Disclaimer: I don't own Static Shock. I don't really want to own Static Shock, just quietly write about him and not be sued. I think that's a good plan. I don't own any of the other characters either. Although I would not be adverse to getting my ownBackpack.
Thanksto OldPrydeFan for beta'ing. Find her X-men story on here, it won't disappoint.
Anyway, Read and review!
Prologue – The Second Bang
Static shifted carefully on his flying disk, staring down at the still-smoking wreckage of the cargo ship. It had been four hours since the second Big Bang. Four hours since the gas had been released and the last real chance of being Virgil Hawkins for the rest of his life had faded away. Four hours since Ebon and Hotstreak had merged into…whatever the hell they had turned into…and then disappeared into the river.
"Gear to Static, find anything else?" the voice of his partner, Richie, crackled through his communicator and he instinctively shook his head, eyes following the smoke as it drifted into the sky.
"Hey Gear. No, not really," he brought his hand up to his ear. "There was that first batch of runners, but none of them looked changed. So I don't really know. I thought I saw Maureen about half an hour ago, but whoever it was disappeared into the sewers."
"Maureen?" There was a brief pause at the other end. "You mean Permafrost? What was she doing there?" Richie's voice sounded distant, as if he was trying to puzzle out the question. Static knew he wasn't really asking him…just thinking out loud. "You think she got gassed?"
"No clue. We can look her up tomorrow. What about you?" Static stood up on his disk and drifted down towards the ship, eyes scanning the water one last time.
"Nothing. If that Ebon-Hotstreak thing survived, it didn't wash up near here. Can we go home now, V?" Static could hear the exhaustion in Richie's voice. Between the fight and the searching, they had been out here for almost seven hours now.
"Yeah…We can go home. If it did survive…I'm sure we'll find out about it sooner or later." Static turned on his disk and went shooting over the city towards home.
"Ah, there's that optimistic Static I know and love," Richie quipped at him, and Static couldn't help but grin.
As the shining form of Gear twisted around from where he was hovering over the coastline and shot back towards the city, a section of the night-black water detached itself from the rest and drifted up onto the sand. It slowly coalesced into the featureless form of Ivan Evans, better known as the Meta-human Ebon. His milky-white eyes watched the superhero flying off and then he twisted around and sat on the sand, staring out at the water.
He couldn't remember anything that had happened after fighting with Hotstreak inside the cargo room. The gas had gone off, he'd felt his powers returning…and then something had gone wrong and he'd blacked out…
He'd woken up on the beach, and his head felt as though someone had hit him with a truck. He'd been about to head into the city when the flying nerd had shown up and he'd been forced to hide in the water.
Not that it mattered now. Everything had gone wrong. Well, no. The big bang, he hoped, had gone alright. The canister went off, so the gas probably spread. There were going to be more Bang Babies.
But it didn't matter. He was going to have a hell of a time replacing his old crew. Talon had turned, lost her powers and betrayed him, so she was a write-off anyway. Losing Kangor, though, that was a problem. The large-footed Meta had been the closest thing Ebon knew to a decent criminal. And he hadn't seen Hotstreak, so the kid had probably drowned. That was three down, plus Ferret…damn. He'd have to find Shiv, and then see who else was left.
"Damn it," he mumbled, his arms resting on his knees. The bang would've worked if that damn Static hadn't shown up. He was always ruining things, and now he'd almost ruined Ebon's powers. But he hadn't, so that didn't matter.
'Course, if that cure in the water was still working they might all turn human again in a couple weeks anyway. But he couldn't worry about that. Not now.
For now, he'd lay low, see who he could pull back into the life, and just see about surviving. He'd deal with the cure and with Static when the time was right.
A swirling black whirlwind appeared beneath Ebon and he sank down into it slowly. If he still had a face, he would have smiled
Static Shock: Running in Place
Chapter 1 – A Twist of Fate
"Virgil? Wake up, son."
Virgil Hawkins moaned into his pillow and rolled over as the voice of his father managed to shove its way into his head. As he opened his eyes the sun hit him and he let out a surprised shout, arms lifting to cover his face. The window doesn't face east… "What time is it, Pops?" He finally asked, twisting around so he could peer over at his doorway.
"Two thirty. How are you feeling?" Robert Hawkins was a giant of a man, and Virgil found himself rolling over a bit to peer up at his father as he walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed.
