I don't own Loonatics Unleashed
A/N: I would like to point out to a few things:
First, thank you very much for all of the reviews! I greatly appreciate each and every one of them.
Second, I have updated two of my chapters: In Chapter 9, it was bought to my attention that Duck's age was more than I intended for him to be. I adjusted the birth and death dates of his parents and Duck's age should be twenty-two, according to this story. Thank you for letting me know about that, Angel of Light 867!
Lastly, in Chapter 76, I completely disregarded Andrea and Hunter being at Lexi's birthday party. So I just added their presence there without interfering with the rest of the chapter.
Enjoy!
The past couple of days had been a blur for the team. With Duck recovering from his possession, Ace was trying to figure out who the perpetrator was that had caused this attack. He had looked through the security video again and again. No matter how many times he had seen the video, there was that silhouette figure but with no given answers. His head began to ache from staring at the screen and replaying those images constantly. The only lead that they had on this was Miranda's clue that 'the voice sounded demanding' and the memory chip that had been implemented in the device. The only conclusion that Ace took from that was that this was a manmade device, unlike the tick that had mind controlled Quinn.
The question now remained on who had gotten their hands onto their photographs and why were they planning this? Ace scratched his head on the first question. He knew that none of his teammates would be so careless with their personal photographs. Then again, they were the superheroes of Acmetropolis and they did have their share of merchandise. Anyone was able to get their hands on them and use them for their benefit. Why? That was another question that Ace could answer. They were superheroes and villains would always find a way to destroy them. Then who could it be? The villains that they had faced in the past were either in jail or did not bother to come back to Acmetropolis. It was going to take a long time to figure out who this perpetrator was, but Ace hoped that they would have an answer to this fast!
A rapid buzz came from the answering machine as Ace turned to the source of the noise. He clicked on the button and as he had expected, Zadavia's hologram appeared. The day after Duck was attacked, Ace had contacted Zadavia and debriefed her on the situation. She had been shocked to have heard about what had happened with Duck and the team and went into her own investigation on the matter. Tonight, Ace hoped that she had found something.
"Zadavia," Ace said as he looked at the blonde's hologram hovering in the middle of the round table, "I've looked through the video again and again and I couldn't find anything about our clocked friend. It's too hard to pull up a facial recognition."
Through the hologram, Zadavia noticed Ace's bloodshot eyes. "I went on an investigation of my own," she said to him. "I asked the owner of Club in Toons if he had seen anything suspicious around the area but unfortunately, he had not seen anything."
Ace let out a sigh and hid his face within his hands. Well, they were back to square one again. "Thanks for trying Zadavia," Ace said to her.
"Any word on Duck?" she asked him, "how is he doing?"
Ace knew of the tumultuous relationship that Duck had with their boss. Ace knew that if he was here in the same room, he would proudly state that he was fine and boast how much Zadavia liked him better than anyone else on the team. "He didn't feel too good after we told him what happened but he's gettin' there," Ace replied to her with a slight smile upon his lips, "his personality and pride hasn't been at all damaged."
A light chuckle escaped Zadavia's lips when he said that. Even through the toughest of times, Duck was able to find ways to take care of himself rather than let himself fall apart. Throughout the times that Zadavia had worked with him, he had never seen him forlorn, though she wondered what happened when she wasn't around the team. Perhaps, and she knew, that she may have been too hard on him but even someone with pride, and one that had good intentions, needed to be humbled. "Before our meeting is over, I wish to tell you that I didn't forget the mysterious villain that you and the team encountered."
Ace rose an eyebrow when she said that until he realized that she had been referring to the woman in the catsuit. "Oh," Ace said, "sorry about that Zadavia. With everything that had happened the past couple of weeks, it went outta my head. I'm sorry."
"No problem," Zadavia said to him, "with the villains that were running amuck and my brother's revenge, I too had forgotten to debrief you on what I found the night that we spoke."
Now this ought to be interesting Ace thought and waited attentively to hear what Zadavia had discovered.
