Categories > Cartoons > Static Shock > Changed Consequences
Changed Consequences
Changed Consequences
Part Two
Dakota General Hospital
Sometime Later
Robert sat worried in a chair besides Virgil's bed looking down on his son's unconscious features. Contrary to his fears when he'd arrived Virgil still looked like he had always looked, so either he had yet to be affected by the gas in his bloodstream or it had affected him in away that couldn't be physically seen. If he was now a metahuman then Virgil could be like those metahumans who looked like normal people except when they used their powers and then it was obvious what they were.
He looked up when he heard the door to the separate room where he'd managed to get Virgil put open. Sharon was coming back into the room carrying two Styrofoam cups filled with what passed for coffee in this place.
"Here you go daddy," Sharon said reaching the bed and offering her father one of the cups.
"Thank you Sharon," Robert replied taking the cup from the older of his two children. Sharon smiled weakly though the worry in her eyes belied any attempt to seem happy. Without speaking Sharon pulled up another chair and sat down.
"Still no sign of him waking up," Sharon asked.
"No. No sign at all."
Before Sharon could speak a soft moaning sound from the bed caught her attention. Together with her father Sharon looked at the bed. To see Virgil turn over slightly in his sleep so he was lying on his side facing them. As they watched a rippling, crackling arc of purple white electricity flickered down the length of his arm and overhead the lights flickered then returned to normal.
Sharon stared in surprise that looked like what Static could do. But Virgil wasn't Static Shock, she'd thought that and been proved dismally wrong. She still remembered standing next to Virgil and abruptly seeing Static fly past overhead. It had made her feel like a complete and total fool. Virgil can't be Static, she thought, unless he can be in two places at once. Wait, wait, wait. Oh Sharon you idiot. That one girl Mirage had illusion abilities, Virgil is Static, what you saw before was an illusion. Virgil must have persuaded Mirage to make it for him.
"I was right," she said softly to herself.
"Sharon?" Robert prompted wondering what was wrong with his daughter. His own mind still trying to process what he had seen just occur and not want to draw the conclusion that was lingering at the back of his mind. The conclusion that this was not the first time Virgil had been exposed to a mutagenic agent, that he had actually been a metahuman for nearly a year and was known to the people of Dakota as Static.
"I was right before," Sharon replied. "I once thought that, that Virgil was Static. I confronted him about it and of course he denied it. Then later after I took him to that baseball game that was interrupted by that metahuman Boom, I saw Static fly past overhead with Virgil standing next to me. It must have been an illusion generated by the other metahuman involved in that incident, the girl Mirage."
"So Virgil's been a metahuman all along," Robert answered. "Certainly explains a few things that have been going on with him the last year. But what was he doing at the big bang? He must have been in a gang."
"Not fully pops," Virgil's sleep slurred voice said startling both Robert and Sharon. They looked back at the bed to see that Virgil had woken up and had apparently been listening to them talking.
Awkwardly Virgil sat up, groaning as his head was pounding and he felt sick. It was the normal reaction to metagas exposure.
"Oh man I forgot how awful that stuff is," Virgil moaned kneading his brow as he did so he felt his powers more than he had ever felt them before. There was more energy inside him now he could feel it, and there was something else, something he couldn't put his finger on. Now what has the damned gas done to me, he thought as he looked over at his father and sister. "I guess you've got a lot of questions."
"You could say that Virgil," Robert replied surprised that Virgil seemed to be okay aside from a monster headache. But then again if he's been a metahuman all along then maybe the gas hasn't done anything to him this time, he thought hopefully. "How are you feeling?"
"Rotten," Virgil admitted. "But that's normal after you've gotten exposed to that vile stuff. At least there's no..."
"No what?" Sharon asked. Virgil sighed.
"No pain aside from a headache," Virgil replied shivering stealing himself against the memories of his previous metagas exposure. "When the gas alters you its painful. More painful than you can ever imagine. It's like every cell in your body is screaming in agony. It almost drives you mad and it doesn't stop. It's just goes on and on and on. If you're lucky you pass out and when you wake up the pains gone."
