“We’re close.” Wadaw shared as he began to pick up increased chatter via his nanites’ improvised radio implant. A familiar coded transmission of the Gospel faintly beeped in his head as he lay on his back upon a cushioned bench that ran along the boat’s starboard wall. His body’s metabolism had barely recovered from stitching itself back together, though he’d begun to regain the use of his arms after Lorias fed him several calorie-packed ration packs. “They’re about two kilometers inland, northeast from our current position.”

  “I can confirm that.” Leanna shared along with a series of decrypted military communications. She watched a stream of data fly across the screens of her smart-visor, data fed to her by the biocomputer within her dronepack.

  “Acid blasters…biocomputerized smart-missiles…dronepacks…phew, your people have some serious Conjunction hardware.” Srell shared. The psychic sharing of the reports made it easy for him to quickly absorb the information.

  “Waveform neutralizers to stop energy weapons…Android countermeasures, too. They don’t even have to worry about an automaton ambush. I’m impressed that they got all this tech so close to their capital.” Lorias shared as he recognized several large dark boxes discussed in the reports that resembled stage monitors.

  Ursun, who stood beside Mela while she maneuvered the boat closer to the coast, clenched his teeth and watched the blockade of military ships dozens of meters further down the river. In front of that blockade floated dozens of merchant and leisure vessels of an assortment of sizes, all barred entry into Zazi’s waters or its ports. Many of the boats’ passengers watched the mysterious grey cloud that hid the Here Comes the Rain with curious and oftentimes fearful eyes.

  “Don’t do anything stupid.” Ursun silently thought to the military riverboats not even a kilometer from them. The military had stopped attacking their cloud about thirty minutes earlier, most likely to avoid involving the increasing numbers of civilian boats they encountered on the Vines and the wealthy suburban houses that faced the river.

  Even the local civilians had seen the cloud appear in the sky as well as Prism’s fight with the space-rending plasma beast. They’d begun to share videos and swap stories of the events amongst each other before the military began blocking such communication to prevent the narrative regarding Prism from spinning out of control. Gusa, like most dictators, knew that control of information was control of the populace.

  Mela brought her boat to a near standstill mere meters from the riverside and shared, “I’ll anchor us here,” before glancing at Prism. She could see him standing alone at the ship’s bow meters in front of her, just as he’d been doing since his leg was mended about 20 minutes earlier. She frowned when she saw how tired his face looked when he briefly glanced to his side. “I’m going to miss this girl,” Mela shared in hopes that he’d respond.

  “He’ll make sure your boat’s safe, won’t you Prism?” Srell shared with a smirk.

  “In a way,” replied the alien without looking back at any of them. As he felt the boat’s anchor holding them in place despite the river’s currents, Prism turned around and walked over the the aft section of the boat, which was free from the hip-length wall that surround the front half of the Here Comes the Rain. Wadaw winked up at him as Prism walked by, but Prism didn’t acknowledge the shapeshifting guerrilla. Prism instead whipped his right hand and across his chest to trigger the tiny light blue spell circles to twinkle in the cloud that surrounded all of them. A bridge of ice rapidly grew from the port side of the boat until it met the earthy, wooded riverside. “We’re good to go,” shared Prism to his allies.

  Everyone walked across the textured ice into the forest on the outskirts of Sguvi's largest, most populous city. They were all still shrouded within Prism's magical cloud, which lingered among the trees without dampness. Prism sensed soldiers scattered throughout the area and hiding behind trees. “Probably just scouts. Keep your weapons readied anyway,” shared Ursun when Prism shared what he’d discovered. The commander helped Wadaw across the bridge of ice since the guerrilla now walked with a limp.

  Once everyone was off the boat and clear of the ice bridge, Prism reached out his right hand towards the boat. The others watched the glittering lights of the spell circles dance around the boat until a blue aura engulfed the catamaran. The aura and its contents began to shrink until the Here Comes the Rain was as small as a marble. It floated in the air above the water with its tiny anchor drawn.

  Mela slowly brought her hands up to cover her mouth and whispered, “Twins…” as she watched the glowing miniature-version of her boat floating closer and closer to her until it was directly in front of her chest.

  “Go ahead and take it,” Prism turned and said to her. His irises were still blue as he continued to control the spell circles to center his cloud around his body instead of the diminished boat. Mela hesitantly and carefully took the boat into her hands like she would capture a firefly.

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  “I don’t want to damage it,” she shared. It felt like a smooth marble upon her palms and was cool to the touch.

  “You won’t. It’s encased in a protective orb of magical ice that won’t melt with the passing of time. You simply need to throw it into a large enough body of water for the boat to be freed from the ice and return to its normal size,” Prism pantomimed the throw he spoke of. The image made Mela laugh.

  “I’m sorry, this is just…all of this is so strange…” Mela shook her head and shared. She put her frozen boat into one of her pockets and patted it to make sure that it was really there.

  “They’re expecting us. Should take about an hour to walk there, unless you want to save us some time and teleport us?” Wadaw shared with his allies, then looked over at Prism.

  “I’m sorry, but I’ve already started to destabilize the flow of mana around here pretty badly. And with how hectic that mana is…I don’t trust that I’d be able to wield it properly to cast something as complicated as a long-distance teleportation spell. That’s also why I’m not confident in healing you right now. Your body is too unique for simple healing magic to help you.” shared Prism with a frown.

