Loonatics: United
Episode 42: Cataclysm, part 6
Quentin and Heather had changed clothes, they now wore gray bodysuits with blue details like Adam an everybody else on Quantal, they had found them in one of the castle's many warehouses. They walked casually through a long hallway, holding each other's hand. "Why me?" Heather asked him.
Quentin smirked, with his gaze at the front. "Your abilities are extraordinary, I needed them to ensure the plan's success." He looked at her. "Or maybe…it was something else."
Heather blushed a bit. "I guess you read the articles."
"Oh I did." Quentin said. "Even if I only saw the pictures." He chuckled nervously. "I just…couldn't stop seeing you."
Heather chuckled. "Wreaking havoc is something one wouldn't consider attractive, you know."
"It wasn't that." Quentin said, then he lifted her hand to get it in front of his snout, kissing it tenderly.
Heather blushed, not saying a single word, but her smile spoke for her. They both reached a door made of opaque glass, Quentin opened it and it led them to a balcony, which had a great view of the city. She looked at the sun passing between the similar buildings, for a moment, she felt happy, but then an old feeling made her to undo her smile and lower her head. "This may not be for me."
"What?" Quentin inquired.
"For all my life, I've been running and hiding, without a place to go or someone to care about." Heather answered. "I don't know if I'm ready for those…distractions."
"Heather." Quentin placed a hand on her shoulder. "Look at me." She glared directly at his eyes. "That life is behind, it's over." He caressed her cheek. "This is your place now." He smirked. "I'm here, you are not alone anymore."
Heather let out a doubtful, spontaneous chuckle of hope. "I'm not good adapting to new things." She put a hand on his cheek. "But…" She got closer to him. "I could try one more time." She started to kiss him, Quentin hugged her with affection, same as her.
Tech had finished fixing the jetpacks, he, Ace and Slam were on the heliport of A.R.M.'s HQ, on the roof, along with Anne, Peyton and Matt, who stood next to the chopper. "Okay, Matt, where did you locate the tracker?" Ace asked.
Matt sighed. "You are not gonna like this, guys. They are in Quantal."
Ace growled and put both hands over his head. "This must be a joke!" He lowered his arms and tried to calm down. "Well, there's no time to waste then, we'll go there now and take them out!" He hit the palm of his hand with his fist.
"Not so fast, boss." Tech said. "They have Mourn, we must put on our bracelets first to avoid any risks."
Ace sighed. "Of course." He looked at Matt and his team. "You'll need them too." He glared at Tech. "How long will it take you to make them new ones?"
Tech crossed his arms with security. "A couple of minutes."
Ace nodded and activated his jetpack, Slam and Tech did the same. "We'll meet at our HQ, then." He began to hover in front of the three members of A.R.M.
"Alright, Ace." Matt replied. When the Loonatics left, he gestured at Peyton, who nodded and entered the chopper, followed by her boss and Anne.
"Bracelets?" Peyton inquired while lifting the chopper from the ground.
"Mourn can make serious damage to the brain, Peyton." Matt explained. "At least that's what they've told me."
The Eye was being defeated, the street was covered with dead soldiers and destroyed vehicles. Hill was taking cover behind one of those burned trucks. A soldier approached him and crouched next to him. "Sir, they are massacring us!"
Hill sighed. "And what do you want me to do?!" His voice was rather broken. "This is all we got!"
"Call the AHP!" The soldier said. "They can be of great help!" They both had to talk louder as the screams and explosions were continuous.
Hill was hesitant to accept the idea, but he knew there was no other option. He took out his rugged flip phone and marked a three digit number, then waited for a response, which came rapidly.
"Acmetropolis Honorific Police, what's your emergency?" A male voice said.
Hill delayed a bit to answer. "The presidency has been taken over, my men are getting killed, we need your help immediately!"
"Hold on." The man said. "We've tracked down your location, I need you to confi…"
"Gillian's office! Fellow! It's a carnage, we need help now! We need it now!" Hill exclaimed with frustration.
"We are sending you reinforcements. Resist and don't panic, they are on their way." The man ended the communication.
Hill sighed, then looked at the soldier at his side. "They're our only hope now."
"What about the Loonatics? And A.R.M?" The soldier asked.
"Oh, yes." Hill started to get into his feet. "Don't you mention them ever again."
After a few minutes, the AHP arrived at the place of the battle in their green hoverbikes and uniforms, getting behind Hill's remaining vehicles. A woman, who was leading the group, got down the vehicle when spotting Hill, who was hiding on the same place. She took off her helmet and put it over her hoverbike. She was Rebecca Moon, Rev's girlfriend and captain of Acmetropolis Honorific Police. She approached him after a quick rush. "I wish we had met in better circumstances, General." She shook his hand. "Rebecca Moon, captain of the AHP."
"Thank you for coming." Hill said. "German might be in serious danger, we have to enter that tower." He poked his head a bit from the cover to glance at the building's facade, which was being protected by Troy, who took down anyone who tried to enter, helped by Nate and Kyle. "But is impossible."
"Nothing is impossible, General." Rebecca argued. "We just need a plan." She moved a bit to her side and gasped when seeing the three wolves killing the soldiers with a worrying ease. "A very good one." She lowered her gaze a bit and began to think, scratching her chin. She activated her wrist comm. "Get in line before the tower, and activate the shields." She turned to head to her vehicle.
"Shields, what are you doing?" Hill asked.