"And you experienced that," Robert asked softly with an inward shudder, the thought of Virgil having experienced such tortuous pain in the past was enough to almost make him want to be sick.
"After the first time yes," Virgil answered in a matter of fact tone of voice. "Thankfully this time there is none of it."
"Why did you never tell us Virgil? Why did you never say what you are?"
"You didn't give me any good reason to pops," Virgil replied pointedly. "I mean you were very negative about people like me right from the word go. I wanted to tell you. I wanted to a few times after I first got my powers but I didn't dare. I was afraid how you would react." He looked over at Sharon. "I was also why I asked Mirage to make that illusion the time you suspected me. I didn't want you to know because I didn't want you to look at me as if I had an illness or something when I don't. My powers are a part of me but that's all."
Robert and Sharon exchanged a guilty look. It was true that neither of them had had a very high opinion of metahumans from the start. Though Sharon's attitude had softened somewhat in recent months. They hadn't really given Virgil a reason to trust them with the knowledge that he was both a metahuman and Static.
Robert looked back over at Virgil and Virgil could see the regret for the past in his father's eyes.
"What's done is done pops we can only look towards what happens next," Virgil replied before yawning as exhaustion pulled at him, it would take awhile before he had his normal strength back. Though the gas didn't seem to have affected him too much other than boosting his powers his body was still tired from the effects of exposure.
"You're right Virgil," Robert said. "Maybe you should go back to sleep you look very tired."
"I am pops," Virgil answered yawning again. "Another normal after effect of that awful stuff. Will you be staying here?"
"We can't I'm afraid," Robert replied. "The hospital administrators are not letting relatives of patients stay after ten tonight. It's caused quite a furore but the administrators and ward staff are adamant that all non-patients leave the hospital by ten tonight." Virgil frowned.
"That's an odd stance," he said. "But I'm not surprised. The hospitals in the city are well known to be run by petty, power hungry bureaucrats." Robert laughed, knowing what Virgil said was right. He remembered that his beloved late wife Jean had been forever complaining about the bureaucrats interfering, focusing all attention on trivial issues that often had absolutely nothing to do with patient care.
"It is odd," Robert admitted. "But we don't have a choice but to abide by it."
"Guess not," Virgil replied yawning again and lying back down flat in the bed, more than ready to go back to sleep.
"Go back to sleep Virgil if that's what you want to do," Robert said softly. Virgil nodded weakly already feeling sleep beckoning to him. Slowly he closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
For a moment Robert and Sharon sat there looking down at Virgil as he slept, turning in his sleep so that he lay on his side. Faint arcs of energy danced down his arms for a moment, licking at the air and making the sheet stick to him before they evaporated. Robert mentally shook his head. Guess I'm going to have to get used to seeing Virgil show that he does have powers, he thought, I still can't believe that he's been a metahuman all this time and I didn't know. My fault! Maybe if I hadn't been so quick to pass judgement on them then maybe he would have told me who and what he is.
"How long until we have to leave daddy," Sharon asked her father without taking her eyes off her sleeping baby brother.
"Another hour Sharon," Robert replied. "Though somehow I doubt that Virgil will wake up again during the time that we have left here."
"You're probably right daddy," Sharon answered. "You're probably right."
***
Foley Residence
That Same Time
Richie entered his bedroom with a soft sigh and closed the door behind him. He had been released from the hospital a short time earlier, a few of them had been. But many more hadn't, Virgil amongst them as they had yet to regain consciousness. He couldn't help but worry, wondering what if anything the gas had done to Virgil this time; in fact he worried what it might have done to him. True aside from feeling really tired and having a headache that he'd had since he'd woken up, he felt all right. But that didn't necessarily mean he was okay. Statistically speaking the gas is bound to have affected me, he thought then blinked, since when did I start thinking in terms of statistics and mathematics?
As he thought about it his headache got worse and abruptly he felt ideas and theories to explain it explode through his brain at what felt like a million miles an hour. Richie stumbled and collapsed onto his bed closing his eyes trying to get his brain back under his control, but nothing he did seemed to stop the thoughts. They continued to rampage through his brain, sweeping away all his previous thought patterns. Richie groaned as it went on and on, making his head pound like no tomorrow.
