Hello! Happy 2013! I hope you all had a great holiday! And thank you so much for your comments!

….

THE COMET

Location: Landmark city docks

The Li industries truck was parked close to a big delivery ship and next to it was an oversized chopper curtsy of Paine's connections in town. Lee supervised the transfer closely. Paine walked to him.

"So, what so important about this material, I've never heard about it," Paine asked examining the metal containers being carried around. "Not to mention you still haven't told me what your plan really is."

"All in good times. Once we get all of the carismiam you'll see the genius off it all," Lee answered calmly, not taking his eyes off the Spydah and the others. Paine puffed. He was ever starting to think if this alleged plan really existed, but for now he had no choice but to wait. Magness, on the other hand, was minding her own business thinking how bored she was when she caught a glimpse of Lionesses bike approaching.

"He, he, lookie here, we've got some company." Everything stopped. Magness chuckled. "I think I'm gonna go say hello to this ally cat," she said lighting up. Lee ran over and stopped her.

"No! This material can't be exposed to magnetism now. You go stop her!" he yelled to D-Zel, "You two, keep stocking the truck! If Lioness is here the others are bound to follow, so we need to get a move on!" Flesh and Spydah stared confused then gave Paine a look.

"Just do as he says!" Paine yelled and everything stared moving again. Lee frowned, but as long the work was got done, that was all he was interested in.

D-Zel chuckled and charged against Lioness full force. The girl saw the half man half motor approach but did not back up. "Let's see what you've got!"

In spite of Lee's indications Magness used her magnetic powers to divert the trajectory of Lionesses bike. It spun out of control and headed for a collision course with the ship. Lionesses best efforts to regain control were in vain and she had no other choice but to bail out before the impact. Unfortunately for her, she took the decision too late and the explosion from the vehicle left her unconscious on the ground. D-Zel stopped and frowned seeing he had his opportunity was taken. Soon enough Axel, Shark and King were in view and the biker saw another chance to shine so he charged yet again but this time at Axel.

"Looks like we already have a welcoming comity!" King said but Axel had no time to waste. All he wanted was to find Lioness so he jumped off his bike and let it crash with D-Zel head on. Seeing the pathetic defeat, Paine face palmed.

"That incompetent fool!" Mangess wasn't very happy to see her boyfriend trashed but before she could do anything about it Lee stopped her again.

"You stay here! We need to continue loading!" then turned to Spydah and Flesh. "Here you can have this. It's a hard light suite," Lee said and tossed some sort of a belt to Flesh "it's not a perfect version, but it will do. Now go keep them busy!"

"O..ok" Flesh took the belt and placed it on himself. "Now what do I do?" Spydah stepped in and inspected the devise.

"You are supposed to turn it on you lump." By pressing the button on the side of the belt, the arachnid triggered a chain reaction of green light which covered Flesh from head to toe making him three times larger.

"Cool" the big guy said lifting his weight with only two fingers. Spydah too was dumb struck by the invention.

"Fascinating!"

"Admire it later will ya, now get going," Paine growled at his subordinate and kicked him off the railing of the ship.

Axel finally saw Lioness lying on the ground and his worse fears were confirmed. Before he could get to her though, Flesh jumped in between making a dent on landing.

"Just when you thought he couldn't get any uglier," Shark was the first to make an observation.

"Shark, King! Get to Lioness! Fast!" Axel yelled.

"On it!" The two sprang into action but Flesh had no intentions of letting them off so easily. He threw his weight at Shark, but the blond managed to dunk just in time. King on the other hand charged directly for Fleshes leg and tried to get him off balance but with no affect what so ever. Shark used the distraction to slide underneath Flesh in hopes of reaching Lioness but failed as he got caught by Spydah and was now hanging upside down, inched away from the arachnid's face.

"Hey there, where do you think you're going?"

Meanwhile, Flesh had got a hold of King and slammed him hard onto the pavement then he continued by throwing him off in the ocean.

"Man that gotta hurt!" The arachnid commented kind of forgetting what he was going which gave Axel just enough time to kick him away from his teammate.

