Static

A/N: Nope, I still don't own Get Ed.

Ol' Skool had always told him: "Listen to the static."

Ed never did understand him; or when he tried to understand, it was pure luck it even worked. Ol' Skool's words had drilled into his brain. It was subconscious by then. His mission wasn't only to stop Bedlam and all that; it was to listen to the static.

He needed to start with the basic: what was static?

Certainly the one to ask was Fizz. Her definition of it was an electrical charge and something about "the body can create static by movement" or something like that. Either way it was a good start. Ol' Skool wanted him to listen to electricity. But how?

He went to ask Ol' Skool himself the definition of static. His definition was way different than Fizz's, but he heard once again a few words. Ol' Skool told him that static was something close to a spiritual wavelength. Every living thing had static. Sometimes even death had a static… which kind of scared Ed.

After he knew what he had to know, he made his first conclusion: listening to static meant to listen to his surrounding life force. His mission was tricky, but he was up for it.

He started his training regime in his bedroom. He would close his eyes and listen if anybody would walk pass his room and talk. While he got some good information on all of his friends, he didn't reach his objective, so he did the stupidest thing he could do for literally terms of "listen to the static." He put his finger on an electric socket.

"Ed, are you out of your mind?!" the Dojo had yelled at him when they found out minutes later. The lights had gone out for the period when he had place his finger on the socket.

He laughed it off, telling them he was all right, maybe even better than all right.

Ed and electricity mixed perfectly. The hot and buzzing electric static flowed through him and energized him—no harm was done. It was one of the best feelings he had felt all over his body; the best being when Deets had kissed him, of course.

So he learned right away from that experience he was compatible with real static, so finding it would be a breeze. He started listening for that buzzing and waited countless hours to finally listen a small buzzing. He smiled ear-to-ear when he heard it and ran out of his bedroom to find out who emitted that small buzz. He soon found out that "it" was a Loogie-damaged holo-screen. Ed's head plopped down in disappointment and retreated back into his room. It would take some time, but the result would be great, he knew.

For a certain amount of time, Ed would stay in his room and listen. He got interrupted many times by his deliveries, but he found time to practice nonetheless. It only took him a big amount of time to finally listen an almost silent crackling sound made when Deets was passing by. His first of many achievements.

Ed soon started hearing different electric sounds from the Dojo; each as distinctive as their personalities. Burn's static was the loudest of the Dojo's, it domain them; it made its presence be heard by only a few movements. Deets's static was more sophisticated by its rhythm; it was harmony to Ed's ears. Loogie's static was a bit out of tune, maybe because he had almost two different statics within him. Fizz's static was small, yet youthful; it either stayed in calm or paced left and right while inventing. Ol' Skool's was the most calmed static of them all; it gave the rest of the Dojo's static some reason of sounding like they did—to create a perfect rhythm between them. The perfect song.

He took notice of one thing that Ol' Skool always wanted: he wanted his team to be in perfect harmony… and it was.

What was Ed's static like? The strangest of them all. His sounded way different than his friends, but it clicked with them to create a great beat.

After he discovered how his friends' statics sounded, Ed went to the city and investigated his new-found sense of hearing. What he managed to hear was a huge mess of statics. He had to turn off his new power because of so much noise. It was incredible how much people didn't get along.

Luckily for the Dojo, Ed was on the street and they found him right when they were sent on a mission. Bedlam's courier team, the Clone Couriers, had stolen a very dangerous parcel: Nexus YZ, a computer virus with all of the sense of the word. What Fizz had told him, Nexus could corrupt, steal, delete and swipe clean any person's account and Nexus's user could never be caught or linked to the occurrence.

It was up to them to stop Bedlam.

They ran out into the city to catch the Clones' hover-truck. It took them about half-an-hour to catch up with the other courier group. Ed tried listening to see if the Clones could even have a static. They sounded like… something. Who would have guess that even the Clones could have static? If it could be called static, that is.

