Loonatics: United
The Wrath of Tenebrous
Episode 113: The visit
Ace was sleeping, in the silence and the darkness of the night, embracing a pillow, breathing calmly. A great scandal began to sound from the outside, alarms, screams, sirens, it became louder gradually, until it woke him up. "Wha..?" His ear twitched, listening to the loud noises. He rapidly got off his bed and exited his room, gasping while approaching the large window of the lounge, seeing several fires, patrols flying all over the place and a huge, black ship hovering from afar.
People ran and screamed on the streets, with great fear and confusion, being attacked and killed by unknown outlanders. A young male bear fell down while trying to escape from one of those people, he looked terrified at the white eyed panther, who was wearing brown robes. "Please! Let m..!" Before the bear could keep begging for his life, the panther jumped at him like a wild beast, biting his face several times, making the bear bleed and scream until killing him.
Rebecca flew on her hover-bike between the running people and the hordes of enemies that were chasing them. "They seem to be out of their minds!" The raccoon said through her comm.
"What makes you think that?" Her comrade said from the other side of the line.
A female caracal jumped onto her vehicle and tried to bite her arm, screaming beastly, but she rapidly hit her jaw with her elbow, then hit her face with the front of her helmet, making the crazed caracal fall down from the hover-bike. She looked at the fallen woman for a moment, noticing her outlandish looks, she had large, gray elliptical earrings and wore a white dress with gray halos adorning it, with a symbol on the back. "Just a thought." Rebecca looked back to the front.
The Loonatics had suited up, they flew with their jetpacks over the city, looking at the mayhem that was occurring. "What the heck are they doing?!" Duck expressed as he saw a group of outlanders tackling and biting a pair of pedestrians.
Ace spotted several trucks of A.R.M. over the top of a parking lot, where the soldiers of the aforementioned organization had placed barricades on all the entrances and exits of the lot. "I guess we have a lot to figure out." He flew down towards the parking lot, along with his comrades.
Matt was talking through his comm. "Peyton, have you spotted any entrance to that ship?" The wolf asked.
Peyton Pussycat was piloting a black, weaponized chopper with the A.R.M. logo printed on it. "Affirmative. The pods are coming from some…platforms on the sides, I'm sure that's our way in."
"Alright, thanks for the info." Matt replied. "Stay up there, Peyton, just be careful."
"Always." Peyton ended the call.
Anne approached Matt. "Any sign of them?" The tigress inquired.
"I haven't s…" Matt was interrupted by the arrival of the Loonatics. "Oh…"
"Hey there!" Ace landed as well as his comrades, then they deactivated their jetpacks. "Wanted all the fun for yourselves?"
Matt chuckled. "Good to see you, as always."
Ace glanced at one of the soldiers, the wolf was firing a turret at the wild outlanders that ran on the street while chasing and attacking people, killing them with precision. "Where do these guys come from?"
Matt sighed. "We still don't know."
"And that ship?" Tech pointed at the enormous black ship in the sky.
"We've been trying to determine it's origin, but its systems are well encrypted." Matt answered.
"We found a way in, though." Anne said. "Well, Peyton did."
Slam growled with concern.
"Yes, she's fine, big guy." Anne replied.
"We have to get in, then." Ace said with conviction. "That's how we'll get answers." He glared down at the street, seeing how the outlanders caused fear and madness.
"We'll deal with them, Ace." Matt placed a hand on his shoulder, gesturing upwards. "You enter that ship."
"How?" Lexi inquired.
"These…outlanders are landing on pods, which come from several platforms on the ship. We believe that's the way in." Matt replied.
"Alright, Loonatics." Ace looked upwards and activated his jetpack. "Let's jet!"
Meanwhile, the Maniacs were heading to the ship as well, on their hoverboards. "So, what's the plan?" Edison asked Vale.
"We'll improvise!" Vale responded.
"This is a bad idea!" Akinyi opined.
"I didn't ask for your opinion!" Vale exclaimed.
The Maniacs reached the roof of the ship, landing there and getting off their boards. "Okay." Vale said while taking careful steps to the front. "Now, we just gotta find a…" His eyes widened when a swarm of drones appeared all of a sudden. "Well, after dealing with those."
