Loonatics: United

Episode 85: Closure And Leisure

"I found it!" Rev´s frightened voice was heard from the depths of one of the huge openings. "I found it!" He finally got among them with a quick rush, leaving a vanishing red trace behind him.

"So?! is it alive?!" Duck inquired. The snake then exited from the dark inside of the opening, barely hovering over the ground, with lots of bleeding cuts over its scaly body, screeching with a dry, moribund voice. Duck´s eyes widened. "Oh, never mind. I know the answer."

Ace walked towards the beast then stopped his steps all of a sudden, standing before it with a confident pose. "This is the last strike." He activated his jetpack when the monster opened its mouth, a thin fume came out from it. Ace accelerated towards the snake´s mouth and to everyone´s surprise, he got inside the snake.

"What in the freaking world?!" Duck exclaimed while putting his hands on his head.

Ace was barely standing the nauseating odor of the snake´s giant esophagus. He began to shoot his laser vision at it, damaging it greatly, cutting it into pieces, making the beast to screech loudly. He exited the esophagus from one of the cuts he had made there, getting covered with blood. Ace was now flying towards the lungs, which he destroyed with his laser vision, cutting and burning them. He finally headed to the heart and held from its clammy surface, attacking it with his laser vision with no hesitation, burning it severely and making it bleed through the many cuts he made with his power, then he put his hand inside the heart and just started to crush and tear apart some of the organ´s flesh, screaming while doing so, wanting everything to end already, knowing he was close to that point. Ace suddenly felt how everything started to go down violently, so he flew away from the heart to the bottom of the dying body, standing over the blood stained flesh. The organs fell fatefully towards him, he gasped and just started to shoot his laser towards a random spot, burning the hard tissue of the monster´s inside.

"Ace!" Tech exclaimed when the beast finally fell completely down. "Ace!" He repeated while running towards the dead beast, followed by Rev, Slam and Duck. The four heroes stood before one of the sides of the snake´s corpse. Tech activated his comm. "Boss! Boss respond!" He gasped when noticing a sudden orange brightness that came from a particular spot on the scales of the beast, forming in a vertical shape, which then turned into a long cut from which Ace started to come out effortfully. "Oh, man..." Tech said with relief and approached Ace to help him, grasping his arm to pull him out from the snake´s corpse, holding his breath a bit by the intense smell. "Almost….there!" Tech pulled harder and with that managed to take him completely out.

Ace fell to the ground while coughing violently, covered with blood and slime. "Thanks..." He let out a long sigh of relief. "...Doc."

"No problem, buddy." Tech smiled while helping Ace get onto his feet.

Ace was recovering his breath, he looked at the dead beast over his shoulder, chuckling briefly and victoriously. "It´s done, guys." He looked at his teammates with a proud and grateful glare. "Let´s go home." The five heroes left the place with the help of their jetpacks, flying upwards and rapidly getting out of the crater.

In the HQ, when the sunset was just arriving at the city of Acmetropolis, Ace laid over one of the couches at the lounge, having taken a shower, wearing a pair of black sweatpants and a white T-shirt, napping peacefully, with a new calmness surrounding his sleeping thoughts. He suddenly felt a brief warmth on his forehead, thing that woke him up. He smiled and gasped with happiness when seeing Lexi smiling at him, she was standing behind the couch´s arm support, where Ace was resting his head. She was wearing a pink T-Shirt dress and a pair of gray tights. "Hi there, handsome." Lexi said while caressing the sides of his head with both hands.

"Hey..." Ace expressed with delight. "...how´s your wound, sweetie?"

"Better, I guess." Lexi replied. "And yours?"

"Better." Ace chuckled along with her. "I...I really missed you back at the battle, you know?" He sighed with shame. "I had a collapse...again."

"Yes. Duck told me." Lexi leaned towards his lips and kissed him then straightened again, looking into his eyes with a reassuring glare. "It´s totally fine, sweetheart. Brick by brick, remember?"

Ace got lost in her caring eyes for a moment, then sighed with concurrence. "Brick by brick."

Lexi chuckled sweetly and kissed his forehead. "That´s my baby."

Ace yawned and slowly got on a sitting position, letting Lexi sit down next to him. He kissed her cheek and hugged her strongly. "Thanks for being in my life, Lexi." Ace stroked her back lovingly.

Lexi caressed his back gently as well. "My place is with you, sweetheart."

"I love you so much." Ace spoke with a tender tone. "You are the best thing that has happened to me."

Lexi closed her eyes, enjoying the loving embrace of her boyfriend. "You too."

After a couple of minutes, Ace looked directly into her eyes and rubbed his nose against hers then started to kiss her. The sunset was at its peak, entering through the lounge´s windows with magnificence as a prelude to a serene night. They broke the kiss, caressing each other´s faces. "What could I have done to deserve you, sweetie?" Ace smiled at her with thankfulness.

Later on, as the night arrived, the six heroes were at the lounge, deciding on where would they go celebrate. Duck was leading the way in deliberation, he was wearing a pair of jeans, and an orange polo shirt. "And there are mojitos! Complimentary mojitos!"

"Yes, Duck, is the third time you say that." Tech stated with a rather straight tone. He was sitting on one of the couches, unlike Duck who was standing next to the table at the middle. The coyote wore a pair of gray pants and a green shirt.

"The place is big, pretty and cheap, what else could we ask for? And there are complimentary mojitos, guys!" Duck insisted.

Slam grunted with concurrence, he was wearing a pair of purple shorts and a white T-Shirt.

"I mean I think you bought me with the complimentary mojitos thing to be honest." Rev opined, he wore jeans and a long sleeved red T-Shirt.

