A/N: x A Ninny Mouse x is BACK and ready for action! …So long as I don't have to move. XD (Seriously, I am the laziest person in the history of ever! That's a long time!) Ahh, this has been a difficult two weeks… The outline was easy, but it took me five days to realize that a story doesn't actually need a prologue. DX So, this story is prologue-less.
Yeah, I'm doing a time travel story. A lot of people do those, but they're just so fun! And I randomly had an idea for something along these lines in Latin class, and I'm just like, "Hey, I should make a whole story out of this and put it on the internets!" (Yes, I say internets.) So, here it is. XD
Just so everybody knows, if you did the math from my last story, then you'd know that it took place in the year 2774. This takes place eight months later. If I don't specify a change in date, then it's the same as last time.
For future reference, I have never actually been to a high school party. Just sayin'.
DISCLAIMER: Oh, how I hate these. This one will count for the whole story. I own nothing except for Sive, and all other OC's in this story (there are a lot of them!), and the actual storyline.
April 21, 2775
Sive's POV
"Loonatics, we have a problem," Zadavia stated, her image appearing out of nowhere. That had really startled me at first, and I had only very recently stopped jumping three feet off the ground when she did it. I had barely managed to get used to her messages at odd hours of the night, so I was happy that one came at 11 AM.
"What's goin' on, Zadavia?" Ace asked as most of the team assembled in front of her image. Tech was the only one not there; he had been spending a lot of time in the lab lately, as in more than normal for him. Rev zipped off to get him.
"I suppose you've already heard about the robbery at the weapons depot?" Zadavia began. It was the biggest story on the news, but so far the police didn't have any leads.
Rev and Tech walked in then, and Tech looked exhausted. He had bags under his eyes, and his shoulders were slumped. "What happened to you?" Duck asked him sarcastically.
"I've been monitoring these weird power fluxes around Acmetropolis, but they only last for a few seconds, so I can't figure out what they are," Tech explained. "They're not something I'm worrying about just yet, but I still want to keep my eye on them. Did I miss anything?"
"This is about the robbery at the weapons depot," Zadavia continued. "They've figured out what's been stolen; a rather large laser cannon. The power to the building was cut, so we don't have security footage, and it was pitch black out due to a large, black cloud, but I believe it's fairly obvious who did it."
"Who else do we know dat likes takin' big things in the dark?" Ace asked. Tech shuddered, and then I caught on to who they were talking about. I had been given a crash course on the super villains that they had dealt with in the past, but it still took me a minute to remember some of them (I could still never remember the Martian's name.)
"That's, uh... Some kind of fabric..." I murmured, the name escaping me.
"Black Velvet, but at least you know who you're talking about," Lexi replied.
"But why's she only comin' back now? It's been... Around two years since she disappeared!" Ace exclaimed.
"Do-you-think-she's-trying-to-make-another-Shroudcaster-or-something-because-I-could-see-her-being-able-to-do-that-with-a-laser-cannon-if-she-made-the-right-adjustments-and-found-a-way-to-make-it-spread-darkness-but-she-did-it-last-time-so-I-don't-see-why-she-couldn't-do-it-again," Rev said quickly. I was able to understand everything he said by then, so I didn't have to ask someone for a translation.
"How was she able ta take it, though? The weapons depot is one of the most secure places in Acmetropolis, and unlike someone else we know, she can't stop time to get around the guards," Ace asked. I caught the reference to Time Skip, one of the villains whose name I could actually remember.
"The guards couldn't see what they were aiming for; it was too dark," Zadavia explained. "And until we know what she's planning, we'll have to wait until she makes another move. The second I hear more I'll let you know. Zadavia out."
Her image disappeared, and everyone went their separate ways; Duck and Lexi headed to the couch to watch TV, Ace headed to the training room, Rev headed to the air hockey table to play a game with himself, Slam headed to the kitchen, and Tech was about to head back to the lab before I stopped him.
"Tech, when was the last time you slept?" I asked, stepping between him and the door.
"Uhh..." he stared off in a random direction, trying to remember. He did that a lot, but hardly ever listened to the others when they told him to rest. He seemed to listen to me, though, so Ace enlisted me to be the one to make sure Tech got enough sleep to be ready for a fight at any time.