Akinyi cracked her fingers. "Piece of cake." She rushed towards the swarm of spherical drones, followed by her comrades. She turned into a cloud as soon as the drones began to shoot at them. Vale made two copies of himself appear and made them run in random directions, confusing several groups of drones. Randy ran with his super speed and jumped to stand on one of the drones, he broke its vision system with a pair of punches, he then hopped on another one, avoiding the almost static laser shots carefully, doing the same to that drone, and so on.
Edison dodged the shots with graceful jumps and quick movements. He stood firmly before a big group of drones, then let out a powerful roar, disintegrating them instantly. Vale was evading the shots and tackles of the drones, using his holographic copies as a distraction while punching and kicking the drones that got at his reach. "There are too many of them! Maybe we sh…" He gasped when seeing even more drones coming from an aperture. "Damn it."
Akinyi was messing with the electronics of a group of drones, which started to malfunction and throw sparks, then they exploded one by one. Akinyi went back to her normal form and landed gracefully on one knee, standing up after that. "How are we gonna get in?!"
"You can't." Ace said while arriving with his jetpack, along with his teammates, landing among the Maniacs.
"All the platforms are blocked with a force shield." Tech explained. "We just checked."
Vale crossed his arms while looking at him with a straight face. "And what do you suggest?"
"Well, luckily enough, our friend here can teleport us there." Tech placed a hand on Duck's shoulder.
"Oh, yeah. But I'm not takin´ the hand of any of these brats." Duck replied.
"The only brats I see here are you, Loonatics." Edison said with an upset tone.
Randy sighed. "Can't we just..?" Vale looked at him, as well as Edison and Akinyi. "Uhm…"
"What?" Vale inquired.
"Go ahead, amigo." Akinyi hit his arm gently and amicably.
"Well, we should better get in already, instead of arguing." Randy opined. "Just saying." He looked away while rubbing his arm.
Ace looked at him with assent. "The kid's right." He looked at his teammates, then switched his gaze to the Maniacs. "Are we doing this or what?"
Edison sighed. "Just make it fast, please."
"We better do as those things don't seem to be waiting." Rev pointed at the great swarm of drones that were approaching them hostilely.
"Okay, quick! Take hands everyone!" Duck took Lexi and Ace's hands, then the rest took hands between their comrades and the Maniacs. "At the count of three…one…two…three!"
They were still on the same spot. "Uhm…Duck?" Tech asked.
"Maybe I wasn't focused." Duck replied.
"Incredible…" Vale expressed.
"Shut up and let me focus!" Duck took a deep breath then exhaled. "Okay, one…two…three!" Nothing happened. "Shoot! Damn it!" He looked at Tech. "I can't get in, something is…blocking the way."
Tech sighed. "There must be an advanced system of sorts that prevents the matter to transfer into the ship from another place."
"So, he can't get us in, right?" Vale inquired.
"Indeed." Tech replied, getting shot on the shoulder by a drone. "Gah!"
"And what do we do now?!" Edison asked, turning rapidly and roaring at a great group of drones, disintegrating them.
Ace looked at one of the pods, which was laying on the rooftop of a nearby building and then flew back towards the big ship and connected to it. "That's our way in." He pointed at it, then it flew back down, landing on the same building. More outlanders came out from it afterwards.
"The zombie-bus? No thanks." Duck crossed his arms.
"Got a better idea?" Ace looked at him while raising an eyebrow.
"Well…uhm…maybe…" Duck scratched his head then sighed. "…give me some time…"
Tech sighed. "The pod will be."
Ace nodded then activated his jetpack and flew down towards the pod, followed by his comrades.
"Let's go." Vale commanded, pressing his wrist, calling his hoverboard with that and getting on it.
"Wait, are they calling the shots now?" Edison inquired with a frown on his face.
"I'm the one who calls the shots here, Ed." Vale pointed down. "And my command is to follow them and get in the pod, that's all."
Edison rolled up his eyes while shrugging. "Same thing."