Loonatics: United

Episode 39: Cataclysm (part 3)

Rev was standing over one of the jet's seats, looking through the narrow, long window. "I can't see anything guys maybe is safe to come out."

"Or… maybe those aliens are hiding and waiting for us, ready to exterminate." Duck argued, he was laying on the floor, resting his head against a wall, with his hands behind his neck.

Lexi was next to Rev, using her hearing ability, but the silence was very present. She rested her ear on the wall to see if that could give her more reach, but she heard no sound. She sighed and grunted a bit, shaking her head with disappointment. "I got nothing."

Duck yawned. "You guys can worry all you want, I'm taking a nap, wake me up when you solve this."

Lexi frowned at him. "At least you could teleport outside to see what's out there!"

"Oh, you are so wrong if you think I'll leave, I'm safe, warm and comfortable here in th…" Duck's eyes widened when the lights of the place suddenly activated and went through the jet's windows, followed by sounds of hostile steps.

Rev rubbed his eyes and then looked back at the window, hopping down to the floor. "I see something!"

Duck stood up and approached them. "Yeah, we all noticed the light show, smart guy."

Lexi went to the cockpit and gasped at seeing the golden armored reptiles that looked at her menacingly from the outside. The now dim, but bright enough green light that illuminated the dark colored place revealed it was some kind of space hangar. She immediately turned back and adopted a combat position in front of her friends. "We have company, boys."

"Company?" Duck asked, readying two orbs. "What kind of company?" He tried to hide his fear with a brave face.

"Reptiles." Lexi replied.

"Oh that reminds me of those green guys that we fought a while, while ago." Rev said. "Remember, Lexi?"

"It'll sound weird, Rev." Lexi replied. "But I think these are their relatives."

"Oh come on, that's impossible!" Rev gasped along with the others when the jet's side door slid forcefully upwards, letting a group of three reptiles to enter, with a bigger group behind them, almost like waiting in line for their turn to battle. Rev noticed their golden armors, exactly the same Ziox's reptiles wore time ago, he gulped when hearing their growls, which also sounded the same. "Correction, is entirely possible."

"This will be so easy, then!" Duck juggled his orbs.

The reptiles didn't wait more to fight, they approached the Loonatics with their spears raised, Lexi blocked a hit with both hands, putting them together, covering the golden, metallic weapon, she then grasped it strongly and moved it rightwards, making the reptile to growl and hit the wall over the seats, then she punched him on the snout.

Rev dodged the reptile's attacks easily, mocking him repeatedly, cornering the armored creature. "You missed!" His red blur blinded the reptile's vision. "You missed again what a surprise!" He swung his arm at the reptile and hit his side, sending him to a near wall, but quite strongly as he had used his super speed for the attack, the reptile was now unconscious.

Duck had just dealt with the third reptile, whose armor was steamy by the orbs' heat. He chuckled and prepared another pair of orbs, looking at the reptiles that entered the jet. "Next horde?" He backed his arm then threw an orb at the reptile who led that group, hitting his face, he growled and by the pain and blindness provoked by the orb he began to throw bites and punches, hurting some of the reptiles behind him. A small brawl started between them.

Duck raised an eyebrow. "Well…easier for me, then." He threw the other orb at them, managing to bring them down briefly, they tried to get up but Rev hit a bunch of them with his super speed while Lexi neutralized them with effective and fast kicks.

The three Loonatics waited a bit to confirm the victory, they couldn't hear anything that could indicate there were more reptiles coming, so they lowered their guard. "I think we are safe." Lexi turned to look at her friends. "At least for now."

"Thanks to me." Duck pointed at himself.

Lexi sighed and started to walk to the jet's exit. "Whatever, Duck."

Each one of them carefully took a step on the black and metallic floor, then they got out of the jet completely. The green lights on the ceiling gave the hangar a strange atmosphere, their eyes contemplated that for a moment. "No more reptiles here I've checked twice." Rev suddenly said, with a fading red blur behind him.

"Then…mission accomplished?" Duck inquired.

Lexi ignored Duck's words, she looked around her and spotted an exit that led to a hallway. "Let's keep moving." She began to head there, followed by them.