After what seemed like ages the pain began to recede, fading away to a distance background ache, though the hyperfast thoughts remained yet strangely he understood them now. No longer were they mentally drowning him but instead he began to master them, and as he did so he became aware that he was no longer on his bed. Huh, he thought confused and opened his eyes to find he was literally floating, suspended in the air above his bed. In fact his feet were level with the top of his wardrobe. I'm, I'm flying, Richie thought stunned, the gas has effected me after all. Something in me is repelling gravity. But how do I get down?
For a moment he floated there, quietly fearful that his parents would come in and see him floating about. They'd freak, he knew they would. His mother especially, his father though he didn't want to think what he would do. Think Richie there has to be away to get down, Richie thought to himself and remembered some of the conversations that he had had with Virgil where it came to controlling metahuman powers. He remembered Virgil telling him that it was less about the action itself but rather the desired outcome, be it from knocking someone flying or knocking them unconscious with an lightning blast or thrown bolt, making force fields or picking things up and moving them magnetically. Maybe that's the key to landing, Richie thought.
With nothing else to loose he imagined himself lying flat on the bed and abruptly he dropped from the air to land on the bed and knocking the wind from his lungs. Note to self; practice landing, he thought as he tried to get his breath back. Once he was sure he could breath properly he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, moving over to his television he turned it and his playstation on before reaching for the controller. What happened next took his breath away again.
As his hand reached for the controller Richie felt something happen, he felt energy of somesort grow in his head before streaking down his spine, across his shoulder into the reaching arm and down to his hand. Immediately his hand began to glow, surrounded by a soft blue nimbus of energy, energy that he was generating somehow. Immediately the controller picked itself up and literally flew through the air into his hand and as his fingers closed around it Richie felt the energy stop and the glow disappeared, leaving him holding the controller.
Suddenly no longer interested in the game he was about to play Richie decided to run an experiment. Focusing on the playstation he concentrate imagining it switched off. Again he felt the energy surge in his head but this time it stayed just in his head, but had he had a mirror he would have abruptly seen the blue glow appear in his eyes. The power button on the playstation seemed to press itself and the playstation switched off. Still concentrating Richie focused on putting the controller back and felt the energy move to his hand and again his hand began to glow. The controller flew from his hand and put itself back where he had initially gotten it from.
Richie stopped concentrating and felt the energy in his head and hand disappear again. Telekinesis, he thought suddenly understanding what the power was, the gas it's given me somekind of telekinetic ability. Cool. Man I can't wait to show Virgil. I wonder if I can do anything else. I know I can fly. A smile appeared on his face as he imagined the look on Virgil's face whenever he got to tell him that one. I can fly, he thought again grinning. But how do I do it. It should be against the laws of physics but since when did scientific laws apply to metahumans.
A sudden knock at the door made him jump and he found himself suddenly just floating in the air.
"Richie," Maggie Foley said from outside her son's room. "We're thinking of going to the local burger fool. You want to come?"
"Sure mom," Richie answered even as he concentrated on getting his feet back on the ground, he amazed himself by still being able to talk at the same time. "I'll be there now."
"Okay honey. Do you feel well enough to go."
"I'm fine mom," Richie replied with a smile even as his feet touched the ground. "Really I'm fine."
"All right if you're sure," Maggie replied as Richie crossed to his bedroom door and opened it and smiled at his mother waiting on the other side.
"I'm sure mom," Richie answered smiling. "Lets go shall we."
Maggie smiled happy to see that Richie seemed to be perfectly normal, that his exposure to that mutagenic gas did not seem to have affected him. She hoped he stayed normal, though she would love him even if he did turn into a metahuman. No matter what happened, as far as she was concerned Richie would always be her son. Then she turned away from Richie and began heading downstairs. Richie followed with a secretive smile on his face, quietly hoping that while they were out he would be able to keep his newly endowed powers under control. I will keep them under control, he thought, I must.