"Alrighty!" Duck clapped a single time and looked at Ace. "Then it´s decided, right Ace?"

"Hmm..." Ace had changed clothes again, he was now wearing a yellow shirt and a pair of jeans. He raised his shoulders. "Well, why not? It should be fun, right, Lexi?" Ace surrounded her shoulders with his arm and brought her closer to him then kissed her cheek. "What do you say?"

Lexi sighed and shrugged. "As I hate to admit, Duck really knows of good places to hang out, so, I´m in." She had also changed clothes, she wore a pink blouse and a pair of black pants.

"Oh, yeah! Mojitos, here we go!" Duck exclaimed with excitement.

Later on, the six heroes arrived at the place, which was located at a mini mall in the city´s downtown. "La Playa Loca." Ace read the wooden sign that was between the two palm trees at the restaurant´s entrance.

"Oh, baby." Lexi chuckled while holding Ace´s shoulders. "Your spanish sounds so cute!"

"And terrible." Duck added then walked towards the receptionist, who was a female red furred wolf and was standing behind a tall table. "Hi, Jessica. Table for six, please."

Jessica nodded at him with a friendly smirk. "Of course, come in!" Just as the rest of the personnel, the wolf was wearing a white T-Shirt with the place´s logo printed on and a pair of blue shorts. "So nice to meet you all, Loonatics!" Jessica said while taking them inside the restaurant. "Until today I only knew one of you, right, Duckie?"

"Duckie?" Tech mumbled to Ace while raising an eyebrow.

"Maybe there´s something between those two, I don´t know." Ace replied in a whispering tone.

The restaurant was big, the ceiling and the walls were painted as a night sky, accompanied by some mountains and bays as well. There were palm trees all over the place. "This looks so nice is almost as if we were at the beach or something!" Rev praised the looks of the place.

"I told ya." Duck chuckled arrogantly. "I know my stuff."

"The only thing you know, unfortunately." Lexi joked.

"You...are..d..." Duck sighed and shrugged. "Meh, I´m too chill right now, so say what you want, girl."

"Alright, Duckie." Lexi said then let out a brief chuckle, making the rest to laugh in secret.

"Hey!" Duck looked at them with a look of warning. "Only one person can call me that way..." He smirked and took Jessica´s hand. "Right, Jess?" Duck kissed her hand briefly.

Jessica chuckled. "Oh, Duckie! You make me blush..."

"Alright, there´s something between them. Confirmed." Tech told Ace.

"Good for them, I guess." Ace said. "Kinda feel bad for the girl, though." He chuckled along with Tech.

The Loonatics kept following Jessica until they approached their table. "And...there you go, table for six, honey." Jessica told Duck while pointing at the large wooden table with her hands.

"Thanks, Jess." Duck kissed her cheek briefly, making her chuckle and blush again.

"Please, take a seat. A waiter will attend you in a moment." Jessica smiled at them. "Enjoy your time here!"

"Oh, can´t you stay with us?" Duck inquired while sitting down.

"Sadly, no. I gotta go back to the reception." Jessica bent down a bit and kissed him briefly. "Saturday, what you say?"

"You read my mind, pretty." Duck replied with a smile.

"Alright." Jessica waved at the rest of the team. "It was nice to meet you all, guys!" She walked away from the table hurriedly.

Duck sighed with happiness while getting both hands behind his head then raised an eyebrow at his comrades, who were looking at him with faces of intrigue. "What? She´s my girlfriend, is that a big deal or something?"

"Well, you should tell us these kind of things, you know? We are your friends." Lexi stated.

Slam growled, commenting they were all like family.

"Yeah, Slam is right." Ace said.

"Oh, well, I told you already." Duck argued. "Besides, my private life is not of your business."

Lexi grunted while shaking her head and rubbing her forehead. "Alright, Duck." She made up a smirk while staring at him. "Congratulations, still."

"Thank you." Duck replied coldly.

"Hmm...what about the shrimp burger?" Tech changed the topic abruptly while reading the menu.

Duck glanced at him with a face of approval. "Oh, that one´s so good, man. I think you´d like it." He opined.

Tech nodded and closed his menu. "Alright. Then I´ll have that."

"It sounds good." Ace scratched his chin while reading the ingredients on his menu. "Yeah, me too."

"I don´t know." Lexi said with doubt, reading from Ace´s menu. "Is it too, uhm, greasy, Duck?"

"It´s delicious." Duck responded.

"I didn´t ask t..!" Lexi sighed and took a deep breath. "Okay." She rolled up her eyes. "I guess I´ll order that too." Lexi chuckled a bit. "I´m just so hungry right now." She pointed at Duck menacingly. "But woe to you if I gain weight!"

Duck raised his hands while shrugging. "Fair enough."

Slam growled, saying he would have seven of those shrimp burgers.

"That doesn´t surprise me at all, big guy." Tech said, chuckling a bit.

"I´ll have just one I mean I calculate it contains just the right amount of nutrients for a young roadrunner like me." Rev stated. "Or for my little brother Rip even though bringing him up on this conversation is totally irrelevant."

"Eleven shrimp burgers, then." Duck said. "Sweet."

"Oh, are you having something else, Duck?" Ace raised an eyebrow.

"No, I´m having one as well." Duck replied.

"Then it´s twelve burgers, Duck." Lexi said mockingly.

"Uhm..." Duck started to count with his fingers while whispering. "...six...seven...uhm...oh...yeah, twelve." He looked away, pretending not to be embarrassed, making his comrades laugh.

"It´s okay, Duck." Ace reassured after letting out another brief laugh.