Please review? Tell me what you think!!

"Be careful on your way," Victoria's grandfather called from the kitchen. "I'm sorry I can't take you today."

"No, it's fine. I'm gonna meet Jason along the way. Bye."

Brooding, she kicked anything in her way in the sidewalk. Acorns, rocks, leaves, branches.

How could he keep something like that from her? Wasn't she supposed to be his best friend? Wasn't that something you let your friend know?

She slowed down her pace and frowned. Maybe she didn't mean that much to him. Maybe they weren't as good of friends as she initially thought. Maybe he just thought of her as something to pass the time.

She stopped walking and looked at her watch.

"Crap," she growled, starting to run. "I'm gonna be late. I cannot get another detention. Mom will kill me!"

Turning into an alley she decided to take a short cut. But she had turned down the wrong one.

"Too high to climb," she decided, sizing up the 8-foot brick wall.

She turned around and froze.

"Well look who it is," he laughed, coming out of the shadows.

"You," she gasped. "You can't be here! Static put you in jail! Years ago!"

He ignored her and took a step towards her, pushing her up against the wall of the building.

"Let go!" she cried, looking around frantically for someway to get out of the alley. Her eyes landed on an outdoor outlet behind her knees and her fingers twitched towards the two openings. She inched down, trying to get closer to it.

"I'm assuming you already know who I am," Ebon sneered. "Then you know who I'm after."

"No, I don't know who you're after!" she growled, jamming her index finger into the outlet. Her body filled with the electric current, which ran into Ebon, sending him flying backward a few feet. She stuck her ring finger into the last remaining outlet and raised her free hand toward Ebon. "Leave. Me. Alone."

She blasted him out of the alley and then raced toward the school as fast as she could. The front school yard was empty and she glanced behind her to make sure Ebon wasn't following her.

She didn't quite understand what was going on, but she knew one thing.

She had to find Gear.

Victoria fidgeted through the day, obtaining merely a strict warning for her tardy when she mentioned that her grandfather had been unable to drive her and she had to run to school, which left her breathless and panting during her explanation.

When the final bell of the day blared through the halls, she was out of the school and waiting by the entrance for Jason.

"V!" he called, waving and smiling.

"You," she snarled.

"What?" He took a step back like she'd hit him, but she grabbed his collar and dragged him away from the school towards his house.

"Where are we going?" he asked, aggravated.

"Why didn't you tell me your dad was…" she whispered angrily.

"I thought it was kind of obvious!" he whispered back just as fiercely, not even pretending to not know what she was referring to. "You know? This." He pulled out his phone and threw it at the wall. He picked up the pieces and, using his powers, put it back together, showing her the lit LCD screen to prove it worked.

"Yeah, well, it would have been nice for you to have made sure we were on the same page," she muttered. "Anyways," she continued walking, "I need to talk to your dad about something."

"Did you talk to your—"

"This isn't something I can talk to my grandpa about," she muttered sadly.

"Father figure," he murmured to himself, nodding like he knew what she was going to talk to him about. She rolled her eyes.

Victoria kept silent for the rest of the walk, stepping aside so he could unlock the door, though it was already unlocked—neither of them were used to there being someone for him to come home to.

"Dad," Jason called. "You here?"

"Where else would I be?" he chuckled. "I'm in here."

They followed his voice to the kitchen. Richie was sitting at the kitchen table, working on a mechanical…thing…that could only be Back-Pack.

"Poor thing got trashed. This is going to take days to repair," he sighed.

"If you talk to Victoria, I'll help you later." Richie looked as his son and raised his eyebrows. "Technopath," he said simply.

Richie nodded and looked at Victoria, who had taken a seat across from him.

"So what's up?" he asked, leaning back over his work.

"Well," Victoria started slowly. "Last night I was talking to my grandfather and he told me what the fight was about between Hot-Streak and Static that led to the disappearance of everyone around, including Hot-Streak and Static."

Richie's eyes, widening, shot up to her in surprise. "What? I never heard about any of that! People are missing?" Both looked at Jason, who was glaring at Victoria from the fridge.

"Well, we were going to tell you eventually…"

"You'll find I'm not one for secrets. Anyways, from what I know—because I was also kept out of the loop for a while—Static and Hot-Streak were going at it hard. Hot-Streak had taken down a whole building and killed tons of people. Then, when everyone thought it was over, no one could find Static or Hot-Streak. Tons of citizens were missing, too," Victoria explained.

"Has anyone who was missing been seen?" Richie asked carefully.

Victoria shook her head. "My dad is still missing."

"So what is it you need?"

"Well, last night I put it together and figured out that you're Gear," she said, throwing a glare at Jason. "No thanks to anyone else."

"One and only."

"Well that's what Static and Hot-Streak were fighting over."

"Static was out for revenge," Richie guessed. Jason, who had remained silent through the entire thing suddenly sat down next to his dad and took Back-Pack from him.

"Yup," Jason muttered, leaning over Back-Pack to get a closer look inside.

"Ah," he groaned, running his hands trough his short blond hair. "Static, what did you do? Man, that's not like him…"

"And that's not all," Victoria said darkly. "On my way to school I ran into someone I haven't heard from in years. When I think about it, it's gotta be at least three years since I've seen him. Ebon."