They now walked through the dark hallway, which was also dimly illuminated by large, horizontal green lights. "I thought we would never see those things again." Duck opined. "So weird they've just come back."

"I think it may be no coincidence because we killed their lion-monster back in the day so this could be some sort of revenge." Rev stated.

"Or worse." Lexi said. "Maybe they've come to finish the job."

Duck rolled his eyes. "Maybe this, maybe that, what I'm sure about is that we must find a way to stop this thing from reaching the city, so, any idea?"

"I suggest to destroy it, now that we know these are confirmed bad guys." Rev answered.

Lexi stopped walking and turned to face them. "That sounds good to me, do you have anything in mind?" She asked Rev.

"I can't figure out what kind of systems and materials this ship has I mean that's impossible." Rev said. "I'll need some blueprints to know exactly how to destroy it."

"And how do you want us to get that?" Duck looked at him, speaking with a pessimistic tone.

"I might know how." Lexi responded.

Meanwhile at Acmetropolis, Ace was standing in front of the lounge's window, watching the night fading and the stars disappearing. He thought he had overcome the emotional issues he had experienced time ago, but he was having those feelings again, in a smaller degree, but still. The kitchen's door opened, Tech exited from it, taking a sip from a cup of coffee, his third one that night. He approached Ace and started to glance at the same scene. "You should have some sleep, boss." Tech advised. "Don't get me wrong, but you look quite tired."

Ace sighed, keeping his face straight. "I am, Doc." He looked at him. "But that's part of the job."

Tech nodded. "I know." He took another sip of his coffee. "But at least you could rest a couple of hours, you need it."

"I've tried, Doc." Ace responded. "I just can't." He shook his head. "Not this night."

"I get you." Tech said. "Do you want some coffee?" Ace stood quiet, then just nodded, with his gaze away from his comrade, looking at the horizon instead. "Okay." Tech walked away from him then entered the kitchen.

Ace sighed and headed to one of the couches at the lounge. He sat down and yawned, then began to breath in and out. He rested his head on the couch's support and closed his eyes, trying hard to get a little nap. After a pair of minutes, he managed to rest a bit, still conscious as the worries couldn't escape his mind, then the beeping noise of his comm took him out from the moment instantly. He blinked several times before responding. "Ace." He said through the comm.

"Hey, it's Matt." Matt said from the other side. "We got a situation."

"What kind of situation?" Ace inquired.

Matt sighed. "There has been a breakout from Acmetropolis' prison, three high profile interns escaped."

Ace stood up. "I need you to be more specific, Matt, we are attending something important right n..."

"Magnus, Quentin, Heather." Matt replied, rather frustrated. "They got out, and not only that." He sighed worriedly. "They have Mourn too, they stole it from The Eye."

Ace eye's widened. "What?!" He exhaled with desperation. "Okay, where are they now?"

"On the Great Pathway, they've just passed by the Razor Dome." Matt answered. "We are chasing them on the chopper, but we need your help."

"This can't be happening." Ace thought. "Okay, Matt, we are on our way."

"Alright." Matt ended the communication.

Ace turned to face the kitchen and call Tech, but his friend exited from there before he could do so. "Doc, wake him up, we must go." He commanded, referring to Slam.

"Where to, boss?" Tech approached him and handed him a cup of coffee.

Ace drank all of the coffee with a single, long sip. "A new mission."

The three Loonatics flew over the city's innumerable skyscrapers with their jetpacks. "It was hard enough to put a single one of them behind bars." Tech opined. "How could this possibly happen in the first place?"

"I don't know, Tech." Ace said. "We'll find out when we catch them." He clenched his fists strongly, with a frown of commitment, gazing at the early light of the morning arriving from the horizon.

Slam growled when spotting a part of the Great Pathway, which went through practically all the city.

"I see it, Slam." Ace said then began to fly towards there followed by the others. They got right over the pathway and kept flying, following the path's direction, hovering over the multitude of cars that passed below their feet. Ace activated his comm. "We are here Matt, where are you?"

"Over the tunnel, Ace." Matt replied. "They got inside, but our chopper is too big to fit in there."

"Leave them to us, then." Ace said. There was only one, long tunnel that the pathway had, it was not too far from where they were so Ace just kept flying forward, same as his team.