Changed Consequences
Part Two
Dakota General Hospital
Sometime Later
Robert sat worried in a chair besides Virgil's bed looking down on his son's unconscious features. Contrary to his fears when he'd arrived Virgil still looked like he had always looked, so either he had yet to be affected by the gas in his bloodstream or it had affected him in away that couldn't be physically seen. If he was now a metahuman then Virgil could be like those metahumans who looked like normal people except when they used their powers and then it was obvious what they were.
He looked up when he heard the door to the separate room where he'd managed to get Virgil put open. Sharon was coming back into the room carrying two Styrofoam cups filled with what passed for coffee in this place.
"Here you go daddy," Sharon said reaching the bed and offering her father one of the cups.
"Thank you Sharon," Robert replied taking the cup from the older of his two children. Sharon smiled weakly though the worry in her eyes belied any attempt to seem happy. Without speaking Sharon pulled up another chair and sat down.
"Still no sign of him waking up," Sharon asked.
"No. No sign at all."
Before Sharon could speak a soft moaning sound from the bed caught her attention. Together with her father Sharon looked at the bed. To see Virgil turn over slightly in his sleep so he was lying on his side facing them. As they watched a rippling, crackling arc of purple white electricity flickered down the length of his arm and overhead the lights flickered then returned to normal.
Sharon stared in surprise that looked like what Static could do. But Virgil wasn't Static Shock, she'd thought that and been proved dismally wrong. She still remembered standing next to Virgil and abruptly seeing Static fly past overhead. It had made her feel like a complete and total fool. Virgil can't be Static, she thought, unless he can be in two places at once. Wait, wait, wait. Oh Sharon you idiot. That one girl Mirage had illusion abilities, Virgil is Static, what you saw before was an illusion. Virgil must have persuaded Mirage to make it for him.
"I was right," she said softly to herself.
"Sharon?" Robert prompted wondering what was wrong with his daughter. His own mind still trying to process what he had seen just occur and not want to draw the conclusion that was lingering at the back of his mind. The conclusion that this was not the first time Virgil had been exposed to a mutagenic agent, that he had actually been a metahuman for nearly a year and was known to the people of Dakota as Static.
"I was right before," Sharon replied. "I once thought that, that Virgil was Static. I confronted him about it and of course he denied it. Then later after I took him to that baseball game that was interrupted by that metahuman Boom, I saw Static fly past overhead with Virgil standing next to me. It must have been an illusion generated by the other metahuman involved in that incident, the girl Mirage."
"So Virgil's been a metahuman all along," Robert answered. "Certainly explains a few things that have been going on with him the last year. But what was he doing at the big bang? He must have been in a gang."
"Not fully pops," Virgil's sleep slurred voice said startling both Robert and Sharon. They looked back at the bed to see that Virgil had woken up and had apparently been listening to them talking.
Awkwardly Virgil sat up, groaning as his head was pounding and he felt sick. It was the normal reaction to metagas exposure.
"Oh man I forgot how awful that stuff is," Virgil moaned kneading his brow as he did so he felt his powers more than he had ever felt them before. There was more energy inside him now he could feel it, and there was something else, something he couldn't put his finger on. Now what has the damned gas done to me, he thought as he looked over at his father and sister. "I guess you've got a lot of questions."
"You could say that Virgil," Robert replied surprised that Virgil seemed to be okay aside from a monster headache. But then again if he's been a metahuman all along then maybe the gas hasn't done anything to him this time, he thought hopefully. "How are you feeling?"
"Rotten," Virgil admitted. "But that's normal after you've gotten exposed to that vile stuff. At least there's no..."
"No what?" Sharon asked. Virgil sighed.
"No pain aside from a headache," Virgil replied shivering stealing himself against the memories of his previous metagas exposure. "When the gas alters you its painful. More painful than you can ever imagine. It's like every cell in your body is screaming in agony. It almost drives you mad and it doesn't stop. It's just goes on and on and on. If you're lucky you pass out and when you wake up the pains gone."
