Prism held up the comm-clasp between his forefinger and his thumb before Speet, who stood with his arms crossed with an arched eyebrow as his eyes bounced between Prism and the earring. "Looks the same as it did before," Speet said.

  "Well, it isn't! Put it on and then tap it rapidly three times with your left index finger, my lefty friend." Prism grabbed Speet's heavy white hand and placed the comm-clasp within it.

  Speet stared at the clasp before slowly putting it on his ear. He did as Prism said despite fearing the outcome. With the last tap of his finger, he felt a strange chill run through his entire body.

  "Feel any different?" Prism asked with a wide, white smile.

  "I do." Speet held out his hands and was startled by their different appearance. His dark red gloves had not only become black, but were also a different design than what he was used to. He looked down at his body and saw that his uniform was that of a Sguvan military soldier. "Wha...?" he barely managed to say.

  "Tell me your name." Prism still smiled.

  "Baktun Imudi Setawe Zazi Sipdu."

  Speet's eyes widened as he brought his hands up to cover his mouth. He was even more confused by the strange words coming out of his mouth. Each time he tried to say his own name, it was replaced by the Sguvan one he'd uttered.

  "And your rank?" Prism asked.

  "Second Lieutenant of the Fourth Royal Regiment," said Speet without a moment's hesitation. His eyes narrowed as he leaned forward and brought his face directly in front of Prism's. "What is...?”

  "It's an automatic mental replacement response. I built it into the illusory disguise I've given you. The disguise is actually a real person. Fortunately for you, the young officer whose memories I absorbed knew one person with your height. I don't know who I'm going to use with Ursun, though..." Prism explained with an ease that made Speet's tilt his head.

  "You can create something as believable as this in only a few minutes!?" Speet's deep voice shot up as high as it could go.

  "Illusion magic is easy. It's the mental component that took me a while. I had to make sure that you all could name your disguised identities without having to think about it. I certainly didn't want you to have to remember a whole new identity." Prism shrugged. “I’m a bit surprised by how easily it seems to be working on my first try. Something about you ?ban humans makes your minds really compatible with psychic phenomenon…”

  "You say that like there are humans on another planet or something..." Speet rubbed the top of his black, illusory helmet when he saw Prism bow his head in a fake attempt to hide a knowing smile. "Anyway, how long will this enchant last?"

  "12 hours, assuming you haven't used any other enchants already. They all share mana charges with each other, so you need to be careful. Also,"

  Prism gave the disguised Speet a good punch in the gut. Speet staggered backwards a bit but his armor prevented any real injury or pain. However, the tall man soon felt the same strange tingling move through his body again. When he looked down at himself, he saw that his appearance had returned to normal. "Whoa..." Speet gasped.

  "It's just an illusion. If you get hit hard enough, it'll dissipate. It'll take a few minutes before you can use it again, so be careful." Prism explained.

  "And this officer..."Baktun," I think his name was," Prism nodded at Speet's remembrance, "Would it make sense for him to be trekking through the jungle at night, in case I get caught?"

  "Yes, that explanation is built into your automatic mental replacement response. Second Lieutenant Baktun works within Clandestine Operations. And as a Royalist, he doesn't have to answer to the normal Sguvan military's chain of command. Oh, and your BIGPAW will be disguised as a Sguvan military-issue flamethrower, too."

  "Good to know." Speet nodded. "Thanks, this is...better than I'd hoped for."

  "Sure. Just be careful out there. If you get captured..."

  "I've got an enchant for that, too."

  Prism looked away from Speet, remembering that he'd been tasked with putting vaporizer enchants on all the RED teams' comm-clasps. They were one-use spells that did exactly what the name implied, vaporizing the user to eliminate all trace of them.

  "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. I meant...that it would be hard to find you once you get out of telepathy range. I'd add you to our normal link if I could, but Wadaw is already one more person too many for me to handle."

  "I'll be "okay"," Speet smirked when he said the trendy word that Prism had introduced to the Red Wolves. "I've done stealth missions before without the tools you've given me and made it home just fine."

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Prism, knowing that time was of the essence, offered his hand for Speet to shake. To his surprise, the hulkish man grabbed him up into a big, tight hug that brought Prism's feet off the ground. Prism grinned at the sudden affection, even after Speet put him back down. The fellow mercenary then nodded to Prism before walking away to grab his BIGPAW.

  Speet then walked by Ursun, who was standing alone outside of a tent. Speet nodded to the commander before heading up the slope and disappearing from view.

  "What an impressive young man. His performance on that minihowitzer was tremendous.”

  Ursun heard Wadaw’s overdramatic voice approaching him from behind. Soon he felt the guerrilla leader standing directly beside him. “He’s a good kid,” was all that Ursun said on the matter.

  Prism walked over to take Ursun’s comm-clasp and then left the two men alone in front of the large tent to continue the night’s first watch. Prism disappeared into the smaller tent after popping out of the larger tent where Lorias and Srell were already sleeping. Prism’s hearing, which was far more sensitive than a human’s, allowed him to listen in on Ursun and Wadaw’s conversation even as he sat behind the thick, rubbery walls of the tents.

