Once a Slinger… Prelude to a rebirth
Johnny Gallo rather liked his new life here on the west coast. Get up, dress, walk down the hall and great the gorgeous brunette I'm staying with, head to "Head quarters" together, open garage door of friend's house and check in with the bosses, go kick what ever butt they request, spend most of the day practicing buttkicking techniques, flirt with the previously mentioned Gorgeous Brunett, do ritual dread of her super powered brothers finding out we live together (Though aren't even dating much less sleeping together), go to sleep, lather, rinse, repeat. it was a good existance for a few months.
Since Rick Jones had started financing Excelsior, Johnny had moved into the spare room of Julie Power's apartment. they had gotten along the best of all of the "former" heroes. now that they were all doing the tights thing again, it was nice to be getting paid for it. he'd even caught his picture in the paper twice. the past months since the whole Ultron thing had been going great. In fact, aside from the mysterious dissapperance of Chamber, the only hitch in this life was the occasional Darkhawk flip-out.
He reported in to the storage warehouse that they had found the Excel in along side Julie. Johnny, more to get Julie to laugh than anything else, snapped his heels and straightened his posture giving an over emphasized salute. "Privates Lightspeed and Ricochet reporting for duty SIR!" he sounded off like some marine.
"Funny the first few times, Gallo," Phil comment, though still laughing. "It got less funny after about time number eight."
"yeah," Johnny said, tugging at the mask that hung around his neck. "But I gotta stick with a shtick." he cast a look at Julie who was indeed stifling a giggle.
"Well things are looking.." but before Phil could complete his sentence, his computer was flashing a warning. "Whoa," he called, hitting the pager key, so everyone knew to get together quick. "We got a meta-talent bank robbery in progress, they're tech heavy with a teleporter."
Turbo and Darkhawk seemed to appear out of no where as they began to load the Excel as quickly as Phil grabbed his PDA and cell phone. "Okay," Turbo barked as Julie flew onto the ship and Johnny climbed aboard while pulling up his mask. "Me and Darkhawk will do the primary confronting, Ricochet and Lightspeed I want you two to hang back incase one gets by us... and no flirting on the job," she shot at them, somewhat playful.
"No problem," Julie said with a playful salute.
"No promises," Johnny said with the same salute. everyone rolled their eyes except Lightspeed, who just giggled and blushed.
Johnny had no problem taking up his hidden diffesive position with his enhanced jumping abilities and agility that he'd had since his mutant powers emmerged. when they'd all radioed that they were ready. Julie gave the command: "Breach", But was beaten to the punch as a purple laser blast blew open the front doors.
"Return fire!" Turbo ordered to Darkhawk and they both unleashed their powerful blasts. Darkhawk charged in behind his. Johnny could hear the sounds of an interesting battle going on inside the bank, and watched as Turbo tried to keep her distance, but was trading blasts with whoever had the laser.
Suddenly Darkhawk was thrown from the bank into building across the street. Johnny readied a tracking disk, knowing that trying to take one of these guys on would be noble, but pointless. he'd do it, he'd try and distract them, and keep them here long enough for one of his more heavily powered friends to get the drop on them. but when he saw who exited the bank, he dropped his disks.
he watched as Prodigy, the leader of the team he'd originally joined, and Hornet, a friend who was supposed to be dead, left the bank, and flew off. he vaugely registered Turbo and Darkhawk asking why he wasn't engaging them, and if he'd placed a tracker on one of them. Johnny did stick around long... he ran.
Johnny Gallo was now half way across town sitting on a roof top, trying to stop shivering. it wasn't cold. What he saw... it wasn't right. his former team mates fighting as if they had nothing to lose, fighting as if they didn't care who got hurt, robbing a bank. He'd always figured that if one of them was going to go bad, it would have been him.
"Johnny?" came a voice behind him. he turned quickly. Julie. she must have followed him. "Are you okay?"
"Fine," he said in a hollow voice. "Havin' a party later to celebrate how fine I'm doin'."
she landed beside him and tried to put a hand on his shoulder, but he pulled away. "You ran... you never ran before. I mean we've faced some interesting things and you've never run before..."
"That wasn't... You wouldn't understand," he sighed.
"Not if you won't tell me," she said, a hint of desperation, and a dash of irritation flavoring her voice.
"Imagine it was your brothers you saw running from that bank," he said with anger rising in his voice. "Imagine you had to watch your brothers toss around your new friends like rag dolls."
"But you said you were an only child," she said, not understanding.
"Those were Slingers Julie," he said, getting frustrated. "Those were the closest things to brothers I've ever had."
she paused, covering her mouth. she'd had no idea. he never talked about the team he'd once worked with outside of when he first mentioned them at the first meeting. "I didn't- Johnny I'm so..."
whatever Julie was at the moment was drowned out as the Excel dropped down next to them. Dark Hawk leapt out, and though one couldn't see his face, Johnny knew he was angry, simply because Dark Hawk is always angry. "What the hell Ricochet? We were counting on you and your infamous accuracy back there." he seized Johnny by the throat and held him up.
Turbo exited behind him, followed by Phil Urich. Neither joined in Dark Hawk's scolding, but neither did they move to separate the two. Julie however was pulling at Dark Hawk's arm. "Stop it, you don't know what happened."
"What happened," Dark Hawk said, shrugging Lightspeed off. "Is this loser was screwing around again and blew the mission. like always."
"SHUT UP RITCHIE!" Ricochet suddenly yelled. it was enough to startled Dark Hawk into dropping him.