The boys started to fight with the Clones while the girls searched for the package in the trunk of the hover-truck. Ed lashed out his Slammer and hit the driver Clone until it turned into green slime. While Burn and Loogie fought with the other Clones, Ed tried to maneuver the vehicle. When he placed his hands on the wheel, he felt a small vibration and listened to it. He heard the perfection of real static synchronized with others—the parts of the vehicle synchronized with each other to make it work.

"We found it!" the girls shouted. Deets showed the boys the small box. Fizz continued to search, but it wasn't for the parcel; it was to steal parts from the Clones for her own use.

"Alright then. Everyone, get out!" Burn ordered them.

Fizz was the first one out. She had a box that couldn't be closed due to the many stolen parts she had stuffed inside. Her hover-scooter rode next to the moving hover-truck. Behind her was Loogie, who had enough playing with the Clones. Dr. Pinch shouted a comment at them and Loogie jumped out and started skating next to the hover-truck. When she knew two of the Dojo couriers got out, Deets jumped out of the truck and flew above Fizz and Loogie.

"Hotshot, get out!" Burn shouted at Ed, who was still driving the hover-truck.

"Get out first! I'm trying to throw this thing out of the street," Ed told him.

"I'm not leaving until every single Dojo courier is out and safe."

"Then you're gonna have to stay here a little while longer then." Ed started to steer directly towards the edge of the street. He shut down the hovering components and finally heard a disconnection with the harmony he had heard before. The vehicle's static was shutting down and crumbled—like it knew this was its end.

Ed and Burn ran out and jumped to their vehicles next to the hover-truck. The truck collided with the side-barriers of the street and jumped down a long fall until it crashed with the ground and exploded. Ed stopped hearing its static.

"Ed, are you out of your mind?!" Fizz shouted at him when he and Burn returned to them. "I could've scavenged more parts from that truck!"

The Dojo laughed it off—Fizz still didn't found it funny—and returned the Nexus YZ to the scientists who created it. After a long battle with the young girl who almost desperately wanted to stay with the scientists, they returned back to the Dojo to tell Ol' Skool about their successful delivery. Ed, on the other hand, stood quietly for the first time and listened to his friends' statics. All of them were exhausted, but still in sync to tell their story.

"Good job, Dojo Team. I say we call this a day." Ol' Skool clapped his hands together. "Get refreshed and I'll make you guys a meal."

The Dojo sighed in relief and thanked their boss. They all returned to their room for the exception of Ed.

"Can I talk with you for a bit?" he asked.

"Sure, why not?" The old man smiled under his braided white beard. "What's on your mind?"

"You always tell me to listen to the static. Why?"

Ol' Skool sighed. "Listening to the static is like listening to your heart. You can either trust that person or not."

"Oh."

"Why you ask?"

"Eh… I can listen to static now. I learned how." Ed put a hand on his face embarrassed. "I thought you literally meant that I have to listen to the static."

"I did."

"What?"

"Ed, you have the ability to hear it. That's what makes you different. When you listen to the static of living beings, you listen to their spirit. Now then, when you listen to my static, do you trust it?"

"Of course, with my life."

"When you hear another person's static, do you trust them?"

"I heard the static of the people I don't like today while I was out; they sounded weird and strange to me."

"Exactly, that's what I meant all along. You heard their true spirit. If they give you a trusting face, that doesn't mean they are to be trusted. Good job, sport." Ol' Skool patted Ed's spiky hair. "Is that all?"

"Yeah, thanks a lot." He smiled in relief.

Ed knew right then and there that he wasn't going to be that much foolish or naive with people anymore… but then again he still fell for Burn and Loogie's pranks.

'Note to self: try to make Burn and Loogie's statics untrustworthy for me. Especially when they ask me to look for stuff that'll then explode gunk in my face.'

A/N: This was something I had up my mind for some time. I never did write a story with Ed as the main character (What? Try to resist Fizz and her cuteness, just try! It's hard!), so I tried this little four-page one-shot with lots of words. XD Hope you guys like it. Happy New Year!