Loonatics: United

Episode 41: Cataclysm (part 5)

Hank parked the truck in front of the tower where German's apartment was, he exited the vehicle along with Troy. Nate and Kyle hopped down from the back part. Hank looked at the building for a moment in silence, then Nate interrupted his thoughts. "At your command, boss."

Hank turned a bit to see him, then rapidly glared back at the tower. "Let's do this."

German was sitting at his desktop, checking some files on his computer while speaking with someone in a voice chat. "How bad is it?" German inquired.

"The cracks are expanding." A female voice said from the other side of the line. "We still don't know what's causing them."

German covered his face with a hand. "Have they reached the population?"

"Not yet, but they will, eventually." The woman said. "Our equipment is not at the level of this situation, I'm afraid." A sigh was heard from the computer's speaker. "Sorry, Mr. President, we can't do anything about it."

"It's okay, Deborah, thank you for the info." German pressed a key on the keyboard and ended the call, the contact name was 'Acmetropolis Geological Institute'. He closed the chat software and stood up from the chair, turning and looking through the room's large window, preoccupied and upset. Suddenly, his ear twitched when hearing steps behind the office's door, he turned and walked a few steps towards it but then stopped. "Hello?" He took a small step backwards. "Is an…" The door broke all of a sudden, flying towards him. It hit him with strength, he gasped and fell to the ground, with the broken door over him.

Hank entered first, he had kicked the door. Troy and Nate entered afterwards and Kyle was the last one to get in the office. "Sorry for the rude entrance, Mr. President." Hank approached German and grabbed the door, throwing it away from him, it smashed the wall at their right and turned into a dozen of splinters. He grasped German's blue coat and lifted him, then he smirked. "Guess who are the rulers now?"

German was very scared and unable to speak by the fear he felt. "It seems he saves his voice just for the speeches." Troy approached him and punched his stomach several times, making him to groan and let out tears of pain while Hank still held him.

Hank chuckled and threw him onto a wall, German groaned after hitting the floor. "If they only knew how weak you are!" He kicked his belly, making him to scream with agony. "What am I gonna do with you?"

"Boss!" Kyle opened an empty closet that was at the other side of the room. "We should lock him up here!"

Hank smiled and dragged German from the neck of his coat towards the closet, he threw him there with violence. "I'll make sure you stay shut." He kicked his jaw, hurting him so much he got him unconscious. "Close the door, Kyle." He commanded.

Kyle obeyed him and closed the closet's door. A key was attached to the door lock, so he just twisted it and locked the door with that, then he clenched his fist and made the key to become metallic dust.

"Alright." Hank walked towards the desktop and slipped all of the documents and folders that were there. He sat down on the chair and turned to look at the city through the window, he placed both hands behind his neck, adopting a relaxed position. "Nate, Kyle, put barricades all around the building. Troy, start with the taxes. If they resist, just kill them, as you said."

Hank stood in the office, while Troy, Nate and Kyle exited the edifice to follow his orders. Troy headed to a residence he spotted a few streets away from the tower, he stopped hurrying in front of the small, red themed house, breaking the door with a kick and entering right after so, triggering screams of terror. He encountered with a marriage of bunnies, both white furred, who had been sitting over a black couch in their living room, but they were now standing up, extremely afraid, embracing each other.

"Who are you?!" The woman said, trembling, she wore a yellow dress with pink flowers and had long, black hair.

"Your new order!" Troy approached them. "Pay! I need two hundred! Now!"

The husband protected his wife with an embrace. "Please…don't hurt us." He wore a blue shirt and a pair of gray pants.

Troy grunted. "Then pay!"

The man did his best to hide his fear and put a straight face. "This is a good neighborhood, you can't ask us for money just because you want so! Leave!"

Troy frowned and chuckled at the same time. "Oh, a brave one?" He backed his arm and punched him on the snout, killing him instantly by his super strength.

The wife looked horrified at her dead husband, then she glared at Troy with pleading, teary eyes. "Please…" Her voice was broken.

"No money…" Troy approached her and kneeled her stomach, making her to scream fatally and fall to the floor, lifeless. "…no mercy."

