The moment E.E exited the vortex, the cold silence struck him like a slab of iron.
Stars stretched endlessly across the void, drifting in warped patterns because of the station's spatial distortions bleeding outward. His boots touched nothing. Only weightless infinity.
He immediately shut the vortex behind him since he couldn't risk the 42nd mander slipping through again.
"Where the hell are you…" E.E muttered.
He spun around, scanning every angle. His senses stretched out as far as possible, but the distortions made everything flicker or shift irregularly.
Locating a target in normal space was one thing... locating a small, shrunk alien with unpredictable energy signatures out here was practically impossible.
He clicked on the secret m device inside his ear.
"Angy, Aildris, Falco—bad news. The mander slipped out. The bead got crushed. I'm out in space."
Falco: "WHAT? Bro, tell me you're joking–"
E.E: "I'm going after him."
He didn't wait for more responses... he didn't have time.
He forced calm into his lungs and extended his perception again…but the result was the same.
Empty void.
Nothing.
Just when he was about to move and check a different angle... a shadow passed over him.
A massive shadow.
E.E looked up.
A sphere of throbbing and expanding flesh, descended from above like a living meteor. It slammed downwards in a brutal arc.
"Shi–!"
BOOOOOM!
The blow connected squarely with E.E's torso, sending him hurtling through space like a kicked pebble.
His body spun for hundreds of feet and eventually stabilized but before he could even think of counterattacking—
The 42nd mander was already behind him.
"Who… are you?"
The alien's dual voices echoed with both heads speaking in perfect sync.
A glowing blue aura burst from his form. His size had already reverted from the tiny pinky-form, being even larger than he was initially.
He was now a thirty feet tall beast with two thick necks, two elongated heads with serrated mandibles, and four long arms rippling with muscle. His skin looked like hammered stone, and veins glowed beneath.
E.E coughed, clutching his abdomen.
"Damn… you hit harder than your ugly face suggests…"
But the mander didn't let him finish.
"You sick ontruder."
He charged.
E.E barely raised his arms in time before the 42nd mander slammed into him again.
The impact caused a small detonation in space, sending spatial fractures rippling outward like shattered glass.
The mander swung again and again, creating shockwave after shockwave with each blow.
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
E.E couldn't catch a breath. His bones vibrated. His vision blurred. He tried opening a vortex, but the distortions twisted it sideways and nearly cut him in half.
He immediately canceled it.
The 42nd mander sneered.
"Spatial power? Useless trick."
The mander's next hit smashed E.E across the space, causing his back yo hit a drifting asteroid, breaking it into three chunks.
E.E gasped, then forced himself upright.
He wiped blood from his lip.
"Okay… okay. So that's how it's gonna be."
He cracked his neck.
"Round two."
The mander didn't waste words. He turned into a streak of blue, appearing directly in front of E.E with a raised fist.
E.E ducked.
Just barely.
The mander's punch obliterated the entire asteroid behind him.
E.E retaliated instantly, lashes out with a vortex flicker... not a full portal, just a micro-shift to appear behind the mander. But the distortions twisted it slightly, causing E.E to appear diagonally above instead.
Still, he used it.
He kicked downward, slamming his heel onto one of the alien's heads.
The mander jerked, losing balance for the first time.
E.E didn't hesitate.
He vanished again with another short flicker with very little distance to prevent the spatial distortions from messing with it too much.
He appeared right in the mander's blind spot.
His fist glowed as he punched the alien in the spine.
CRACK!
The mander roared with his four arms thrashing as a shockwave exploded from his body.
"GHH–!"
E.E was blown backward. His limbs rattled and his ears rang.
He was fighting a higher ranked mander alone and he could feel the difference. The alien wasn't sloppy like the 62nd mander, this one was disciplined, well-trained, and faster than he looked.
This was bad.
Really bad.
But turning back was not an option.
Back at the station, on a fractured moon, Angy sped through the floors without the initial restrictions.
Due to how quick she could move, not a single person spotted her and that was thanks to E.E getting rid of the speed restrictions from the mander's chamber.
He clenched his fists.
