Loonatics: United

Episode 37: Cataclysm (part 1)

It was a normal day in Acmetropolis' prison, Quentin was sitting at the table on the corner of the dining room, eating the thin, defrosted tuna sandwich he had been given for lunch, just as the other prisoners. Magnus arrived, the guard that took him there just stood surveillant next to the area's door, letting Magnus to get in line to get his food. When getting his portion, he looked for an empty table, he had already spotted Quentin at the room's bottom but he tried to find another table, but all of them were full, he grunted and headed to where Quentin was sitting down, then sat down in front of him and started to eat his sandwich.

Quentin hesitated a bit to talk to him, as Magnus was one of those who doesn't like to be bothered while eating, specially when fish is involved, but he took the risk, finally. "Today is the day, friend of mine."

Magnus grunted. "I'm eating." He said with his mouth full and munched his sandwich again.

Quentin let out a chuckle. "You don't understand." He adopted a relaxed position, putting his hands behind his nape. "We'll get out of here, tonight."

Magnus hit the table with his clenched fist, then looked around to see if any guard had heard Quentin's words. After noticing no guard had heard him, he glanced at Quentin, frowning. "Couldn't you speak a little bit louder, dummy?!" He mumbled with sarcasm.

"I'm just too happy, Magnus." Quentin replied. "No one will stop this."

Magnus growled. "Well, I'm sorry to ruin your illusions, Quintana, but you are forgetting a small detail." He looked back a bit to confirm no one was hearing them, then he glanced back at him. "The Loonatics."

Quentin chuckled carelessly. "That's the best part of it." He placed both hands over the table. "They'll be too busy to frustrate this."

Magnus raised an eyebrow and put his sandwich on the plate then crossed his arms. "I'm listening."

Quentin nodded. "I'm glad you are finally willing to…"

"Speak…Quintana." Magnus said impatiently.

Quentin sighed. "Alright." He took a deep breath and looked at him. "They are coming, Magnus, the foreigners I've been tracking for so long…they are close to the planet."

Magnus expressed disbelief and covered his face with a hand. "Tell me you aren't talking about that alien stuff."

"Indeed." Quentin replied. "That is exactly what I'm talking about."

"Let me tell you something, genius." Magnus put a straight face. "Even if there are one hundred invasions coming to the planet, there is no way we can get out of this place."

"Another brilliant statement, Magnus." Quentin nodded. "She will take care of that part."

Magnus sighed, then thought about Quentin's response for a second, before looking at him with a straight face. "Did she get the earring?"

Quentin smirked and nodded. "Now it's just a matter of time."

At midnight, the next day, Tech was sitting in front of the lab's main computer, pressing keys with anxiety, with his eyes locked at the monitor, which displayed a graphical view of an enormous object approaching the planet, traveling fast through space, and rapidly getting close to Acmetropolis' orbit. He calculated the time of arrival with a command, then he gasped at seeing it was worryingly soon, so he stood up hurriedly and exited the lab. He arrived at the lounge and activated the alarm to warn his comrades.

Ace was the first to come out of his room, wearing his bodysuit already and approaching Tech. "What is it, Doc?"

"A mothership, boss, a very big one." Tech replied. "It's heading to the planet." The alarm suddenly stooped sounding.

Almost at the same time, the rest of the team got out of their respective rooms, Rev being the fastest in that task, meeting with them. "Finally! A decent alarm!" Duck opined.

Slam growled, disagreeing with Duck's opinion.

"I agree with Duck, actually, this noise is less annoying I guess it is because of the lower pitch it h…" Rev was interrupted.

"Guys, do we really have to do this every time we hear it?" Lexi complained while rolling up her eyes.

"Lexi is right, we must focus." Ace ordered.

"Focus on what? We don't even know what's going on!" Duck replied.

Tech sighed. "An unknown ship is coming to the planet, guessing by the analysis I did at the lab, it comes with hostile intentions."

"How much time do we have?" Ace inquired.

"Less than twenty four hours." Tech responded.

Ace nodded and glanced at Duck, Lexi and Rev. "Okay, this is the plan, you three, put on your exosuits and use the jet to infiltrate in the mothership and stop it from getting to the planet, Slam, Tech and I will stay here just in case things go wrong."

"Good to know you trust us." Duck crossed his arms, a bit offended.

Ace sighed. "Just…" He knew it was useless to argue so he just glanced at Tech. "Get the jet ready for them, Doc."

Meanwhile, at the prison, Quentin was sitting at his desktop, holding his pocket PC, looking at the readings its screen displayed, he grinned when managing to interpret them, knowing the ship was close, therefore being sure the Loonatics wouldn't represent a problem for his escape, as they would be too distracted and busy dealing with that.

