Loonatics: United

Episode 38: Cataclysm (part 2)

The team's jet was exiting the planet's orbit, Lexi was piloting in the cockpit while Duck and Rev were in the back part of the vehicle, sitting and holding their belts tightly, even when knowing their black spacesuits could take care of any incident at space.

"Get ready boys." Lexi said, her voice sounded rather electronic because of the helmet of her suit. "I think we are approaching the…" She gasped and braked abruptly, making Duck and Rev to move violently along with the vehicle's equipment.

"Hey! What's going on?!" Duck complained.

"I guess something must be wrong because otherwise she wouldn't have stopped moving, am I right Lexi?" Rev stated.

Lexi nodded slowly, her eyes were wide as she looked at the colossal ship through the window, an elliptical, black mothership, with rustic golden details all over its surface, and vertical ongoing windows at the sides. "You are right Rev." She responded. "This is so wrong."

Duck took off his seatbelt and stood up, same as Rev, they entered the cockpit and gasped at seeing the mothership. "Now this is something you don't see everyday."

"I double that." Rev commented.

Lexi took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. "Okay, I'll prepare the defense syst…" After she could only press a couple of keys, the jet's lights and engines went off, and they started to get close to the mothership.

"Lexi, what did you do?" Duck said, quite scared and unsure.

Lexi grunted with desperation. "I did nothing, Duck!"

"Guys, I think we are being attracted by the ship." Rev said.

Lexi shook her head, then turned and glanced at Rev. "What can we do, Rev?" She knew he could help with more technical stuff.

"This thing has an unlock protocol in the program eighty four." Rev answered. "But I'm afraid it only works if the systems are online." He sighed worriedly. "There's nothing we can do now."

The mothership brought in the jet through a huge, mechanical door that opened right when the jet got closer to it. When the jet entered the ship completely, the gate closed, leaving the team in an unknown darkness.

A small group of soldiers were guarding the entrance to the base of The Eye from the inside, then all of a sudden the big, metallic door glitched from the middle to the sides, then it broke into three parts, which instantly moved forward violently and hit the guards, who let out brief screams of pain, the glitched pieces of door collided with a wall and fell down, then Heather entered the base, walking carelessly among the unconscious soldiers. She got her wrist close to her muzzle, as Quentin had given them communication watches. "I got in."

"Good, now look for a black, gooey substance, that is your only objective." Quentin said through the comm.

Heather raised an eyebrow while looking around. "This place is huge! How am I gonna…"

"I don't know, Heather, I only know it's here." Quentin replied. "Just…be creative."

Heather sighed. "I'll try." She deactivated the comm and aimed her hands to the floor, then two groups of soldiers cornered her, one in front of her and the other behind her. She looked back, then returned her gaze to the front. She lowered her head, then chuckled mockingly. "You are not gonna like this, guys." She clenched her fists. "But I'll do!" Heather raised her hands and the base started to glitch, every wall, every column started to turn into glitched, changing structures. Heather's glitch turned the floor where the soldiers were standing into rugged slides, so they slid down while trying to hold from the surface but they went all the way down until they hit the bottom, glitched areas that combined parts of the roof and parts of several quarters.

Heather was safe, standing in a pinnacle at the middle of the slides' starting points, she looked up and noticed a convenient amount of floating, glitched platforms that she could use to climb and explore. Heather jumped towards the first platform, she held with both hands from its edge before getting on it completely, a couple of lasers passed by her side, colliding with an upside down wall that was ahead, she turned and noticed three soldiers shooting at her from a flat area below, she looked upwards again and climbed the next platform.

Meanwhile, Hank, one of Quentin's ex-goons and former member of The Eye, was laying on the floor, against a mixture of wall and random furniture, he had received a strong hit on his head, so he just started to recover while rubbing his head, he got over his knees and glanced at his cell's broken door, he gasped at discovering he had somehow gotten out of there, he looked up and down and to the sides, dazzled by the weird structural damage around him, he stood up and began to run through the hallway, not wanting to waste time, in order to free his comrades.

