“So this means no one can hear me scream!” Cassie used all of her breath in that howl. Larson groaned and went to hit her, but she moved out of the way and spun slowly in the air, “I can dodge you better out here.” She mocked.

“This isn’t some kind of joke! We need to do what Jax said.”

“Yeah, yeah whatever.” She dismissed his comment, “we’ll get there eventually, let’s just have a little fun!”

Larson just stared at Cassie as she continued to spin around happily.

He was brought back to reality when he felt his phone vibrate, “Oh, I forgot,” he answered it swiftly, “you can hear me right?”

Back on Earth, Jax could clearly hear them through the phone, “I’m surprised that it even works! I really didn't think it would!” He said with amazement present in his voice.

“Yeah, doubt me, why don’t you.” Jax laughed at Larson’s remark, “but I’ll try a video call now,”

“Alright.”

Larson was about to press the button when he saw Cassie still spinning around in front of him; he sighed and turned on the video call. Once it came up, he saw a smile grow to Jax’s face.

“So it does work, great.” Jax paused, “Cassie!” He called out.

“Yeah?” She said while turning to look in their direction.

“The video call works!” Jax announced.

“Okay!” She said as she began to slow her spinning down.

Cassie took out her own phone and called Jax once more. She put it on the video call and stuffed the phone inside of her bag. She zipped it closed and turned to Larson.

“Okay, I can see him, we’re good! I’m screen recording so you guys can do whatever you have to.”

“You don’t have to tell me that.” Larson said.

Cassie huffed, “stop being so mean. Anyways, we will Jax!” Cassie confirmed.

“Good luck you two!”

With their method of documentation set, they started putting their plan into action. Larson slowly moved over to Cassie.

“Stop acting like a kid and let’s get to work.” He snapped at her.

“You’re so boring! We’re in space dude! We can breathe without astronaut helmets, why not live a little Lars?”

“Maybe on our next trip.” Larson went ahead and turned back once he was a small distance away from her.

From his jacket pocket, he pulled out the rope he brought. Needing to be as air resistant as possible, he couldn’t carry a bag with him, instead he just already tied the rope around himself and stuffed the other end into his jacket pocket. He pulled out the other end and threw it to Cassie for her to grab. Cassie caught it and was now being pulled by Larson.

Once she was in front of him, Cassie pulled him. Their motions created a way for them to move about in space with the most amount of ease. After a few minutes of their maneuvering, Cassie let out a sigh.

“See, this is all business.” Cassie said with a pout.

“Yeah, yeah. Looking like a bitch doesn’t help you.”

“At least you used the right word, but I wasn’t trying to give you puppy dog eyes.”

They remained pulling each other in a still silence. They maintained their rhythm until they could finally see Pluto. Cassie giggled as she stared at it.

“Oh it’s so cute!” she paused, “do you really think anyone will be there?”

“I don’t know, but if we do find someone it would be better to stick together.”

“I wonder if it’s like a superman thing,” Cassie started to talk about something else, “like we’re stronger because we were on Earth for so long.”

Larson scoffed, “if anything, being on earth made us weaker.”

“See, I don’t think like that.” Cassie began, “I really feel like we’re stronger because we’ve been exposed to different mindsets and then we’re going to learn this one. So by default, we’ll be smarter!”

“Always on the bright side huh?”

Cassie giggled.

They kept pulling each other until they were caught into the gravitational pull of Pluto and were able to land. Cassie took a good look around her while Larson untied the rope from his waist.

“Man, this place is really barren.” Cassie said as Larson put away the rope.

“If there were others here I doubt people would still be on Earth.”

“True… but this place is too big for us to stick together.”

Larson’s eyes narrowed, “only reason I said for us to stay together was just so your dumbass won’t get lost. We can separate, but you better not get lost up here.”

“I promise!” She said proudly. “Besides, it’s barren up here, how can I possibly get lost?”

“You’d find a way, I’m sure.” He moved on, “I’m just going to have to trust you… let's just go around one time and meet on the other side.” Larson said with a skeptical voice.

Cassie assured him she understood the plan and began to turn in the opposite direction to walk off. She practically left as quickly as she could.

Larson knew she was more excited just to be on the planet than she was serious about their endeavor—not that he could say much about it. He looked in the direction he was going in and noticed something gleaming in the distance. He couldn’t very well make out what it was, but a part of him hoped it would be something beneficial to him.