Rebecca sighed and looked at him. "Gaining time, General." She began to hurry towards her hoverbike, getting on it fast and putting on her helmet, she gestured towards the building and she accelerated followed by her group. The hoverbikes got in line as she had ordered, covering the sidewalk in front of the facade. "Activate the holo-shields!" She commanded and pressed a button on her bike, and from the windscreen a curved, blue hologram displayed, covering a radius of three meters approximately, and with everyone's shields combined, the AHP managed to create a big, holographic cover. "Get off your bikes and follow me, we need to make a plan to infiltrate the building!" She spoke through her comm and got off the vehicle, leaving her helmet there again, her men did so right when hearing the order.
"Help…me!" An injured soldier pleaded, he couldn't move his legs and was dragging himself towards the policemen. "Help!"
Just as that man, several other soldiers were hurt and asking for aid. Rebecca turned on her comm again. "Team Five, take care of the injured." She ordered, and the members of the team she mentioned started to gather where they saw hurt soldiers.
Rev was solving the puzzle of the encryption system, he found out what combinations and sub-processes needed to work in order to open the file, he pressed a hundred lines of code each second, and after a few minutes he managed to break the code. He stopped his super speed and while sighing, he looked at his teammates. "It's done." He glanced at the screen just as them, it displayed the mothership's blueprints, three-dimensional figures of every single mechanism of the ship. He noticed the heating system of the colossal vehicle. "There's our exploit."
"What does that even mean?" Duck raised an eyebrow.
"I could try to control the ship's heating system from here and raise the heat levels gradually with an executable program so we can escape before it gets too hot and explodes." Rev replied.
"I don't understand." Duck insisted.
Lexi sighed by Duck's comment. "If you are sure it will work, go ahead." With that, Rev nodded and started to work on the task, pressing keys and pulling levers. Lexi's ear twitched when hearing growls and steps near the place. "We have company." She said.
"Not again." Duck cooked two orbs over the palms of his hands. "How many? I can easil…" His eyes widened when a big group of reptiles showed up from the shadows. "Well, I could use some help."
Lexi charged her brain blast. "Keep working, Rev!" She began to walk towards the reptiles. "We'll cover you!"
"Okay! Thanks that's very kind from y…" Rev got interrupted.
"Get back to work!" Duck joked, provoking a frown in Rev.
"Loonatics…for your acts against the Seliptir, you will pay with your lives!" The leading reptile said, pointing his spear at them.
"Oh, you know who we are?" Duck juggled his energy orbs. "It seems we are universe-famous!"
"Infamous…I would say." The reptile replied.
"Enough talk…" Lexi shot her brain blast at the reptile's chest, he let out a scream of death and fell to the ground. "…bring it on!"
The reptiles growled with anger after the fall of their leader, they yelled in an unknown language and approached the two Loonatics, several reptiles threw their spears at Lexi, and she turned them into ashes with her blasts. She grinned cockily after the success of her defense. "Throwing away your weapons? Not so smart." She rushed towards them and started to throw kicks and punches at their scaly faces, while Duck surrounded them and took advantage of their distraction with Lexi, throwing orbs at them and hurting them constantly.
"Yeah! Nothing like a good, space-croc barbecue!" Duck teleported constantly to several spots, throwing more and more attacks. "Not my best joke, but it's too late!"
Three reptiles had approached Rev, he noticed so and with a gasp he used his super speed to evade an attack from a spear, which passed a few centimeters by his beak. "Wow so close!" He expressed when grasping the spear with both hands and moving it along with its wielder towards the rest of the reptiles, hitting them and making them to fall, but they recovered fast and found out Rev was nowhere to be seen, then they got hit several times by a quick, red blur. Rev punched them like if they were statues, their snouts moved a bit when he hit them with his fist, over and over, then he knelt their bellies and stopped using his superspeed, stopping right in front of the computer's console, resuming his work while the reptiles fell heavily to the black floor, defeated.
Lexi was brawling the last pair of reptiles, one of them tried to get behind her and trap her neck but she crouched and the reptile grabbed his comrade instead. She rapidly got into her feet and with a jump punched both reptiles' heads, they growled and got stunned, she charged her brain blast and suddenly an orange orb hit them and exploded, a couple of brief screams were heard and then the orangey smoke dissipated and revealed the two scaly soldiers laying on the ground, burned and carbonized.
Lexi grunted at Duck, who was standing next to the reptiles' bodies, with a cocky grin and his arms crossed. "I had them!" She argued.
Duck chuckled. "Maybe I'm just better than you, girl. But don't worry, you did a good job."
Lexi let out a growl. "You just came in the last sec…" She sighed and shook her head, knowing she was just playing Duck's annoying game. "Whatever." She walked towards Rev.
Duck stood there for a moment, then he headed to the console. "Last second? I would call it 'opportunity'." He spoke to himself silently before approaching his comrades.
"How's the task, Rev?" Lexi asked while looking at the confusing symbols that the monitor displayed with Rev's actions.
"I'm figuring it out, but there are so many mechanisms here I'm glad my helmet's screen can correlate any element I want in real time, a simple add-on I installed on it just in case." Rev replied. "Just in my helmet of course, you wouldn't know how to use that function anyway."
"Don't worry, Rev." Duck said. "I'm not offended."
"How long do you think is gonna take y…" Lexi was interrupted.
Rev sighed rather desperate. "I'm not sure!" He exhaled. "Just let me work, guys."
Lexi backed away a bit. "Okay." She responded, making gestures of precaution. "Take your time."
"Thank you." Rev kept working, then he lowered his head and turned to look at Lexi. "I'm sorry, I'm just…very nervous I mean what if I mess everything u…"
"You are doing fine, Rev." Lexi smirked at him. "As I said…we trust you."