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Chapter 4
Mandark Strikes
Mandark stared at Lisa Loud, momentarily unable to register the words that had come out of the little girl's mouth.
When his brain could no more refuse to believe to the facts, his reaction made Lisa flinch a little. He did not shout in anger, nor did he express his distaste at her rebellious statement: he, instead, fell to the side and rolled around, laughing hysterically.
"Ha ha-ha! Ha ha-ha! I can't—! Ha ha-ha!" he laughed and laughed, as Lisa simply waited for him to stop, frowning.
"You…" he finally started to talk, once the laughter died out, "You really… you really think you can… stop me? You are a toddler, or not much more than that. You just happened to be here, you know nothing about this pathetic laboratory, nor you know how to control it to its full potential. Ha! Thanks for the laugh, but pay attention to my words, kid… stand aside and let me do my job. He-he…"
He turned around, rubbing tears of laughter out of his eyes. "Now… we… where was I? Oh, right. Bots, search and des—"
"It seems that, despite your head's size, you have difficulties in comprehending basic messages, Mandark."
Mandark froze, then he turned around mechanically
"What did you just say?"
"I said that you failed to get the message, even with your notable cranium capacity," Lisa replied calmly. She adjusted her glasses, ignoring Mandark's reaction as he blabbered in an attempt to retort. "Thus, allow me to repeat myself. I can't let you destroy this laboratory, because that would be a tremendous loss for scientific research, and no amount of gripe towards the original owner is going to justify the complete obliteration of the facility to my eyes. So, what you can expect me to do is simple: I will try to stop you and, if I find out that is not viable, I will simply stall you until the owner comes back."
Mandark continued to splutter incoherent sentences under his breath, looking at Lisa as if she was a ghost. Then, he finally recomposed himself, turning around and taking a long breath in.
Lisa simply waited for him to voice his thoughts. She was uncannily calm, especially considering how much surprised she had been when Computer had broken the news about the lab invasion to her minutes before.
It was hard… very hard for Leni to recognize her.
"Lisa…?"
Lisa hastily turned towards her sister, her eyes wide, as if she had forgotten about her existence. "Leni! I… uh. I need you to, uhm… find a hiding place where you can remain safe from the possible pandemonium that is going to arise from the current state of things."
After saying that, she turned her gaze back to Mandark, who was still trying to wrap his mind about Lisa's declaration of war, his robots waiting idly nearby. Yet, Lisa's gaze had lost the calm determination from before.
"Lisa, what is going on?" Leni pressed on. "Why are you doing… this?"
"I believe you have also listened to my justification as I told the troublemaker there about my reasons." Lisa did not look at Leni as she talked.
"But Lisa, that… that's dangerous!" Leni suddenly exclaimed. "I don't know about him, but, like, he has a robot army behind him!"
"At this point I expect this laboratory to have one with double the size, at least."
"He is wearing an evil villain cape!"
"That fact alone makes me question his real 'villain' abilities."
Lisa's retorts did not work as expected as Leni walked until she was right in front of her, blocking her view. "Leni…" Lisa muttered.
Leni sighed and kneeled until she could look into her sister's eyes face to face.
"He looks dangerous, Lisa!" Leni said vehemently. "I understand, you're annoyed because he wants to destroy this place, and I can't blame you even if I don't like this lab-thingy in the first place, but you can't simply tell him to stop. I'm worried… he… he's gonna hurt you!"
"Pshh. He's not going to hurt anyone—"
"No!" Leni interrupted her. "You are putting yourself in danger, and I won't let you do that!"
Lisa scowled. "Leni, I can't waste time arguing with you. I won't allow this attack to scientific advancement itself to go unstopped, therefore I require you to leave my sight. Now!"
Leni's eyebrows arched. She knew Lisa could sound quite stubborn sometimes, but this was on another new level. "Lisa, you… you can't! Just, let's leave! Let's go back home!"
Lisa narrowed her eyes. "I will not repeat myself, Leni. Out. Of the way."
"I'd take that advice and run if I were you, madam."
Leni and Lisa almost jumped. Mandark had approached them while they were arguing, and he was two meters away from Leni, who scrambled behind Lisa.
