"So, which floral centerpiece did you like best?"
"Uh," a distracted Virgil Hawkins hesitated. "The pink ones?"
"Virgil, you didn't look at the photos I sent, did you?" The voice of his fiancee, Frieda Goren, gave no indication of being upset or disappointed. She rarely if ever was after so long of knowing him.
"Sorry," he answered back sheepishly. "It was a long flight and an even longer day."
It had been the longest continuous flight of his life. Dakota City and Jump City were separated by a handful of states and over 2,000 miles. For most, that meant more than a day of non-stop driving. For Virgil Hawkins, the hero known as Static, it took him just under ten hours at his top speed to arrive at the west coast city. As it turned out, flying on a metal disc propelled by powerful electromagnetic forces didn't make for the most comfortable trip.
He had arrived in Jump City the night before and immediately crashed hard at the nearest hotel. While Virgil could have quickly replenished his energy and kept on task, the travel had been mentally taxing, and as far as he was concerned he had earned a warm bed.
Virgil came to the city with a clear goal: to find some old friends. Years ago, as a teenager, he had lived there for a time. During which, Virgil had met several other young heroes and had been invited to join their team. Those were still memories he could look back on with fondness. Now, almost a decade later, he returned to Jump City in hopes those old connections could be called upon.
"I know," Frieda said after a moment's lull. "You've got a lot on your mind, baby. It's okay."
An understatement if ever there was one. 'A lot' would be focusing on his upcoming nuptials. 'A lot' would be a concern for his family's safety in a city he had left behind. Attempting to lift the Justice League back out from the rubble of its failures was decidedly more than 'a lot.' And that said nothing of what he was about to do.
"Are you sure you want to do this? You know I support you one hundred percent but once you do this there's no coming back. Nothing will ever be the same again."
He considered those words for a moment. "If there's another way, I'm not seeing it, Frieda."
When justice fell only a few years ago, the country lost faith in its heroes. It's not as if the world's defenders had gone away entirely, but people just didn't look up into the sky with the same sense of hope and confidence that they used to. Virgil knew if he went through with his plan today that nothing would ever be the same again, just as Frieda had said, but in his mind that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. The world needed a change and if no one else would step up to make that change happen, then he would.
He had come to this city to find some friends. To find heroes. Brave individuals whom he had fought alongside long ago, whom he had been able to put his trust in, and whom he believed the country could put theirs in, too. But those friends weren't here. The headquarters they had once called home was abandoned. The young heroes he used to know had moved on, it seemed. Which made his resolve that much stronger.
"It's time," he told her.
On the streets of Jump City a thousand feet below where Virgil was hovering, the moment he had been waiting for had arrived. The radio waves he was picking up and had been listening to for the last few hours were telling quite the tale, and it was just the opportunity he had been waiting for.
He flipped his goggles down over his eyes and slid his hood into place. "Love you, baby girl."
"I love you, too," his fiancee answered. "And I'm proud of you. Just promise me you'll dazzle them all."
"You know me," Static told her as he propelled himself forward racing toward the city below. "I'll put a shock to their system."
mickilennial,
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Supermaxx,
AndyC,
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Festive,
Simple Unicycle,
Half Pint,
Izurich,
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