"Awful. How come Sharon didn't get me up?" Virgil sat up, rubbing at his eyes, and twisted around so his legs were hanging off the bed.
"Easy son," Robert put his hand on Virgil's shoulder to steady him. "I told your sister you were feeling sick and to let you sleep. She wasn't thrilled, but she listened. So what happened?"
"You mean last night?" Virgil sighed and pushed to his feet, slipping away from his fathers hand as he headed over to the mirror and ran his fingers through his hair. "Ebon stole some Big Bang Gas and was gonna start it all over again. Gear and I went to stop him, but…we were too late. We got gassed. So, we're back to normal. But Ebon and Hotstreak mutated into this…scary lookin' thing and the bang went off, gas went everywhere."
"I see. You and Richie are alright?"
"I think so. We got pretty big doses of the gas, though." Virgil held out his arms, flexing his fingers as bolts of electricity danced from tip to tip. "I might be stronger. Don't really know, though."
"Well, as long as you feel alright," Robert stood as well and headed for the door. "Come downstairs and I'll make you some breakfast. Or lunch." And then he was out the door, leaving Virgil standing there staring at his mirror. He wasn't sure, but he thought he'd seen electricity arc across his eye.
An hour later Virgil pulled on his mask and stretched, grinning at his image in the mirror again. He definitely felt stronger. And considering how much energy he'd used the day before, he should've been a lot more tired than he was.
He plopped down on the edge of his bed and dug out his Shockbox, flipping it on. "Hey Richie, you there?"
There was a long pause before Richie answered, his voice coming through muffled. "Mm…what is it?"
"I'm going out to look for Maureen, or to see if anything new turned up from last night. You coming?" Virgil pulled out his flying disk and opened it, tossing it out the window and climbing out to stand on it.
"V, if you hadn't called, I'd still be asleep. I'll come out in a couple hours. Be careful." There was the sound of someone moving and then the definitive thud of the shockbox hitting the floor. Virgil laughed and tucked the communicator back into his pocket as he rocketed up towards the sky.
The docks were blocked off with yellow and black police tape and there was a hazmat team in full containment suits taking readings around the ship. Static sat down on his disk and watched the activity for a couple minutes, debating whether or not to go speak with them. Really, he probably could help, but if they knew he'd been there the night before they'd probably want to test him for the gas and find out he hadn't lost his powers. He wasn't quite ready for that, yet.
Instead he headed to the last place he thought he'd seen Maureen, a manhole half a block from the tanker. Static was almost positive he'd recognized the girl that had ducked underground, but at the time making sure Ebon and Hotstreak were gone had been far more important.
Moving the manhole was easy, and he hovered down until he was floating a few inches above the greenish brown water. In the dim glow of the maintenance lights he could make out the walls of the tunnel, grey steel and dirty, shooting off in both directions.
"Alright, so if the ocean is that way," Static pointed as he spoke to himself. "Then she had to go that way. Alright, here's to wasting the afternoon." And off he went, skimming over the surface of the water.
After about a mile the tunnel opened up into a cavernous water-exchange area, pumps moving water from the tunnels into the reclamation systems, and probably into some sort of water treatment plant. Or, they would have, if everything wasn't covered in a sheet of ice.
"Well, that answers that," Static drifted over to a nearby patch of ground and stepped gingerly onto the ice, inspecting one of the giant machines. It had power, but everything about it was frozen. He could probably melt it, but…
"Hey…Maureen, you here?" He called out, hoping the metahuman girl would have remained. If he could get her to get rid of the ice instead of doing it himself, it would probably mean she hadn't meant the harm. But why does she still have her powers?
Even if she was living on the street again, she had to be drinking water. So the antidote should've worked. But if she'd been at the docks, which she had, then she must have gotten gassed…damn it.
Static called out her name a few more times, but got no answer. If she was here, she was hiding, which he doubted. And that meant he was going to have to melt all this ice himself.
He cleared a spot on the concrete so he didn't have to worry about falling and then closed his eyes, hands balling into fists as he released his power. The room filled with painfully bright lights and sparkles, and he could hear the muffled explosion and tinkling of glass as light-bulbs exploded around him.
But as his power receeded he also heard the hum of the giant machines coming back to life. So, alls well that ends well. "Except you still don't know where Maureen is." He heard himself say, and just sort of sighed. Now that the ice was gone he didn't really have a way of tracking her.
