I don't own Loonatics Unleashed

Enjoy!


Ace attempted to reach out to Lexi on his telecommunicator but when she failed to pick up, there was only one logical thing that came to his mind. Lexi was in trouble. He leaned closer to the handles of the Zoomatrix and accelerated the speed. He wasn't going to let Lexi fall prey to that woman. Of course, he knew that Lexi was more than able to take care of herself, but he couldn't help worrying for her. "Just hang in there Lexi," Ace mumbled to himself, "we're gonna get you outta there."

Once the Loonatics reached the outskirts of the city, they were surrounded by a bunch of leafless trees. Perhaps this was going to be another part that the committee was going to volunteer in after the park but the way things had been going, no one wanted to step foot outside of the city and into an area where it was potentially hazardous.

Ace halted his Zoomatrix and took off his helmet. He thought that it was better to stop in a section of the forest where no one would be able to spot them. He looked at his teammates and debated whether it would be a good idea to have them split up. If they went as a group, it would make them more vulnerable to be spotted. If they were to split up individually, it would also make them vulnerable. The only choice he had was to break the team into pairs of three. That way if anything was to happen, one of the heroes would have the upper hand in saving the other.

"Tech and Rev," Ace said, "you guys taken the west side of the forest. Slam and Miranda, you guys take the east. Duck, come with me. And keep your eyes peeled for a cottage. The moment you see it, call us."

The heroes nodded their heads as they spilt up in the directions that Ace gave them. Duck rolled his eyes and walked over to Ace. He didn't appreciate the fact that Ace wasn't giving him a chance to lead. He acted like he had already secured the role of being the team leader. Another thing that irked him was that he wasn't paired up with Miranda. What was Slam going to do if they ran into trouble? Duck thought that, even though Slam had a wrestling career in his past, he was hopeless. "Let's get this over with," Duck simply said to Ace and walked away from him.

Ace raised an eyebrow at Duck's attitude. This wasn't a mission to just 'get it over with.' One of their teammates was in trouble and Duck's attitude was starting to get on Ace's last nerve. He didn't know how long it would take for him to remain calm and collected, but he just had to for his own sake and the team. Letting out a sigh and a shake of his head, Ace went ahead and followed Duck. He wasn't going bother asking the mallard what was going on with him. It was either going to be a 'nothing' or a 'none of your business.' In the end of this, Ace wasn't the member that he needed to impress. It was Zadavia and Ace was glad that she had the ability to reprimand Duck.

Duck pushed away a tree branch and Ace was quick enough to dodge from it before it hit him on the forehead. The rabbit sent him a glare but kept quiet about it. After a long while of walking, Ace stopped in his tracks when they reached a creek. "Any idea of where we're going?" Ace broke the silence between them.

That questioned seemed to have trapped Duck. "Y-Yes," he answered him, "I've been in this forest plenty of times during my scouting days. I know where I'm going."

"Uh-huh," Ace sarcastically agreed with him, "sure. Did those scouting days include stopping by a creek and staring at it for five minutes?"

Duck clenched his hand into a fist and tried his best to control his anger. "You think you're so clever, don't you?" Duck said to him.

Ace halted in his tracks and sent Duck a glare. Out of all the days where they could be having this argument, it had to be when one of their teammates was in trouble. He watched as Duck proceeded to walk a couple of feet ahead of him before he found himself stuck. "Pretty clever to watch where I'm going," Ace answered him and approached Duck only to see that he was stuck in quicksand.

Quicksand in the middle of the forest? Who knew that something like that was possible or if this witch decided to booby trap the whole forest.

Duck looked down and saw that he was slowly sinking in the quicksand. He felt a rush of panic through his veins as he looked at how fast he was sinking. "A little help here!" he exclaimed towards Ace, but also tried his hardest to remain calm.

Ace looked at his surroundings until his eyes fell on a sturdy tree branch. He held the branch towards Duck for him to hold on and the mallard grabbed it as soon as it was within his reach. Using all the strength that he could, Ace walked backwards and pulled Duck out of the quicksand and into solid ground. Duck slowly got up from the ground, finally finding his breath, and slowly stood up to his feet.

"In case you were wondering, I wasn't scared," Duck stated to him and removed the imaginary dust from his arm.

Ace stifled a grin and gave Duck a nod of his head. "You scared? Never," the rabbit replied to him with a shake of his head and then took the lead himself. He could feel that Duck probably sent him a glare.


Miranda kept herself close to Slam as the two of them walked through the dark forest. She didn't want to admit it, but she was glad that she was with Slam and not with Duck. She couldn't believe how he had become these past couple of days ever since she had joined the team. At least with Slam he was able to offer her some form of protection but also led her take charge when it was needed. "You would think it's easy to find a witch's cottage," she spoke up as she removed a branch that was in their way.