A couple of minutes later, the hallway's white lights went off and the red hidden lights on the ceiling activated along with an ongoing alarm, Quentin smiled again with that.

Heather was confronting a group of guards in a hallway, still in the women's area of the prison, she extended her arms to her sides, ignoring the guards' weapons pointing at her in a manner of warning, she then clenched her fists and with that glitched the walls, crushing the guards with the solid, transparent mix of concrete and glitch, then she lowered her arms and the manipulated walls turned back to normal and to their former place. She chuckled proudly and kept running, while doing so, she took out a note from one of her orange uniform's bags and read it, it had two cell numbers and indicated they were in the men's area of the prison. She didn't have a map or anything that could tell her where exactly to go, she just ran confident that she would find what she was asked to in Quentin's note.

The exit gate was ahead, she could see other cells behind its bars, that was the moment where she knew she had found the entrance to the men's area. Before she could get closer, another group of guards intercepted her, she just raised her hands, ready to prepare another attack, she considered leaving without the people behind the note, but she thought it would be a wasted opportunity, to get back into business again, with a potential criminal gang, that's what she had in mind, and with a battle scream she glitched the ceiling and then lowered her arms to make a barrier between her and the guards, who started to shoot at her as they could still see her through the glitch transparency, but the lasers just vanished when colliding with the barrier. Heather then ran towards the barrier and re-glitched it to be able to move it forward, thing she accomplished as with her palms facing the barrier she pushed it and with that hit the guards, destroying the gate with the wall and her adversaries. When knowing she had defeated them and destroyed the gate completely, she clenched her fists and lowered her arms, making the glitched wall to slide downside, disappearing and merging with the gray floor. She ran past the dead guards, ignoring the pleads of the male prisoners to free them.

Magnus was holding his cell's bars, trying to get a good look of the hallway, looking at the sides to see if what Quentin had been telling him was actually true, that they would escape that night. Heather stopped running right in front of the cell, Magnus backed away a bit, she looked briefly at the painted number at the side of the cell, knowing it was the correct one. She approached the cell and grasped two of its metallic bars then she moved her hands inwards and glitched them, then she separated them from the cell, having made them almost weightless, she then let go off the bars, which floated like feathers until reaching the floor. She looked at Magnus. "We gotta go, now."

"Uhm…" Magnus was surprised as he had doubted greatly about Quentin's words. "Okay." He just walked out of the cell through the narrow space that Heather had opened, then she looked at the note again and finally glanced at her right.

"This way." Heather commanded before hurrying towards the stairway she spotted at the hallway's end, followed by Magnus.

Quentin was laying on his cot, looking at the ceiling, painted red by the alarm's lights, the sound of the alarm was like music for his ears, his smirk was intact as he knew the plan was working.

Meanwhile, after getting upstairs to the floor where Quentin's cell was, Heather was constantly hitting a pair of guards with two big pieces of glitched concrete she had formed, while Magnus was fighting with other two guards, evading their kicks and punches, while his own never failed to hurt them. With a final strike, having glitched the floor below the guards to make the concrete blocks situate below their feet, Heather raised the blocks of glitched concrete to lift them towards to the ceiling, they hit it hard and then fell to the floor, unconscious. Magnus was kneeling a guard on the stomach, holding him with both arms, the other guard was trying to bring him down but Magnus was stronger than him, he finally kneeled the guard's face and neutralized him then he turned and punched the remaining guard on the face, making him to smash the wall at his side and falling down unconscious.

After recovering their breaths, Heather looked at Magnus. "Keep moving, those won't be the last they send." She glanced at the numbers of the cells at her sides then started to rush forward. "Hurry!" Magnus followed her, thinking they could just have escaped without Quentin, as he considered they were losing valuable time in his rescue.

Quentin was packing his stuff in an old backpack, his pocket PC, tools, books and other things, then he put the backpack on and turned to face the cell's door, then Heather and Magnus arrived. He looked at them with a smirk. "Just in time."

Heather aimed her hands at the door and glitched it, making it to turn into hundreds of little, polygonal floating pieces, then she moved her hands to the right and made the pieces to get away of Quentin's path. She let him walk out of the cell, a weird silence was suddenly between them when he got in front of her, as his eyes were lost on hers. Heather raised an eyebrow and pointed at her right while still looking at him. "Uhm…we should get out of here."

Quentin blinked twice and shook his head quickly then nodded. "Yeah, of course, that would be good."