Or maybe…He tugged out his shock-box again. "Hey Richie, wake up."
"Mm…what?" Richie had definitely still been asleep. Which Static couldn't really fault him for, after yesterday, but it was definitely getting annoying.
"Get up and meet me at the base. I need you to look something up for me," Static hopped back onto his disk and headed into the nearest tunnel, looking for another manhole.
"But," Richie started to grumble at the other end, but then let out a long sigh. "Fine, fine…I'll be there in twenty minutes."
"Good."
Virgil tugged off his mask as he stepped into The Abandoned Gas Station of Solitude, letting out a little sigh of relief. He loved being Static, but sometimes the mask was irritating.
He was surprised to find Richie already there, decked out in his Gear costume and tapping aimlessly at one of his keyboards. The hyper intelligent metahuman had set up an entire corner of the room with computers and monitors he'd been collecting over the last year.
"Hey V. So what's so important you had to drag me out of bed at the ungodly hour of four-thirty in the afternoon?" Richie twisted around in his seat to stare at his partner.
"Ah yes, in the horrible late afternoon. Look, I lost track of Maureen, but I know she's Permafrost again so I need you to find her for me." Virgil plopped down into one of the armchairs and put his feet up on the table.
"What, you just got lazy? You can go look for her yourself, you know."
"Or you can use those big fancy satellites I know you have access to and see if some part of the city is a lot colder than the rest. If it is, we know that's where she is." Virgil grinned. "Come on man, you should've been able to figure that out. Your superbrain didn't shut off again, did it?"
"I'm just tired," Richie yawned and twisted back around to his computer, his fingers a blur as they danced over the keyboard. "So she was really at the docks, then? I wonder why?"
"No clue, but I'm gonna ask her when I find her. I thought she was staying at the homeless shelter, but if she's running around the sewers, I just don't know."
"Well, why don't you call that Reverend guy? Maybe he'd know. This is going to take a little while anyway." Gear pointed at one of the upper computer monitors and a phone number appeared. "That's his number."
Shiv sat, huddled up in the corner of the alley, staring at the wall opposite him. It was not supposed to be like this, not at all. Ebon was going to make sure they kept their powers, which had gone alright, he still had his…but then he had been supposed lead them! He wasn't supposed to…to merge with Hotstreak and turn into a Godzilla wannabe.
But the cops had shown up, and his powers were back but not enough to fight them so he'd run. He'd seen Static flying around, thank god the sparkler hadn't gone after him…
And now he was stuck. Ebon was gone, Talon and the rest were normal again…this really sucked. He'd go back to the hideout for tonight, but he couldn't stay long. There was no telling if one of the former Meta-humans might rat out their hideouts for a deal.
This wasn't fun anymore!
He started to stand when the shadows around him detached from the wall and curled around him, pushing him down to the floor. A head, a familiar head, ducked out and hung upside-down in front of him. "Yo Shiv."
Shiv just grinned, his face a picture of relief. "Ebon, you're alive! I thought you'd gotten blown to bits when Static threw that thing into…whatever the hell you were."
Ebon completely separated from the wall, crouching down in front of the closest thing he had to a friend. "What are you talkin' about?" Shiv would've expected him to look surprised, if Ebon were able to have any expression anymore.
"You don't know? You and Hotstreak were fighting over the gas, I think. You guys like, mutated or something. Turned into a giant flame throwing monster…Sparky and his partner blew you up." Shiv frowned a bit. "I thought you were dead. How come you aren't dead?"
"No clue. It don't matter, anyway. I'm goin' home, you comin'?" Ebon sank into the ground, a whirlpool of darkness spinning around him. Shiv didn't answer, he just dove in.
Maybe things could still be fun.
Richie half-listened as Virgil spoke on the phone, his fingers tapping quietly on the keyboard as he accessed the satellite database. He couldn't figure out why Permafrost would have been at the docks. As far as he could remember, she probably didn't want to lose her powers. Having them or not having them, she was still homeless. Could she have gotten Ebon's message somehow and gone to try and keep them?
And if she had, was she going to fight Static when he found her? The only reason they'd won last time had been cause the girl had given up…Richie honestly wasn't sure they could win again. Permafrost was strong. And she could short Static out, most likely.
