Loonatics: United

Episode 62: Theft At The Summit

Acmetropolis Technology Summit had begun, the ninth floor of the Zyrax Tower was filled with stands from different institutes and laboratories, making demonstrations of their latest inventions. Translucent, hanging screens displayed digital posters of the event and the panels that were programmed for that day, as well as some advertisements from the summit's sponsors. There were lots of people at the event, almost covering the dark blue carpet completely with their curious steps, the sunlight of the midday illuminated the event well through the large windows of the building. The scientists weren't too excited with the stuff they were seeing there, but the casual goers got fascinated with every stand they walked by, the things shown there varied from vehicle turbines to trash powered assistance robots, every stand was very clean and organized, just as every aspect of the event.

The stage for the panelists was located almost at the bottom of the place, facing several rows of foldable chairs. Behind the stage's automatic, steel covered curtains, the main attraction of the summit was hidden inside a crystal box covered with a dark cloth, it was an exosuit, white, with blue details on its design, with hydraulic machines on the feet, the arms and legs were covered by blue shells, which served as additional protection, as containers of the suit's own functionalities as well as aesthetic complements. The helmet's face shield was orange colored. Two antennas that looked quite like feline ears were located on the helmet.

Suddenly, the cloth was retired. "Here you are." The young male lemur murmured after unveiling the suit. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt. He looked at the suit with admiration for a moment, then he noticed that the transparent box that kept it had a password panel. The lemur chuckled while shaking his head. He approached the panel and looked at his sides cautiously then took out a small device from his pocket, yellow and square shaped, with a touch lightning icon on it. He carefully attached the device to the panel, as it had tiny suckers on its bottom. He then touched the icon and after three beeps, some electricity briefly covered the panel and then the glass box. The door then opened smoothly and the lemur celebrated silently, because no alarm sounded as he had planned, so he took back his shocking device and then entered a bit in the cage. He placed both hands on the suit and carried it with great effort, managing to take it out of the box. After placing it over the black, wooden floor of the backstage, he recovered his breath, cleaning his forehead. He then started to study the suit, occasionally looking back with caution. The lemur kept touching the suit until he found its main console on the right arm's shell, a touch panel with several functions. He pressed the most obvious one, the 'on' button. The suit's cyan lights activated, being displayed from the symmetrical patterns that adorned it, as well as the illuminated circle on the chest zone.

The lemur gasped with excitement when the suit started to open from the inside, to let a pilot enter. That pilot would be him as he stepped in the suit with no hesitation. When the suit felt him, it began to close again, adapting to his height and complexion. "Woah." The lemur expressed when the graphics, lectures and options started to display on the face shield's inside. "Alright." He said to himself, already noticing the subtle, rounded cursor on the screen that moved with his eyes' movements. He saw an icon with the word 'weapons' on it. "Weapons…on." He felt some gentle shocks on the palms of his hands, he looked at them and gasped when seeing the two electric spheres hovering over them, safely over the suit's blue gloves. "Awesome." He closed his fists and the spheres disappeared when opening his hands, he then closed them again and reopened them, the spheres returned. "Now this is intuitive." The lemur made the spheres to disappear again. "Now I just need to get out of here." He selected the 'impulse' option with his glare. The hydraulic systems of the suit's feet activated and he suddenly jumped very high, breaking the backstage's weak plastic ceiling. "Woah!" As he was unprepared, the lemur landed not so gracefully over his side, on the floor's carpet next to the chairs, groaning and trying to get up. "Damage report…" He said, getting no response whatsoever. He sighed while slowly getting into his feet. "Oh well I had to try." He found the option he was looking for with his glare and the face shield's corner displayed zero percent. "Right." He chuckled with relief. "This holds up."

"Hey! What you think you're doing?!" A security guard yelled at him, hitting his baton against his palm menacingly. He was a doberman dog.

"Uhm…" The lemur's eyes were wide, as he had no idea on how to reply the question. "Nothing…"

The guard growled and got his wrist comm close to his snout. "Beta-five here, we got a situation."

The lemur sighed, crouching and looking at the windows at the other side of the place. "I guess it works this w…" He jumped and the systems impulsed the suit again, making him to get nearly five meters over the air, he now planned his landing better and therefore landed safely between the crowd, who yelled with amazement.

"Oh, it's a surprise panel!" A female, purple dressed wolf exclaimed with excitement.

"No!" The guard approached the lemur while shaking his baton. "It's a theft!" He tried to hit him but the lemur reacted soon enough to jump again, this time higher as he had crouched for a couple more seconds. He landed again now closer to the windows.

"I hope there are cars hovering outside." The lemur noticed an elevator a few meters ahead. "Or maybe jus…" His eyes widened when seeing the half a dozen guards exiting from its doors, all of them with guns. He sighed. "The dangerous way then. That's great." The lemur crouched again, holding his jump, as he needed a powerful impulse to reach for the windows. The guards started to shoot at him, creating panic in the crowd that began to leave the place with screams of fear. The lemur decided to finally jump towards the windows, the lasers barely damaged the suit's metallic surface. He got his fists right before the glass, breaking it and successfully exiting the building, he fell for a couple of seconds, then with one hand he held from the bottom of a self driving car, gray with green lines, as it was a traffic report vehicle.