"Shark! Go help King!" Once the blond got back to his feet, he nodded and jumped into the water. This left Axel alone against both Flesh and a now very pissed off Spydah and as bad luck would have it, the two attacked at the same time. The boy managed to avoid the first few swings at him but inevitably was blown away by one of Flesh's punches. Axel hissed at the pain but got up and charged again. Using his Jo-Lain he kicked the arachnid and send him flying against Flesh. This worked to his advantage as the force from the impact disabled the hard light suite returning Flash to his, well 'normal' self.

"Oh, oh…" was the only thing out of the big guy's mouth before he got Axel's full force. Lee watched as Axel delivered the last blow to Flesh with his Jo-Lain and hissed.

"Give it up now Lee!" Axel shouted.

"No, we can't let Axel stop us now it would ruin everything!" Lee let out angrily.

"Leave it to me," Paine said smirking then walked over to Lioness who was still unconscious and lifted her up on his shoulder.

"Let her go!" Axel demanded and charged at the man but only got as close as to land directly in Paine's grip. A familiar green glow came out of Paine's palm resulting in a wave of excruciating pain running through Axel's head and body. Paine smiled. It had been so long since he could do this, his fingers tingled with joy. Finally he released the boy and stepped back.

"If you don't want anything happening to your little friend I suggest you don't follow us!"

"Paine!" Axel struggled to get up and despite being in perfect attack range, he made no moves, he knew better. Paine smirked. He quite enjoyed seeing desperation in people's faces, especially in the one of his young nemesis. Lee used the moment to start the chopper. At this time, the leader was joined by Shark who had finally managed to fish King out of the water. Paine stepped into the chopper and smirked before slamming the door shut taking Lioness with him. Flesh and Spydah wobbled their way to the truck, with the arachnid dragging an unconscious D-Zel. Magness then stuck her head out of the driver seat and gave Axel a wink before driving off leaving the three behind.

A couple of hours later in the Aquatic Center

The group was gathered in the living room. King was typing away on his laptop desperately trying to pinpoint Lionesses location.

"Any luck?" Shark asked approaching the big guy.

"No, there is no signal from her alpha com what so ever."

"Well keep trying." Axel was pacing around like crazy. His feet seemed to have a mind of their own and they hadn't let him rest for hours on end. At that moment Hawk came into the room without a care in the world.

"Hey guys, what's up!"

"What's up?! Where the hell have you been?!" King growled angrily. Not waiting for a response Axel exploded.

"How could you leave Lioness all alone to face Paine and his lackeys?!" The red head stared confused.

"Woo, what? Did anything happen?"

"Lioness got kidnaped by Paine! That's what happened!" the leader yelled in his teammate's face. The pilot froze. "King tracked you down and you were nowhere near! YOU.?!" The feeling of guilt that ran through Hawk's mind wiped away the possibility of thinking of an excuse so he decided to confess.

"I…well… I was at an audition, Lioness was covering up for me." Hawk lowered his head in shame.

"Dude not cool!" Shark stood up angrily.

"Guys I am so sorry, I…" Axel grabbed the pilot by collar.

"There is not an apology worthy of fixing what you've done! You better pray she's ok or else I don't know what I'd do!" Axel's grip was so tight it was starting to choke the other.

"Look I know I messed up this time and I am sorry, but it's not all my fault it happened. Paine is the problem!" Hawk growled and pushed Axel away.

"May be so but you weren't there to prevent it in any way!" King spoke up this time. The pilot remained silent, he didn't have a way to defend himself nor did he want to. What Axel said next, though, came as a surprise.

"We can't trust you to be a part of the team anymore."

"What?" King and Shark exclaimed alongside Hawk.

"Wow, Ax-man, don't you think you're being a little too extreme here?" King said approaching Axel.

"Yeah dude, I mean Hawk screwed up but he says he's sorry, right…?" Hawk cracked a weak smile seeing his friend defending him but Axel wasn't about back down.

"No! It's not only now! You are too full of yourselves all the time! I don't know if I could forgive it this time." An uncomfortable silence followed.

"Fine, I know where I'm not wanted. I'm out of here!" Hawk yelled and stormed out of the room. Moments later the sound of scratching tires was heard. Axel growled and knocked over the round table with a kick. King barely stopped the incoming object before it hit the glass preventing it from shattering and flooding the entire place.

