The Fragile
Chapter 21: Explosions in the Sky
Rev was caught up in a flurry of emotions. Ecstasy, of course, because the Regenerator had worked. But now another rather nasty thought crawled up in the back of his mind. Duck's heart was beating, sure, but does that necessarily entail a full recovery? What if he was a mute, now? What if he was physically paralyzed? Mentally impaired? So many things could have gone wrong. After all, the DNA had been scanned only after Duck had… and anyway; the machine hadn't been fully tested. Perhaps these insecurities were foolish, but they seemed legitimate. After all, permanent, irrevocable damage would be a catastrophe to the welfare of the team, and it couldn't be-
"Oh God, I can't breathe! Someone, anyone, get me out of here!"
Rev gasped and looked towards the MRI machine. Inside, he saw Duck struggling.
"I don't like enclosed spaces! I'm claustrobalophobic! Mommy! Mommy!"
"Don't worry Duck I got ya!" Rev shouted in his direction. He dashed over to the unit and pulled the patient's table out of the tunnel, freeing Duck from his circular prison.
"Man, what a lousy day! I keep having all these blackouts! Duck, you're cracking up, get a hold of yourself! A superhero must retain his bold, fearless, sexy demeanor," Duck muttered, rising from the table, not yet noticing Rev.
"Oh Duck you haven't changed a bit!" Rev cried in relief, rushing over to Duck to give him a spine-crushing hug.
"Hey, hey! Take it easy on the feathers, spazzy! Where'd you come from, anyway? Why am I here? Why won't you ever let go of me?!" Duck protested.
"Oh Duck we all thought you were a goner but now you're safe and alive and kicking and all that matters and I know we've had our differences in the past but all that matters is that you're still here and man after what you just did you'll always have my respect!" Rev still clasped Duck in a hug.
"Wait, wait, hold on a second," Duck forced himself out of the hug. "Just what's going on here? What did I 'just do'? How did I get here? I mean, the last two things I remember was going down to… ahem, some place… and then all the sudden there was all these noises and then you were on top of me! And then, before I can do anything, I wake up in a tiny round box, and then, kablammo, you're hugging the stuffing out of me! Now, listen buddy," Duck looked nervous, "do you have some sort of 'thing' for me? Well, I don't blame you, of course, I mean, who wouldn't… ahem, but that's beside the point! Look, it could never work out. I mean, I don't swing that way, and I didn't think you did either, but-"
Rev shook his head rapidly. "No no no stop right there I don't want to hear anymore of that!" Tech sighed with a tremor of glumness. "No it's got nothing to do with me it's… you seriously don't remember what happened?"
"Look, I told you, the last thing I remember was you on top of me. Something may have happened after that, but I really don't know what."
"Oh," said Rev. How was he supposed to tell Duck that he died to save Lexi's life? It's not something one would just bring up in any sort of conversation.
Rev's attention was suddenly diverted by an abrupt bang from the lab's entrance. There he saw Tech positively sprinting into the room from the door. Without haste, the coyote ran over to his work desk, punched in a few lines of code, and instantaneously a blinding light appeared at the end of the room. Tech and Rev had forgotten to shut the balcony opening when they had last occupied it. But now there appeared what seemed like a transparent green-glowing film – very similar to the matter that the Loonatics' shield used. Then Rev realized – the whole tower was encased in a shield.
The other three Loonatics not yet in the lab soon followed - Ace first, then Slam, and finally Lexi, straggling along. She still seemed quite overcome with emotion, or at least shock. It wasn't surprising she was taken aback at the sight of Duck alive. She, of course, was only the first to be astonished at the sight.
"Duck!" Ace shouted, the first to speak after Tech's arrival, "our hero of da day, you're alive!"
"Um, yes I am? And… did you just call me the hero of the day? Okay, I really must have missed something here." Duck now seemed too confused to thing of any sort of witty repertoire.
"You mean," Ace said slowly, rather startled, "you don't remember… what happened?"
"No, I don't!" Duck shot back rather irritably. "All I remember is blacking out a couple of times and waking up with rooster boy here all over me twice! But, frankly, I'd like some answers."
Slam evidently didn't take much of this in. "Grbblb bear hug!" he shouted, and stampeded towards Duck. Before Duck had time to resist, Slam had swept Duck into his arms and nearly squeezed the life out of him. Again.
"Looser… looser!" Duck choked out before Slam finally let him down. "Geez, what's with you people tonight?!" Duck brushed off his shoulders.
