Volt hadn't really expected his offer to Cord to go down all that well, so to say he was surprised that the idea landed in fertile ground was an understatement. Sure, she said she was unlikely to take him up on the offer overly much, but that suited him down to the ground. Hell, if she never spoke to him again he would just shrug his shoulders and say 'at least I tried.' Still, he was quickly growing to like the lassie, especially after the barely concealed mischievous glint in her eye when she spoke to Hot-Rod. [i]Call it a premonition, but ah reckon Ryker is gonnae find reason ta regret annoying oor newest recruit.[/i] 

Aye, Tommy was just starting to congratulate himself on a job well done, just as it all went to Hell in a hand basket again. You'd think someone with such a terrible track record with optimism as he had would have learnt their lesson by now, but no, he kept letting his hopes get high, just to watch them get dashed against the pavement, over and over again. [i]And Szymon wonders why I'm such a miserable git.[/i]

The first, and admittedly probably the least, of the problems came in the form of a slightly pear shaped lassie Volt had never met before. She had a shy, yet pretty smile, on her face but her eyes were all for the food stacked high on Cord's plate. She asked the group how the were with all the confidence he would have expected from a hermit that hadn't seen another human being in twenty years. [i]Obviously another newbie, though lacking Cord's unique 'charm'.[/i] Ordinarily Volt would have welcomed the lass, introduced himself then asked her name, because after all his mother had raised him a gentleman. Of course that woulda have been two easy a fix, and the universe just couldn't be having that, oh no! It, the universe that is, decided that the Lightning-Slinger could probably handle a few more upsets, this one called 'Agnes'. 

Agnes was confident were the last girl had been shy, too confident really, but then crazy people usually are. Ironically Volt's on self-assuredness plummeted upon Agnes's arrival, but to be fair to her that might have more to do with the detonator she was carrying than the girl herself. [i]And of course, she's a Hot-Rod fan. First person ah've ever met who actually knows who he bloody is, an she's a bloody nutcase![/i] 

It would be fair to say the Lightning-Slinger froze for a while after that, if only for a heartbeat, a rictus of a grin still plastered across his face. It was true what he had said earlier, terror still gripped him now as easily as it had at the beginning of his career. At the start he'd always wondered if fearlessness came with time, but he'd slowly come to realise that fearlessness was an attribute of the stupid or the dead. No, he'd just have to live with being a coward that routinely found himself in terrifying situations. That heartbeat frozen was all he needed though, just a second of giving himself over to the fear and he was ready to act again, even if all he wanted to do was curl into a ball and bawl for his ma. 

Cord was speaking to Agnes now, and he could hear the steel in her voice, cold and hard. [i]Starting to think ah was wrong, this lass definitely is League material, probably more than ah ahm.[/i] Christ, Volt had been chumming around with all sorts of super humans for years now, but he was forced to concede that Cord might be the toughest people he'd ever met. Her whole speech stood out as one of the most badass things he'd heard in along time, not quite as good as the time Sonja sucked up the poisonous gas villain Sarin in a vaccum cleaner, but still pretty good. As the only senior member of the League present (not counting Hot-Rod, but then Volt rarely did.) and with Cord's example already set, the Lightning-Slinger knew he had to take charge of the situation. After all, Ryker had treated Agnes like she was some sorta over-zealous fan, not a dangerous potential bomber.

He pushed himself out his chair, calm and smooth like a new churned buttermilk, despite his heart beating like a snare drum in his chest. He spotted a dog licking the other new girl's hand in the corner of his eye, and wondered who it belonged to. [i]Strange the things ye notice when ye think yer gonna die.[/i] He looked Agnes straight in the eyes, sure he could see the crazy there. 

"Ah dunno who ye are Agnes, an am nae sure if ye ken who ah am, but let me catch ye up. Ma name is Hi-Voltage, like thon AC/DC song, an ah produce an manipulate electrical currents. All kinds. Like those anes that run through the human brain. So, an ah feel ah'm asking ye nicely, if'n ye dinnae hand me that there detonater then ah'm gonna go ahead and drain every single lil impulse in yer heid. Ah wanna say it wid be painful, but ah doubt it. Ah reckon it wid just kill ya." Volt was impressed by how steady his voice sounded, or at least as impressed as a man ca be while facing the very real possibility that he may soon be meeting his death by explosion. The real kicker was that he wasn't even sure he could do what he had threatened, in fact he didn't even know if it was possible. It was just something that Silvertongue had told him to say once if he ever had to threaten someone. 

It was during this tense moment that a pink plushie bear floated down from the air and sconed Volt across the head. 

"And ye!" the Lightning-Slinger swung on MC, sounding like a school teacher dealing with a rowdy pupil "If ye throw one mair of thon bloody bears ah'm gonna pull ye down here and make ye eat the damn thing!"