A few seconds later, Angy stood at the highest floor corridor, breathing slowly.
The room E.E had fought in with the 42nd mander was spotless. She'd cleaned every scrap of blood, every cracked tile in the wall, every collapsed table. Her speed made it possible, but her nerves were on edge.
If even one senior officer noticed anything suspicious…
Everything would collapse.
To make matters worse, if the spatial distortions weren't disabled soon, E.E would have no way of returning safely.
Unfortunately, even though E.E managed to deactivate a lot of the restrictions that affected their bloodline abilities, he didn't get to deactivate the spatial distortions.
This was due to the fact that, the control for that wasn't present in the 42nd mander's chamber.
Now it was up to Angy to deactivate it.
Her gaze hardened.
"Where do they keep the distortion cores…?"
She sprinted down one flight of stairs, across a security wing, stealing keycards, timing patrols and redirecting cameras. All of this was done in less than ten seconds.
While she worked, Aildris and Falco raced through the station's internal systems on lower floors, trying to find an exit route so they could leave to help E.E.
---
E.E dodged another swing, narrowly avoiding fingers that could easily crush a city.
The mander was relentless with his two heads snapping in alternating directions, tracking E.E's movements like duel predators.
"You smell… wrong," the mander hissed.
"Not Gustavo… not Alliance…"
E.E smirked bitterly.
"Wow. What gave it away? Me punching your head or me throwing you across your own room?"
The mander's four arms extended outward, glowing with blue veins.
"You should not have e."
A pulse formed.
A massive one.
E.E sensed it too late.
"SHIT—"
BBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!
The explosion was silent in space, but E.E felt all of it. A crushing wave flung him across the void like a rag doll. His body folded, tumbling helplessly, causing his vision to flicker.
All this time he had been holding his breathe but now he truly wished he could breathe.
The mander figure turned into a streak again and before E.E knew it, he was already behind him.
"You die now."
Two hands grabbed E.E by the skull.
Two more grabbed his arms.
And the last set prepared to twist.
E.E's eyes spun, stunned from the earlier blast.
Then, he remembered something.
Something stupid.
Something risky.
But his only chance.
His fingers twitched.
A mini vortex spark flickered behind the mander's second head.
The mander turned slightly and in that brief moment, E.E used the distortion to his advantage.
He kicked.
The partial vortex buckled and sent the mander's upper body twisting sideways instead like stepping on a glitching platform.
The grab loosened.
E.E tore himself away while his face turned green.
He floated backward with his arms trembling. He couldn't hold his breathe for much longer. This had to end as soon as possible.
The mander hissed, regaining balance.
"You play with broken space. Foolish."
E.E coughed blood.
"Foolish? Bro, I've been hanging out with Gustav for years. 'Foolish' is our middle name."
He raised both hands and began opening a very vortex despite the distortions.
One unstable enough to drag everything nearby into it.
The distortions made the portal wobble, crackle, and expand unpredictably.
The mander stared at it, confused for a moment—
Then his eyes widened.
"You wouldn't."
E.E grinned.
"I would."
The vortex began to suck intensely, pulling at them.
Both were dragged toward it violently with debris, meteors, and dust funneling into the unstable tear.
E.E fought to remain conscious.
The mander fought to resist but the suction grew stronger.
"Stop."
"Stop!"
His voice grew desperate.
E.E didn't.
He pushed harder, expanding the vortex even more.
His body shook violently due to the spatial feedback.
The mander's arms flailed as its four limbs dug into the void, trying to resist but the vortex was overwhelming.
It latched onto him.
Dragged him closer.
Closer.
Closer—
Until...
FWOOOOOOOOOOSH!!!
The 42nd mander was sucked into the swirling tear.
E.E let go of the vortex, collapsing forward.
He wheezed as blood dripped from his mouth.
He floated, barely able to keep his eyes open.
But he smiled.
"Got you."
---
Inside the Station, Angy finally found it.
A sealed chamber underneath the tenth floor had a Spatial Disruption Core.
She kicked the door open at supersonic speed, disabled three guards before their brains even processed sound, and launched herself at the massive pulsating device occupying the center of the room.
"This is it…"
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