Loonatics: United

Compromised System

Episode 143: Welcome committee

Tech took a sip from his thermos, having a bit of coffee while pressing a couple of buttons on the console. Planet Rojus was on sight, its surface was colored with a mix of white and light blue. Tech left a button pressed on the console while approaching his snout to his comm. "We land in five minutes, team." Tech's voice sounded from the set of speakers that were located in all the rooms.

Duck opened his eyes, feeling a great drowsiness as he barely managed to stand up. "Damn…" He groaned. "…my head." Duck took a deep breath and let go after a couple of seconds. His sight was blurry, so he rubbed his eyes to see if that could fix the issue, but it didn't. "Shoot." He yawned and walked into the bathroom.

Randy was sitting at the edge of the bed, thoughtful and deeply disappointed. His ear twitched when hearing a pair of knocks on his door. "Randy, you ready?" Vale inquired. Randy had a lump in his throat, he didn't want to reply in order to avoid Vale discovering his sadness. Vale knocked again, harder this time. "Randy."

Randy grunted. "Yes!" He sighed while covering his face and shaking his head.

Vale raised an eyebrow. "Okay, uhm…you alright?" He got no answer. "Randy." Vale waited a bit more, but he still received no reply from his comrade. Vale decided to open the door and entered. He saw Randy covering his face with both hands. "Man, you okay?" He approached him, standing before him. "Randy."

"Yes…" Randy replied coldly. "…I'm ready, just leave." Vale stood silent for a moment, then he turned and walked away from him, exiting the room afterwards.

Slam, Rev, Ace and Lexi entered the cockpit. "Have you received any transmissions, Doc?" Ace inquired.

"Not yet." Tech was standing before the console while staring at the planet, which came closer at each second.

"Hm, maybe they'll reach out when we arrive." Ace opined.

"Maybe." Tech replied with doubt.

Ace looked at his sides, then turned, looking for his missing comrade. "And Duck?"

Slam shrugged while growling, saying he had no idea.

"Maybe he's still asleep…as always." Lexi said.

Ace sighed. "Go and bring hi…"

"Hey…" Duck entered the cockpit before Ace could finish the sentence. "Sup?" He yawned while walking towards his comrades, stumbling as he did so, almost falling down.

"Woah, man." Rev prevented him from falling. "You okay?"

"Yes, I just got…dizzy for a sec." Duck got his arm on Rev's shoulders to stand on his feet. "Space and I don't…" He groaned as his head hurt. "…mix well."

"Uhm, okay pal." Rev replied.

The Maniacs entered the cockpit. Vale approached Ace. "What's the plan?"

"Test the ground." Ace responded. "We must have a clear idea of what we are facing here first." He looked at him. "Then we plan our strategy."

The ship entered the planet's atmosphere. The white surface of Rojus soon revealed to be conformed by unending sets of tall skyscrapers, highways and bridges. The sky was blue and the sun shined intensely. "It's like Acmetropolis but…cleaner." Edison commented.

Tech narrowed his gaze as he started to see several red spots on the city's structures. "What is..?" His eyes widened all of sudden. "Oh man…"

The streets and the highways were full of corpses and piles of them, scattered all over the place. Tech landed the ship on a bridge that connected two tall highways. Ace looked at one of the corpse piles that faced the ship, then shook his head and turned, starting to head towards the hallway. "Let's go."

They exited the ship, Tech being the last one. There were corpses and piles of them all around the ten heroes. "We're late." Vale grunted and coughed then covered his nose with his arm, thanks to the strong dead scent that invaded the air.

Tech approached a corpse and knelt before it, observing the state of its fur and skin. "These bodies have a couple of weeks, at most." He stood up and kept walking along with the others. "The rest must be hiding, or running away."

"It's so silent." Lexi said while glaring around.

Ace looked at his surroundings cautiously. His ear twitched when hearing a sudden sound of engines behind him, he turned along with his team and his eyes widened when seeing a white, self-piloted ship with blue ornamental lines aiming right at them with its rocket launchers, which activated right away. He gasped and activated his jetpack. "Look out!"

The ship shot two rockets at them, the rest of the Loonatics turned on their jetpacks and managed to avoid the rockets' explosion and their expansive wave. That part of the highway got completely destroyed by the projectiles. The Maniacs had barely managed to avoid the explosion. Akinyi, Vale, Randy and Edison pressed their wrists and with that made their hoverboards fly out from the 'Leviathan' and approach them. They got over their respective boards and flew towards the hostile, white ship, which kept shooting rockets at them.