"Go to bed," I ordered in an exasperated tone. "Those fluxes, or whatever, aren't bugging anyone, you can't do anything about them, and if Velvet shows up, we'll need you to be alert and ready to fight back."
"But-"
"You don't want a repeat of last time you saw her, do you?" That convinced him. I usually knew just what to say to press people's buttons.
"Yeah, you're right," he replied after thinking it over for a moment. He walked towards his room, and I joined Lexi and Duck on the couch.
We only had to wait a few hours before we saw a large, black cloud in the distance out the window. Zadavia called moments later.
"Black Velvet has just been spotted entering the AcmeTech building," Zadavia stated urgently. "The power has been cut to the building as well as the usual black cloud she uses appearing overhead."
"AcmeTech is a popular target around here, isn't it?" I asked sarcastically.
"Well, we can't just sit around here and do nothin'! Let's jet!" Ace ordered. We all dashed out of the room, put on our jetpacks, and flew out. That was one of the hardest things I had to figure out when I first joined; how the jetpacks worked. It was fun, but really difficult to figure out. Lexi said everyone other than Tech and Rev had trouble with them at first, too.
We got there in under ten minutes, but by then it was pitch black outside from the cloud. The fact that the power lines were all slashed and laying in the street didn't help, either. Tech had anticipated that, though, and gave us night vision contact lenses before we left. We were able to see easily with them, but I found it a little creepy how our eyes glowed red.
"We don't know what she's after, so we don't know where she is. We'll split up and look around," Ace declared. "Slam, Duck, you two take da top floors. Lex, you and I will cover da bottom floors. Sive, Tech, Rev, you three handle da middle. Call if ya find anything."
We went our separate ways. There were a total of 40 floors in the building, which meant about 13 floors per group. We decided to start at the 26th floor, a floor below where Slam and Duck were starting, and work our way down. At first, we didn't find anything. We made it through five floors of nothing but organized lab equipment and science experiments before even finding evidence of a break in.
The 19th floor was just one large lab room, but it looked more like the aftermath of a high school party. There was broken glass, spilled chemicals, opened drawers, ripped up files, and damaged machinery all over.
"Jeez-this-looks-kind-of-like-Duck's-room!" Rev exclaimed, dashing around to look closely at some of the damage.
"What do you think they were looking for?" I asked, bending down and picking up the remains of a file. It was on animal DNA, but I couldn't understand it past that.
"Whatever it was, I don't think they found it," Tech replied. I looked at him quizzically. "They would've stopped looking when they did find it; Velvet's not the trash-everything-and-leave type."
"Should-we-tell-the-others-and-keep-looking?" Rev asked, dashing back next to us.
Tech nodded and spoke into his communicator. "Hey, guys; the 19th floor is all ripped up, but there's no one here anymore."
"Any idea what she's after?" Ace asked.
"Nope."
"Alright. Keep lookin', and be careful."
"Got it," Tech replied. "Let's keep moving."
We walked down to the 18th floor, and it was in the same state. It wasn't one huge room like the 19th floor, though; the staircase we used took us down into a large room filled up with desks and cubicles. It too was ripped up, but not as badly as the previous floor. There was a doorway at the other end of the room marked "Experimentation in Progress: Enter At Your Own Risk."
"What do you guys want to bet that whatever she's after is in there?" I asked sarcastically.
We silently crept through the door, apprehensive of what we would find. We relaxed when we saw no one, but were confused when we realized that we had just stepped into a hallway, and not a lab room like we expected. There were multiple doors labeled "Lab 1," "Lab 2," and so on.
"There are too many rooms here..." Tech observed. "We'll have to split up to get them all."
"Be-careful-and-call-if-you-find-anything," Rev said, zipping off to the far end of the room.
"Same to you," I shouted after him. I walked towards the middle of the room, and I heard Tech enter the first room behind me. I stopped when I got to the room labeled "Lab 20" and opened the door. Inside was a medical table, medical equipment, and a few computers, but that was it. The room was also ripped apart, but there wasn't anywhere to hide, and that meant that there was no reason for me to look around anymore.
I moved on to the next room, and was surprised to find animal cages filled with anything from hamsters to iguanas. Files were thrown everywhere, and the one desk that was in the room was upturned. The animals were alright, and there was nothing there that I was looking for, so I stepped out and moved onto the next room.
