Loonatics: United

Episode 56: The Setout

Tech's eyes were teary, his breathing was fast and broken, he clenched his fist over the table and tried to distract his mind by looking at the pub's view of the city. He let out a gasp and a quick exhalation. "Gah!" He took his beer and gave the bottle a long sip, putting it over the table again and breathing in and out with partial relief, looking at Lexi and Ace. "You said they weren't too spicy!" He cleaned some beer from his snout with his arm.

Ace chuckled along with his girlfriend. "Don't blame me, I thought you were going to do just fine."

"Well." Tech moved his plate of wings away from himself. "Maybe I should try something else." He took the menu and started to flip its pages to see what else he could order. "Oh, come on!" He hit the menu gently, but rather upset. "Spicy burger, spicy chips…" He raised an eyebrow, backing his head a bit. "Spicy ice cream sandwich?"

"Oh, that's a good one, actually." Lexi stated.

Tech sighed with disappointment and lowered his head, just as his ears. "It seems I'm not having any dinner tonight." His comment made Ace and Lexi to laugh a bit more loudly.

Meanwhile at HarmNix, the monitor of the lab, which was displaying the view of the microscope that Susan was using, showed two moving, liquid substances, Dan's green blood and the base of the serum that Susan was about to make. She got her eye away from the microscope's eyepiece and looked over her shoulder, Darcy was watching over her, while Dan was sleeping on a chair, with his head resting on a wall. "Need something?" Darcy asked with a straight face, she had her arms crossed and her glare locked on Susan.

Susan glanced at the test tubes on the shelf below the monitor, which had several substances. "No." She replied coldly and briefly stood over the tip of her feet to reach one of the tubes, taking it and removing its cap. She glanced back at Darcy, who just raised an eyebrow at her, Susan then returned her gaze to the microscope and took the pipette at her side, gently putting it inside the tube, getting a couple of drips of the sky blue substance it contained. She looked again through the eyepiece of the microscope, looking at the mixing substances for a moment, she then put the tip of the pipette over the slide that held Dan's blood and the serum, she slowly got her thumb off the pipette's opposite end and with that made the drips to fall gently over the mix on the microscope, spreading and mixing with it. Susan closed the tube and just placed it on the bar along with the pipette. She took the slide carefully and walked towards the machinery at the other side of the bar, Darcy walked that side to keep watching her.

"Is it ready?" Darcy asked.

Susan sighed and took a small cylindrical container from the rack among the machines, taking off its cap and putting the mix there. She closed it again with the cap and held the electronic furnace's handle for a moment, getting her glare lost on the device's opaque black. She finally opened the door, the furnace's internal white lights activated, so Susan put the container with the mix in there then closed the door again, setting the time with the numerical, touch keyboard of the machine. Her hand trembled a bit before getting her finger over the start button, finally pressing it. The furnace began to make processing beeps and sounds of progress, displaying the data of the substance on its surface as if it was a screen.

"Hey…" Darcy walked towards her. "I made you a qu…"

"Three hours." Susan responded, with her gaze still on the furnace's display.

"Three hours?!" Darcy complained, waking up Dan.

Dan stretched and let out a yawn, standing up from the chair. "How's sh…" He yawned again and walked towards them. "…How's she doing?" He rubbed his eyes then approached Susan, looking at the furnace with confusion. "Uhm, what are y...?"

Susan let out another upset sigh. "Your blood needs to merge with the serum properly." She looked at him. "It needs heat for that."

Dan sighed with frustration. "And how long will that take?"

"Th…" Susan was afraid he would get angry for her reply, but she gave it anyway. "Three hours."

Dan's eyes widened, he looked at his sister with disbelief, who just raised her shoulders. "Alright…" He expressed after a sigh, rubbing his face with his hand. "I can wait three hours." Dan walked away from them and went back to his chair, sitting down and putting both hands behind his neck, looking at the illuminated ceiling. "I can wait a bit more." He expressed. "As always."

"Come on, Doc!" Ace was trying to get Tech off his chair in order to take him to the dance floor. "We could win one month of free wings!"

"So?" Tech struggled, as Ace pulled his arm. "You think I want to put my mouth on fire again!"

Lexi chuckled, she was helping Ace out by pushing Tech from his back. "For us, Tech." Lexi pleaded. "We've seen you dancing on the lab many times."

Tech's eyes widened for a moment as he looked at Lexi rather upset. "And who let y..?" He sighed and shook a bit to get free of their hold. "Alright, alright!" He stood up from the chair and dusted off his hands, looking at his comrades with a frown, pointing at them two. "But if this is some sort of joke I'm go…"

Ace let out a friendly chuckle, patting his back. "We are being serious here, Doc." He said. "Come on." He pointed at the pub's inside with his thumb.

The dance floor was a large, black square with changing purple and blue three dimensional designs displaying on its surface, a DJ was managing the console at the bottom, playing more synthwave music, the crowd was already gathering around in wait for the contest. Ace, Lexi and Tech walked between the crowd until reaching the edge of the dance floor, looking at it for a moment. "Wow." Tech studied the moving designs. "Looks…good, I guess." He gulped a bit when seeing all the crowd around the floor then looked at Ace while scratching his nape. "Uhm, boss, maybe this is not a g…"

"Tech." Lexi glanced at him with warning and a subtle smirk. "We are not gonna let you go until you win those wings."

Tech sighed. "And if I don't win?"

"Come on, Doc." Ace said. "These guys are just amateurs, you are gonna do fin…" His ears twitched when the lights got even more dimmer and the DJ, a gray furred fox, spoke with the mic. "Alright good people how are you doing tonight here at 'The Station'?!" The crowd yelled as a reply. "That's right! And it'll get way, way better because we are receiving a special guest here at our traditional dance contest!" He pointed at his side. "And here comes...right from the Aervium colony…winner of the inter-colonial dancing tournament…three years in a row…Hanson 'The Tornado' Baxter!" A shadowed figure jumped onto the dance floor and landed with a crouch taking of his hat and holding it with his arm pointing backwards, the lights then went to their former bright and revealed the orange furred otter, who wore a white suit, just as his shoes and hat, he then glared at the crowd and got fully up, raising his arms and thanking the applauses and screams with a couple of reverences.

"Well..." Tech glanced at Ace and Lexi with a straight face. "...you can say goodbye to your wings now."