Magnus sighed and covered his face, again. "Unbelievable."

"Come on, then!" Heather thought she had heard more guards coming, so she started to hurry towards the stairway she and Magnus had taken before.

Magnus and Quentin were following her rapid steps. "We might...go to the other side, don't you think?" Magnus opined, gasping as he was starting to get tired. Heather ignored him, then they got in front of the staircase. Magnus frowned after she stopped running. "What are you waiting for?"

Heather growled. "Patience, fatty." She glitched the stairs and the walls at their sides, forcing them to open inwards, like a door, making a way out, revealing the darkness of the midnight, she separated the stairs one from the other and arranged them to make an uneven path of stairs towards the ground out of the prison's fence. She jumped to the first stair, then started to jump down to the others successively.

Quentin looked at Magnus. "See? Patience, fatty."

Magnus grasped his neck strongly, choking him. "Say that again and I'll crush you like a cracker!"

Quentin coughed. "O…okay, l…let me go…s…sorry."

Magnus grunted and let go off his neck. "Much better." He jumped to the first stair then to the next one.

Quentin was recovering his breath, glancing at the floor, he then looked at the exit Heather had opened and adopted a straight posture, then he breathed in and out and gave small steps in his place. "You can do this, Quentin, just run and jump, is that easy." He then ran towards the exit and jumped, barely managing to rub the first stair's edge with his toes, he then started to fall.

Heather's ear twitched when she and Magnus had almost reached the end of the perilous stairway, she turned and gasped, reacting quickly when seeing Quentin falling, glitching the first three stairs to make a flat surface with them, she then placed it below Quentin, making him to fall there, safe and sound, then she moved the surface along with Quentin and put it next to the last stair at the other side, then she and Magnus jumped the remaining stairs and reached the ground, having successfully gotten out of the prison, as the fence was now behind them. Quentin stood up and looked at the glitched surface below him then looked at Heather gratefully. "You saved me!" He got down the object and approached them.

"Your welcome." Heather said coldly and glanced at her surroundings, the prison was in the middle of the city, so it didn't take her too long to find an escape vehicle, a white van that was parked next to an old, yet modern building, she rushed there followed by the other two, and glitched the doors to open them, she then got on the driver seat and with a small glitch she turned on the car. Quentin sat on the copilot seat and Magnus on one of the backseats. Heather pushed the pedal to the limit and left the area in a split of second.

When being sure they were not being followed, Heather slowed down a little bit. Quentin then yelled all of a sudden. "I knew this plan would work!"

Heather and Magnus screamed, having been scared by Quentin's unexpected comment. "Man, don't do that!" Magnus complained, having put his hand on his chest to check his own heartbeats.

Quentin chuckled, embarrassed. "Sorry." He took a deep breath and looked at the front, glaring at the unending street and continuous buildings. "And…what do you think? You know, about the gift?"

Heather stood silent for a moment, then she nodded, with a straight face. "Not bad." A small smirk formed on her face after so. "Not bad at all." She added while rubbing her new earring.

Quentin nodded. "Good." He had his eyes locked on her, he couldn't believe what he was living, teaming up with Heather Stanton. He glanced at the front again, recognizing the place they were passing through. "Turn right on the next traffic light."

"Why for?" Heather asked.

"We are going to The Eye's base." Quentin replied.

Heather raised an eyebrow. "Why would we do that?" She looked at him briefly, confused and rather upset. "We have just escaped."

"Oh we barely made it out of the prison and now you want to go with the military?! You are insane!" Magnus exclaimed.

Quentin sighed. "If we want to take over Quantal, we must go there first."

Heather raised an eyebrow. "Quantal? Like, that new city?"

"Exactly." Quentin replied. "That's what all this plan is about." He glanced at her. "You like it?"

Heather remained silent for a brief moment, then she just spoke. "I do."

Quentin chuckled. "That's good!" He then looked at Magnus. "What about you?"

Magnus shook his head, then looked through the window. "Maybe." He answered. "But I still don't know why we have to go where The Eye."

"Oh, I should've mentioned it." Quentin said, then turned again to glare at the front. "We are getting you powers, my friend."

–

Author's note: I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of 'Loonatics United: Cataclysm'! I've decided to make the upcoming chapters shorter, they have been getting too long lately, so instead of uploading three long chapters per arc, I'm just uploading short chapters, just as when the fanfic began, I think is better that way, and with that I'll be able to update once a week! So I think is the correct decision, but you can PM me if you have other thoughts on that. Well, thank you very much for reading, next week, the second part of this macro-event! Stay tuned! God bless you all :D

Grant