  “Understandable. I’m currently more machine than man,” Wadaw gave Prism a smirk that moved a bit too sluggishly across the man’s face. Prism could see that the nanites that once made up a small part of Wadaw’s face now outnumbered the biological cells in the man’s body. Wadaw was still so weak that he had to lean against Ursun for support.

  They all began walking towards the gathered Gospel forces cloaked in a thick fog that stretched out from Prism’s body about ten meters in all directions. It creeped through the sparse woods like a chemical agent, ominously grey. Several Sguvan soldiers stationed nearby ran out of cover to avoid the haze, fearing that it may poison their very souls.

  “Killing some of them when they’re this terrified could lower their overall morale.” Lorias suggested to the team telepathically when two soldiers took off running from a shrub in their path. “Especially since they can’t see us,” he shared as he wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his variable sword.

  Srell took aim at one of the fleeing enemies’ heads. “I’ll let them know exactly who they’re dealing with,” shared Srell as icily as Lorias would.

  “Leave them be. We don’t want to accidentally kickstart the True Twins’ attack on Zazi.” Ursun shared along with a raised fist to visually signal his men to stand down.

  “Agreed,” shared Mela. “If the Gospel hears a firefight so close to their camp, they’ll assume that the battle has begun.”

  Lorias and Srell shared a communicative look and watched the two soldiers disappear from view. Prism sensed a lingering resentment from the two mercenaries, but their respect for Ursun still far outweighed their negative feelings. From what Prism had seen, Lorias and Srell never had any qualms about killing anyone; they sometimes even seemed to take a great pleasure in the task.

  “Cold-blooded killers…” Prism mused privately. “Or perhaps…they’re just quintessential mercenaries.”

  “I take it that your nanites feed on your body’s metabolism like other cells do?” Leanna asked Wadaw as the man was helped over a patch of brambles by her large leader.

  “Correct, my curious creature,” Wadaw shared with whimsy. “Making so many nanites at once to save Prism from his predicament left me absolutely exhausted. My body works a lot better when it’s composed of its own cells.”

  “I bet it does.” Leanna nodded quietly. “I’d love to get some of those nanomachines into my pack’s biocomputer for analysis.”

  “I’d love to be of help to you and your “pack”, but my nanites would be as inert as granules of sand once they’re out of my body.” Wadaw made a bowing motion over at Leanna, nearly falling forward on his face in the process. Ursun pulled him up and scolded him before Wadaw added, “I don’t think my good friend would approve of me sharing his wondrous tech, in any case.”

  “By “pack” I meant my dronepack, not the Red Wolves as a whole.” Leanna shared, motioning as if she was laughing. The pantomiming felt silly to her, but their strategy still needed them to hide the size and content of their group.

  They all continued through the forest as its trees grew scarcer and scarcer. It eventually gave way to a partially-industrialized area near a major road that led to Zazi. It was there, outside of a white metal warehouse, that Prism and his group encountered the first signs of the True Twins’ army.

  “I’m sensing a dozen people within the warehouse up ahead. They look to be…” Prism shared along with his extended vision of the building’s interior, filled with aisles of crates and machinery that he didn’t recognize. He and his allies stood in the densest grove of trees on the edge of the seemingly-abandoned business plaza.

  “The True Twins Gospel, our people.” Mela said with so much relief that everyone else within the link felt at ease, too. "Sebeto messaged them about our fog plans. They should be expecting our...strange appearance."

  “I’ll broadcast the infrasound codes,” shared Leanna. She took off her dronepack and placed it on a patch of dirt at her feet. A few taps on the side of her visor caused a spike to jut out from the pack's bottom into the ground. A few seconds later, Leanna looked around at the others before sharing, "We're good to enter that rear entrance there.” She pointed at the warehouse door ten or so meters in front of them. A series of loading docks ran along the wall beside the door, all of which were closed.

  “Could be an ambush…” Srell shared. He squatted at Lorias’ as the two of them scanned their surroundings with a healthy amount of suspicion.

  “Prism, what’s in their minds?” Ursun asked and made a head motion towards the warehouse. “Are these the people we’re looking for?”

  Prism’s brown irises took on a blue hue again. He listened to the thoughts that came across the heads of each guerrilla that was pacing about the building. Familiar concerns about the unexpected peace summit and strong desires to fight “Gusa’s goons” were echoed in each mind Prism scanned. Most of the guerrillas were praying fervently to their twin gods for the strength to meet whatever challenge they were about to face. Some of them even prayed that the “man in the mists” outside would bring them victory in the coming battle, a rather humbling thing for Prism to listen in on.

  “They are definitely True Twins. We’re good.” Prism shared.

  “Alright, let’s go.” Ursun gestured towards the long white warehouse.

  “I’ll extend the fog to encompass the entire area first, so they can’t be sure of what building we enter,” shared Prism.

  “Good thinking. Do it.” Ursun shared and nodded to Prism.

  “I’ve given them some warning.” Leanna quickly shared as she air-typed on her virtual keyboard. She then picked up her dronepack from the ground and placed it on her back with a satisfying *click* followed by a slight hissing sound.

  Prism slowly stood on the tips of his toes as he took in a deep breath. He then breathed out even more slowly while pushing his hands out from his chest, sending forth a stream of his magical fog into the industrial area in front of them. It took only a minute for the area to be completely shrouded in the fog that reached the top of ten-meter-high trees that surrounded the plaza. Prism and those around him then heard the sounds of screams as groups of soldiers took off running out of the fog, clearing the plaza of military presence.

  “Who knew water vapor could be so useful.” Wadaw shared as they all walked to the warehouse.