"Things are going to get pretty heated up… since your young sister here has dared to cross my path," Mandark announced, his look shifting from Leni to Lisa. "You, little brat, have made a mistake."
He snapped his fingers, and behind him the noise of mechanisms being activated echoed as his drones readied their weapons. "And I'll make sure that you understand well how far the consequences will go."
Then, he raised a hand. "Drones! New directive: locate subject 'Lisa Loud' and dispose of her!"
Then, he leaped in the air and lowered his hand in one, swift motion. "Fire at will!"
Leni reacted on pure instinct. As Mandark's drones started to fire rockets, bolts and lead at them, she snatched Lisa and started to run. She heard something that was probably Lisa's voice shouting at her, but she didn't catch any of her words, her mind completely focused on the escape.
But as much as Leni was running fast, the weaponry at Mandark's disposal was faster. Soon, Lisa and Leni were engulfed in smoke, as the various projectiles impacted and exploded into a cloud of dust and debris. The drones ceased fire after a few moments of unstopped gunfire.
Mandark tapped his foot, waiting for the cloud to clear out. This time he did not react with surprise when she saw a squad of five Dexbots composing a protective metal wall around the Loud sisters, who were unharmed.
"So, you do want to fight back… very well!" Mandark yelled. "So be it, Lisa Loud! We shall see if you are any better than my long-hated rival!"
The Dexbots dispersed, revealing the form of a kneeling Leni who was still clutching Lisa in her arms. The little genius tapped her sister, and when she finally moved her away from her chest enough to watch her, the young genius was unfortunately greeted by the sight of her teared-up face.
"Lisa…" Leni sniffed, her voice quavering with fear. "This… is not worth it."
Lisa closed her eyes and pinched her nose. "It is worth at least a try. Too much could be lost if I let the madman on the loose… and I won't just watch as he does his business. Leni… this is dangerous, indeed. And that is why I ask you to leave. Go as far as you can, leave the laboratory even. Ask Computer for instructions where to go, if you need them."
"Lisa…"
"No, Leni," Lisa pushed Leni's hands away from her until she finally let go of her. "You are not going to convince me otherwise. One day, you, our siblings and parental units, even the world will all understand my decision… but for now, you will let me deal with Mandark. Computer! How much time before the second wave of reinforcements is arriving?"
"Five minutes, Dexter," Computer replied. "However, my sensors have detected various unidentified objects approaching the laboratory, most probably the breaches that were opened by Mandark. I theorize he's prepared for a possible setback beforehand, and that his own reinforcements will come to his aid within minutes."
"Send whatever you can to stop the new drones from entering the laboratory. Turrets, robots, whatever you can control or has auto-pilot will do," Lisa said. "If everything goes according to plan, we should be able to disperse his forces before he can do any real damage."
"Acknowledged, Dexter. Standing by."
Lisa walked forward. She was already fully focused on her current task, and as many times before in the Loud House it would have taken her more than a simple call to get her attention from it.
All Leni could do as she saw her point a finger at Mandark and the machines around her flex their articulations, was to hope. Hope that Lisa knew what she was doing, and that she'd be able to beat the bad guy.
Because she didn't want to think about what could happen in case she was the one beaten.
Clyde McBride was no stranger to strangeness. With a friend like Lincoln Loud, he had lived through quite a number of misadventures, thanks to the presence of Lincoln's ten sisters among other things, and he had learned to keep his cool with time with everything that did not have to do with Lori. And he was getting better with her as well!
Thus, when Lincoln had called him with his walkie-talkie and requested his presence with urgency, Clyde had not thought too much about it. He wasn't even that preoccupied about the reason behind the call, even after Lincoln had simply avoided his question about it with a fast 'you'll only believe it when you'll see it'.
Right then, Clyde was walking down the curb of the road that brought to the Loud residence, thinking about what could have possibly happened there that had made Lincoln call for his help. It could be anything really, from a conflict with one of his sisters (or more than one), to a general issue not directly linked to his family, like school work, or even a surprise that Lincoln wanted to keep until his best friend was there.
Clyde chuckled to the various hypothesises that ran through his mind. With the Louds he couldn't be totally sure about what he could expect.