  “It looks like you and your team are all going to get nifty little disguises to use.” Wadaw said with a whimsy that didn’t quite match their quiet, gloomy setting.

  “Indeed it does.” Ursun said curtly.

  “It’s quite a shame how you relegate Prism to the role of a tool. You know what he represents; proof that there is life beyond the war and drudgery that exists here on our own world.”

  “We do what we have to.”

  “The things he’s probably seen in his travels…my goodness! I could spend all day hearing about where he’s been and what he’s done in his inordinately long life. Leanna told me that he’s tens of thousands of years old! And yet he acts so childish…truly fascinating.”

  “He’s barely spoken about his past to any of us.”

  “Yes, he is quite secretive. I wonder what drives him to help at all if he doesn’t even trust you enough to talk about himself in any real detail. He’s so eager to please, as well. It makes me wonder…”

  “We trust each other enough to fight alongside one another.”

  “And what if more like Prism start appearing on ?ba? What if there are already aliens like him with superpowers secretly living amongst us?”

  “We don’t have time to entertain conspiracy theories. We have wars to fight.” Ursun’s voice remained calm and monotone.

  “Why are you being so short with me?” Wadaw crossed his arms and said.

  “I think I’m being pretty tall with you, actually,” Ursun looked down at Wadaw and said coolly.

  “Urgh. How corny.”

  Wadaw shook his head, rolled his eyes at Ursun, and then let out a loud huff. Ursun remained motionless with his hands resting atop the butt of his PAW as it hung down from a clip on the front of his chest armor. “What’s the use in talking to you, Jiwa? You’ve dismissed every attempt I’ve made to discuss anything important with you.” Ursun’s voice remained measured, but Wadaw could tell that the man was exasperated.

  “Forgive me, old friend. I just…” Wadaw took a moment to sigh and begin holding himself. “I wanted to keep my facade; I didn’t want my mask to slip off.”

  “It was surgically removed.” Ursun looked down at Wadaw almost mockingly.

  “The point is…that I liked having emotional distance from you. When you acted coldly towards me when I met you and your team back on the west coast, I was more relieved than I thought possible. I was ready to tell you who I really was, but I found a kind of…liberation. I no longer felt trapped in that old identity. I truly felt like “Wadaw” for the first time.”

  “Did the attack on your life all those years ago do that much damage to your psyche?” There was little compassion in Ursun’s voice.

  “Do you mean when I was attacked by the Destructors as I tried to sneak back into Sguvi, or do you mean when I was tortured for information by the Sguvan military while I was still recovering from the gash the Destructors left on my face?” Wadaw became audibly angry despite standing still. He didn’t look up at Ursun, but instead focused his gray eyes on a small patch of glowing mushrooms on the wall meters ahead of him. “I’m not “traumatized,” I’m just not who I used to be, Ursun.”

  “Why keep up the facade with the Red Wolves for all these years, then? You don’t think we would’ve worked with the True Twins if we learned of Jiwa’s death? We lose informants and spies all the time,” Ursun asked.

  “Jiwa’s not dead, you obstinate ox, he’s just not my primary identity anymore. Sometimes you live so long undercover that you become the cover. That’s what I’m saying. Can you get that?”

  Ursun looked down at Wadaw only to see that Wadaw was looking up at him. Though Wadaw wore the face of the person Ursun knew in his youth, there was little left of that person’s essence from what Ursun could tell. The histrionic voice, the gray eyes, and the white hair weren’t the only things that set “Wadaw” and “Jiwa” apart. Ursun nodded slowly to him and said, “Yeah, I get it, Wadaw.”

  "Good, we're making progress, you and I." Wadaw gave him a wry smile.

  "Another question," Ursun raised a finger at the smaller man, "Was that you behind the wall seven years ago?"

  Wadaw turned away and frowned. "Yes, yes it was."

  "You were so sure that things weren't going to work out. You tried so hard to get me to go back home."

  "I was against it all from the start. That mission led to everything that's happening right now in this country."

  "You were right." Ursun looked down at the ground between his booted feet and swayed his head slowly from side to side. "Should’ve left well alone.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far. Things certainly weren’t well.”

  “Good, dependable people died. I got too used to assassinations, to weakening regimes.”

  “We may be “leaders”, but it doesn’t all fall on us. We’re simply nodes in larger networks. Everyone plays a part in the results.”

  “This isn’t a game! We aren’t just performers on a stage!”

  Ursun reached out his gargantuan arms as if he was going to crush Wadaw. The guerrilla looked calmly up at the mercenary. Wadaw hadn’t even flinched.

  “Poor choice of words. I apologize.” Wadaw simply shrugged.

  “Gah!”

  Ursun walked off towards the vehicles. He felt the rage he’d acted on continue to bubble over the surface of his psyche. He began to take deep, slow breaths like he’d been taught in the anger management classes he’d taken between the year’s missions. He tried not to think about what he was doing to calm himself, as that’d only piss him off even further.

  “Everything okay?” Prism poked his head out of the tent and asked Wadaw.

  “It will be.” Wadaw said. He placed his hand on his forehead and smirked as he observed his old, hapless friend pacing back and forth. “Some things never change.”