The 42nd Commander who was an enormous, brute-bodied thing with four muscular arms, thick indigo skin, and two heads stacked atop each other, froze in place mid-bite. The hunk of meat in his grasp was nearly the size of a full-grown human with juices spraying as his jaws clamped down. It was an absurd, grotesque, almost comical tableau. But the shock lasted only an instant. Fortunately, E.E reacted first. His hand shot forward with lightning lightning speed. Before the commander could even swallow, E.E clamped his fingers around the alien's thick, ridged throat and slammed him backward. The chair made from alloy that could stop low-grade plasma rounds groaned, then buckled under the sudden jolt. E.E didn't give him breathing room. He yanked the creature forward violently, then drove his elbow repeatedly into the alien's upper skull. Once. Twice. Thrice. The impacts echoed across the chamber with heavy thuds reverberating off metallic walls. The commander's second head blinked in confusion. Its jaws hung open in delayed shock while the first head which was currently suffering the assault, gurgled violently, unable to force down the half-chewed meat clogging its throat. "Go down, damn you!" E.E hissed, tightening his grip. Up close, the creature was far worse than E.E had imagined from afar. It was nearly thrice as large as a full grown human with breath that smelled like fermented blood and rotting organs. Its skin radiated heat, and its muscles writhed beneath the surface like cables pulled by unseen machines. The commander clawed desperately at E.E's wrist with two of his hands while the other two tried to pry the half-swallowed meat from his throat. The choking gurgles turned frantic, bubbling with saliva and half-chewed flesh. E.E's elbow hammered the skull again. And again. But for all the force E.E applied, it was like elbowing a tank's armor while standing on a rollercoaster. The commander had two heads, and the second one which was now fully aware of the ambush, bared sharp, overlapping teeth and hissed out a warbled snarl. Then suddenly— Everything went wrong. The lodged meat burst from the commander's throat as he violently vomited it back out. A thick, ropey mass of half-digested flesh slapped wetly onto the metallic floor. And the very next instant… His entire body ignited in a blinding blue glow. "Oh hell—" A compressed wave of force exploded outward. Unlike a typical energy shockwave with heat and outward kinetic push, this one felt like someone had grabbed reality itself and wrung it like a wet cloth. The air folded, rippled, then slammed outward in an expanding ring. The impact lifted E.E off his feet like he weighed nothing. He crashed into the ceiling so hard the alloy dented inward. The pain shot through his back like a lightning rod had been driven straight down his spine. His vision blurred from the sudden collision before he dropped back down, hitting the floor with a sharp grunt. "Dammit…" As E.E tried to stabilize himself, the commander was already scrambling away with all four arms clawing across the metallic floor, leaving long, fresh scratches behind. Thick, dark blood ran from the wounds E.E left on his skull. Despite choking, vomiting, and getting slammed around, the commander moved with an urgency and panic E.E didn't expect from someone who maintained total authority on this floor. His instinct was obvious: Run. He instantly shot straight for the chamber's reinforced door. "Oh no you don't." E.E growled through clenched teeth. He dashed forward with incredibly speed, ignoring the pain radiating up his spine from the earlier impact as he closed the distance. Just a meter before the commander's hand could slap the emergency release panel— E.E seized one of his massive arms. With a grunt, he pivoted and heaved. He flung the massive alien brute like a sack of refuse. The commander sailed through the air with his huge frame spinning sideways before smashing into the metallic wall on the opposite end. The wall dented inward with a loud, thunderous KRANG! The alien bounced off with a grotesque wobble and collapsed onto the massive pile of steaming, heavily seasoned meat the staff had delivered earlier. Plates and metal trays clattered everywhere. Still, the commander wasn't unconscious. E.E sprinted again, determined to beat him senseless before the alien glowed up again. The commander's large body shimmered violently with the same blue light from earlier. "Oh crap—it's happening ag—" E.E broke off his rush and dove to the right on pure instinct to evade the incoming attack. A split second later, the alien's body detonated with the same spatial shockwave as before. The blast rippled outward, tearing through trays, smashing chunks of meat against the wall, and whipping the air into chaotic spirals. But this time, there was an additional effect added to it. The alien's body shrunk. E.E blinked. "Wait, what—?" The commander compressed sharply, collapsing inward like he was being vacuum-sealed by invisible strings. His massive limbs pulled inward, torso tightened, and in a violent second— He shrank down to quarter the size of a pinky finger. A miniature, squeaking, bright-blue glowing version of the commander's alien body zipped through the air like a panicked mosquito. "What the hell is that ability!?" E.E shouted. The tiny commander darted straight toward the door. The entry scanner was not even designed to detect something so small. He was going to slip through. No way E.E could catch him physically at that size. So E.E did the only thing he could. He snapped his fingers. A wide swirling vortext burst open in front of the door with powerful suction force, pulling the tiny 42nd commander directly into it. E.E's chest loosened in relief. "Got you." The commander's tiny form would emerge from the paired exit vortex inside this very chamber and E.E could grab him instantly. But seconds passed. Then more. Nothing appeared. E.E's brow furrowed. Then his breath hitched. Because he realized— There was no exit vortex forming in the chamber. It should have happened instantaneous, suck the commander in and shoot him out here but seconds had already gone by. His heart plummeted. That wasn't possible. His portals always came in pairs. Always. Entry point and exit point. That was the foundation of his ability... two spatial windows linked by a stable anchor. In this case, the vortex entry he created in front of the door should have linked to the bead inside the chamber and created an exit vortex right here... the same bead he placed in the meat, the anchor he crafted to bypass the chaotic distortions of the station. But the exit point wasn't forming here. E.E scanned the chamber frantically and froze. He spotted the small bead completely crushed, lying slightly under the pile of meat where the commander had fallen earlier. It had been smashed and utterly flattened probably when the giant alien had slammed down into the food. Since the bead, his anchor… was destroyed... this meant... The exit vortex would no longer appear here. It would no longer appear anywhere he intended. It would open wherever the distortions forced it to. E.E's stomach twisted. He felt the "pull" of the second portal through his spatial sense and his internal compass locked onto the exit point's location. His heart dropped into a pit. At first, he prayed he sensed wrong but he didn't. He felt it clearly. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚 He felt where the exit vortex had manifested. His face drained of color. "...you've got to be fucking kidding me." The exit vortex wasn't inside the chamber. It wasn't elsewhere on the final floor. It wasn't within the station at all. It was... outside the station. In open space. "Fuck!" E.E cursed again in frustration. The tiny commander he'd just thrown into his own vortex… Had been spat out into the vacuum of space. Loose. Alive. And rapidly drifting. E.E clenched his fists as annoyance stirred through his insides. This was bad. Very bad. His anchor was gone. The vortex had thrown the commander outward, completely beyond the station's lockdown-controlled interior. The alien commander was likely already signalling for help or worse, escaping into the endless void. E.E's pulse spiked. If the 42nd commander remained out there for too long, he would find a way to send a signal. He would warn others. And the entire operation… The infiltration… His cover… All of it could collapse. E.E closed his eyes briefly... This had spiraled into disaster faster than he expected. He needed to act and he needed to act now. He proceeded to deactivate a few things within the chamber and tap on a few more buttons to put some configuration into place but there wasn't time to do any more than this. Without wasting any more time, he rushed towards the vortex which was still opened and jumped in. Space swallowed E.E whole.