But even so, when he finally got near the Loud residence and noticed that there was a spaceship parked in front of the house, his mouth still opened in shock.
"Wha…?"
Nope. Not even batting his eyes twice worked: the spaceship, or whatever the vehicle was, was still there, with quite a handful of people moving around it. As Clyde mechanically walked nearer and nearer, he managed to recognize the faces of the Loud children, except for two unknown kids.
"Clyde!" Lincoln called, once he saw his friend walking over. He was on the top of the 'ship' of sorts—now that he was near, Clyde had to admit that it looked more like a generic hovership rather than a vehicle built to travel into space, but that did not help with the absurdity of the image—and he jumped down, abandoning whatever he was doing, to come and greet his friend. "Thank you for coming, buddy. We can use another hand here."
"Lincoln… what's going on?" Clyde asked, eyes still fixed on the futuristic vehicle.
"Oh, yeah, right, I should explain. Listen Clyde, we had a problem today, and long story short, we need to leave as soon as possible. We're helping that short kid you see on the ship who's giving orders to my sisters," Lincoln explained, pointing at the kid in question. Clyde followed his motion and, indeed, he saw a red-haired young child with glasses and a lab coat barking orders here and there. Lincoln's sisters didn't seem too keen on the guy, but for some reason they continued to execute his instructions without arguing.
"I can see that… but, why? What's the problem?" Clyde asked, looking at Lincoln with puzzlement. "I'm sorry, but I think I'm missing the point here."
Lincoln sighed. "It's Lisa and Leni, Clyde. They disappeared today, and in their place we found that guy and his sister. At first, we thought they had a role in their disappearance and were up to no good, but apparently there was an accident that somehow made them switch places with my own sisters. Don't ask me how that is even possible…"
Clyde wasn't particularly disturbed by the revelation. At least, since he knew Lisa and what she had been capable to do, he had an idea of what science could do when in the hands of particularly skilled people, and he could tell the redhead kid was skilled given the meticulous way he was instructing the Louds. "No, I won't," he replied, "but then, are Leni and Lisa okay? You're gonna go get them with this guy? He seems to be in a hurry."
"We all are, Clyde," Lincoln said gravely. "The genius here, Dexter is his name, has a rival of sorts who fights with him regularly. He attacked his place now, and he believes that Lisa and Leni are there as well. They're in trouble, Clyde."
It was a little hard at first for the dark-skinned kid to take the full story seriously. Yet, Lincoln's face showed actual concern, and when Luna and Luan batted a hammer on the ship's back propulsors, under Dexter's orders, and the engines briefly turned on with a whirr, he lost any reason to continue doubting.
"Well, if that's not an adventure worth of Ace Savvy, I don't know what one could be. I'm in, buddy," Clyde said, putting a hand on Lincoln's shoulder when he saw that the child had lowered his gaze to the ground. "Just tell me what to do and I'll help you find your two sisters in no time."
Lincoln smiled. "We just have to tell Dexter if he needs anything specific done and then you can get to—"
"Hello!"
Clyde and Lincoln jumped in the air at the unannounced salute from behind. When they turned around they did not find Lucy though. Instead, they found Lily, in the arms of no one but a happy-looking girl with blonde hair in pigtails.
"Hello!" the girl repeated. "I'm DeeDee, Dexter's sister!"
"Moronic sister, to be precise!" a voice added from the ship.
DeeDee stuck her tongue out at her brother, then turned her attention back to Clyde and Lincoln. "Sorry to bother you, can you keep your little sister, please? I tried to socialize with her, but she doesn't seem to be too much happy about it…"
Which was a euphemism, given that Lily was frowning. "Well, she's not crying or blabbering baby insults at you, so that's a good start I guess," Clyde noted as Lincoln received Lily. The baby's demeanour immediately shifted back to a better mood, hugging her brother warmly.
"She'll get used to you with time. You can't say you had the best introduction with her," Lincoln said.
DeeDee grinned. "I hope so! See ya'!" she exclaimed before hopping away from them and towards the ship. "Uuhh… why isn't she worried or what? Even his brother looks bothered."
"No idea," Lincoln said. "I guess that she's a combination of Luna's, Luan's and Lynn's happiest sides. I think she's not half bad."