“I wonder what you are.” Larson muttered as he began walking towards the light…

Cassie made off as swiftly as possible, wasting no time when she was finally let go. As Cassie was walking around, she made sure the phone was still up and could see everything she was seeing. After her check, she took another look at her surroundings. There’s nothing here! What am I even looking for? Cassie looked out and could see all the other planets.

It was still a sight to behold. She was amazed at how beautiful everything was and found herself thinking that they should visit other planets after this. She sighed, but right now we’re on a mission huh?

Cassie decided to keep walking and found nothing on the barren planet, so she picked up a rock and put it inside her bag to take home, but then she heard a noise. She suddenly turned… and saw nothing there.

“Lars?” She called out.

Nothing was to be heard, but she was sure she heard something. Cassie shook her head and resumed walking when the noise returned.

She didn’t turn around this time, but instead reached for the rock she collected. With it gripped in her palm, she waited until hearing the noise again; which she did. Quickly, she turned around and threw the rock as hard as she could in that direction.

The rock shot behind her just barely missing the one who was now behind her. This person stood behind her with a smile on their face unphased by the rock that almost hit him. He looked human, so Cassie thought they had to be like them!

Cassie thought this optimistically. “I’m sorry if I almost hit you with that… I thought you were my friend.”

“So that other one is with you?” He asked himself, “then it’ll be easy to make quick work of you two. As long as you’re not together, this’ll be easy.”

His words were strange and they only caused Cassie to sigh when she realized what she may be in for.

Her optimism was squashed as she spoke, “um… are you going to try and kill us?”

He chuckled, “maybe not, if you decide to work with me and not against me.”

“To do what?”

“Destroy anyone who feels they can oppose me and make me the ruler of the entire universe!”

Cassie stared at him as he spoke. She sighed and began to walk over to a larger boulder she saw, she set her bag down and made sure the phone was angled perfectly.

“Are you abandoning your earthly possessions?” Asked the strange male.

“No, I just don’t want my phone to break when I attack you.”

“What are you-”

He was cut off when Cassie punched him square in the face. This sudden and intense impact caused him to fall to his knees. Cassie stood behind him and waited for him to lift his head up. She grabbed a fistfull of his hair and spoke to him.

“I don’t know if you think you’re stronger than me…I mean, you might be, but much like I was against Lars, I can’t let you do whatever you want!” She stared down at him with a blank look on her face.

Her banter caused him to chuckle, “and why’s that? Because you fear the destruction of this world and everything in it?”

“No, I just don’t want to have to listen to someone who’s first line was getting rid of someone.”

The male found himself laughing even more now. He reached back to grab Cassie’s arm, he did so and Cassie stared at him with the same expression she had as before.

“Then we’ll have to see if you’re strong enough to stop me!”

She sighed to that, “why couldn’t the first thing we found have been friendly?”

The man laughed and reached to strike Cassie…

At the same time, Larson had been walking for a while, yet never made contact with the strange light he saw before. That’s when he suddenly heard something from behind him. He looked back somewhat irritated. All he could hear were noises of some kind—indistinct and distant.

Assuming the worst, he sighed, “what’s that idiot doing now?” Larson was about to walk in that direction when someone came up behind him, grabbed the back of his head and shoved him face first into the ground.

Whoever was over him chuckled, as they lifted his head and slammed it back down over and over. They repeated this one last time before lifting Larson’s slightly limp head.

“Now that you’ll listen to me, Vic told me to be sure you’d submit by the time he was finished with that girl.” This male got closer to Larson’s ear, “will you or do you want to see that girl die?”

Larson chuckled, “with someone as weak as you… I wouldn’t count on it!”

“Brave words for someone who’s had their face slammed into the ground.”

Larson kicked back at the stranger’s leg and made contact. The person lost their balance as a result, which Larson took advantage of. He managed to get himself at a distance and stood on guard. Larson touched the bottom of his nose feeling blood covering his finger.

“You’re the second person to make me bleed… doesn’t mean that you’re any stronger than-”

In a flash, the stranger closed the distance between him and Larson. He punched Larson’s stomach which only made him fall forward, but Larson moved out of the way before anything else could happen to him.

The male chuckled at his retreating, “you talk too much. That shows your weakness.”

Larson smirked and charged at him, he stopped halfway and turned into a roundhouse kick, his foot making contact with his attacker’s defensive stance knocked him back slightly. Larson nearly fell, but pushed himself back up by his hands. The foreign attacker was about to strike him again, but Larson moved quickly and avoided any of his blows. Larson found an opening and went right for his abdomen.