Tech evidently didn't take that in. "Yes, I was afraid such a thing might happen," he started, "short term memory loss. I had estimated beforehand that anyone brought back to life through the regenerator would permanently forget the amount of time preceding their death equal to the amount of time they spent deceased. I just didn't think it was very relevant. But, I guess sometimes it is."
"Wait, I was dead?" Duck shouted. "Okay, now I really want some answers here!"
A resounding boom from outside the tower interrupted Duck's demand. The floor shook, the lights flicked and the security breach alarms rang out.
"Sorry, later Duck," Ace said, "right now we have to deal with some bad guys."
"They're trying to break the shield," Tech said, scanning some computer screams hastily. "They won't be able to, of course, but they could still do some damage to the building nonetheless. We have to hurry."
From the far side of the room, Lexi sighed. She felt dejected by the fact that Duck didn't remember his sacrifice. She longed to tell him what he had done for her, but at the same time was weary of the thought. She couldn't tell him now anyway; their lives, as well as possibly their planet was at stake. She would have to wait.
Nevertheless, what he had done confirmed his feelings for her - mutual feelings.
"Okay, Tech, what's your master plan?" Ace asked.
"Well, chief, remember when I said I didn't know diddly about wormhole technology?" Tech asked.
"Very clearly."
"Well, that kind of bothered me, so I've been reading up on it as much as I can. And now I'm really glad I did, because I think it's the only way we can deal with these guys." Tech immediately turned back to his work desk and started tapping at multiple keyboards with a speed on Rev could top.
"Well, what do you plan to do?" Ace further questioned.
"I'm going to hack into the wormhole network – which, trust me, isn't easy to do," he replied, still typing, "then I can open up a new mini-circuit wormhole system and make it do whatever I want. And the plan is –" Tech continued, with a tone of excitement in his voice, "to make a wormhole appear right outside this building. The wormhole will work as a vacuum to suck up all flying objects in the air – AKA, the villains – and pretty much send them away.
"Now, here's where it gets really neat. I'm setting it up so each object that gets caught in the wormhole gets purged out in a different location. And let me just emphasize right now that these locations won't be anywhere near each other. No, sir, I'm programming it so that each location opens up absolutely no less than five hundred million light-years away from here. That is a long way away. And each location could open up anywhere beyond that distance."
"Wow," Ace said, "I'm impressed as usual, Tech. And this distance…"
"Will undoubtedly unsure that none of those flying hooligans out there ever make it back to Acmetropolis. It's simply physically impossible." Tech finished.
"Sounds good," Ace closed. Silence then befell the group. It was now that they realized how fast everything was happening. It was merely a day ago when Shannon was still missing. Now she was – hopefully – still in the security room a few floors below. Tension filled the room once again. Even Duck was quiet now, as he came to realize, although he didn't know exactly what was going on, the situation was very serious. Rev and Ace now stood by Tech's side, watching him work his hacking magic. The rapid-fire click-clack of the keyboard was the only sound any of them ever heard for what seemed like hours. Then, with a final confident strike of the enter key, Tech crossed his arms triumphantly.
"The wormhole will open up in five minutes approximately 150 yards southwest of this very room. I indicated the coordinates very precisely."
"That's great Tech, but, 150 meters? Is that a little close?" Ace asked worriedly.
"Oh, no need to worry about that, Ace. Wormholes are very localized in their targets. The tower's safe, and so is everything on the ground."
"Uh…" Rev interjected. "I really really hate to bring this up at a moment like this I mean I know you worked really hard on what you just did Tech but wouldn't that mean all of those super villains out there would have to be packed into one space in order for this to work?"
Tech's ears drooped. "Crap. Let me get the surveillance cameras up." Tech said hurriedly, and got a few pictures up on the screens of the outside of the building. Sure enough, the twenty or so villains, some still wounded from previous battles, were pretty scattered on all sides of the tower.
"Eh," Ace said, "think you can set up any more wormholes, Tech?"
"Not easily, chief. In, fact I don't think I could set up so many opening in one-"
Tech's answer was cut off by precipitant roar of an engine from outside the balcony opening. All six team members had a good view of the clearing – and the sight they saw was unmistakable. Vincent was about 30 yards from the tower, riding some sort of airborne moped, probably of his brother's design.
He did not look pleased. In fact, he seemed rather distraught. He seemed to be eyeing the rest of the villains furiously. Distantly, the team could here him shout.