Before Clyde and Lincoln could walk to him and ask him instructions, Dexter suddenly raised a hand and shouted an announcement.
"We're leaving!"
Clyde raised its eyebrows as Lincoln's eyes widened. "Huh? Already?"
The Loud sisters echoed the boy's reaction.
"What!?"
"But there's no roof!"
"How is this thing even taking off?!"
"Less talking and more moving, women!" Dexter replied with a calmer tone. "I say when my creation can take off, and I say that now this one can… and I won't waste more time here than needed! My lab's safety is at stake!"
Lincoln, Lily and Clyde approached the Louds as DeeDee immediately jumped into the seat over the hovership nearest to her brother, much to Dexter's chagrin. As the two of them started to argue about where she was supposed to sit down, the Louds mumbled to themselves, not sure about they wanted to trust the boy's judgement about the ship they had just built, which looked almost like a skeleton rather than a fully finished product.
Then, the memory of what was their personal reason behind collaborating with Dexter returned to them when the vehicle's internal computer, which had been built with a combination of the surviving Cheapbots by Dexter himself, started another report.
"Computer has received instructions from an unknown party inside the laboratory. She has sent detainment squads to keep Mandark's reinforcements occupied, while Mandark himself is fighting with more of the lab's defence bots inside. Whoever is controlling everything is managing to keep him a bay, at least for the time being. Computer is however yet to determine for how long they will be able to bear the attacks."
Dexter was less than happy to hear that. "You heard the news! Get over here, now!" he ordered, the thought of his belongings being zapped into nothingness by his rival making his head ache. He expected the Louds to beat around the bush for a few more seconds, but instead when he turned around he found them already embarking over the ship.
As Lincoln handed Lily over to Lori, Lincoln looked at Clyde. "I thought we were gonna need more time to build this thing, Clyde, but we're already good. Thanks for coming."
Clyde looked at him questioningly. "Lincoln… do you need some help? I mean… wherever you're going?"
Lincoln froze before he could grab Lori's hand to be hauled on the ship. "Uh… I… don't know?"
"Get him on, too," Dexter leaned over from the edge of the ship, studying Clyde. "I believe that a better presence of the male gender in this squad is going to be beneficial for our cause. And be quick about it!"
As Clyde and Lincoln smiled (and Luna leaned over to pull Clyde over, since there was no way Lori could do that without making the kid faint in the process) the Loud sisters glared at Dexter, who simply ignored them and started to mess with the crude control panel in front of him. Lynn, though, was not known for her patience, and before anyone could stop her she leaned forward from her seat between Dexter and DeeDee.
"Who do you think you are, four-eyes?" she said, "Anything against us? If you want, I can give you a beating worth of the 'female gender'…"
"Nothing less than pure experience," Dexter simply replied, giving a side glance to DeeDee who was humming a motive, once again in her own world. "Also, I'd suggest to sit down and brace yourself."
"Experience? What are you talking about—wait, what did you s—woah!" Lynn was too slow in following Dexter's line of thought. The boy pressed a button that finally made the engines behind them turn on, then he grabbed the joystick and pushed forward.
The ship bolted in the air, reaching a high speed in an absurdly short time, the Loud children screaming in fright (with Lynn hanging on her seat's edge for dear life) while DeeDee let out an excited 'weeee!'.
Bobby was just going to give the change to the new customer of his family's bodega when an extremely loud noise comparable to a jet plane crossing the sound's barrier just outside the building almost made him change skin colour, while the entire shop shook as if an earthquake had struck the city.
"Gah! That was close!" Bobby commented once the surprise wore off. He realized that he still needed to serve the customer. "Oh, sorry about that, here's your—huh?"
The customer was nowhere to be seen. Bobby simply noticed the exit door swinging aimlessly and he heard a faint screaming in the distance.
"Mh… guess he wanted me to keep the change," Bobby shrugged. "Who knows what kind of weird drill the Air Force is doing this time."
"What do you mean half an hour?"
"I'd go faster if I had a better vehicle, but I don't, and we couldn't waste more time converting this thing into an open-wheel racing car. This is the best we can do to save time," Dexter said, his eyes fixed on the scenery before him as he followed the crude radar's indications on the panel to move towards his hometown. "Therefore, hush and let me drive in peace woman!"