Heather was struggling to get her feet on the last platform, as she was getting tired, with a final breath out she made a huge effort to lift herself with her arms and finally laid over the concrete platform for a brief moment to recover some air. After so, she stood up and climbed the gray, rocky surface that led to the next floor which had formed by the glitch, she reached it and didn't hesitate to run in search for what Quentin had told her to find.

Hank was only finding empty cells, he began to get frustrated, so he decided to be less stealthy and began to yell his friends' names. "Troy! Kyle! Nate!"

"Hank?!" The voice of the wolf was heard from ahead. "What's going on out there?" Troy asked.

"I have no idea!" Hank replied, then he stopped running when finding Troy standing behind the bars. "Alright." He pressed a green button that was next to the cell and freed him.

"Thanks." Troy said. "How did you escape, by the way?"

"Same answer." Hank responded. "Let's find the others."

Heather glitched the ground continuously to create obstacles for the soldiers that were confronting her, she kicked and punched some of them after taking impulse with the barriers and tiny hills she was building, she landed and tackled, glitched and jumped, neutralizing more and more soldiers, dodging their shots and hits. The last three soldiers were standing bravely in front of her, pointing at her with their weapons.

"Last warning!" A wolf said, loading his weapon.

"Oh, last warning." Heather chuckled. "Then I have no option but to surrender." She raised her arms and then lowered them forcefully towards the floor under the soldiers, which she glitched and decomposed outwards in order to make an aperture, the soldiers let out screams of fear as they fell by the hole she had opened. Shortly after that, their fatal screams echoed on several corners of the base, as they had fallen from a great height. Heather smiled. "Or not." She jumped the aperture and landed safely on the other side, then she kept moving.

Hank and Troy had freed the younger members of their team, Kyle and Nate, the four wolves ran desperately trying to find one of the exits they knew of the place, but now it was too different because of the circumstances. "There's gotta be a way out!" Hank said.

"What the heck happened here?" Nate asked.

"Stop asking me questions!" Hank had no more information than the others. "We sh…" He stopped running all of a sudden. "Wait…" He looked at himself, seeing his everyday, yellow, prisoner uniform, his comrades wore the same. He looked at them, with eyes of commitment. "We must get our suits back."

Heather was swinging from a glitched pipeline, trying to gain enough momentum to jump to the floor that was a few meters ahead, as there was a big rupture that divided the path, she leaned back and forth and in that moment she let go off the pipeline and landed safely on the other side, then walked towards the tall security door she had found, it was red and metallic, with ornamental, industrial patterns, at the side there was a recognition pad, right above the door was an hexagonal, red sign that had a black icon printed on it, which was a box with a pair of tools and guns on it. Heather spoke through her comm. "I think I've found the warehouse." She smirked while glancing at her finding.

"Excellent, glitch it up!" Quentin responded.

Heather chuckled. "I know my job, darling." She pointed her hand at the recognition pad then waved it rightwards, making the pad to malfunction. The door opened cleanly right after so. She entered the warehouse, she was amazed by the amount of equipment that was there, from electric guns to powerful cannons. "Where do this guys get the money to buy this?" She said to herself while walking between the tall racks, then she gasped when seeing a transparent, cubic cage at the bottom of the room, a moving, dark purple substance was moving inside of it.

Heather approached the box and looked at it for a second, distracted by the substance's weird nature, then she shook her head a bit to focus and took the cage, guarding it under her left arm, then she just got out of the room. The alarms should've sounded right when she took the box from the stand, but the great glitch had made huge damage to the base's security systems, thing that had also freed Hank and company from their special, strength-proof cells.

Heather ran hurriedly across the flattest surfaces she could encounter with. "Guys, I got it! I have the…weird stuff!" She said through her comm.