"And you experienced that," Robert asked softly with an inward shudder, the thought of Virgil having experienced such tortuous pain in the past was enough to almost make him want to be sick.
"After the first time yes," Virgil answered in a matter of fact tone of voice. "Thankfully this time there is none of it."
"Why did you never tell us Virgil? Why did you never say what you are?"
"You didn't give me any good reason to pops," Virgil replied pointedly. "I mean you were very negative about people like me right from the word go. I wanted to tell you. I wanted to a few times after I first got my powers but I didn't dare. I was afraid how you would react." He looked over at Sharon. "I was also why I asked Mirage to make that illusion the time you suspected me. I didn't want you to know because I didn't want you to look at me as if I had an illness or something when I don't. My powers are a part of me but that's all."
Robert and Sharon exchanged a guilty look. It was true that neither of them had had a very high opinion of metahumans from the start. Though Sharon's attitude had softened somewhat in recent months. They hadn't really given Virgil a reason to trust them with the knowledge that he was both a metahuman and Static.
Robert looked back over at Virgil and Virgil could see the regret for the past in his father's eyes.
"What's done is done pops we can only look towards what happens next," Virgil replied before yawning as exhaustion pulled at him, it would take awhile before he had his normal strength back. Though the gas didn't seem to have affected him too much other than boosting his powers his body was still tired from the effects of exposure.
"You're right Virgil," Robert said. "Maybe you should go back to sleep you look very tired."
"I am pops," Virgil answered yawning again. "Another normal after effect of that awful stuff. Will you be staying here?"
"We can't I'm afraid," Robert replied. "The hospital administrators are not letting relatives of patients stay after ten tonight. It's caused quite a furore but the administrators and ward staff are adamant that all non-patients leave the hospital by ten tonight." Virgil frowned.
"That's an odd stance," he said. "But I'm not surprised. The hospitals in the city are well known to be run by petty, power hungry bureaucrats." Robert laughed, knowing what Virgil said was right. He remembered that his beloved late wife Jean had been forever complaining about the bureaucrats interfering, focusing all attention on trivial issues that often had absolutely nothing to do with patient care.
"It is odd," Robert admitted. "But we don't have a choice but to abide by it."
"Guess not," Virgil replied yawning again and lying back down flat in the bed, more than ready to go back to sleep.
"Go back to sleep Virgil if that's what you want to do," Robert said softly. Virgil nodded weakly already feeling sleep beckoning to him. Slowly he closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
For a moment Robert and Sharon sat there looking down at Virgil as he slept, turning in his sleep so that he lay on his side. Faint arcs of energy danced down his arms for a moment, licking at the air and making the sheet stick to him before they evaporated. Robert mentally shook his head. Guess I'm going to have to get used to seeing Virgil show that he does have powers, he thought, I still can't believe that he's been a metahuman all this time and I didn't know. My fault! Maybe if I hadn't been so quick to pass judgement on them then maybe he would have told me who and what he is.
"How long until we have to leave daddy," Sharon asked her father without taking her eyes off her sleeping baby brother.
"Another hour Sharon," Robert replied. "Though somehow I doubt that Virgil will wake up again during the time that we have left here."
"You're probably right daddy," Sharon answered. "You're probably right."
***
Foley Residence
That Same Time
Richie entered his bedroom with a soft sigh and closed the door behind him. He had been released from the hospital a short time earlier, a few of them had been. But many more hadn't, Virgil amongst them as they had yet to regain consciousness. He couldn't help but worry, wondering what if anything the gas had done to Virgil this time; in fact he worried what it might have done to him. True aside from feeling really tired and having a headache that he'd had since he'd woken up, he felt all right. But that didn't necessarily mean he was okay. Statistically speaking the gas is bound to have affected me, he thought then blinked, since when did I start thinking in terms of statistics and mathematics?
As he thought about it his headache got worse and abruptly he felt ideas and theories to explain it explode through his brain at what felt like a million miles an hour. Richie stumbled and collapsed onto his bed closing his eyes trying to get his brain back under his control, but nothing he did seemed to stop the thoughts. They continued to rampage through his brain, sweeping away all his previous thought patterns. Richie groaned as it went on and on, making his head pound like no tomorrow.