Lynn would have really liked to pick up the kid by his hair and throw him off the ship, but she relented before she could follow with her idea. "She doesn't deserve it, dude," Luna said, making her turn around to face her. "Just ignore him. We're doing this for Leni and Lisa, remember?"
Lynn bit her lip and grumbled under his breath, but nonetheless moved away from the front seats to return to her own.
"Wow, talk about friendliness," Clyde said. "I wonder how it is even possible for her to be his sister."
Lincoln looked at DeeDee, who was trying to lift the mood of the Loud sisters by chatting happily with them. However, despite her bright behaviour, her attempts were not working that much, since most of the Loud sisters were still sour from the current situation. She had apparently no intention to stop anytime soon, in any case.
"I see where you're going with that," Lincoln replied. "I just hope he's indeed going as fast as he can."
"Linc?"
Lincoln looked at Lana. Beyond her, Lincoln could see Lola and Lucy looking sideways at him, and he guessed that the plumber enthusiast had been chosen to be the one to talk for all of them. "Do you think that we'll make it? That we'll get to Leni and Lisa before it's, uh… too late?"
For a moment, Lincoln didn't know how to answer. How could he? He was literally riding a hovership built out of scraps found in his house with his family, driven by a crazy young scientist. How could he even imagine how thing could go?
Yet, he couldn't just refuse to talk. If anything, Lana's puppy dog eyes were very effective, and Lola's pleading face as well as Lucy's subtle glances made him decide that he needed to reassure them.
"Yes, we will. The guy on the front seat does act like a jerk, but he knows what he's doing and he'll bring us to them in no time. You don't have to worry about that."
Lana's face softened and she smiled gratefully, then she turned around and started to whisper animatedly with her twin, Lucy listening in silence to their speech.
"Hey. I really hope you are right, little brother," Luan said, leaning over from beside Clyde. "I can't even think of a good joke to keep the morale high right now."
"The answer is no one, Luan," Lori said, leaning over the back of her seat. "We are here for one reason, and we will literally carry it through to the end before anything can happen to Leni or Lisa."
Lincoln nodded, while neither of them was disturbed by Clyde taking out his emergency breathing bag and using it to calm himself down. That was standard procedure, by then. "We'll save them."
"Drats!"
Dexter's sudden exclamation gained the full attention of the passengers of the flight. "Drats-what, twerp!?" Lori demanded.
"Computer is not programmed to handle this big of a battle without proper help from me," Dexter said. "Mandark's forces are starting to get the best of her. If we can't make it in time, he'll overwhelm my laboratory! And I can't reach out to her, I have not enough signal from here yet! Ugh… I have no choice left."
DeeDee's pigtails suddenly jerked up as if they were antennae. "Dexter? You are not going to do what I think you're doing?"
Dexter sighed. "Buckle up," he said to everyone. "This might hurt."
Before the Louds could protest or even demand him to tell them what he was going to do, Dexter pressed a button under the main panel, and the afterburner was activated.
"Is that all you can do, Loud? I am starting to get bored here!"
Lisa did not reply. Let him boast as much as he wanted, she was too much preoccupied shouting orders and trying not to get zapped by Mandark's drones. "Now! Left flank!" she said before raising the energy rifle that one of the bots had handed her and firing back at the nearest drone. A couple of Dexbots emerged from the darkened corners of the laboratory and leaped at another drone, slicing him in half with a surprise attack.
Mandark was not pleased with the move. "That was another mistake!" he shouted before moving a hand, and the remaining drones blasted the Dexbots and turned them into two piles of ash. "You can't keep it up, Loud! Computer can only do so much to help you and deal with the rest of my creation at the same time, and I know it!"
"Back! Four, full assault!" was Lisa's reply, and Mandark suddenly heard explosions behind him as four additional bots rushed into action, pushing through the lines of his drones. He had to admit, the Loud girl was mowing down a notable amount of his creations… but he still had the upper hand, as far as numbers went.
He turned around and grinned before closing the hatch of the warbot he was using as his personal armour suit. He, therefore, leaped at the four bots before they could do more damage and punched one right in the chest. The metallic hand of the armoured robot went right through Dexter's bot, which fizzled for a moment before turning off, then Mandark loaded up the machine gun hidden in the other arm and used it to turn two of the remaining bots into Swiss cheese.