It was like that for the first 6 rooms. Tech and Rev didn't seem to find anything, so I just kept moving. I entered another room, expecting more random equipment, but instead I saw what looked like a break room. There were a few couches, tables and chairs, a TV, and even a makeshift kitchen. Why they decided to place a break room in the hall with a caution sticker confused me, but I was more interested in the fact that the room was still intact.
I stepped in to take a closer look, and immediately, the door slammed shut behind me. I turned around, and cried out in surprise to see what looked like a frying pan headed for me. I ducked just in time and jumped backward. Whoever it was had been hiding behind the open door when I walked in, and had waited until I was inside to sneak attack me.
The person took another swing at me with the pan, even though I was a few feet away, and that was when I remembered that I had night vision, so I could see while others couldn't. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to look at who was trying to kill me with kitchenware, because I was grabbed from behind by two different people. I phased through their grip, and ended up behind them. They stumbled, and fell to the ground. I was now able to get a look at the three, and I was surprised to see that they were all scientists. The two who grabbed me were older men, and the one with the frying pan was a young woman.
I was about to say something to them, when Tech and Rev burst through the door.
"Duck!" I yelled to them as the woman swung again. She missed Rev by a mile, but there was a metallic clang as she hit Tech in the back of the head.
"OW!" he yelled, stumbling to the ground. I walked over and grabbed the pan as she was about to take another swing with it. The two men got up off the floor, and I knew I had to do something before someone else got hurt.
"Turn off the night vision, guys," I ordered, turning off my own night vision and sending electricity into my hand. It lit up, and illuminated the entire room like a flashlight.
"You're the Loonatics!" the woman exclaimed, lowering the frying pan and getting a good look at us.
"Well-yeah-of-course-we-are-who-else-would-we-be?" Rev asked.
"With your night vision, your eyes glowed red. You looked like that flying lady's minions," one of the men said with a heavy Russian accent. "Our apologies for the confusion. Are you all alright?"
Rev and I both looked at Tech. "I'm fine," he reassured. "What about you, Sive?"
"Yeah-we-heard-you-yell-and-we-came-running," Rev explained.
"I'm fine," I reassured. "I just wasn't ready to be attacked by Mrs. Frying Pan over there."
"Neither was I," Tech mumbled, getting up and rubbing the back of his head.
"Oh- Sorry!" the woman with the pan exclaimed. "It's just that the power was cut, and then that lady came and threatened us, and I grabbed the first thing I could find when she left, and then you walked in, and... Sorry!"
"She threatened you?" I asked.
"Yeah. She was looking for something, and she threatened to kill us if we did not tell her where it is," the Russian man explained.
"What's she after?" Tech asked urgently.
"A shipment came today containing a very important, potentially dangerous machine," the other man replied in a German accent.
"You don't mean the bio-converter, do you?" Tech asked worriedly.
"That is exactly what I mean."
"Oh, no..."
"What's-a-bio-converter?" Rev asked. He usually knew what Tech was talking about, so I was surprised that he didn't know what the converter was.
"It allows you to put in the DNA of something, and with it, it can affect something else. For example, if you put in the DNA of a zebra, then use it on a mouse, then it could come out with stripes. If you put in the DNA of a lion and use it on a common house cat, it could come out and have the attack-anything-that-moves instinct of a lion. All-in-all, not a good thing for Velvet to have," he explained. "It's essentially a remake of Otto's DNA Scrambler, only more controlled with what comes out of it."
"And now she knows exactly where to find it," I stated grimly.
"Not exactly," the woman began. Tech, Rev and I looked at her with confused expressions. "We told her it was one floor below us. In reality, the box it came in is there, but not the converter itself."
"Then-where-is-it?" Rev asked.
"Three floors down from here. It's all offices there, but when it came, we took it down there to inspect it. We, uh, forgot to take it back..." the woman explained shamefully.
"Personally, I'm very glad you did," I stated matter-of-factly. "We'd better get down there and get that converter before Velvet."
Tech and Rev nodded in agreement. I killed the light, we turned on our night vision again, and ran out. We told the scientists to stay there and wait until help arrives. I called the others over the communicators on the way.
"Guys, we know what she's after!"
"What is it?" Ace asked.