Slam nodded his head to her in agreement and commented that she was quite the clever witch to hide herself so well within the forest. It took for a moment for Miranda to understand what he meant, but she nodded her head to him in agreement.

"But not as clever as us," Miranda said to him. The two of them suddenly came upon a flowing creek which was a bit wide for them to cross. "We need a little bridge for this," the female duck said as she looked around to see what she could find. Right across from them, there was a gargantuan log. Miranda focused her eyes upon the branch and with as much concentration that she could muster, the log lifted from the ground and floated towards them and landed with a thud.

The ground shook beneath their feet and Slam rubbed his ears from the noise. "Ow…" he groaned.

"Sorry," Miranda said, "I guess I need to work on the landing a little bit. Can you cut this in half so we can walk over it?"

"Uh-huh," Slam nodded his head to her. He used all his strength to easily pick up the log and he jumped in the air and karate chopped the log in half. Taking one half of the log, he placed it across the creek and adjusted it so it was straight across.

"Beautiful," Miranda commented with a nod of her head. "Let's go!" she ran towards the log and balanced as best as she could. Slam followed her and held his hands out in front of him in case she was to fall.

Once they made it through, Slam looked up and pointed at two familiar teammates. "Rev and Tech!" he exclaimed.

Miranda followed his finger and brightened when she noticed the roadrunner and the coyote. "Guys!" she yelled and they both ran over to them. "Any luck finding the cottage?"

"Rev thinks he's picked up something," Tech pointed out. He looked over at a device that he had constructed that showed a layout of the forest. "And he was able to pick it up before this thing did." He slapped the device to the side, annoyed that it couldn't work. "We have to alert Duck and Ace to meet us by the west side of the forest."

"I'll-give-them-a-quick-call," Rev offered as he contacted Ace. Once the rabbit popped up on the small screen, Rev explained to him where they should meet the team. "They're-not-too-far-from-here!" Rev said.

After a couple of minutes of waiting, Ace and Duck appeared and joined the group. "Alright Rev," Ace said, "lead the way."

"According-to-my-GPS," Rev began, "if-we-are-to-head-in-that-direction-we'd-be-able-to-make-it-to-the-cottage-in-less-that-twelve-seconds."

"Maybe for you," Miranda said to him. "Ooh, maybe you can head over there and we'll catch up with you?"

Ace furrowed his eyebrows in what Miranda was proposing. It sounded like a very risky tactic, especially when one of their teammates was in a vulnerable position. "Eh, I don't know about that," he said to her, "what if the witch sees him? He's gonna need backup if something was to happen."

"No," Miranda shook her head, "I was thinking that maybe he can try and save Lexi and by the time we catch up with him, we'll take out the witch."

So, it sounded like a plan to use Rev as bait and distract the witch. Ace didn't know how to feel about that. They didn't know what they were up against and putting Rev in danger like that was not the proper way of saving Lexi. "I think we should all stick together," Ace said, "it's gonna be one of her against the us. One of us can keep her distracted while the other saves Lexi."

Tech gave Ace a nod of his head. "I agree," he said to the group, "we don't want her to have the advantage."

Upon that agreement, the rest of the group followed Rev as he took them towards a cottage that was deeper in the forest. "That's-the-one!" Rev pointed out as the group headed towards it.

Ace held his arm out in front of the team and motioned for each member to take a section of the house. It would be more effective than all six of them barging in there. "Find whatever windows you can and on my count, we all jump inside."

The idea of glass tearing through her uniform and feathers did not sound at all pleasing. A shiver went down Miranda's spine at the thought of it but being a hero came with sacrifices and sacrificing Lexi for the better of her feathers was an idea that should've never crossed her mind. As she was about to take one section of the cottage, she felt someone grabbing her hand. Turning around, she wasn't surprised to see that it was Duck and she rolled her eyes.

"Be careful," he simply said to her before taking a section of the cottage.

It was an unexpected, yet sweet, gesture. She hoped that it finally went through his head that she was able to take care of herself. "You too," she said and then walked around the cottage, taking her place at the backside of the house and waited for Ace's count.

Ace stood on the left side of the cottage and the moment he counted to three, all the Loonatics smashed through the windows. Duck wound up in the small living room, Miranda was in the bedroom, Slam had smashed through the basement, Tech found himself in a library, Rev rolled inside the restroom, and Ace had smashed through the kitchen where he found Lexi tied up on a chair and Myrtle standing right next to her.

"Let her go!" Ace demanded as he looked at her. For a witch, she looked quite youthful but he dared not think how she was able to do that.