"You know Ax-man, we are all worried about Lioness, lashing out at each other is not going to help get her back you know."

"But you heard him yourself, didn't you! We can't count on that guy." After a brief moment King finally said:

"I think the only one you can't rely on right now is yourself. Come on, let's let Mr. hot head here cool off for a while." King waved his hand for Shark to follow him and both walked out leaving the team leader behind speechless. There wasn't a better way to describe the situation and Axel knew it. He only wished his friend wasn't so right to often.

Later at the garage King bumped into Shark who was polishing his car. Not because it needed to, but because the surfer needed something to keep busy.

"Hey dude, where are you doing, don't tell me you're leaving too," the surfer said worried.

"Nah, just going for a quick drive, things are getting too stuffy in here," the big guy said and hopped on his bike. "Make sure that he doesn't do anything stupid," King added referring to Axel.

"A..alright." Once the sound of King's bike faded away Shark could feel the silence collapse on him and he didn't like it one bit.

Location: Abandon fuel factory

Lee guided the group inside the building leaving Lioness tide up in the chopper. Walking into the completely empty factory Paine finally lost it. "What are you trying to pull?! Don't make a fool out of me!" the man growled and grabbed Lee by the collar. The scientist frowned and jerked the arm away. "Your impatience is astonishing, Mr Alexander. First, let me do a little demonstration."

"Fine! Make it quick!"

"Unload the truck!" Lee commanded. After that was done Lee opened one of the containers and took a sample of the material, which wasn't hard seeing it had the same consistency as modeling clay. He split it into two and placed one piece on the ground.

"See caristiam got its name from its charismatic characteristics towards magnetism," Lee explained. "Miss Magness, could you please try and move this with your powers." The girl smirked amused. She lid up and focused on the chunk of carismiam but instead of moving the light red color of the material changed to blood red and exploded causing the girl to fall backwards. Paine helped his daughter up and gave Lee a look. "Exposed to pure magnetism even the littlest amount of the material becomes highly explosive, but there's another quality of it I'm interested in. Miss Magness please put this on and try again" Lee handed her a backpack and placed the second piece where the first had disintegrated. "The device on your back will channel your magnetic powers to the exact frequency." This time the material turned purple and levitated emitting a glow.

"Wow!" Spydah, Flesh and D-Zel said at the same time. Paine lifted a brow unimpressed.

"Great magic show, Lee, but I don't see how it helps us to bring Manning and his team down." Lee smirked.

"Well you see the material on its own is not all I have planned." The scientist pulled out a small remote and pressed a button with it revealing something that was hidden from site all along. A huge metal sphere materialized in the middle of factory. Flesh exclaimed and fell backwards seeing the sphere had been only inches away from him the whole time. "Say hello to the Comet, one of the world's biggest bombs. All the fuel it contains at the moment is enough to level this entire city in less than a second." Hearing this Spydah retreated few steps away. Paine smirked.

"Now that's more what I'm talking about," he said caressing the surface of the sphere. Feeling the cold steal under his fingers he could just picture it all. It really was a fantastic plan. "A son ending the same way as the father, the irony is uncanny," he thought.

"Hello? Am I supposed to stay like this forever?" Magness spoke out as her arms were starting to get tired. Lee's attention was drawn back to the girl.

"Ah, you don't need to. See that's the beauty of it." Magness breathed out and relaxed and to her surprise the piece stayed in the air. "See the carismiam is the core element to the Comet. All comets come from the sky right?" Lee said with a condescending tone. And when he said core, the scientist wasn't kidding. There was a special opening in the center of the sphere where every single one of the containers fit snug. Lee made final adjustments to the Comet before giving Magness the green light. The factory ceiling opened up like a sun roof allowing the bomb to rise freely. The group observed its ascent closely. Finally, Lee activated the stealth mode and the gargantuan object disappeared out of sight yet again.

"It should reach position soon." Lee smirked to himself. Everything was going exactly as he had planned and now he was finally ready to make his last ultimatum.

To be continued…

That's the end of this chapter. I hope you liked it! Please feel free to tell me what you think of it, things that can be improved or whatever is on your mind! THANKS FOR READING!