"Something called a bio-converter. I don't have time to explain details, but we know it's something Velvet shouldn't get and that it's on the 15th floor."
"We're on our way," Lexi replied. "What does it look like?"
I looked at Tech for help. He just shrugged and said into his communicator, "I'm not sure what it looks like; photos have never been released."
"Den we'll just have ta look for anythin' out of place," Ace stated.
We got there first, and unlike previous floors, the 15th was untouched. It was all offices, kitchen areas, and such; not a science project in sight.
"They probably left it in plain sight," Tech stated, "so we don't have to go looking in every corner of the room."
Rev zipped off to look around, and Tech and I moved slower through the rooms, looking around for anything that seemed out of place. After going through the entire floor multiple times, even after the others showed up to look, we didn't find it. We all met up in a kitchen after the 6th search.
"I think those scientists were lying," Duck stated, sitting in a chair. "There's nothing here but papers and pens!"
"It's got to be here somewhere," Lexi said. "Velvet's still looking around on the 17th floor, so she couldn't have done anything with it. Where else could it be?"
"Maybe somebody found it and put it back in it's box?" I asked.
"Ga habbu jebbi nowhere," Slam grumbled.
"I-wish-we-knew-what-it-looked-like-then-we-wouldn't-be-having-this-probem!" Rev said.
"If it's not here, though, then where is it?" I asked. I noticed Tech standing a ways off from the rest of us, staring intently at a coffee maker. "Uhh... Tech? What are you doing?"
The others turned around and gave him confused looks. "...I think this is it," he said after a moment.
"Tech-I-hate-to-break-it-to-you-but-that's-a-coffee-maker," Rev stated matter-of-factly.
"Since when do coffee makers have a biohazard warning label on them?" he asked smartly, turning the machine around and showing it to us.
"Thanks for finding that for me!" an echoing voice said from behind us. We all turned around and saw Velvet with a few dozen of her minions, or 'shadow boys' as she apparently called them, behind us. "But we'll be taking that now."
"Where did you come from?" Lexi asked in disbelief.
"We flipped the entire 17th floor upside down, but didn't find what we were looking for," she explained. "Then one of my shadow boys spotted two of you and followed you here. I just sat back and watched as you did the work for me. Now that you've found the converter, I'll be taking it!"
"Rev, grab it and run!" Ace ordered. Rev didn't hesitate, and was gone with the converter in a flash.
"After him!" Velvet ordered. Six of her minions peeled off from the group and followed Rev, though they had no hope of catching him. The rest of her minions ran forward and attacked the rest of us.
Ace pulled out his sword and started a blade-on-blade fight with three minions at once, who were using their blade-like arms as weapons. Duck threw egg after egg, and teleported whenever he felt the minions were getting too close for comfort. Tech brought some sort of laser gun type weapon with him, and was shooting anything that got close enough with great accuracy. Slam spun around in every direction like a pinball, taking out anything in his path. Lexi and I ran towards each other and met in front of a large group of the minions.
We didn't even have to say a word to each other as I formed an orb of electricity and launched it towards the middle of the group, and Lexi fired a brain blast at it. It exploded in a flash of light that made Velvet cry out in pain, a loud thunder crack that made Lexi cringe, and it electrocuted all of the minions in that group in the process. That was a combo move that Lexi and I did a lot; we thought of it from the fight with the Martian from when we met.
The light was enough to annoy Velvet, but not the rest of us, even with night vision. That was when Velvet realized that we were winning by a long shot; more than half of her shadow boys were unconscious on the floor, and the number was growing by the second. She flew overhead and joined in on the fight from there by shooting dark colored blasts from her robotic arm. Everyone ducked for cover under desks and tables. Almost all of her minions had been taken care of by then, so they weren't a problem; Velvet had good aim, though, so none of us could move without getting hit.
I saw two different laser blasts come from behind a desk, and I figured at Ace and Tech were hiding there. They aimed for Velvet, but she saw it coming and flew out of the way. Lexi tried a brain blast, but also missed. I lobbed an electricity orb at her, but that also missed. Unfortunately, it kept going and hit one of the hanging lights. It was enough to temporarily turn on all of the lights in the room, causing everyone to cover their eyes and Velvet to scream again. Then, all of the lights flickered off again, and the light I hit exploded.