The last bot jumped over Mandark and tried to land over him, but the villain was swift in moving aside. When the bot landed, he used the first bot as a bat and swung hard and struck the attacking one with one hit, sending him into a nearby set of machinery which exploded in millions of pieces.
Lisa could only gape as the section of the laboratory was filled with the red colours of the flames erupting from the wreckage, the image being visible as a reflection on her glasses. "You can't stop me from achieving my long time goal, Loud!" Mandark said, removing the robot remains from his warbot and turning back towards her. "I'm feeling tolerant today, so I'll give you another chance. Get out of here and don't ever let me see your face, and I will not vaporize you!"
"Dexter, Mandark forces are overpowering our outer defences. I need instructions on how to proceed. I've quarantined all sub-sectors of section E, but I won't be able to—"
"I will give you five seconds, and if you have not disappeared after the counter has ended—"
"What is the next order, Dex—"
"Five! Four! Three—"
Lisa closed her eyes and let go of the energy rifle, covering her ears and looking down in distress. Mandark stopped his countdown when he noticed, grinning at her reaction. "You are too young to handle even a sub-par laboratory like this one… let alone a real one like mine. You can't stop the inevitable: go home, Lisa Loud."
"I… am not going anywhere, not in the present time and not in the near future!" Lisa rebutted, raising her head to bear Mandark's gaze. "I stand by my words. I will prevent you from doing any more damage!"
Mandark chortled in amusement. "Then, it's sealed. You do want to be vaporized. Oh, well, you had your chance…"
Lisa momentarily took off her glasses and scratched her eyes. She had an annoying migraine that was getting worse and worse as the fight went on, and even her quick-thinking mind had been put to the test as she battled with Mandark and sent orders to Computer at the same time. She indeed didn't expect the villain-fighting business to be that much tiring.
Now she knew what Lincoln found so impressive in those comic books he was interested in.
She also knew that Mandark had a point, as bad as that was. She was getting nowhere, and at this rate she'd end up being beaten to a pulp in no time. There was only one way to win, and this was taking out the enemy with a single, fast move.
"Computer, please tell me you have something better for me than a couple of energy guns that look anything but designed for a four-year-old…" Lisa said, putting her glasses back on and looking warily at Mandark, who was still busy in a monologue describing the several ways he was going to destroy her.
"I have item #257 nearby, Dexter," Computer replied, "it's the best I can send you without taking robot-power away from the skirmishes with the rest of Mandark's forces."
"It'll have to do," Lisa said, hoping she remembered well from her fast review of the lab's capabilities hours before what item #257 exactly was. "Get every bot waiting in the surroundings to attack all at once, then focus your efforts on the outer battles."
Computer did not answer right away. "Shouldn't I let—?"
"I have to cut the head of the undead, as my brother—I mean, a friend of mine would say," Lisa cut short. "I repeat, try not to let any more attackers reach me and him. I will handle Mandark."
"It will be done," Computer said, as Mandark finally ended his speech. "…and that's why you'll need your family to dig a grave for your remains, if there are ever any to be found once I'll be done with you!"
"As much as I suspect one of my sisters would gladly do so, I'm afraid she'll have to do without actual corpses," Lisa replied, kicking the rifle away from her and walking towards him.
From inside the pilot seat inside the armoured suit, Mandark raised an eyebrow, unsure how to interpret the approaching girl's decision to walk towards him unarmed. "What? Are you going to give yourself to me? If surrendering is your plan, I'm afraid the direction is the opposite one, and that is an option I've already decided to discard!"
Mandark's armoured suit put itself in battle stance, as the drones around him aimed their weapons at Lisa. "Let's get this over with."
"Correction, Mandark," Lisa said. Mandark heard the noise of a rocked flying right behind Lisa, and expecting a surprise attack, he moved the arms of his suit to protect himself.
No missile went to target him, though: the flying object was a rocket backpack that went straight for Lisa's back. It disassembled a moment before reaching her, and as Mandark looked at her he could see the backpack latch on her, belts closing around her body.