Meanwhile, Nate and Kyle were building the barricades with several stuff, generally with big trash containers and cars, which they easily lifted. Nate lowered down a car in front of the trash can he had put right in front of the building's facade, over the sidewalk. He exhaled and then looked around to see the progress of their task. "Kyle! Do you think this will be enough?!" The perimeter was well covered, but Nate thought there were too many vulnerable spots.

Kyle gasped after lowering a big, rusty trash container next to the tower. He sighed and then glanced at Kyle. "I say it's okay, don't you think?"

Nate scratched his chin, studying the barricades again. "I'm not sure, I gu…" His eyes widened and his ears twitched when seeing and hearing The Eye's trucks. Hill was leading the big group of vehicles that parked in front of the building horizontally.

Hill, who parked his truck right in the middle of the rest, exited the vehicle while holding a megaphone. "This is the first and last warning for you, traitors!" He exclaimed through the device. "Surrender now or we'll be forced to attack!"

Nate was hiding against the left wall of the stairs that led to the tower's entrance. He turned on his comm. "Boss, we got a…situation."

Hank was looking at the displays of the security cameras in German's computer. "I see it." He replied. "Get them out of my sight."

"Boss, they are too many." Nate said while gazing carefully at the amount of trucks and soldiers that hopped out of them.

"We can deal with this." Troy arrived, running towards the first truck he found on his way, he punched it with a scream of rage and sent it towards the next one, turning over the two vehicles. The men in the turrets had jumped from them just in time and the two wolves rushed towards Troy with their charged weapons, Troy just smashed the ground with his fists and the concrete broke in the form of a cracked wave that reached the soldiers and hit them so hard they fell to the ground severely injured.

"Good job, Troy!" Hank said through his comm. "Nate, Kyle, don't just stay there looking, fight them!"

Nate gulped. "As you wish, boss." He ended the communication and headed to the battle, followed by Kyle who had also been hiding. Nate approached a group of soldiers that constantly shot at him, but the lasers just vanished in his red armor like drops in the water, he rapidly gained confidence and with a flying kick he managed to hit their faces in a row, the soldiers took the hit well and two of them tackled him and tried to hold him, the rest of the soldiers surrounded them in case he managed to free himself, but Kyle, in order to help him, threw a truck towards them and hit them like a golf ball, the group of soldiers fell unconscious to the hard concrete, with the destroyed vehicle at their side.

Nate raised his back, checking if he was still in one piece as Kyle's attack was too precise, then he got into his feet and turned to see Kyle. "Thanks!" He gave him a quick thumbs up.

Kyle returned the gesture, then he kept lifting and throwing vehicles. "More armed men at your right!" He warned, so Nate turned and evaded the shots that went towards him, even if his suit was resistant to them, he started battling each one of the soldiers by disarming them first with a quick hand movement.

Meanwhile, Troy was fighting hand to hand with General Hill. "Of them all you were the strongest!" Hill stopped Troy's upcoming fist with his hand, then moved it away, hitting his shin with his foot. "But you betrayed your principles!"

Troy groaned by Hank's attack. "You are wrong, General…" He attacked Hill's chest with his elbow. "…I've never had principles."

Kyle screamed by the effort when lifting another truck, shaking it until all the men inside the damaged vehicle fell from it. He then raised it more and crashed it over them. "You like that?!" He chuckled. "I can't hear you!"

After walking through the large, unending hallways of the mothership for several minutes, Lexi and her team found a door that matched with the one described by the reptile. "Do you think this is it?" Duck said when studying the tall and metallic red door in front of them.

Lexi nodded and shot her brain blast at the recognition pad that was at the door's right, which was like an elliptical, green mirror with yellow glows. The pad exploded and turned into golden dust that vanished in seconds, then the door opened. "I hope so." She entered the unknown, dark room, followed by Rev and Duck.

Their eyes were delighted by the height of the ceiling, which had vertical lines of dark blue light that illuminated the room. They passed between several machines and pipelines before approaching a black rack that stored golden discs. "I guess these are the files we are looking for." Rev said while taking a look more at the side, discovering there were innumerable rows of racks behind.

Lexi sighed. "That means we must check all of th…" She gasped when Rev appeared in front of her holding one of the millions of discs, having left a red trace behind him.

"This is it, Lexi! The ship's blueprint which I found rapidly because you know I'm super fast." Rev held the disc right in front of her face. "You may wonder how could I possibly know it is this and no other because these guys use another language to name their files and stuff but it happens the discs have screens on them and I was able to change the language to ours so yeah I'm sure this is the right file!"

