Big Changes
"Richie! Time to get up!" called Mrs. Foley one morning. Richie Foley woke up, put on his glasses, and got ready for school. He couldn't wait to see his best friend, Virgil Hawkins and discuss their latest late-night super heroic escapade. He and Virgil had been super heroes since the Big Bang. Virgil had woken up the next morning with electrical powers and he took the name Static Shock. Richie's powers had manifested later as super intelligence and an ability to interface with technology, so he had become Gear. None of their family and friends knew their secrets, except for a few (A/N: there is an article on the internet listing who all has learned Static's secret identity. There are at least 3, including Shaq ("Static Shaq".)
Richie first became aware that something was different when he got to school and saw Virgil. The two friends were just talking, when Richie suddenly heard Virgil say that he wondered who was causing trouble in the city right about now. The thing was, Virgil didn't say it out loud. Richie had been hearing his thoughts! Richie immediately started worrying about how he was going to hide this latest power from his parents and said that he hoped he didn't get telekinesis as well. The two quickly figured out how to keep it under control for the rest of the day, till they could meet in the junkyard and teach Richie how to modulate—choose whose thoughts he wanted to tune into.
Two days later Richie had full control over his new power and there were no more random interceptions from anyone nearby. He and Virgil had fun experimenting with Richie's new power, and it was during one of their experiments that Richie discovered that he could use his telepathy to control a person's mind for a limited period of time. This meant fun at school making Francis bang his head into a wall three times in a row. At home, Richie liked to use his powers to eavesdrop on his parents' conversations by entering his father or mother's mind and use their eyes and ears to find out what was going on.
About a week later, just when Richie was getting used to being telepathic, he woke up to the sight of Backpack, his desktop computer, his alarm clock and several other items floating in the air over his head! It was all Richie could do to keep from screaming at the sight and he knew better than to do that and let his parents see the floating objects. They'd question him about how they were floating and that would mean admitting every secret he'd kept from them since he got his super smarts. Richie wasn't ready to admit to his parents that he'd been lying to them and hiding the truth about himself behind a mask for so long. He knew of only one person he could trust with his secret—Virgil. He contacted Virgil via his telepathy and asked him to come over the next morning, and told him to make sure their families didn't know what was truly going on in order to preserve their secrets.
Boy was Virgil surprised when he saw the objects floating over Richie's head! "How did you do that?" Virgil asked. "I don't know. I just woke up and I was like this. It must have happened overnight," Richie said. "Whoa! Telekinesis! Way cool!" "it isn't cool if I can't control it! I'll be run out of the school as the biggest freak since the X Men!" "Hey, easy bro! you can learn to control this. I'll help you. after all, I've read at least as many X Men comics as you. I know how Jean learned to control her powers, so we can use those same methods to help you." "I'm willing to try anything. Especially since, if my parents find out, there's no telling what they'll do to me."
Immediately after school that day, Virgil set about helping Richie control his telekinesis at the old junkyard where Virgil often went to practice his powers in secret. Soon enough, Richie had the hang of it and there were no accidental outbursts of his new power, which made it easier to hide. They both knew that if the wrong people found out about Richie's new powers, they would try to exploit him, experiment on him, turn him to crime or something even worse! So they'd pretend to be normal kids during the day, but when school let out, they'd head to the junkyard for superpower practice. With each session, Richie got better and better. Soon he could lift a boulder's weight with the force of his mind alone! Sometimes Virgil would lift something aloft with his powers, then let go and let Richie keep it suspended in the air with his power. Richie also practiced making telekinetic barriers, so that any object thrown at him would just bounce off. It was incredible what Richie could do when he put his mind to it!
Unfortunately, their worst fears soon came true, when Ebon found out about Gear's new abilities through the meta-human grapevine—namely from Hotstreak—and decided to kidnap him. Ebon snuck into the Foleys house one night and kidnapped Richie, thinking to use him to get to Static and Gear (A/N: Ebon found out that Richie was Static's running buddy in "Sins of the Fathers"). What Ebon didn't know was that Richie was Gear, but fortunately, Richie managed to grab his costume, mask, Backpack and other equipment before they left the house. Richie telekinetically shielded it from Ebon so his identity wouldn't be revealed. Richie managed to alert Virgil to what was going on telepathically and Richie's parents heard his screams, arriving just in time to see Ebon carrying Richie off.
The next morning, Mr. Hawkins and Mr. Foley set off to find Richie after the police refused to get involved with Ebon. They arrived there and found Richie tied up on the floor. Ebon was trying to get him to contact Static, but Richie refused. Soon enough Static flew in and managed to distract Ebon long enough for Richie to telekinetically work his bonds loose and grab his stuff. He found an empty room in the back and quickly changed to Gear. He then raced out to help his partner. Between the two of them, they had Ebon cornered and were soon forcing him back, but then Ebon did something unexpected. He managed to hit Gear and knock him unconscious.
Mr. Foley and Mr. Hawkins ran to help him, and Mr. Foley pulled Gear's mask off. Mr. Foley gasped when he looked under Gear's mask and saw the face of his son! He couldn't believe it and neither could Mr. Hawkins. He began to wonder if Virgil knew that Richie was secretly Gear this whole time, and if so, why he'd hid it from Richie's parents and his own. Could it be that Virgil hid a secret of his own? When Richie awoke and his dad confronted him about being Gear, Richie tried to deny it at first, but when his dad revealed that he knew everything, Richie confessed and told his dad the truth.
Later that night, Richie told his parents the entire story from getting exposed to the Big Bang gas up until about two weeks ago, when he'd first acquired telekinesis. His parents trusted him enough to let him continue in his role as Gear and whenever one of his parents had computer trouble, they knew Richie could most likely fix it within minutes because of his powers. In the meantime, Virgil told his father about his powers and his secret identity as Static. His father took it surprisingly well, but told him he had to tell Sharon. Mr. Hawkins changed his mind, however, when Sharon started ranting about Bang Babies and how sick of them she was. Eventually, the Foleys also found out about Virgil's secret identity too and they frequently made excuses for Virgil and Richie so they could continue functioning as superheroes. All in all, things turned out for the best and the two boys continued to make their parents proud.