Then, the backpack ejected four mechanical limbs that quickly expanded, mimicking two bulky arms and legs. The contraption then offered Lisa two joysticks for her hands and pedals for her feet, which she promptly accepted.
The exoskeleton then stood on the ground, fully prepared for battle, as Mandark clapped his hands. "The Dexo-transformer. Impressive… how cute of you."
"Now!" Lisa shouted, before rushing forward with her new gear. Mandark's evil smile turned into a mystified grimace as the Dexbots hiding all around him and his last drones appeared, charging head on. He narrowed his eyes and made his robot suit snap his fingers.
The drones opened fire just before the Dexbots could reach them. The laboratory was invaded by the noise of clashing metal, explosion and electrical malfunctions, as Mandark himself started to tear apart every bot that managed to reach him effortlessly.
Lisa, on the other hand, was having a bit of a problem handling the exoskeleton. "Whoa!" she let out as she lost the equilibrium and fell down, just before a drone could slice her in two with a metallic blade. Panting, Lisa pushed a pedal down and the corresponding foot of the suit hit the drone, sending it into a no-return journey with an explosive ending. Then, she stood up and barely had the time to block another drone from hitting her in the face.
'After much thought, I have to conclude: he is no joke,' she thought as she managed to land a powerful punch that downed the second drone. Then, as around her the battle raged on, she finally spotted Mandark.
Three Dexbots were about to get the better of him, holding him by the arms of the robot. Just as she was going to sprint for him, Mandark suddenly roared in anger, his robot managing to raise the three bots in the air. Then, lasers suddenly came out of his hands, cutting a hole into two of the bots and obliterating the third one right after.
Lisa froze, as Mandark freed himself from the disabled robots, displaying the strength of his own warbot. For a moment, the four-year-old could do nothing but stand where she was, frightened and entrapped by the sight at the same time.
Then, Mandark finally took notice of her presence. "LISA LOUD!" he bellowed before his bot started to run, finally unlocking the young genius from her trance. Letting out a breath, Lisa flexed her arms and waited where she was.
Just as Mandark lifted one mechanical arm to strike, she jumped out of the way, letting him go forward with a stumble and giving her all the time she wanted to land a strike of her own.
But as she was about to turn around and make her move, she suddenly felt various impacts on the back of the exoskeleton, along with the noise of bolts taking off and short-circuiting electricity.
"Not bad, Lisa Loud, but you failed to see the big picture!" Mandark said. Lisa could only watch the drone that had shot at her for a moment before one of the Dexbots could tackle it. Gritting her teeth, she tested the functionality of the exoskeleton only to discover that it still moved… albeit with than a twitch or two, and a quarter of the speed.
"Tsk. Playing hero was not something you should have put yourself into, toddler," Mandark said as she approached her. "It's a pity, you could have made great things, I guess, and with some effort you may have been able to outmatch my rival. But indeed, you were not enough smart to realize how foolish the decision to oppose me was."
When Mandark was at arms' stretch, Lisa attempted to land a hook on him, but he easily grabbed the robotic arm before she could hit him. "Still fighting? I know this gear you're using better than you. Dexter has always managed to work with it because he knew how to use it, I'll give him that, but it's still scrap. One part out of the place, and the entire system…" with a powerful pull, he tore the arm off from the main body of the exoskeleton. "…crumbles like a uranium atom reaching the end of its half-life."
Then, without notice, Mandark smacked Lisa away, who started to roll on the floor as the exoskeleton continued fall apart. Eventually, her skid came to a halt.
The fighting noises had long since stopped. There were only a handful of drones still standing, showing a sort of pyrrhic victory, but Mandark didn't seem to mind as he enjoyed the sight of the defeated Loud sister. Lisa was wheezing and gripping on her chest, apparently out of breath, the exoskeleton nowhere to be seen apart from fragments dispersed on the floor around her. Her glasses were cracked, and one of her cheeks sported a bad-looking bruise.
"There. That is what you really are. A scared, little kid… what is even your age? Four years old?" Mandark gloated. "Ha. And to think you actually believed you could stand a chance. Puah."
Thus, he started to walk forward.