All of Larson’s strikes were being blocked, however. Larson kept going until he eventually hit him and when he did, the male was launched a small distance away from Larson; he jumped over to catch him and slammed his foot onto the male’s stomach. Larson's other foot prevented the other hand from moving. Larson leaned over seeing his blood drip out of his nose and onto the man’s face.

“Am I talking too much now?” He seethed.

The male grunted and tried to move only for Larson to lift his foot up and crashed it on the male’s hands.

He groaned, “damn brat!” the male hissed.

“What’s your name?”

“Like I would-”

Larson grabbed his face, preventing him from talking.

“That girl you were talking about is the difference between me killing you and letting you live. She wouldn’t know if I had to kill you and my injuries only prove that maybe I did.” Larson said, squeezing the male’s head as tightly as he could, “so, your only hope is to answer my questions and not make this difficult.”

The male was panting against Larson’s hand. Larson eased up a bit and allowed him to speak.

“Amos.”

“You’re going with me to be sure Cassie is alright. If you have any objections, my previous statement is still in effect.” Larson harshly pulled him up.

He grabbed Amos’ wrists pinning them together as they walked slowly to the commotion that was still going on.

A little ways away from Larson, Cassie was still in her confrontation against the man known as Vic.

She was struggling not to go too far out from the gravitational pull while she avoided being touched by Vic. Cassie was running backward, watching him as he slowly gained speed on her. He’s really desperate, she thought, does he want me dead or is he thinking of using me… Oh what about Lars? Did something happen to him?

Cassie skidded to a halt before turning around and taking off in the opposite direction.

Vic's gaze tried to follow her, “running away are you?” Vic chuckled to himself and slowed down until he stopped.

Cassie looked back for a second and realized she was getting further away from him.

She let out a relieved breath, “hopefully he doesn’t destroy my phone.” Cassie kept running, hoping to pass by Larson eventually.

Instead, her eyes went wide as she saw a flash of a hand inches from her face. However, she was able to stop herself right before she made contact with the dismembered hand that appeared in front of her. Cassie threw her body back and ducked under the hand she saw. She looked around her, not seeing anything.

“What was that?” She asked herself.

“Cassie!”

Cassie turned and saw Larson who called her. She quickly went over to him and saw who was in front of him.

“Who’s this?” She asked.

“Not important, but he said Vic was going to take care of you.”

“Oh really, but that’s his name?” Larson nodded, “well, if it’s actually that guy, he told me I could either work with or against him and you know what I picked.”

“I can assume,” Larson looked out, “but we should leave. These guys don’t mean to be friendly and I doubt if they want to point us in the direction of people who are more cooperative.” Larson tightened his grip on Amos who let out a strained groan.

“Yeah, I don't think so either." She paused, "oh, but my phone is still here!”

Larson groaned, “why’d you take it off?”

“Because I didn’t want it to break while I was fighting that guy!” She argued back.

“We might get killed because of you Cassie!”

“No we won’t, don’t be so negative! All I have to do is run, get it back and we’ll be out of here.” She said, turning in the direction of her bag. She stopped, however, after her third step. In front of them now was Vic, he was slowly approaching them.

“So you’ve decided to be against me? You both it seems.” He made sure they heard him. He then looked at Larson. “Amos…” he said with a sigh, “how did you let him beat you?”

Amos scoffed, “he’s stronger than he looks.”

“Then if he is, he needs to go… as does she.”

Cassie let out a loud sigh, “come on, why even kill us? We’ll let this guy go and you two can be here alone as you were!”

“If our plan wasn’t already being enacted, I would let that happen; but I can’t let you two live and have the chance of getting in my way later.”

“then I can’t let you live… plus you’re being annoying, dude!”

He chuckled, “if this is all that opposes me, then I’m sure I won’t even be wasting my time!” Vic raised his hands in front of him.

Cassie reactively flinched to get ready for his attack, but instead, a white light began to appear. He gripped the space in front of him and began to tear it apart. The pair could now see that they were looking at the formation of a rift!

“How’s that possible!” Larson said.

“This and so much more, boy! I’ll go to Earth and destroy that planet first!”

Cassie sighed and ran for him, preventing him from going inside the rift.

“I really don’t want to get serious, but you’re getting on my nerves!” Vic blocked Cassie's attacks, but she reacted a bit faster and stomped on his foot. When his head went down Cassie’s knee made contact with his nose, she didn’t stop there. She grabbed his wrists and pinned him down to the ground. “I don’t want to have to kill you, but I will if I have to!”