"Chris," Dark Hawk said, sufficiently confused.
"Those were the Slingers," Julie finally said, as Johnny moved to the far edge of the roof. "That's what wigged him out. Those were his old team mates," she explained.
"So the Slingers are now thieves?" Dark Hawk said, intentionally for Johnny to hear.
"Maybe," Phil said. "I'll have to do some research on them."
"Johnny!" called Turbo, beckoning the disturbed teen back to her. "We need to know all you can tell us about your friends, the Slingers."
Johnny looked at her, with the most serious expression he'd ever had. "Ask Spider-Man," he said, before jumping off the building and making his way slowly back to Julie's apartment.
"I say he's helping them," Dark Hawk said coldly. "He knew what was going down, and he helped 'em."
"Johnny wouldn't do that!" Julie growled.
"I just got off the phone with Cap," Rick said. "He spoke to Spider-Man, who said he'd never heard of slingers. I described the costumes and he said that he'd once used something similar to those two, and to Ricochet's but he said he'd had heard of a group of kids using them once, but never found out much about them."
Phil frowned, wondering hard. "Why would he have told us to ask Spider-Man?"
"Because," Chris said, rolling his eyes. "He wants us on a wild goose-chase while he's planning with his old friends."
"Johnny isn't involved in this," Julie practically growled through her teeth.
"Just 'cause your hot for him..." Chris began berating her, but was cut off.
"ENOUGH!" Mickey roared. "We can't go accusing one of our own without evidence," she lectured Chris, who scowled. "But on the same token, we also can't rule out Johnny's previous experiences with them." Julie now scowled.
Phil began to pace. "My guess, and that's all it is here, a guess, Johnny was tweeked by seeing his old friends, or at least their costumes, in action. he froze and then he ran. I mean c'mon Mickey," he gestured to the field leader. "What would it be like for you if I told you that we needed to go up against Namorita and Nova?"
"That'd be hard," she admitted.
"And to make matters worse," he continued. "These are guys with whom he disbanded. and with whom he got his start." Phil sat down again. "I think we need to cut him some slack, and bench him for a while. explain that while some are suspicious," he allowed to Mickey and Chris, "We are doing this because its a serious conflict of interest to him."
Julie got home to find Johnny sitting on the couch, just staring at the blank TV set.
"You okay Rico?" she asked.
"Its gotta be me," he said.
she looked at him. he was still in uniform, but with his mask rolled up above his face. "Gotta be you what sweetie?" she asked.
"I gotta be the one to bring 'em in," he said resolutely looking into her eyes. Before she could stop him, he was over the couch and out the window.
It didn't take Johnny Gallo long to find them, they were in the middle of another robbery.
He burst in the front door. "You jerks are now on my hitlist!" Johnny yelled as he landed nimbly in front of them.
"You Dusk," yelled Hornet. "Did Mephisto tell you he'd found someone for the Ricochet costume?"
"You idiot," yelled Prodigy. "He said he couldn't use the Ricochet costume becomes it didn't come with powers."
"That's right boys and girls, you're looking at the real deal here," Ricochet crowed as he leapt to the side, letting loose a disk. It beat around the girl in the Dusk costume before Prodigy grabbed it and crumpled it like it was made of tinfoil.
"You are supremely annoying," Prodigy growled. "And now, I'm going to rearrange your features for you… here's hopin' you don't like how they are already."
"We gotta get outta here Prodigy," whined Hornet. "If he's here, others have gotta be comin'."
"What did I tell you Hornet," Prodgy said, punching Johnny so hard he was knocked unconscious.
"N-never interrupt you," Hornet cowered.
"That's right, you two are under my command, I own you until Mephisto says otherwise. YOU DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!"
"Dean, Baby," Dusk begged. "We gotta get movin'. Cops are outside, I can feel it. Plus those super-zeroes too."
He backhanded Dusk, not hard enough to do permanent damage, but enough so she got the point. "When I wear the mask, you call me Prodigy," he growled."
"Whatever you say, D-Prodigy," she whimpered. He looked at the front door and then a Johnny lying on the ground. "You're gettin' us outta' here," he snapped at Dusk.
"O-okay," she answered. They gathered the money and themselves close to her and with a "Blonk" they were gone.
EMT's came in to find Johnny and turn him over to Excelsior.
"You were right," said Chris. "Sorry I jumped to a conclusion on you."
"Doesn't matter," Johnny said, reaching over to Phil's coat and pulling out a small device.
"Hey, where did that come from!" Phil protested.
"Sorry," Johnny apologized. "I figured if I ever went missing or rogue you guys should have a way to track me, even given how I move. The buttons on my jacket are some of the last gadgets Eddie designed me before I moved out west. They're trackers. This do-dad here will track the signal they send out… and I planted one on their fearless leader."
"So you are cool with taking down your team?" asked Mickey.
"If I know three things, they are this; there is no difference between good flan and bad flan, they aren't my friends, and we can take them this time." Rico smiled at his joke.
"We got stomped last time though," Chris observed.
"Ah," Johnny said, "But this is where my knowledge of the Slingers comes in handy. I was the only real meta-of the group." He rubbed his neck. "The rest of them… it was all the costume. Just like with these guys. We wait an hour or two, and we'll catch them out of costume. We'll catch them when they are weak."
The plan went off without a hitch. They waited outside the dimwits hide out and sprung their trap once they could confirm that none of them were wearing the costumes.
Once in police custody they revealed that they had sold their souls to Mephisto to receive the costumes. Those were confiscated by the Excelsior. They were put in a display-safe at the hangar.