A red suited panther was raging in the now ruined event, Acmetropolis Technology Summit had just been canceled. "You let him stole my suit!" The panther pointed at the guards with a frown. "Do you have any idea on how much quasar linium it's worth?!" The guards didn't say a word, the panther sighed and took out his phone, looking for a contact. "I guess I'll have to call the freaks then."

The lemur was now over the vehicle, kneeling over one knee. "Now that was easy." He spoke to himself while glaring at the buildings, remaining that way for a couple of minutes.

"Hey!" A male voice exclaimed from behind, the lemur looked over his shoulder and his eyes widened when finding out it was Ace Bunny and his team, flying with their jetpacks. "Yes, you!"

"Didn't your mom tell you that stealing is wrong?" Duck was already menacing him with two cooked orbs.

The lemur thought fast, looking down, calculating the fall towards the vehicles that transited there. He jumped with no more hesitation and landed heavily on a red flying car, the middle aged jaguar who was driving it let out a scream of fright when looking up and seeing the Lemur crouching on the glass of the car. The lemur knocked the glass and pointed at the front while looking at the man, who just nodded with doubt and kept driving on that direction.

"Don't lose sight of him, Loonatics!" Ace commanded and flew downwards followed by the rest.

"He stole that from the Summit?" Tech chuckled. "That means we'll get him in no time."

"Why?" Lexi asked.

"Because that place only has trash." Tech answered.

"By trash you mean, anything not made by you?" Lexi inquired, looking at him with a subtle smirk.

"Maybe." Tech responded.

The lemur was looking at his sides, trying to find another path to get away from the Loonatics. Moments later, he noticed the car was approaching 'The Void', one of the most innovative commercial areas of Acmetropolis, aesthetically speaking. 'The Void' consisted in a large bridge that was surrounded by a huge, cylindrical, transparent blue screen, which continuously displayed animated advertisements that rotated on the inside for the pedestrians to watch while walking over the bridge, the screen also had doors that led to different stores on the annex buildings, the advertisements could also be seen from the outside, albeit the other way around. When being right over The Void's entrance, the lemur knocked the glass of the car again and gave the driver a thumbs up then he jumped and landed over the bridge's starting point next to the elevators that led to it, among some people who just let out gasps of astonishment. The lemur just kept escaping, running and rapidly getting in the tunnel conformed by the cylindrical screen, inevitably looking at some of the advertisements.

Ace turned right and headed to the same place just as his teammates. The Loonatics then entered the tunnel too, flying over the black, mate finished metallic bridge, below the advertisements.

"Oh look! There are discounts on t…" Duck got interrupted.

"Focus, Duck!" Ace exclaimed.

"I was just saying…" Duck expressed.

The lemur was repeatedly looking over his shoulder, the Loonatics were approaching him fast so he crouched and with that he jumped high again, then landed several meters ahead, then he repeated the action, managing to gain some distance.

"Oh no, you're not…" Rev smirked cockily and lowered himself down then landed on the bridge's surface and deactivated his jetpack, immediately starting to use his superspeed.

The lemur was still jumping and landing. He stopped for a second then got strongly hit by a red blur, he fell down and groaned by the heaviness of the suit. He opened one eye while still laying on the ground and saw Rev looking at him with his arms crossed. He groaned again and got into his feet, selecting the 'weapons' icon with his eyes. The electric spheres reappeared over the palms of his hands. "I don't want to hurt you, believe me." The lemur told Rev.

Ace and the rest arrived and deactivated their jetpacks after landing behind Rev. Ace began to walk towards the lemur. "We can do this the easy way, or t…" He gasped when dodging the orb the lemur had thrown at him with no warning.

"Just let me go, Loonatics!" The lemur prepared a new orb. "You don't understand!"

"Yes we do." Lexi said. "You stole a supersuit, and we are here to stop you."

"Come on." Ace took a couple more steps towards the lemur. "Don't make this more difficult."

The lemur selected the tracking function of the suit, having the six heroes' movements tracked down on the view of the face shield. "I'm sorry, Loonatics." He threw the first two spheres at Ace and Lexi, managing to hit them. They began to get electrocuted, screaming by the pain, getting over their knees, he rapidly jumped as Rev had run towards him, he landed and turned, having cooked another pair of electric orbs, he threw one at Rev and managed to hit him, making him to start screaming by the intense pain. Slam roared at him and started to approach him with his tornado, the lemur threw the sphere at him and Slam stopped using his ability, kneeling down while groaning and getting surrounded by electricity. Tech was flying with his jetpack, trying to manipulate some metallic objects he was sensing, but the lemur cooked another pair of orbs and threw them both, one of them hit Tech, making his jetpack to deactivate, and the other hit Duck, who had just teleported next to him. The lemur stood there, seeing how they were all being electrocuted, then he just kept running, managing to get away.