"Good job! Now get out of there! We'll wait for you on the bridges." Quentin responded.

Heather stopped and turned to the opposite way. "Bridges…" She said upset as she knew they faced the other side of the building.

Meanwhile, The Red Wolves, Hank, Troy, Nate and Kyle, who had put on their red armors and helmets, were outside of the building, looking for a vehicle in the base's hangar, which was totally outdoors. "This one looks nice, boss!" Nate stopped running next to a black truck, which had a turret attached to the backside.

Hank scratched his chin while looking at it briefly. "It shall do, yes." He then walked towards it, pushing Nate on his way and getting on the driver seat. "Good eye of yours, youngling." He turned the vehicle on. "Hop on, boys!" Hank commanded, who started to drive after his people got in the vehicle. Troy was the copilot, Nate was controlling the turret and Kyle was just sitting next to him at the back part of the truck. A pair of trucks of the same type got in front of them with no previous warning, Hank frowned and accelerated. "Shoot! Nate!" The trucks started to shoot big lasers at them, Hank managed to dodge them, and Nate was constantly firing at them, missing the first five times, but when he turned all the way to face the vehicles that were now behind them, he hit a truck's grill, destroying the motor and therefore making the vehicle to explode instantly, the remaining truck was safely away from it to avoid getting serious damage.

"One out! Sir!" Nate informed.

"You don't say?!" Hank exclaimed. "Go for the last one! Boy!"

"Yes, sir!" Nate aimed at the shooter, then he gazed at the driver, who was no other than General Hill.

Hank had noticed that with the help of the rearview. "Kill him, Nate!" He ordered. "Shoot now and end with that scum!"

Nate's finger was rubbing the trigger hesitantly, he wanted to obey Hank's words, but something was stopping him from shooting. He exhaled and clenched his fist then aimed the weapon at the gunner instead, he shot and destroyed the truck's turret, killing the wolf in the process.

"No!" Hank punched the dashboard, enraged, then he got his head out of the window and looked back, seeing Hill had stopped following them. He kept driving fast and broke the fence with the truck easily, getting out of the base's surroundings.

Heather ran through the glitched, random paths that suddenly brought her to a high drop, she stopped right on the edge, she was about three stories up, she glanced away from the far ground and looked at the bridges, which were illuminated by modern lampposts that emitted a blueish light, the cars never stopped passing behind the van that was parked there.

"I see you guys." Heather said through her comm. "I'm on my way." She thought for a moment in a way she could reach the bridge, which was very far from where she stood. An idea came to her mind, she aimed her hand at the concrete of the ground and the building then began to swirl her arm towards the edge of the bridge, a curved path started to form slowly, with some effort as she was carrying the box, she attached the end of the path to the bridge's edge, then she raised her hand to connect the path's starting point to the edge from where she was standing. She ran confidently on her newly made structure, transparent, gray and solid, a bit pointy and sharp in some areas.

She inhaled and exhaled continuously, as the path went upwards, the last few steps of her run were the most difficult, but with a jump she got on the pathway of the bridge and entered the vehicle, sitting next to Quentin, who was driving.

While driving away from the scene, Quentin waited a bit for Heather to recover her breath, then he spoke. "That was very impressive." He waited for a probable response of hers, which never came, so he looked at her briefly. "Heather?"

Heather was distracted with the substance's behavior, which was bouncing and sticking to the box's inside. She had still heard Quentin so she just blinked a couple of times and kept glancing at the gooey material. "What is this?"

Quentin chuckled. "That, pretty, is Mourn, fear and power, joined together, in order to cause chaos."

Magnus raised an eyebrow. "Wait…that's it?" He growled when looking at the substance with disappointment. "That's the 'immense power' you told me I was gonna get? That piece of trash?!"

"You underestimate it, my friend." Quentin responded. "You won't know it, until you merge with it." He smirked and kept driving between the endless vehicles of the night.