Lisa finally managed to lift her head from the floor, only to see the villain get nearer and nearer with its ominous looking robot through her cracked glasses. Her mind raced, trying to find a solution to her current predicament, and her eyes widened when she came to the only possible conclusion.
She had depleted every option available. She had been defeated.
She had failed.
Mandark smirked when he saw her face contort as she scrambled back. "Now, that is one way to see your foe defeated!"
He aimed one arm at Lisa and opened its hand, revealing the muzzle of the laser gun. No more able to continue to look at the towering robot, Lisa simply closed her eyes and curled into a ball, trying to stifle down the hiccups that were slowly making their way into her and the consequent desire to cry along with them.
"Hold it right there!"
Lisa's eyes shot open.
"Leni?!"
Leni was standing right between her and Mandark. "You aren't going to hurt my sister, young man inside a terrifying robot!"
Even Mandark looked confused. "DeeD—I mean, Leni Loud!" he said, trying to digest the sudden appearance of the teenager. "Could you, uh, kindly move aside so that I can disintegrate your sister?"
Leni gulped but did not move. "Well, I'm sorry but I can't do that! Even if I have no idea why you want to disinfect her, I can tell you're up to no good!"
Mandark shook his head. "I said 'disinte'— wait, I'm wasting my time here!" he growled. He once again readied the laser weapon and point it at the blonde teenager. "Don't make me ruin such a beautiful face if there is no need to! Your sister made a mistake and she has to pay for it!"
Lisa was thoroughly impressed by Leni as she refused once again to move even one centimetre away. But even so, her act fully convinced her that she was completely out of her mind.
"Leni, what on Earth and everything that lives and lived over it are you doing?! Get out of here!"
Leni looked behind her shoulder. "No, can't do, Lisa. You said you were going to handle it, and this is the result of me letting you do so. I already did a mistake, and I won't make another! Now we will leave this place and go home, whether you like it or not!"
"…no, Leni, you don't understand! Get out of here!" Lisa stood up and started to agitate her hands. "You can't do this! You aren't physically able to do this!"
Leni turned towards her and crossed her hands. "Now, I may have tolerated your rudeness up until now, but this is too much. We've been away from home for too long, anyway, and I won't let you play the science master with the guy behind me if that ends up hurting you! Now, about you, Mandrake, it's time to let… things… go?"
Mandark had no intention to satisfy Leni's request. While she was scolding Lisa, he had retracted his laser gun only to quietly approach her with the robot hand. Leni only managed to say 'go' before Mandark abruptly snatched her, lifting her from the ground.
Mandark had only eyes for Lisa as Leni started to scream, even if his speech was directed at her at first. "Forgive me, beautiful one, but I couldn't help but notice that your younger sister here was rather… disturbed by your appearance. As if, she was worried sick that something bad could happen to you."
The robot's front hatch opened, revealing the demented face of Mandark. "That is… a surprise. All your talk about defending science by fighting me, and then this?" he said, his voice showing sincere bewilderment. "I did not expect that. You are a strange case, Lisa Loud."
Lisa's face couldn't have been more overflowing with rage. "Let… go. Of her!"
"And why should I? I could just atomize the both of you, in fact," Mandark said. He looked at Leni, who was still screaming and trying to pry herself out of his grasp with no luck. "Oh, isn't she pretty?"
A tiny tube suddenly materialized from the seat, reached Mandark's side and sprayed some water on his cheek. Mandark muttered something under his breath, glaring at the small contraption, then he smiled. "But in any case, I repeat. Why should I? You have been defeated. You have failed to protect this laboratory. You are a living disgrace to the category you say you're a part of, and after all of that I should listen to you, after all you've done to help my rival?"
He laughed out Loud as Lisa looked down in shame. "Not even a meteor from the sky could help you now, and down here we both know that's impossible! No, this is the day I'll finally have my revenge, and you will not stop me! Ha ha-ha! Ha ha-ha ha…ha?"
The ceiling of the laboratory suddenly opened up, letting the sunlight light up the entire section of the facility. Over them, there was a long tunnel that reached the surface. Lisa, Leni and Mandark could all look at the blue sky far away, more or less all confused by the sight.
Then, what looked like a meteor suddenly entered the laboratory through the tunnel… moving right towards them.
