Loonatics Unleashed:

"Goodnight, Baby. Good Morning, Hot Stuff." Part 2.

(This story is post "The World is My Circus.")

Rated T for Fluffiness.

Disclaimer: Loonatics Unleashed and related Characters and Elements are trademarks of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

Yellow Triangle.

The Loonatics entered the darkened lobby of the broadcast station, eyes glowing red from their night vision opticals and poised for battle. Dozens of shadow-force orbs rained down through a service hatch in the ceiling bursting upon impact into masked ninja warriors. Instantly Ace had out his guardian strike sword, blocking the strikes of the blade and mace handed shadow warriors.

"Duck, Rev, get da TV station personnel outta here!" Ace didn't pause in his attack, but issued the command in midair as he drove a kick into an attacker's middle. "Lexi, Slam, with me."

Lexi and Slam formed up by Ace already heavily engaged with the enemy, while Danger quacked over to his all time favorite TV personality, Misty Breeze. The mallard reduced the Ninjizer 500 that he toted into its compact storage form and swept Misty into his arms. Ignoring his televised dream girl's harsh complaint that he was mussing her teal hair that was carefully spiked out in a 'natural' windblown style, Danger concentrated on quacking them somewhere safe. Rev snagged Rob, the dark complected field program director, and the newscast cameraman. Despite the fact that the cameraman seemed intent on filming Black Velvet and her shadow boys, Rev got them to safety. The roadster then dashed back into the broadcast station using his internal GPS to locate the rest of the station's personnel.

"Tech, I need ya ta . . .." Ace stalled and nearly got a mace in the head for his distraction. The genius was already halfway across the lobby in hot pursuit of the cloaked Lady in Black. Fear spawned anger ignited within him. What was Tech thinking?! He knew better than to take any assignment personally! If that coyote didn't get himself killed, he would do the job personally when they got back to the tower! Ace brought down his sword double fisted then followed up with a kick to drive back his attacker. The Loonatic leader sprang after his wayward scientist, but a score of ninjas blocked his path.

Tech dove, rolling under one of Velvet's shadow boys and dodging another. The red glow of the night vision opticals masked the emerald power signature of his eyes, but his hands radiated green. The coyote frowned. His magnetic power was finding no purchase on the shadow hordes. Velvet's shadow ninjas had mace and blade hands. Their weapons as well as their masks should have made them easy prey to his magnetism. Were they made of shadow? Tech's emerald glow engulfed a receptionist's chair and flung it at a shadow ninja in his way. The blade wielding warrior grunted as the chair knocked him from his feet and he landed heavily over it. Puzzled, Tech considered the anomaly. The shadow forces felt solid enough and reacted to pain. Yet they could also 'dissolve' into shadow spheres that could fly and maneuver, and even carry heavy equipment. Were they actual people who had been overcome by shadow? or solid manifestations of Velvet's shadow-force power? Not sure what they really were, Tech wished for the opportunity to study them.

Tech let his thoughts run as he dodged between the shadow hordes in pursuit of Black Velvet. Luckily for him, the ninjas seemed more interested in fighting Ace and the others who were actively attacking them, than in defending their mistress from one lone canid anthromorph. Seeing the dark lady slip into a side room, the coyote dashed past the last of the shadow ninjas. Floating just off the floor, Black Velvet faced him from across the room and Tech slowed as he entered. He'd never had to directly fight her before. "Give it up, hot stuff. We have you cornered."

"We?" Velvet asked, her voice quiet and a touch hollow sounding. A smile played at the corners of her mouth. The night lady slapped a hand against a control panel on the wall beside her and the door through which Tech just entered snicked shut behind him. "It seems to me as if it's just you."

A sinking feeling gripped the coyote. Tech scanned the dark room that he was now trapped in with his nemesis. Or one of them anyway. He groaned. "Not again."

Tech found himself in the small studio from which Misty Breeze usually broadcast when she wasn't out in the field. Large cameras, back screens, sound bafflers and a curved commentator's desk behind which anchorpersons sat while delivering the news crowded the area between him and Black Velvet. There was also a dark table that looked distinctly out of place in a newscast room. On a wall adjacent to them was a large observation window and a door that led into the studio's control room.

Tech lunged, but Velvet lithely flipped in the air, easily avoiding him. She just as easily dodged the microphone boom that he magnetically threw at her, as well as the cable with which he tried to lasso her. She returned his attack, kicking him to slam against the far wall. Grunting, Tech climbed back to his feet. The dark lady was as agile as Lexi and as skilled as Ace. Danger had his Ninjizer 500, so the coyote had to wait for reinforcements to take her down. Black Velvet flitted playfully across the studio. Tech frowned. She was toying with him! The green tinted Loonatic stopped, his feet braced wide and his arms folded across the green inverted triangle on his chest. Black Velvet smiled at his stern glare.