"Hey Reverend Anderson, this is Static. Right, yeah…look, I was wondering, have you seen Maureen recently? Yes, that's right, the girl with the ice powers. Uh huh…alright…"
Richie pulled up the satellites from the last twelve hours and began flipping through their passes, overlaying them with the normal weather maps to see if anything seemed out of the ordinary, occasionally glancing over at Virgil. The other hero had his back to him, nodding occasionally to whatever was being said by the Reverend.
"Yes sir. Of course…thank you," Virgil hung up the phone and came to peer over Richie's shoulder. "He hasn't seen Maureen in six months, he thinks. She just stopped coming in one day."
Richie grinned. "Well, I think I know where she is. You saw her here, right?" He tapped a gloved finger against the edge of the satellite map on the screen.
"Yeah, and then I followed her till I got to a water exchange station which was frozen over. It was a mile of piping, at least." Virgil settled down into his chair again.
"Alright, so that would be…here…" Richie moved the map on the screen until he came to the first exchange, "which…experienced a massive temperature drop starting around three last night. You fixed it?"
"Uh huh."
"Alright, cool. Now there are four other pipe systems moving away from there. I'll just bring the map out and…yes! She went north. Look, the temperature in this area is fifteen degrees lower than any other pipe section." Gear grinned. "At least, it was twenty minutes ago. There won't be another satellite for an hour to check it."
"Well, it's a place to start," Virgil stood up and grabbed his mask off the desk, tugging it over his eyes. "I'll go check it out. And I was thinking, maybe you should get to work on that antidote you mentioned last night."
"Sure Bro, I'll get on it," Richie stood as well, heading towards the back room where he kept his chemistry supplies. Getting that antidote made as quickly as possible was a good idea. No sense risking the loss of their powers again.
"Oh, and call me if…" He twisted around to call after Virgil, but the other teen was already gone. "…ya need me. Yeesh."
"Back in the sewers…lucky me," Static sighed as he drifted along the sewer tunnel, his coat pulled tightly around him. It was definitely freezing down here, which meant Permafrost was somewhere nearby. Or else there was another metahuman.
"Who else could it be?" He asked the tunnel walls, but they didn't have much to say. "Mr. Freeze, maybe…no reason for him to be in Dakota. That scary woman Killer Frost, but I think she's in prison…"
"…Static?"
He had drifted into the middle of another pipe exchange as he talked to himself, this one as frozen as the last, and he came up short as the timid female voice echoed around him. "…Maureen?" Oh thank god. Not Mr. Freeze. "Yeah, it's me…Where are you? Why are you down here?"
"You shouldn't be here, Static. Go away."
"I can't do that, Maureen. You're freezing important stuff down here, I can't let you stay." He sank to the cement floor and picked up his disk, tucking it into his pocket as he searched the shadows. Where could she be?
"…Let me? No one lets me do anything. The mean people wouldn't let me stay warm and the gas wouldn't let me stay normal and now you won't let me stay hidden and this is ALL your fault."
"Woah girl, that's quite a leap there. How is this my fault?" He had to keep her talking, get her to show herself. If she wasn't going to come out willingly, he'd have to take her down. And he was at a massive disadvantage down here.
"They…they chased me away, you know. They didn't want the freak living with them." Her voice was distant, like she had forgotten she was even talking to anyone.
"There a warehouse no one uses and the guy who patrols said I could stay there if I was quiet but they got angry at him and he made me leave and then I was going, didn't know where just going…going…Powers were gone and maybe I could go back to…to the church…and I saw you!" The last statement was almost accusatory, and she stepped out from behind one of the giant machines, her ice-grey eyes narrowed angrily.
"Saw you and I was going to talk to you and…and say hello and…and then there was the gas…all over. And I was COLD again. Everything was cold again…" She shook her head, white hair tumbling in front of her face.
Oh man…she'd followed him to the boat to say HI? Well, that was the worst timing ever. And now she was a meta-human again. "Maureen, I'm sorry. I…we'll find a way to-"
"And now I'm stuck like this again!" She talked over him, her pale hands balled into fists. "Scared and alone and…and it's YOUR FAULT!" With this last word she waved her hand and the temperature dropped twenty degrees.
"Hey, wait, we don't have to…!" Static was cut off as a wave of hail slammed into him, knocking him backwards across the ice to slam into the far wall with an unpleasant crack.
"All your fault and I HATE it here and I can't ever go again and…and GO AWAY!" She pointed at him and half a dozen massive frozen icicles broke away from the overhead piping and shot down towards him like spears.
Oh hell.
To Be Continued…