Volume 3: Gamma-12, Chapter 3.42

Gamma-12’s tentacles snaked and stormed around her, filling up the entire hallway. Anyone else nearby was consumed, with just our team protected inside Eve’s tendril shell. Right away I could see Uinda and Densdor were dead, but Zyno had only been skewered in the leg.

“Is it bad? Oh, fuck it’s bad!” Zyno wailed.

I rushed past the others and knelt down with Zyno, thanking God I still remembered all my paramedic training. I ripped off my shirt and turned it into a tourniquet around his leg to stop the bleeding. I turned to Yun who was crying while holding Zyno’s hand, “Keep pressure on it!” I commanded, then got back up to check how everyone else was doing.

Roote had his communicator out and was trying to get in contact with

The Radiance

, Loabe and Vinnago prepared their little stun guns they were able to sneak on board—as though they would do

anything

against a Predazoan. Kianna and Sorra were clearly in shock trying to revive the obviously dead Uinda and Densdor, while Doctor Gorgam stayed right by Eve, yelling over the sound of Gamma-12’s shrieking.

“How did she sneak up on us like that?” He pressed.

Eve’s elongated fangs were bared as her eyes blazed with fury, “I don’t know, she must’ve switched bodies sometime after you all met with her; she either anticipated the double-cross, or she never intended to cooperate in the first place.”

There was a massive explosion ahead of us, and I saw some of the doors to the rooms were getting caved in; the station stability wouldn’t last long.

A tentacle wound around me and pulled me beside Eve so I was pressed right against her back, “Do

not

move from that spot; stay with me right there while I handle this.”

“How the

fuck

are you going to handle it?” I asked.

Another explosion, this one far away, I could see more rooms and doors getting warped by the vacuum outside, they wouldn’t be able to hold up against Predazoan fury. I could see through Eve’s shield Gamma-12 was growing larger in size and was slowly turning more red, like a mass off bloody tentacles oozing all over the place. She continued to shriek and screech, and every once in a while Eve would answer with her own otherworldly scream.

“Eve! We can’t let her destroy this station.” I pressed.

“What would you have me do? She’s already compromised the structural integrity of the outer—”

“What about your spores? They’re all over the station, right? Just like back when you took command of

The Radiance

, can’t you manifest your biomass through them somehow?” I reasoned.

Eve looked at me like I was the most brilliant man in the world, “Oh you darling, wonderful, amazingly clever boy!”

Eve took in a deep breath and seemed to center herself, then a second later there were millions—

billions

of black leathery balls in the air that slowly started growing until each exploded in a half-dozen thin tentacles. The tentacles all snapped together in place, crisscrossing all over in a giant net. Just then, a massive chunk of the outer walls of the station ripped away, but before too many people were sucked out into space, Eve’s net of tentacles closed to gap, keeping it all together.

Gamma-12 screamed in frustration and ran off towards the paradise-core. Eve quickly looked back towards the rest of our team, “Everyone stay together!”  She called, and then suddenly the black chitin shield closed up into a massive bubble that captured everyone else, then it was quickly wrapped up in the black netting of tentacles and held firmly in place against the floor.

With our team safe—or out of the way, Eve rushed off after Gamma-12 with me still locked on her back, securely in place with a dozen tentacles.

“Eve, are you sure it’s okay for me to stay with you like this?” I asked.

“Oh, so what,

now

you don’t want to be on the front lines with me? Make up your mind Adam!” She snapped.

I rolled my eyes, “Yeah, I want to be on the front lines with you—but not glued to your fucking back!”

“Well too bad! It’s the safest place in the entire space station now.” She insisted.

We made it to the paradise-core, although it looked completely different—like a

nightmare

-core. Eve’s tentacle netting was all over the floor, walls and ceiling, blocking so much of the lights it was dark as night all over now. People were crying and screaming, and at first I thought it was just from the darkness and Eve’s tentacles, but I saw far in the center of the core the mass of blood tentacles was sweeping through crowds, consuming people with a desperate kind of haste.

“She’s trying to consume as much biomass as possible to even the odds against me.” Eve explained.

“You can still beat her though, right?” I pressed.

Even from her back I could see Eve’s smile, “Of course darling.”