Lexi smiled proudly and took the disc, looking at its golden surface and the rectangular screen it had over it, which displayed the name of the file that confirmed Rev had indeed found the correct one. "Good job, Rev."

"Wow, you hadn't speak that much for a while." Duck crossed his arms. "I miss that now."

"So, where can we check this?" Lexi asked Rev.

"Oh I forgot to tell you." Rev said. "I found a computer, a giant computer, but I'm afraid the disc is encrypted, it will take me a while to decipher the code."

"Take your time, Rev." Lexi handed him the disc. "We trust you."

"More less." Duck said, getting a look of warning by Lexi, then he just stood quiet.

Rev took them to the workstation he had found several lines of racks ahead. It was at the right side, the big, circular blue monitor illuminated the place even more than the far lights of the ceiling, it was over a large console that almost covered that side of the room, with hundreds of buttons, levers and other input devices. Rev inserted the disc on the machine's slot "I'm sure Tech would be very impressed with this stuff." Lexi looked at the complexity of the console and its elements.

"Yeah, but we wouldn't be able to shut him up with his smart comments." Duck expressed while looking at Rev immersed in his super speed, going from one side of the console to the other, pressing keys, plugging and unplugging cables and devices, inside a red blur.

"I just hope Rev can handle this." Lexi murmured, approaching Duck.

"Didn't you say you trusted him?" Duck inquired, also murmuring.

"Of course I do." Lexi let out a sigh. "But, I'm not sure if he has that level of experience, like Tech."

Meanwhile, outside of Quantal's tall barrier, Quentin was touching its surface, grinning while looking up, glancing the wall's limit. "Destroy it." He backed away, letting Magnus and Heather to approach the wall, Magnus prepared a energy sphere between his hands, Heather started to glitch the center of the wall, she looked at him and Magnus returned the glance, they both nodded and Magnus let out a growl while throwing the attack. The purple phenomenon collided with the glitched wall, making an explosive reaction, the center of the wall became purple transparent in a blink and then it exploded into several, almost invisible broken pieces.

They had made a huge aperture on the wall, and without hesitation the three villains entered the city. People already ran and screamed for their lives, while several guards got in their way with their weapons ready to fire, their uniforms were now dark blue and they wore no helmets. Quentin chuckled and took a step forward. "We come at peace." He said. "Just don't try to stop us, and no one will get hurt."

The guards' leader, a black cat, began to charge his weapon, a dark blue laser rifle. "That you'll decide." He said, ready to shoot.

Quentin nodded. "Okay." He snapped his fingers and Magnus threw a huge energy ball at them, which hit them all and exploded when doing so, turning into a dense, purple smoke that dissipated slowly, revealing the unconscious guards laying on the ground.

Their victory was brief as three other groups of guards surrounded them, Heather smirked and put her hands on the ground. "My turn." She glitched the ground, selecting only the spots where the guards were standing, like cutting a circle below them, she raised her hands with a scream of effort and with that lifted the piece of ground she had cut, throwing the soldiers upwards, several meters from the ground, surpassing the buildings, they screamed desperately before hitting the ground, dying instantly by the height they had fallen from.

"Nice!" Quentin celebrated. "Keep going!" He commanded and looked at the castle over the mountain, he pointed at it and looked at his comrades. "There is our goal!"

With battle screams, the guards that arrived later tried to stop them, with no success, as Heather's glitched spikes and hammers where powerful against them, Magnus' invisible waves hit them hard and the invisible barrier that shielded him repelled the lasers with ease. Quentin just hid and moved when necessary, covering from both sides' attacks. "Get out of my way!" Heather extended her arms to the sides and separated the sandy ground under the guards' feet, making them to fall to a newly made abyss.

"Mourn is here." Magnus chuckled evilly. "Magnus is here now!" He pointed his hands at them, starting to throw purple rays at the ground that surrounded the guards, then branch shaped energy peaks started to rise from it, he then moved his hands almost randomly against his enemies, hurting them badly with each powerful hit, managing to take them down fast.