After about a minute, they approached the tunnel and entered through the arched entrance. They were more careful with their height as now they were much closer to the cars, and the inside of the tunnel was not very illuminated, there were just white, rectangular lamps going like a pattern at the sides of the ceiling. "We are in the tunnel, Matt." Ace informed. "Tell us what are we looking for."

"A white, old van." Matt responded.

"Understood." Ace said, then began to glance carefully at every spot and car in the tunnel, seeking for the vehicle. "See something, Doc?"

"Negative, boss." Tech said. "There are too mu…" He gasped and lowered himself with the jetpack, barely avoiding a piece of glitched car that had been thrown at him. He returned to his previous height and saw Heather over the van's roof a few rows of cars ahead, on one knee and with her hands aiming at the sides.

"It seems they found us first." Ace stated and headed towards the vehicle, followed by Slam.

"Wait!" Tech approached Ace, getting next to him again. "There are too many people here!"

"We can't lose these guys!" Ace argued and readied his laser vision, he shot at Heather but she protected herself with a glitched shield she made up, the laser bounced there and hit a car behind Ace, which exploded and made other vehicles to explode too, the event caused several accidents and crashes behind them. Ace didn't even turn to look at the damages, he kept flying towards Heather, frowning constantly. "Slam, your target is the vehicle, Tech and I will handle her!"

Slam growled affirmatively and headed to the van. Heather threw several glitched materials towards him but he managed to dodge them with turns and evasive maneuvers. He finally got at the side of the vehicle, but before he could throw a punch at it, Heather glitched his jetpack and it began to malfunction, it took him to a wall after a uneven path accompanied by sparks. Slam collided with the wall, the hit the jetpack received between the wall and Slam's back finally made it to stop working completely, Slam just fell to the ground, getting up after a few seconds, the upcoming cars avoided him so he just got near the wall to prevent more accidents.

Ace growled after seeing Slam's defeat, then he looked at Tech. "Now it's on us, Doc."

Tech glanced back recurrently, seeing the accident's victims. "They're hurt." He looked at Ace with a straight face. "We gotta help them!"

"There's no time for that! Tech!" Ace argued.

"We are risking too many lives! We can't d…" Tech got interrupted.

"They can't escape, Doc! If you don't want to help th…" Ace gasped when feeling his jetpack's sudden deactivation. The jetpack smashed him violently onto the ceiling, Ace groaned by the strong hit and then the damaged artifact sent him to the ground with the same strength, then smoke came from the jetpack.

Tech was having the same trouble, his maneuvers to stabilize himself were useless as the jetpack made him to collide with a column, his snout got hurt and then the jetpack went off, then he fell to the ground.

Ace stood up effortfully while rubbing his arm, then turned and saw the great amount of destroyed cars, people were exiting from them, hurt and others just very frightened. Ace walked a few steps towards the scene, he began to get feelings of guilt as he heard the people's cries, seeing the ground covered with scraps, some people laid on the concrete, extremely hurt. Suddenly, he received a transmission in his comm. "Yes, Matt." He said. "We lost them."

"I know." Matt replied. "Sorry, it sounded rude, I meant…"

Ace sighed. "I understand, any updates?"

"Yes, we managed to shoot a tracker at the van right when they exited the tunnel." Matt answered.

"Good." Ace was rather distracted with the scene of tragedy he was still contemplating. "What's next, then?"

"The computer is at the base, we need it to know where are they heading to." Matt responded. "We'll keep you in t…"

"Matt." Ace interrupted. "Could you pick us up outside the tunnel? She ruined our jetpacks…again."

"Sure, we'll wait for you over the exit." Matt ended the conversation.

Ace nodded and lowered his arm, then kept looking at the destruction he had provoked. Tech and Slam approached him from behind. "Boss." Tech said.

Ace turned and faced Tech, lowering his head and putting his hand over his shoulder. He sighed and shook his head slightly. "I know." He looked at him. "I know, Doc."

Tech kept a straight face, still rather disconcerted with his boss' actions, but compassionate at the same time. "Boss, may I go aid them?"

Ace delayed a bit to answer, then nodded mildly. "Please." He looked back at the scene. "We all should, actually." He resumed his steps towards the accident, followed by his comrades.