Myrtle chuckled as she held a dagger on Lexi's throat. "One more step and the rabbit becomes stew," she warned him.

"Take a step?" Ace asked her, "nah, I was thinking something more like this." He shot laser beams out of his eyes but the moment that he did, Myrtle deflected his attack with a power of her own.

Another chuckle escaped her lips as she looked at him. "Silly little rabbit. You think that your powers are a match against me?"

"No," a voice said behind her and she turned around to see Tech and the rest of the team behind him. "But it's no match for the six of us!"

"Oh, would you look at that," Myrtle said, "looks like the whole group decided to join the party. How quaint. I wouldn't take a step if I were you."

"Ha!" Duck chortled upon that statement, "what're you going to do? Hit us with your wand?"

Not all witches carried wands. One of the greatest things about being a witch was that powers always came from within. She held out her manicured fingers towards the group and flung a fireball towards their direction. The group immediately dispersed as the fireball ricocheted from the window and was absorbed back in the witch's palm. It was going to be quite the challenge going up against these six superheroes, but that didn't mean that she was going to play fair. Raising her arms up in the air, she recited a spell.

Duck took this as his opportunity and threw a orb towards her only to have his attack deflect. Duck didn't have the chance to react and the power orb hit him right in the face, sending him tumbling towards a wall. He felt a small bottle from the shelf falling onto him but he didn't take the opportunity to read what it said. "Ugh," he commented and shook his head. "Hit by my own power, hey!" he yelled when he felt his arm being grabbed. He stood face to face with, what looked like, a walking corpse as he was held in place.

The bottle rolled towards Rev's foot as he quickly picked it up. 'Antidote' it read and he quickly handed the bottle over to Tech for safe keeping. Now it was time to deal with these zombies that had come back to life.

Ace couldn't believe how vicious a person could be. Not only to take these victims and steal their beauty, but to also bring them back to life and use them as a weapon. Ace hated doing this, but it was the only way for survival. He dodged one of the attacks from the zombie that he was up against and attacked it with his laser beams. It wasn't such a great sight to behold. The moment that the laser beam hit the zombie, the body was disintegrated into a pile of ash. He looked over when he noticed Duck struggling with his attacker. The zombie had him pinned to the ground to the point where Duck couldn't move. Ace focused his eyes on the target and hit him with the laser beams, freeing Duck from the trap.

Myrtle noticed that those zombies were not a match against the Loonatics. She peeked over on her shelf and grabbed a glass jar that threw it on the floor. The glass broke to pieces and the whole cottage was surrounded by bats. Their high-pitched squeaks caused the Loonatics to stop fighting and place their hands over their ears as they were hit in the face with the wings of the bats.

"Slam!" Ace yelled at the Tasmanian devil, "a little cyclone action would be helpful!"

Slam was thinking about doing that. He spun his body around and vacuumed as many bats as he could and geared them outside of the cottage. It took him about three trips to get all of them out and once he did, the only things that were left in the cottage were just them. A little bat squeaked as it had itself tangled into Miranda's hair and she swatted the chiroptera away from her.

It had been quite the effective attack because both Myrtle and Lexi were gone. Ace gritted his teeth as he looked at the place where Lexi had originally stood. He couldn't believe that he had been so distracted by those zombies that he didn't reach out to save her. Ace looked down at his arm and pressed on the telecommunicator button, in hopes that she would answer. He wondered whether they ought to spilt up once more but it was going to take them forever to find them, especially now that it was completely dark. He then felt his telecommunicator beeping and immediately answered it. However, he did not see Lexi's image on the screen but a blade of grass. His breath caught in his throat when he saw that, but he was relieved when he heard her voice.


Lexi was transported out of the cottage and deeper into the forest. Where she was being taken, she had no clue. She wiggled as she much as she could to get out of the ropes. The wings from those bats had made a bit of damage but to no avail for her to get out. She was thrown onto the grass as Myrtle walked away from her, looking calm considering what had happened. With the witch's back turned on her, Lexi had slammed her arm onto the ground, in hopes to press one of the communicator buttons to get to Ace.

"Why don't you just give up?" Lexi said to her, "it's not like you're going to defeat any of us."

"Defeat you?" Myrtle asked as she then turned around and looked at the female rabbit. "No, no, no that's not part of my plan. You, my pretty, and all your little friends possess something that all witches wish they had."

Lexi knew what she was talking about. It was the source of their powers and how she was going to get them, Lexi feared that she and her friends would wind up the same way as those victims whose essence had been taken away. With those powers combined, she was going to be unstoppable. "Isn't your magic enough?" she asked.