Eve crouched down for a moment, and when she stood back up, she stood tall—taller than her normal form, maybe nine feet tall, with long slender limbs. Black tendrils wrapped around her body and solidified as chitinous armor, even wrapping around me to lock me on her back; I felt like fucking Master Blaster from the movie Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. Her hair solidified into a couple dozen long tentacles with silver razor spears on the end. Her fingers elongated to be like knives same as against Gamma-17 on Entana, and a long tail sprouted beneath me from the small of her back, a solid 20 feet long with a scythe-edge at the end. Lastly, three pairs of wings grew on either side of me, stretching out longer than ever before.

“You enjoyed flying darling, hold on tight.” Eve trilled.

“Hold on to

whaaaaa

—” My voice died away as Eve leapt into the air and flew so fast I couldn’t even comprehend what all I was seeing; up close to the action like this I could barely make out sounds and shapes, let alone orient myself properly.

But at least I was totally secure on Eve’s back.

Eve shrieked a challenging cry into the red, bloody biomass Gamma-12 had become, and Gamma-12 roared back her own challenge. Unlike Gamma-17, Gamma-12 was trying to use her size and extra biomass to overwhelm Eve, sending out hundreds of those bloody red tentacles to swat Eve out of the air, but as fast as Eve flew, they might as well have been moving in slow motion. Eve raked her claws against the tentacles as she flew, plunged her tail into the enemy biomass, even stabbed her hair tentacles into anything red. Still, with as much damage as Eve seemed to be doing, it didn’t matter much as Gamma-12 kept increasing in size, pulling in dozens of people with every swipe, consuming people as though they were jellybeans to pop into your mouth by the handful.

“Jellybeans? Really Adam?” Eve pressed.

“I don’t know, this is fucking crazy, it was the first thing that popped into my mind!” I protested.

“Any more ideas how we can save your jellybeans?” Eve asked.

I sighed, “Maybe get the people away first, then focus on Gamma-12?”

Eve held up a claw, “Good idea, but let’s take it a step further.”

Eve reeled back like she was throwing a baseball then slammed her arm forward, chucking a massive wade of black biomass into the ground. The black biomass bubbled and grew until it exploded, and hundreds of drone forms flew out, with batwings and tentacles and giant glowing yellow eyes. The drones started scooping up people as fast as they could and carried them away from the battlefield. Gamma-12 roared when she saw Eve was stealing away her food, but the drone forms were too fast for Gamma-12’s massive new form to keep up with.

“There, now we’ll handle the boss.” Eve confirmed.

“Right behind you.” I offered, and Eve trilled a cute little giggle despite all the horror around us.

Eve dove right towards the center mass of Gamma-12, easily dodging around all its massive bloody tentacles. Of course, Gamma-12 was fast—faster than I could even see, but Eve was a hundred times faster, making me almost sick with the way she zipped around. But at least my brains didn’t drain out of my ears or anything, Eve must’ve been protecting me from that somehow.

When Eve cut through the tentacles they fell off easily, but I could see when they hit the ground they turned to red ooze that slowly crawled back into the main body.

“Eve, it’s not working, she just keeps reabsorbing the biomass.”

“I know I know, this will just go on forever at this rate.” Eve confirmed.

“You need to find a way to permanently hurt her, stop her from resorbing the downed biomass.” I reasoned.

Eve ducked around a dozen more swipes of the tentacles, then cut through two more. She tightened her body up like a spear and shot through Gamma-12’s center, but the hole closed up in a matter of seconds.

“Well, I’ve been saving this next trick for a rainy day.” Eve said confidently.

“Some fancy new power you’re going to dazzle me with?” I guessed.

With just her mouth exposed under her armor, I could see Eve’s wild smirk, “Oh you’ll see darling, prepare to be impressed.”

Eve took a deep breath so large her chest actually puffed up like a bellows. She held the breath for a few silent seconds as black and red lightning started snapping around us, and when she released the breath in a terrifying shriek, a fucking red

laser

as wide around as my leg screamed into Gamma-12.

Gamma-12 wailed and writhed as the laser ripped into her, burning and exploding all across her form. Eve’s laser was a constant stream that immediately shot out wherever she pointed her mouth, ripping through hundreds of tentacles at once, tearing into Eve’s own biomass netting and destroying parts of the station, causing several dozen structural explosions to erupt all around Gamma-12. Eve cut her laser off quickly before she could do too much damage to the station.