"Let's not do that again..." I muttered as my vision cleared.
"Actually..." Tech began through the communicator as Velvet restarted shooting at anything that moved. "Try that again."
"Suit yourself," I replied, looking for another light that I could hit from where I was. "Cover your eyes," I ordered as I found one and threw an orb at it. It had the same effect as last time, only Velvet seemed more annoyed than before by it. That was when I realized what Tech had in mind, and so did everyone else.
"Hey, Sive? Think you can power da lights long enough ta keep Velvet busy so we can end dis fight?" Ace asked through the communicator.
"That depends on if there's another way I can directly access the lights, other than through the lights themselves," I explained. "They're too high up for me to reach, and with all the equipment, I can't power the whole building. This place is too new for a fuse box..."
I looked around, trying to figure out a way I could power the lights, and I noticed that they were all hanging from identical wires. Those wires ran across the ceiling, and reconnected into one thick wire before running down the wall... And into one outlet.
Bingo.
Unfortunately, Velvet was between the outlet and I, and that was the only thing I could see that was directly connected to the lights. There were other outlets, but that one was the only one that led to the lights, and trying to do it any other way would involve powering the whole building.
"If I can get past Velvet and to that outlet over there," I began, "then I can power the lights."
"We'll cover you," Ace reassured. That was my cue to go.
I darted from the desk Lexi and I were behind to another one that was slightly closer to the outlet, narrowly missing being hit by a blast from Velvet. I waited until I was clear to move again.
"Hey, Velvet!" I heard Duck yell. I peered over the desk and saw him standing up, waving his arms. Velvet turned her attention to him, and I darted behind an overturned table as she fired at him. He teleported away just in time.
Lexi stood up and yelled, "Over here!" in a taunting way. Velvet aimed at her, but Lexi dodged behind another desk before she was hit. It gave me the opportunity to sneak closer, but I couldn't risk moving again until they drew Velvet away from where she was.
Ace realized it, and sprang out from behind the table he was hiding behind, and launched a laser blast at her. She ducked under her cloak, which completely protected her from the blast, and returned fire. Ace, however, didn't duck for cover again, and instead took out his sword and countered Velvet's blasts with it. This continued for a short while, and in the process, Velvet did move forward a bit, so I was able to move closer to the outlet. I was able to get about twenty feet away, but it would have been too risky to move again, so I waited. There was a desk right in front of the outlet, so I'd be covered when I got there, but there was nothing in-between, so getting there was the problem.
The others were trying to get Velvet to move forward again, but it wasn't working. Not even a full-on attack from everyone could get her to move. I had to go for it; there was no other choice. I was right next to Velvet, so when I moved, she would notice immediately. I peered around the edge of the desk and saw Duck from where I was. He looked around and saw me, and I mouthed the words "cover me." He nodded, and as soon as he darted out in front of Velvet, I shot out from behind my desk like a rocket.
I made it just over five feet before hearing Duck cry out, but I was too far away to go back by then, so I had to keep going. I heard Lexi yell, "Sive, look out!" from behind me, and before I really knew what was happening, someone ran into me and pushed me out of the way of a blast from Velvet. The impact winded me, but I was pulled out of the way and behind another desk as Velvet fired again.
I looked and saw Tech next to me, holding his now bleeding shoulder. Before I could say anything to him, he said urgently, "Sive, the outlet!"
I looked where he was looking and saw the outlet right in front of us. I didn't say a word as I put my hand on it and shot a jolt of electricity through my arm. The lights flickered to life, making everyone turn off their night vision, and Velvet scream out in pain again. This time, though, they didn't turn off again after a few seconds.
"Get her!" Lexi yelled, firing a brain blast at Velvet. I saw Ace fire a laser blast at her, too, and Duck threw multiple eggs. Slam somehow got a hold of Tech's gun, and was firing at Velvet with it. Velvet covered herself with her cloak, but it wasn't enough, so she shot out one large, black blast from her arm. It covered the area she was standing in in darkness for a moment, and when it cleared, she was gone.
A/N: Yeah, I know there's a lot of stuff hanging, but if I continued, then it would have been so freaking long! And it's just the first chapter! DX Well, there will be some important stuff either in the next chapter, or the one after it. R&R! …Please?