A chuckle bubbled from his throat, “looks like you’ll have to then!”

Behind them, Larson suddenly started to feel pressure around him. That's when he noticed the same tearing was happening with Amos.

“Shit! Him too?”

Cassie's head snapped back.

“You know nothing of your own kind!” Amos said as he and Larson were forced apart because of the rift forming between them.

Larson was pulled into the rift once it fully formed.

“Lars!” She yelled.

Cassie frantically looked around and she finally found her phone. She grabbed her bag and quickly jumped into the rift as well.

With them now gone, Amos rubbed his sore wrists and fixed the other parts on him that Larson had kicked out of place. Vic got up and stared at the rift that Cassie and Larson were pulled into.

“Hmph, they weren’t a part of my plan, but I can find a nice place for them.” Vic turned in the direction of Earth, “now we have to deal with them. We’ll keep them occupied for now.” Vic dusted himself off, “go to Earth, Amos, and create as many rifts as you can. Create mayhem and soon enough they’ll run into something else they can’t handle.” Amos obediently followed Vic's orders and created another rift before going into it. Vic turned back at the rift they had fallen into. “I hope you learn better, Cassie. I’ll be waiting for that day.”

…

The rift's position was at an unfavorable distance off the ground. Being high into the sky, by the time Larson had fallen through to the other side, he couldn't do much about his rough landing. Larson's body slammed into the surroundings, creating a crater below him. He now lay on his back groaning slightly.

“Fuck!” He said moving to sit up, he shook his head. “Those guys can just create rifts… we're in trouble if we ever run into them again.” As he said that, he was hearing the faint noise of someone screaming. He looked up and saw Cassie falling out of the sky. She was curled in a ball and hurtling like a meteor. “This moron!” Larson grunted as he positioned himself to catch her.

Cassie slammed into his arms, knocking him back and once more slamming his back against the ground, though this time his head felt more impact. Cassie was over him now and moved her hands from her eyes after a second. She looked around and saw Larson below her.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t think I would have landed on you!”

Larson pushed her off and sat up once more.

“You weren’t going to get hurt from a fall like that! Watch out for yourself.”

She huffed and got up dusting off her pants, “then if I wasn’t going to get hurt, why’d you catch me?”

“Because you would have slammed into the ground otherwise. You still have weight and it would have been more work to get you out of the ground compared to just catching you!” He impatiently groaned, “I don’t have to explain this! We have bigger things to worry about.” Larson walked away from where he landed and surveyed the area. “Where are we?” He took out his phone and turned on the GPS, Cassie hung over his shoulder trying to see it.

Eventually, it came up where they were. It was a little ways out of town, around five miles away—they could easily run back.

“Okay, we’re not too far from home.” Cassie said.

“That's not a good thing though.” Larson looked at her, “they can open rifts, but it must only be areas that have pre-existing rifts.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I’m not certain of it, but if they wanted us dead, wouldn't they just send us somewhere we would have died?”

Cassie understood, “so they can’t create them, they can just open existing ones?”

"I think so," Larson put his phone away, “did that Vic guy say anything about what he was doing?”

“Yeah, he said he wanted to conquer the entire universe." Cassie scoffed, "pretty big goal.”

His eyes narrowed, “Cassie, this guy is serious.”

“I know he is. I’m just not worried because I know I can defeat him!”

Larson just moved on, “that guy knows about us now and will likely be better prepared for us if we run into him again.”

Larson’s phone went off.

“Then we’ll be even more prepared for him!” Cassie firmly stated her position.

Larson just sighed as he answered his phone, “Hello?” Once more, Cassie got close to hear who was talking.

Larson lowered the phone and put it on speaker where they could hear the voice of a slightly panicked Jax.

“Guys, something weird is going on. There was this freak earthquake that only lasted for two minutes, but every five minutes after that, there were these weird aftershocks. I don’t think it’s an earthquake though.”

“Besides the fact that earthquakes don’t happen where we live, why do you say that?” Larson asked.

“Because Roman is barking off the wall and he won’t calm down.”

As they listened, they could in fact hear loud, fervent barking.

“It has to be those guys. They must be opening more rifts.” Larson said to Cassie.

She could only agree, “Jax, be sure you stay in Lars’ house, we’ll be right there.”

“Okay, I got it. You guys be safe too.”

“We will, don't worry!” Cassie said.

Jax then hung up.

Larson put his phone away and the pair looked over at the other. Without another word, they took off for home. They both knew their reality was shaping into something much more dangerous then they could have imagined.