that there was a deep sea cavern wide enough to travel through that ran for dozens of kilometers right into an underground cavern beneath Surmil. The sudden volcanic activity caused the tunnel to collapse, forcing the speedsub out of it and into the open sea. It has some damage that must’ve come from its narrow escape.”
While Theda explained what she’d learned from Risa, everything began to click in Ursun’s mind. The infiltrators’ secret entry into Surmil and the base, seemingly from deep underground, had been explained. In his mind, Ursun imagined that the tunnel and cavern might have even been created by the very kingdom-tech that the speedsub was equipped with. If that was the case, then all of the Conjunction’s coasts faced an unprecedented threat. It was that realization that made Ursun understand why Theda had freely shared the information with him.
“The Queen is escalating the world’s conflict to a new stage while she sits back and watches.” Ursun said as he felt the anger rising in his gut.
He was uneasy again, but he resisted his feelings.
“They were quite literally beneath our noses the entire time. And now through Prism’s strange machinations, they’ve been flushed out. What a night this is.”
Theda shook her head at what she believed to be some great farce taking place all around her. She watched Prism leaning against a wall, consumed in thought. She needed to know what he truly was.
She soon saw Jaik walk over to the underdressed young man, who still only wore a black t-shirt and grey briefs. She wondered how he’d managed to walk so far while being barefoot, but she then realized how silly it was to wonder about that in the face of the incredible things she’d seen him do.
“Let’s get you back in some armor. People are starting to talk about your lack of suitable clothing.” Jaik said to Prism in a brotherly way. “We had to incinerate your old armor since it might’ve still carried some of the supervirus.”
When Prism wouldn’t look up from the ground or even move, Jaik placed his hand on Prism’s waist. Prism’s eyes shot up at Jaik when he felt the warm, sweaty hand suddenly gripping him.
“What!?” Prism asked with alarm.
A few of the officers nearby stared at them when they heard Prism yelp. Jaik squeezed Prism’s narrow waist and pulled him closer. Prism was at a loss for words.
“You need to put some armor on.” Jaik leaned down and said firmly.
“Right, you’re right.”
Prism nodded rapidly a few times before following Jaik out of the room and to an armory a few rooms down the hallway. Jaik had learned from the soldiers he was tending to that there was spare combat gear there, and that it was alright for Prism to wear any that fit him once he’d gotten back. Jaik asked a soldier there to outfit Prism in suitable combat armor, which led to a brief exchange where the soldier commented on how young Jaik and Prism looked. After a minute of rummaging through some lockers, the soldier found something that fit Prism nicely.
“This feels quite comfortable.” Prism noted as he moved around in the brown and black armor that wasn’t too dissimilar from his Red Wolves gear.
The black compression under-material was light and the plated outer portions had a similar gloss to Prism’s previous combat armor. The Etrysian flag was on its shoulder pauldrons; a flag of green, pink, and orange.
“It’s not as widely-protective as our armor, but it’s still pretty good.” Jaik said.
He smirked when Prism began doing various stretches in it. The soldier who’d retrieved the armor and helped get Prism dressed looked satisfied as well.
“It bonded to your skin quite quickly. I haven’t seen it do that before.” The soldier commented with a chuckle.
Prism became aware that what he thought was a cloth compression material was in fact a living layer of fibers that caressed his skin, removing its dirt and helping to regulate his temperature and oil production. The armor’s plates were chitinous, and fed off of his body’s ambient heat to begin further hardening itself. The combat armor was a complex organism that worked symbiotically with his own biology.
“Incredible.” Prism said.
He began to feel the effects that the mana maelstrom had on his body abate. The living suit he wore gave his own physical body a greater capacity to endure and regulate external stressors. It was as if the Etrysian biocrafters had discovered a magic all their own, Prism thought.
“Get back in here. We’ve got a major development happening right now.” Ursun’s urgent voice was heard in Jaik and Prism’s minds.
The two of them ran back to the CCC, where they heard a sultry feminine voice over the comms speakers before they were even let into the room. When they did enter, they saw a seductive-looking woman with long, straight black hair being displayed on the numerous screens scattered across the room.
She had bright-red lipstick on her small mouth, which made her heart-shaped face look even more carnal. Dyed violet strands that matched the color of her eyes ran through her hair, and bangs completely covered her forehead. Though only her head and upper chest could be seen, she appeared to be wearing a purple silk robe over a sleek black vest of body armor. She stood in a dark room with traces of gold and red lights in the background.
“Well, what is your answer?”
The audio setup of the CCC made the woman sound like she was all around them at once. She spoke playfully, like she was having a good time.
“Vitenza, you’ve come so far for a GMO-free woman. From mere pirate crew to captain of a Kingdom-enhanced speedsub. You’re even threatening one of the mightiest bases of your homeland. My, oh my.”
Deriges mocked Vitenza, who he knew a great deal about. The Etrysian military knew much about the Destructors Gang and its members, and Vitenza was indeed a rising star under the direct command of one of its most powerful leaders.
Vitenza laughed villainously before raising up a golden hand fan and opening it dramatically with a flick of her wrist. She began to wave the large fan near her head, making her shiny black hair move back and forth.
“Former homeland. I disowned Etrysia a long time ago. But that is a mere distraction, you silly little man. As I said, I will destroy your base unless you give up the man you call Prism to my associate, who some of you very nearly killed.”
When he heard her demand, Prism felt his heart nearly stop. He and everyone within that room finally understood the motive of all the sabotage and death that their enemies had wrought that night. Prism’s guilt reached new heights when he saw several people look over at him. Their intentions were clear as day on their faces; they wanted to hand Prism over to her.
“My associate will return to your base with a sedative that will be given to the alien. Once the alien is unconscious, my associate will then carry the alien to a small boat that will ferry them back to my ship. We will then be on our wonderful way back to Vadam where the Queen’s resident constable will deliver the alien back to the Queen’s anxious arms. You will keep your tired old base and we will leave you to your miserable little lives.”
Vitenza giggled after she told them her demands. Deriges stared up at the screen above him with a blithe grin that belied his derision for her. The room became deathly quiet as they all eagerly awaited Deriges next response.