"You still haven't gotten even one of them? Really? Twenty against six isn't good enough? Do these shields really hinder any effort to destroy them at all? Fine, you know what? Fuck it. The first one of you lot who kills one of them, just one of them, gets my brother's entire work desk. It's likely worth millions, maybe billions, and beyond that, it's extremely powerful. You can do nearly anything with it. I don't even care anymore. I don't want power or wealth. You can have it, I'll wrap it in a nice box for you, even, - just kill one of them, goddamn it."
The engine of Vincent's moped flared up again. Vincent took off and slowly disappeared over the fading horizon.
"And there's the icing on the cake," Lexi said sadly.
Ace sighed. "How much longer, Tech?"
"Three and a half minutes now," Tech replied.
"Are you sure you can't just set up a bunch of wormholes?"
"Even if I could do it within an ample amount of time, chief, I don't think those guys out there would fall for the same trick more than once. They'd undoubtedly be weary after that."
The hopeful mood the room once held was completely destroyed. Everything seemed hopeless. If they were to go outside and simply fight them, they'd be destroyed. If they sat in here, protected by shield forever, either the villains would eventually break through the security members or they'd go on to terrorize the city. There weren't any viable options. The Loonatics glanced at each other in silence, as if hoping to find answers in each others' eyes. None came.
"Well, team," Ace spoke finally, "I really don't know what's going to happen here. You've all done good. Not just tonight, but for as long as we've been a team. Whatever ends up happening, we did the best we possibly could. Not just for us, but for Acmetropolis. There's no reason to beat ourselves up."
The others nodded slowly. However, a fire lit up in Rev's eyes.
How many times had he been told to stay back at Headquarters while most or the rest of the team went out to fight their battles? How many times had his lack of any real offensive powers prevented him from doing all that he wished to do? How many times had he simply had to sit aside and watch the rest of the team finish all the battles? If anyone thought he was simply going to sit aside once again and watch their world come tumbling down, they had another thing coming.
He wasn't going to let it all fall apart.
"One minute left," Tech said glumly, staring out of the balcony.
Another resounding boom hit the side of the building once again.
"Deactivate the shields Tech," Rev said with utmost determination.
"What, are you crazy? We can't-"
"Just for a second Tech deactivate the shield."
"Rev, why would you-"
"Trust me Tech I know what I'm doing." Rev stared at Tech with such resoluteness the coyote had never seen before. He couldn't deny him now. He had a plan, and he was sure it'd work.
Tech punched a few keys at the keyboard, and the green film barring the balcony's opening vanished. "Hurry," Tech said, and Rev flew off out of the laboratory and into the night.
Rev looked behind him and saw that the shield had regenerated almost immediately. But that didn't matter to him now.
"Hey super freaks! Not your best night is it well here's a nice roadrunner ripe for the catching but you'll have to act fast because no one's ever really had that much luck catching a roadrunner before meep meep!" Rev shouted as loud as he could, and sure enough, he caught the attention of every single villain in the sky.
Then the race was on.
Fantastic colors flashed all around them – presumably weapons or special powers from the perpetrators. Those who didn't use weapons simply leapt at him, all to no avail. Rev darted in and out so rapidly that he was practically untraceable.
And, boy, was he having fun.
Quickly, Rev estimated the location 150 yards southwest of Tech's laboratory; his GPS powers certainly helped in this matter. Once he had pinpointed the exact location, Rev flew in circles around the future opening, slowly but surely drawing everyone in. All of the villains were ravenous for a fresh kill, of course, being promised a work desk that would be extremely useful in their malevolent endeavors. Within seconds, all twenty were within a good fifteen-yard radius of the opening.
It was a matter of seconds now.
"Well I want to thank you guys for nice little game of tag tonight," Rev spoke, still darting in and out to dodge incoming attacks. "But I'm afraid it's time for you to leave so don't forget to write!"
As if on cue, the air around them became distorted in disturbed. Hurricane-force winds began to circle the area. It was invisible at first, but then it adopted a yellowish green color. Everyone looked up. This 'wind' extended into the sky as far as they could see. They slowly felt themselves being pulled up, and then faster, then even faster until there was nothing left to see.
And then, silence.
There seemed to be no evidence of what had just happened.
No longer did any malicious spirits plague the skies.
And no altruistic spirit was left behind, either.
He had gone with them.