"Okay, baby. You did such a good job the first time; tell me what all of this is for." Black Velvet's voice was soft and low. A beautiful thing, though it held a slight echo as if coming from vast emptiness.

The anthromorph genius didn't want to play along with Black Velvet, but the coyote couldn't help but wonder at the empty existence she led, being cut off from the light, and what that kind of solitude did to a person. He spent a great deal of time alone in the lab, but at least he could come out whenever he wanted. In a voice that almost hinted at shadows Tech responded. "You plan to reroute the holovid broadcast signal through the Acme research laser modulator, refining and boosting it through the Ultra Prism to an equivalent power of the sun's corona before broadcasting the signal out to every monitor throughout Acmetropolis, thereby blinding everyone who looks at a screen."

Black Velvet's smile widened, pleased that her 'guest' 'appreciated' her scheme. She drifted closer to him, following the periphery of the broadcast studio toward the control room. "I call it the Sight Razor. I don't need to cover the world in darkness. When blinded from the light, people will bring their own night."

"So your new scheme isn't new at all." Tech threw a disapproving tone into his voice. He needed to stall her with his banter long enough for his teammates to find him. Unfortunately he didn't know how long that would take. There were an awful lot of shadow boys out there. "It's just your old one rehashed. The shadows have darkened your mind, Velvet."

"Just as I'm not like everyone else, I'm also not like other villains." There was a slight petulance to Black Velvet's voice. "So many other villains seemed to believe in 'if at first you don't succeed . . . give up.' I have the patience to try again. It might lack the element of surprise, but it does have the advantage of getting the bugs worked out. And this time, just as the first, I have you, baby."

Tech took a deep breath to continue his argument. The scent that clung about Velvet reminded him of a moonlight path. It took a moment to gather his thoughts. The villainess before him wasn't the only one to refine methods and work out problems. This time, he was ready for her shadow.

"But you forgot a part, Miss Velvet," Tech continued with an effort. He used the more formal 'Miss' designation on purpose, verbally setting a greater emotional distance between them. "Even if you do succeed in blinding me, my molecular regeneration will heal me. And I will stop you."

The villainess gritted her teeth, a scowl marring her velvety black countenance. If SHE had been endowed with a healing factor when the meteor struck, she would not now be blind or maimed. Subconsciously her bionic claw hand opened and closed. Tech's molecular regeneration was part of her hate of him . . . part of her fascination. And an integral aspect of her plan for his recapture. "That's where you're wrong, baby."

Quick as thought, Black Velvet darted into the broadcast studio's adjoining technical room. Throwing her cloak around herself to to guard against light leaks, she clicked her cybernetic hand into the aperture of her nearly completed Sight Razor to activate it. "Goodnight, Baby."

Surprisingly, Black Velvet found Tech's agonized howl as a corona of searing light enveloped the studio as hard to bear as the light contamination spilling in through the observation window. It was lucky that the reclusive genius did have molecular regeneration. He would need it to cure him of the whole body burns now charring him. As for his sight . . . when it was restored, she would just keep him in the dark. The Sight Razor inflicted too much damage now. She needed Tech to identify, calculate, and modulate the correct frequencies needed to only blind and filter out the other damaging properties. He would also run the machine for her as the light it emanated was too painful for her to endure for the extended time needed to blind all of Acmetropolis. The night lady counted slowly to ten then cut off the power, plunging both control room and broadcast studio back into darkness.

By the time Tech's molecular regeneration restored him, the coyote genius was cuffed, wrists and ankles, to either the same non-ferris table that Black Velvet had before the loss of her zeppelin, or its twin. The dark lady grabbed the coyote's muzzle to force eye contact. Tech groaned. Again? There were times when his 'distinguished profile' was a definite liability. It made too ready of a handle and the leverage was working against him. Holding his head immobile with her hand, Black Velvet used her bionic prosthesis to stripped the inventor of his night vision opticals. The coyote snarled. That lady had definite control issues. Without his night vision opticals, Tech rediscovered what he had known from his first encounter with the villainess. Though he could see nothing else in the pitch black room, Velvet's shadow-force softly lit the inside of her cape. It highlighted the seams and accessories of her clothing, as well as locks of her hair, her goggle eye mask, . . . her lips.

Like the first time they met, small packets of darkness bombarded the captive coyote's face. He struggled as again Velvet sought to bind his mind in her shadows. A smile softened her face. Through her own specially made night goggles, she saw the anthromorph's eyes take on the blank stare of one under the shadow curse. Eventually, she would have him without the compelling darkness, but for now, this would do.

The rending of metal cut through the air as Slam ripped open the sealed doors. Black velvet laughed. "Too late, Loonatics!"