"To take over Acmetropolis and the rest of the world? I'm afraid not," Myrtle responded, "but not to worry my dear." She knelt in front of Lexi and placed the back of her hand behind Lexi's head and bought her face towards her, "I will make this as painless as possible."

"Step away from her!" came Ace's voice as Myrtle let go of Lexi and jumped out of the way.

Duck teleported right next to Lexi, grabbing her, and then teleporting back to where he was.

"The only one that's going to be defeated here is you!" Ace pointed towards the witch and didn't give her a moment to respond when laser beams shot out of his eyes.

It was such a quick attack that Myrtle clumsily deflected the laser beams with her magic. She placed her hands on as many trees as she could find in her perimeter and they became animated. The trees removed themselves from the ground and headed towards the Loonatics, whilst shooting twigs towards their direction.

Slam created a cyclone between the trees and the Loonatics, causing the twigs to be deflected away from them.

Duck threw his power orbs towards the trees, whilst Lexi brain blasted as many as she could.

Miranda flipped in the air as she tried to dodge as many attacks as she could. In front of her was a rock and using as much energy as she could, she levitated the rock towards the trees in a swift motion, sending them back.

It was against Rev's judgement to use fire against these withered trees. He had many trees chasing him and Tech used his magnetic manipulation to find whatever metal object he could to trap those trees.


Ace chased Myrtle through the forest. From all that youthful essence that she had gained from her victims, she was quite fast but not as fast as he was. Suddenly, Ace jumped towards a tree branch and swung from one to the other and flipped right in front of her, stopping her in her path. "What's up, witch?" he smirked as he looked at her. "You ain't goin' anywhere."

Myrtle took a step back from him. She looked behind her and there was a creek that was blocking her path. If she was to take the left or the right, Ace would be blocking her escape route.

"Why don't you make this easier on yourself and give yourself in?" Ace suggested, "it's gonna make it a whole lot easier on all of us."

"No," Myrtle smirked as she then bought her two fingertips close to her lips and let out a loud whistle.

Ace was quick enough to pick up on what was coming. The moment he caught sight of the broom that was coming towards her, he shot his laser beams towards the broom and saw it disintegrate into dust. Even though she had no escape route, she still had those powers which made Ace on high alert. As she raised her arm towards him, Ace quickly ran up to her and grabbed her wrist and pulled it down. "Not tonight, you witch," he said to her.

"Oh," Myrtle said with a pout as she looked at him, "and I was hoping that we would have a moment to dance together." She used as much of her strength as she could to push Ace off her. It was a feeble attempt, but enough for her to escape his grip.

She surely didn't know how to fight but Ace was not going to be fair in this situation. She had almost hurt Lexi and he wasn't going to be forgiving about that. That smirk that she had upon her lips, that youthful look that she had attained from her victims. He couldn't believe how vicious a person could be. "You wish," he said towards her comment as he sent his fist towards her.

She bought her hands towards her fact and felt her hands vibrating the moment that Ace hit her. She stumbled backwards and then was hit by his foot. She staggered backwards and lost her balance, falling inside the creek. A high-pitched screech echoed throughout the forest and Ace couldn't believe what he had done. He watched as the witch practically melted inside the water, leaving nothing but the robes that she wore.

Letting out a sigh, Ace placed his hands over his head and knelt on the ground. He couldn't believe that he had let his anger consume him to the point where he had caused the death of this being. He quickly gathered himself and stood up on his feet to head back to the group. When he arrived, he saw that the trees that had come to life by Myrtle's magic had disappeared and his teammates were fine.

Upon seeing him, Lexi ran towards the rabbit. "Ace are you okay?" she asked him.

"I'm fine," Ace answered. He couldn't find the will to look at her after what he had just done.

"What happened to the witch?" Tech asked him.

Ace took a deep breath. "She's gone. She won't be bothering anyone anymore."

Lexi looked at Ace when he said such a cryptic response. What did he mean by that? The high-pitched screech that she and the rest of the team had heard, was that associated with what Ace had just said?

"Ace-Ace!" Rev zipped towards him and held the antidote bottle in front of him. "Look-at-this!-Maybe-we-can-use-this-on-the-trees-that-we-planted-earlier-and-turn-the-soil-to-its-original-state."

Ace gently took the bottle from Rev and looked at it. "Perhaps we ought to consult this with someone that knows more about this than to go ahead and use it. I would rather avoid another…" he didn't even know what to call it, "situation like this."

Tech walked towards Ace and took a hold of the bottle. "I'll reach out to someone at the university about this."

Ace gave the coyote a nod of his head. Now that this mission was over, the only thing left to do was head back to HQ and try to put this whole thing behind him.