Loonatics: United
Episode 88: Justice work
Pacey opened his eyes slowly, looking at the black ceiling, blinking by the dazzling lights. He gasped when finding out he was trapped in a dome shaped cage. Pacey rolled onto his side as he was laying over the ground, he dragged himself towards the cage´s transparent plastic and placed both hands there. "Where am I? Where am I? Where..." He got onto his feet while touching the transparent surface around him. "Hey! Daddy! Is this a new game?!" Pacey let out a scream. "I don´t like it!" Pacey breathed in and out intensely. "I wanna get out!" He suddenly started to punch and kick the cage with strength, yelling and gasping continuously. "Please! I..." He stopped for moment and looked at his hands as he felt his flames coming back. "Ah! My friendies! Yes! Yes they´ll get me out of this stupid place!" He caught on fire rapidly and started to laugh while shooting fire at the cage. "Yes! Get burned you blasted thingy!" Pacey kept laughing maniacally until he stopped shooting. He gasped when noticing he had made no damage to the cage. "Why am I still here?" He placed both hands on the transparent plastic surface again and let out a loud scream. "Why am I still here?!" Pacey started to hit the cage with his head.
Tech arrived at the lab and walked towards the cage. "It´s useless." He said when standing right in front of Pacey, who looked at him with rage and hate.
"Get me out of here, beast!" Pacey kept hitting the cage with his head, crying while doing so.
"Hey! Stop!" Tech exclaimed while hitting the cage with his fist, making Pacey back away and fall to the floor. "I told you, it´s useless! You can´t escape from here, it´s fire pr..!" He sighed and shook his head while walking away.
"Wait! You can´t leave me here!" Pacey got onto his feet and jumped towards the transparent wall, hitting his head hard on it and falling to the floor while groaning loudly.
Tech exited the lab and went to the lounge, sitting on a couch among Pacey´s parents and the rest of the team. "He is very disturbed."
The mother sobbed and cleaned a tear from her face. "He´s al..." The sadness couldn´t let her speak, Lexi placed a hand on her shoulder reassuringly, as she was sitting next to her. "He´s always been that way."
The father sighed while shaking his head. "Don´t lie to them, Elena." He lowered down his head with a gaze of guilt. "I made him that way."
"Harald, y..." Elena was interrupted abruptly.
"Let me speak!" Harald looked at her with a frown. "I´m done with this! I´m done hiding the reason why we sent our son to that filthy place!" His voice was broken and his eyes full of tears. "I damaged him, Elena! It´s my fault! The cable, th..." He was clenching his fists strongly while gasping and sobbing. "...the beat ups...all the terrible things I did to him." Harald looked away. "All because I was older and stronger than...than our poor little Pacey!" He started to cry deeply and bitterly. "My hate, my anger, he carried all that, and now he is ruined!" Harald covered his face with both hands and kept crying. Elena stroked his back reassuringly.
"Where did you take him?" Tech asked Elena. "Your son."
"Oh..." Elena sobbed. "It´s called The Mesh. A mental hospital, they said he would be subject to new treatments, cost free. If we accepted the risk."
Tech raised an eyebrow. "Risk?"
"The risk of losing him." Elena replied. "In exchange of, well, possibly getting him cured from his..." She sobbed. "...illness."
"I see." Tech scratched his chin while looking away with a thoughtful glare. "So, that was the last place he was interned."
"As far as I know." Elena said in tears.
Tech nodded then looked at Ace. "I´m gonna call Matt."
"Alright, Doc." Ace responded then looked at Elena. "We´ll get those responsible for your son´s current state. I promise."
"It´s the same." Harald said with hopelessness. "There´s no turning back for my family." He got onto his feet and walked away, standing before the large windows of the lounge, crossing his arms and lowering down his gaze. "And it´s all my fault." A tear ran down his face.
Later on, inside the facilities of 'The Mesh', a metallic reinforced door got hit strongly and fell to the ground after so. Matt entered along with Anne and a squadron of A.R.M. soldiers. Matt shook his hand briefly as he had been the one who hit the door with his super strength. They walked through a dirty, white walled hallway, some of the lights above them were off while others were just dim. Screams of madness and pain were heard around. "This place gives me goosebumps." Anne said.
"Don´t worry, hon." Matt looked at the numbered rooms they were passing by. "We´ll get out of here when we find whoever runs this place."
After a couple of minutes, Matt and Anne quickened their pace as well as their soldiers. "Look." Matt pointed at a door down the hall.
"Director Garrett McGraw." Anne read out the sign above the metallic door, hurrying towards it as well as the others. They reached the door and in that same moment someone opened it from the room´s inside, a middle aged raccoon poked his head out for a second and after a frightened gasp he tried to close the door but Matt got his foot in the room and prevented the door from closing, then he pushed the door strongly, opening it completely, letting Anne and the soldiers enter first. The place was a small office, with old furniture and one than other modern device. The dark green suited raccoon had been hit by the door when Matt opened it so he was laying over the green carpeted floor, rubbing his forehead.
"What do you want from me?" The raccoon inquired hostilely.
"Mister, uhm...McGraw." Matt crouched and got over one knee right before him. "We have reasons to believe you´re involved in several cases of culpable homicide."