After clearing the zone, the three headed to the mountain's base, Quentin and Heather did so running, Magnus floated instead. They reached the foot of the mountain, Magnus started to float upwards, while Heather glitched the ground below her feet and Quentin's, then raised her hand slightly to make it float and move towards the mountain's top. After a brief way, they reached the castle's facade, Heather lowered herself and Quentin while Magnus kept floating behind them. "Magnus." Quentin glanced at his comrade turned monster. "Do the honors."

"My pleasure." Magnus snarled and hovered towards the tall door of the castle, aiming at it with his hands. He charged a huge, energy sphere and threw it at the door, destroying it easily, not leaving any ashes, just a strange purple powder. He entered the castle followed by his two colleagues.

"Ladies first." Quentin told Heather, right in front of the entrance.

"Thanks." Heather replied coldly and entered the place, then Quentin followed her.

Adam stood in front of his throne, giving them a confident, brave look. "You could've just knocked, father." He took small steps towards them.

Quentin smirked. "Sense of humor is something I didn't program in you." He emitted a brief chuckle. "I see you haven't forgotten me." The rising conversation left Heather and Magnus very confused.

"How could I?" Adam said when getting right in front of him. "I certainly thought you would change your ways." He glanced at his villainous company. "I see my hopes were in vain."

"Hope." Quentin put a hand on his shoulder. "That I put in your code, actually."

Adam nodded. "You did."

Quentin raised an eyebrow. "But you had other secrets to unleash, hadn't you?" He put a straight face. "Why such a powerful being needs an army to protect its kingdom?"

"I'm limited, father." Adam responded. "I renounced to my powers, for a very good cause." He smiled subtly. "I'm like everybody else now."

Quentin sighed, lowering his gaze and shaking his head. "What a shame." He looked at Adam. "Still, I'm grateful with you, for making this beautiful city for me."

"I don't know what you are talking about." Adam clenched his fists, maintaining a serious look.

Quentin chuckled and moved his hand away from his shoulder, turning his back on him. "Oh, Adam." He clapped a single time. "I made you, right?" He looked through the entrance, glaring at the clouds beyond the city.

Adam frowned. "You could argue that."

"We agree, then." Quentin kept glancing at the horizon. "That means everything your hands make, is mine by right."

Magnus took that as a signal, he floated towards Adam and stopped right in front of him, he attacked him with his mind and began to provoke a panic attack on him. Adam screamed with agony and got over his knees, putting both hands on the cold floor. "Wha…" He closed his eyes and started to let out more screams, more intense each time. "Fa…father!" He laid down and started to shake over the castle's floor.

"Son…I won't abandon this opportunity." Quentin said.

Heather glitched the floor and formed a transparent sword, she wielded it and rushed towards Adam with the weapon raised. "Let me help you with that!" She lifted the sword right above him.

"Wait!" Quentin exclaimed, making Heather to lower the blade.

"What now?" Magnus said with the same deep, unsettling voice.

Quentin walked towards them, stopping in front of Adam, looking at his face of suffering. "He could be useful." He looked at Heather. "Lock him up." Heather grinned and glitched the floor under Adam, then from it began to form a cell, made of a mix of floor and transparent glitch. She slowly got her hands close one from the other and with that closed the top of the cell. Quentin chuckled a bit, by the amazement he felt with Heather's expertise. "Good job."

Heather emitted a brief, arrogant laugh. "Like always." She controlled the cage with Adam inside it, moving it to the most distant corner of the throne room.

Quentin sighed with relief, knowing his plan had succeeded. He walked towards Adam's throne, standing in front of it, while Heather stood before Lyla's. Magnus hovered towards a side of the broken entrance to guard it from there. Quentin turned along with Heather, both of them glanced at the light that entered from the big aperture to the castle's inside. "This is it, Heather." He glared at her. "It's all ours." Heather slowly sat down on the throne. Her gaze was locked in the horizon beyond the castle.

Quentin sat down on his own throne after so, glaring at her. "How's the view?

Heather grinned subtly. "It could be better."

With a lot of hesitation, Quentin placed his hand over hers. "It will be." He said.

At first, Heather's eyes reflected confusion and a bit of anger by Quentin's sudden act, but after a long moment, she slowly started to accept it, not wanting it to end. Her eyes got focused on his, and finally, she took his hand with confidence.

Quentin blushed. "Sorry…if yo..." Quentin was interrupted.

"It's fine." Heather grinned at him. "I'm fine."

Author's note: Sorry for the delay.