On the meantime, Tech landed right next to his ship and got in immediately, entering the cockpit and activating the systems again. He pressed a set of buttons on the console and the ship's weapons deployed.

Edison roared at a rocket and made it disintegrate before it could explode right in front of him, as he flew gracefully over his hoverboard. Randy jumped from rocket to rocket as if they were floating stairs, using his super speed. He jumped from the last one and landed safely on his hoverboard, seeing the rockets exploding one by one.

"Terrorists are upping their game lately it seems, these things are top notch!" Rev evaded the rockets by rushing with his super speed on a zig-zag manner, that part of the highway got completely destroyed and Rev activated his jetpack after so.

"You don't need to praise them, Rev!" Lexi destroyed three upcoming rockets with her brain blast, flying through the fading explosion with the help of her jetpack.

"I was just saying it's top notch technology!" Rev said as he hovered next to her.

Ace flew towards the ship while avoiding the rockets with acrobatic turns and perilous movements, then when he finally got over the ship, he deactivated his jetpack and landed on it, activating his laser vision, starting to burn the ship's metallic surface while trying to maintain balance as the ship moved. "You didn't see this coming, huh?"

The ship turned upwards violently, making its front side face directly into the sky, making Ace fall. Ace reactivated his jetpack and hovered below the white ship, shooting at its bottom surface.

Slam growled beastly after turning his jetpack off, landing heavily over the ship, denting it's upper surface significantly, then he used his tornado and started to damage the ship as if he was a living drill. The ship began to malfunction, also thanks to Ace's efforts.

Akinyi flew with her hoverboard towards the ship and then jumped from it, turning into smoke, and a rocket went through her smoke form without causing her any damage at all. She entered the ship through its many openings, starting to mess with it's electronics.

Edison roared at a pair of rockets that almost reached him, disintegrating them as he landed on the ground; his hoverboard began to just hover around, at a close enough distance from him. Vale was fooling the ship by making it shoot rockets at his two copies. He saw a rocket coming after Edison from behind. "Ed!" Vale called his hoverboard and got on it then rapidly flew towards him, tackling him to get him off the rocket's way. The rocket managed to impact dangerously close to them both though, so the expansive wave hit them strongly, they smashed against a nearby building then fell down all the way to an inferior highway, smashing strongly against the concrete.

Tech flew the Leviathan towards the ship. "Make way, I'm gonna finish it already." He told everyone through his comm. The enemy ship was being tracked continuously by the Leviathan's systems, as displayed on the large front window.

"It's all yours, Doc!" Ace said while hovering at a safe distance from the ship, which was making loud noises while hovering erratically.

Tech grasped the two control sticks of the ship, focusing his gaze on the enemy ship, rubbing the red buttons on the sticks. After getting close enough, he pressed the buttons and the plasma cannon shot a charge at the hostile ship, the green glowing projectile hit it and the ship exploded in a million pieces, making a loud noise that lasted several seconds, the green glow that the explosion had created vanished after a while. "Hah! Who's your daddy?!"

"Ace." Lexi pointed at a horde of humanoid robots that were flying towards them from the distance.

Ace sighed while landing on what was left of the highway while deactivating is jetpack. "What a warm welcome."

Vale dragged himself towards Edison, effortfully as he was in a lot of pain. "Ed…" He placed a hand on his bleeding abdomen. "…this doesn't look right at all."

"You don't say?" Edison gasped and groaned while trying to get up.

"Hey, no man." Vale activated his comm. "Tech, Ed is injured…badly,."

"I'll tell Rev, tell him to hold on." Tech replied. "He'll take him to the ship."

Edison activated his comm. "Vale needs help too." He groaned and laid his head on the ground. "Damn." After a few moments, Rev and Randy appeared right among them, leaving a red and blue trace behind, respectively.

The horde of robots landed around the heroes, Ace, Lexi, Duck, Slam and Akinyi adopted battle positions while studying the looks of the robotic forces, they were of a chrome white, with a golden, glowing nucleus on their chest area, their arms were cannons, their face was just a clean white surface. "What are you waiting for, tin men?" Ace joked.