"What?!" McGraw raised an eyebrow and dragged himself back, looking at the soldiers with a terrified glare. "I have no idea of what y..!"
"Pacey Yardley." Matt said. "Does that give you a hint?"
"These accusations are ridiculous!" McGraw shook his head while expressing refusal and arrogance.
"Answer the question." Matt spoke with a straight tone.
"No!" He rapidly got onto his feet, the soldiers aimed their weapons at him. He raised his hands and gasped with desperation. "You can´t prove anything! I´m not gonna answer any q..!" Anne rushed towards him and punched him strongly right on the snout. McGraw fell down again, unconscious.
Anne rubbed her knuckles while looking at the soldiers. "Search for documentation, physical and digital, take every folder, hard drive and disc you may find." The wolves started to search in every corner of the office.
Matt walked towards Anne. "We must take him to the base." He looked at her with a doubtful glance. "But I´m not sure if that´ll make him talk."
"He will talk, Matt. We just have to find the right information." Anne glanced at him. "Simple." She smirked hopefully.
Everything was blurry and dark, the shapes and the lights slowly started to get clearer, revealing a medium sized room and a large glass at the front. There were three large fluorescent lamps on the ceiling, generously illuminating the gray tones of the place. McGraw looked at his cuffed hands, which were trapped inside a red hologram, generated by a cube shaped device in the middle of the large metallic table where he was sitting at. "What the heck?" He groaned as his snout still ached. "Hey!"
Next to the glass, a door opened automatically, letting Matt enter the room, then the door closed behind him. He was holding a rugged tablet. "Good evening, Mister McGraw."
"You." McGraw looked at him with a frown. "I´ve told you, I´m telling you nothing."
"Oh, seriously?" Matt inquired mockingly while approaching the table and standing next to it, placing the tablet there.
McGraw grunted with disinterest. "What is this?"
Matt flipped the tablet and dragged it closer to him. McGraw looked at the screen and started to read the displayed document. "Where the heck did you get this?"
"Your office." Matt answered dryly. "We also have Pacey´s file in our power, it contains explicit proof that he was subjected to your so called 'Phoenix project'." He sat down in the chair before the table, crossing his arms while looking at McGraw with a smirk of victory. "You´re done, Mister McGraw."
McGraw slowly put the tablet aside, he had a serious glare, focused on the metallic surface of the table. "Have you ever known how it feels to be eternal?" His question made Matt to raise an eyebrow. McGraw chuckled while nodding and looking away. "Neither have I." He sighed and shook his head. "Just imagine how it would be to be the man that cured madness." McGraw glanced at Matt. "Life wouldn´t be a problem anymore. I could´ve been at the top of the world and beyond, my name would´ve been immortalized." McGraw let out another brief chuckle. "The theory of exponential stress." He looked up for a moment. "Unorthodox, almost pseudoscientific." He scratched his chin. "Yet fascinating." McGraw nodded several times. "Combustion chambers, surgical hoses...mad science, if you may." He sighed. "Yes, it failed. The Phoenix project didn´t cure Pacey´s illness, but hey..." He chuckled mockingly. "It did create a wonderful accident, right?"
Matt hit the table with both fists, enraged, standing up and frowning at McGraw. "You´re gonna spend your entire life in a cell, do you know that, scum?!"
McGraw stood silent for a moment, a bit startled by Matt´s reaction. "Well...sure." McGraw lowered down his gaze. "I don´t regret what I did, though. I´ll never will." He looked back at Matt with an arrogant smirk. "One can´t feel sorry after chasing immortality among men." McGraw started to laugh again.
Matt growled and shook his head then started to walk away. The automatic door opened and he stopped his steps for a moment and looked over his shoulder. "Enjoy your last night as a free man...Mister McGraw." He smirked and finally exited the room, then the automatic door closed.
Tech was sitting on one of the lounge´s couches, watching TV along with Ace and Rev. "He´s gonna be fine, boss, that place is safe and perfectly capable of containing him." He looked at Ace. "Besides, he´ll be able to keep in touch with his parents."
Ace nodded. "That´s what matters the most to me." He sighed while looking away. "Every family deserves a second chance."
"Do you think Pacey can forgive his father for what he did to him?" Rev inquired. "I mean even my dad and Rip are still distanced."
Ace thought for a moment then looked at Rev and gave him a confident nod. "Yes, Rev. I think he can forgive him. Despite his...conditions and his past, Pacey is still able to do that, that´s what I believe." He looked at the TV, thoughtful and optimistic. "We´re all able to."
-AUTHOR´S NOTE: Hi everyone! Thank you so much for reading this story arc, I really appreciate it. The fanfic must go through a temporary hiatus (2 weeks or so), in order to work in a much bigger arc that´s about to come, I will post things like teasers and drawings on the meantime (Tumblr and Youtube) Here´s the link to my Tumblr blog:
I think it´s time to change the approach of this fanfic drastically, just so I can deliver better stories to you. I´m also happy because the Loonatics Unleashed fandom is growing exponentially, I love it! So, that´s pretty much it, stay always tuned :D And don´t hesitate to PM me whenever you want, that´s always great!
May God bless you!