After what seemed like ages the pain began to recede, fading away to a distance background ache, though the hyperfast thoughts remained yet strangely he understood them now. No longer were they mentally drowning him but instead he began to master them, and as he did so he became aware that he was no longer on his bed. Huh, he thought confused and opened his eyes to find he was literally floating, suspended in the air above his bed. In fact his feet were level with the top of his wardrobe. I'm, I'm flying, Richie thought stunned, the gas has effected me after all. Something in me is repelling gravity. But how do I get down?
For a moment he floated there, quietly fearful that his parents would come in and see him floating about. They'd freak, he knew they would. His mother especially, his father though he didn't want to think what he would do. Think Richie there has to be away to get down, Richie thought to himself and remembered some of the conversations that he had had with Virgil where it came to controlling metahuman powers. He remembered Virgil telling him that it was less about the action itself but rather the desired outcome, be it from knocking someone flying or knocking them unconscious with an lightning blast or thrown bolt, making force fields or picking things up and moving them magnetically. Maybe that's the key to landing, Richie thought.
With nothing else to loose he imagined himself lying flat on the bed and abruptly he dropped from the air to land on the bed and knocking the wind from his lungs. Note to self; practice landing, he thought as he tried to get his breath back. Once he was sure he could breath properly he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, moving over to his television he turned it and his playstation on before reaching for the controller. What happened next took his breath away again.
As his hand reached for the controller Richie felt something happen, he felt energy of somesort grow in his head before streaking down his spine, across his shoulder into the reaching arm and down to his hand. Immediately his hand began to glow, surrounded by a soft blue nimbus of energy, energy that he was generating somehow. Immediately the controller picked itself up and literally flew through the air into his hand and as his fingers closed around it Richie felt the energy stop and the glow disappeared, leaving him holding the controller.
Suddenly no longer interested in the game he was about to play Richie decided to run an experiment. Focusing on the playstation he concentrate imagining it switched off. Again he felt the energy surge in his head but this time it stayed just in his head, but had he had a mirror he would have abruptly seen the blue glow appear in his eyes. The power button on the playstation seemed to press itself and the playstation switched off. Still concentrating Richie focused on putting the controller back and felt the energy move to his hand and again his hand began to glow. The controller flew from his hand and put itself back where he had initially gotten it from.
Richie stopped concentrating and felt the energy in his head and hand disappear again. Telekinesis, he thought suddenly understanding what the power was, the gas it's given me somekind of telekinetic ability. Cool. Man I can't wait to show Virgil. I wonder if I can do anything else. I know I can fly. A smile appeared on his face as he imagined the look on Virgil's face whenever he got to tell him that one. I can fly, he thought again grinning. But how do I do it. It should be against the laws of physics but since when did scientific laws apply to metahumans.
A sudden knock at the door made him jump and he found himself suddenly just floating in the air.
"Richie," Maggie Foley said from outside her son's room. "We're thinking of going to the local burger fool. You want to come?"
"Sure mom," Richie answered even as he concentrated on getting his feet back on the ground, he amazed himself by still being able to talk at the same time. "I'll be there now."
"Okay honey. Do you feel well enough to go."
"I'm fine mom," Richie replied with a smile even as his feet touched the ground. "Really I'm fine."
"All right if you're sure," Maggie replied as Richie crossed to his bedroom door and opened it and smiled at his mother waiting on the other side.
"I'm sure mom," Richie answered smiling. "Lets go shall we."
Maggie smiled happy to see that Richie seemed to be perfectly normal, that his exposure to that mutagenic gas did not seem to have affected him. She hoped he stayed normal, though she would love him even if he did turn into a metahuman. No matter what happened, as far as she was concerned Richie would always be her son. Then she turned away from Richie and began heading downstairs. Richie followed with a secretive smile on his face, quietly hoping that while they were out he would be able to keep his newly endowed powers under control. I will keep them under control, he thought, I must.
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