“You have fucking Atomic Breath!?” I screamed out in amazement.

“Darling, I told you we destroyed NX-947b with a biothermal chain reaction, what exactly did you think that was?” Eve pressed.

I tried to shake my head but was too locked up in the chitinous armor, “I don’t know, but I definitely didn’t have you possessing Godzilla powers on my bingo card.” I admitted.

There was another explosion beneath Gamma-12 and she sunk down deeper into the damaged floor of the space station. Gamma-12 was really fucked up now, with massive black burns all over that refused to heal, with most of her tentacles severed from the core of her body, problem was the station was pretty fucked up too. I could even see some huge holes in Eve’s biomass netting; the station wouldn’t be able to survive much more.

But then again, neither could Gamma-12.

“Eve, we can survive in the vacuum of space, right?” I pressed.

“Yes darling.”

“Alright, let’s take Gamma-12 outside and finish her off with a big bang, no need to worry about collateral damage.”

“Oh ho! So dangerous—so

daring

Adam. I love it!” Eve trilled in response.

I could see the black biomass netting opened above us, and clearly the structural damage to the station had been worse than I thought as the air immediately started rushing out of the station and into the vacuum of space.

“Hurry Eve!”

I didn’t need to say it twice as Eve shot down into Gamma-12 and wrapped all her tentacles around her. The size difference was so insane I couldn’t imagine Eve would be able to move her, but not a second later she lifted Gamma-12 off the ground as though she weighed nothing and flew straight up into the damaged ceiling of the space station. Once we were through, Eve closed the netting again and threw Gamma-12 up and away from the station.

“Oh shit, you probably won’t be able to hear me out in the—”

“Don’t worry silly boy.” Eve’s voice calmed me quickly, “Predazoans can create frequencies that can travel through the vacuum of space; I can hear you just fine.” She shrugged, “Also, you’re kind of inside my body, breathing my air, so you’re not actually in a vacuum now.”

Holy shit, despite what Eve said, it

seemed

like I was out in space. I couldn’t move my head around, but the view out here was indescribable; the nebula, the gas giants, all the golden stations around us, even the distant stars across the horizon, it was unbelievable.

“It’s beautiful…” I barely whispered.

“Appreciate it later, for now let’s finish this.” Eve said, shooting forward with some kind of Predazoan magic that allowed her to fly out in space.

Gamma-12 was just spinning around, drifting aimlessly, wailing and shrieking so even I could hear it, crying out asking for mercy, pleading with Eve to let her live.

Eve took a huge breath and expelled it again with another massive screaming red laser beam, this one even larger and more destructive, ripping through Gamma-12 as though she was made of paper. Eve continued to burn her away more and more until she was nothing but a crusty black orb a couple stories tall, shivering and wailing in fright.

Eve flew forward and ripped into the burnt core as though it was cardboard, digging through all the damaged biomass. She clawed and slashed and pushed her way forward until she found what she was looking for, Gamma-12’s biomass core.

“Please, please Eve, you don’t have to do this, I would’ve behaved, I would rather be contained for a million years than to die like this.” Gamma-12 pleaded.

Eve reached forward onto her core, but paused for a moment, “No you wouldn’t have; you tried to play the good girl, but I saw into your mind when you finally dropped your guard. You would have consumed and controlled the entire Holistia Nebula, assimilating every passenger that visited the stations, plugging them into your hivemind to create your own twisted paradise.”

“An eternal paradise! My passengers would be happy, living forever in a paradise of mindscapes while I would ask nothing of them but to feed on their biomass same as I have been, stealthily and painlessly. They would come to these fake paradise stations, and I would give them

real

paradise, that would be my perfection.” Gamma-12 insisted.

Eve shook her head, “It would all be an illusion, and therefore a lie. You aren’t a true god at all, just a pretender—a false-god content to live on a throne of deception for all eternity.”

“No wait Eve you can’t—” Gamma-12 pleaded.

But her words were cut off as Eve ripped out her core and took a vicious bite out of it, and same as last time, Gamma-12 wailed and screeched as her body hardened, darkened, and slowly turned to ash in the vacuum of space.

And just like that, Eve killed and consumed her second Predazoan sister.