"You did imply something about her being French. Interestingly, there was a thief in France going by the name La Chatte Cambrioleuse…"
"That's it!" Ace perked up when Zadavia mentioned that name, "that's the one."
"According to what I read on the international tabloids, her last sighting had been about a year and a half ago and she hadn't been sighted in France ever since," Zadavia continued. "Unfortunately, no one was able to discover her identity therefore, she still remains a mystery."
"Interestingly enough," Ace jumped in, "we haven't heard from her in the last couple of weeks…and I don't know whether I ought to feel relieved or worried. With villains like that, you never know if something big is going to happen."
"I would not take ease with this villain just yet," Zadavia said, "even though she does not pose any potential danger as the others have, and as you mentioned, you can never know what she may be capable of."
"We'll definitely be keeping a sharp eye on this one," Ace said to her, "her and this clocked friend of ours."
Zadavia gave him a nod of her head. "If I pick up any information on my end, I shall debrief you and the team as soon as possible. Zadavia out."
Ace watched as her hologram disappeared and it was just him in the room. Out of all that conversation, he had half a lead on one of them. However, 'La Chatte Cambrioleuse' was the least of their problems in this situation. Just then, Ace turned around when he noticed the door opening and Lexi walked inside. "Hey," he greeted her with a smile upon his lips.
"Hey," Lexi greeted him back, "I take it you were with Zadavia."
It wasn't a question and Ace already knew the answer as to how she found it. "Yeah," he nodded his head to her, "she hasn't found anything yet on the cloaked figure at Club in Toons. However, she did have some information on the cat lady."
Lexi listened as Ace reiterated to her the whole conversation between him and Zadavia. "Interesting how she was able to flee from France to come here. Out of all the places, why Acmetropolis?"
"For her, definitely not us," Ace said to her, "but for the cloaked guy, definitely us."
There was no time for any of them to worry, but Lexi couldn't help but feel that emotion. Just when everything was beginning to look good for the team, this had to happen. This could have happened to any one of them and going through what Duck went through, had to be torture. Lexi looked over at Ace and imagined what it may have been if he had been in Duck's position. Would he have lost all feelings of emotion in him? Would have have willingly attacked the team? Would he have attacked her? Even though Lexi sympathized what Duck had gone through, she was glad that it wasn't Ace.
Ace felt her arms wrap around his neck as Lexi pulled him close to her. He placed his hand around her waist and held her close to him. No words needed to be exchanged for them to understand what the other was thinking. He too was worried just as much as she was, but in the end, there had to be a way that they would make it through this.
"It'll be over soon," he said to her.
"Yeah, but when?" Lexi asked as she looked up at him. "When I think about it, all the villains that we faced before were nothing like this. They seemed like child's play and now we're dealing with something that we don't know who or what it is."
Ace took a hold of her hands in his and looked at her in the eyes. "That's why we're not gonna rest until we find out who it is. We have a strong team around us and we're going to do everything we can in our power."
Lexi didn't want to show that she was worried but the look that Ace gave her, she knew that he knew what she was feeling. The only teammate where she felt she could show her vulnerability to was Ace, for she knew that he wouldn't judge her or push her emotions to the side and tell her 'not to worry about it.' She knew that they were a strong team, but how much stronger could they be to face something that was potentially dangerous? "I...I just don't want to lose anybody," Lexi said to him, "if we hadn't gotten there in time, we would have lost Duck."
Saying 'don't worry about it' was a feeble attempt to make anyone feel better. Even Ace had been worried for the guy but he was glad that they had gotten there in the time that they did. "We ain't gonna lose nobody," Ace reassured, "we're gonna train quicker and harder to face whatever it is that's coming after us. We're the Loonatics, and nothing is going to stop us."
He felt his arm moving from her waist and over to her shoulders as he held her protectively against him. Feeling that warmth and closure between them was merely enough to make her feel slightly better. However, another thought lingered in her mind. Even if they trained harder, would it still be enough?
