The monitor dwindles to a low beat as Static stands up, his eyes pulled into a livid glare. Something inside him has snapped; he can't remember anything accept the piercing fury and blinding pain inside of him as he begins to stride away, balling his silver hand into a fist. Lightning begins to erupt from his hands so that the surrounding trees groan in protest as they're lashed with his passage. His eyes even burn with energy so that he can barely see anything except bright white fire in front of him. All of Static's magnetized aura burns and flashes in purple and white bursts of thunder shock resonating through the ground fifteen miles around him like an earthquake. The power bleeds into the sky like the slow motion of a meteor hitting the ground, its tail catching the sky with fire. Alan's ghostly form, clad in the same roughed pair of jeans and t-shirt, steps in front of Static, unshaken by the terrible display resounding off of the sky and surveying Static with a glare. His leg is still weakened by Richie's hit. Miraculously, the trees do not catch fire as the air even crackles with the unleashed energy, and Static had not even used the amp yet. Empowered by the steady hum of the gauntlet's help, Static sprints toward him with his glove pulled back, his eyes almost as wild as Alan's with endalite power. Swiping back and forth at around the same unearthly speed, Static manages to punch Alan in the face, causing him to face plant into a boulder, shattering it like glass. The noise is ear-splitting and can be heard a good distance away, where four heroes are now on a mission to recover the lost
…
"I'm not the only one that heard that, right?" Kaya says tentatively, listening for more sounds
"Negative, it sounds like a fight's just started; my telepathy is picking up three entities west of our position" J'onn says, flying low now.
"Let's hurry, we might be needed" Lantern says
"Good idea" Batman agrees, and the four speed off to the origin point of the sound
…
Static throws Alan literally into the ground, punching him repeatedly in the face so much so that the ghost is unwilling to put up as much of a fight as before. The earth breaks away with the force of the endalite like a miniature explosion, and from his previous ability of being intangible; Alan falls bodily into the cavern that houses the core. Static jumps after him into the opening and stands up, his eyes and hands lighting the dark like industrial flares. The core is a giant crystalline sphere in the corner of the underground cavity, and it throws off hints of blue as sunlight falls on it, its power spurting up into the ceiling as though it were a fountain; obviously, destroying this thing would crash the domed field. He looks from Alan to the core, deciding which to deal with first. Looking at Alan for an eternity, Virgil defers to the corner. Alan wasn't worth it at this point. He would honor Richie's request instead. A bright white flash darts in front of Static, blocking his path to the core, which pulses with energy at this move, like an insanely huge heart. A whale's heart. A dark heart. Static glares and knocks Alan into the wall like a ragdoll.
"You're lucky that Kaya still thinks you're worth saving" he seethes "very lucky", and with that he punches him out and Alan falls to the floor, alive, but looking dimmer. He moves on to the core. This must have been like the fifteenth power core he had to mess with, having electric powers, only this time he was going to fry it, not drain it. The fact that he needed to destroy it seemed to make little difference. The core heart began beating faster, like a human heart would before its destruction, like it knew what was coming, that it would cease to be in this world, like it was alive. More like pretending to be alive: an imposter, a fiend, a machine, not a soul. He didn't care what it looked like; it couldn't fool him this time; this thing would go to pieces for what it did to Richie. Energy flashed around his hand and the cave rumbled as he thought about it, even the core looked like a dying flashlight compared to Static, who reached his silver gloved hand out toward the core, to drown the room in light. The domed field outside thins out to the point of being slightly clear from an ocean blue, and members of the league can partially see into the cloudy rainforest, but still cannot fully penetrate it. A keening high pitched sound filled the air and then a gigantic blast, as the core was obliterated from its place, leaving a gaping hole in the ground. Static jumps out of the fissure and walks off slowly, his eyes coldly flashing with power, unimpressed.
Nothing can be seen now of Static's form, only a miniature scale sun with flashes of lightning surrounding it in the middle of an Amazon jungle. Batman, Lantern, Kaya and the Martian come into the clearing. Kaya is out in front, and her sleeves and skirt and Martian and Batman's capes threaten to sweep them into the wind as though a twister had hit.
"STAAAATIIIIIIIC!" Kaya yells over the noise with two hands cupping around her mouth as a megaphone, slowly and loudly like they were at opposite ends of a stadium. "WHAAAAAAAT'S GOING OOOOON!" The ground rumbles and cracks, pushing the integrity of her footing to the limit.
"Kaya don't go near him, that electricity will fry you alive!" the Lantern shouts, forming a bright green barrier between them and Static, "We have to get him to calm down first!"
"We have to end this soon- it's slowly accelerating; any more and he'll break the barrier, then ignite the atmosphere!" Batman adds, craning to get a look at the height of the burst.
"Where's the Martian?" Lantern asks, peering around with confusion. Somehow J'onn had disappeared from sight.
"Here" J'onn says, contacting Batman telepathically.
"J'onn has something, hold on" Batman informs Lantern. He focuses his mind on the Martian's words.
"Go ahead"
"Bruce, I know what happened- its Richie," he says, "Static thinks there is nothing to be done…that Richie is-"
"Is there anything we can do?" Bruce cuts across
"That's why I need you to come, I found him and he's in bad shape"
"John, use the Lantern core to get Kaya to the top of the barrier so she can get through and get Clark over here," Batman commands, "after that try to talk to Static, do what you can to cool him down. I'll be back". And with that, he disappears into the woods.
"Take a left" the Martian says to his subconscious, and he turns, to find the Martian taking Richie's pulse.
"How is he?" Batman asks, kneeling beside J'onn.
"Bad enough, this is no ordinary wound." Martian answers, "It changes quickly, his ability to recover is being taken away by the demand of energy from the residue around it, which I conclude is endalite; he's unconscious from the pain. If there were a way to counter the endalite Gear should be able to heal on his own. Before I treated him it was as though the wound was 2 weeks old, then two seconds old, then 5 days old all in the space of 10 minutes, all infected and without treatment, a slow torture over time spans; he is either quite strong or quite fortunate to have survived this long, and the injury was not large. The wound has improved with a Drithian antibiotic, but he is still dying from this change." he finishes, saddened by his own diagnosis.
"So it's confirmed that this compound interferes with the timestream. It's regrettable we had to find out like this. When this is over I'll see that it's disposed of or locked in priority storage, before anyone else can use it, or anything else like this happens. What do you think about getting him back to the tower? Can he be moved at all?" Batman asks, impressed with Gear's resilience.
"His breathing has eased now since I gave him a sedative; hopefully he won't burn through it all at once again with the fever he keeps catching as that wound changes. I brought an engineered compound used to handle endalite in Star Labs, it should make a good enough bandage to keep him from loosing any more blood, but that's all I can do. I would say he has the best chance at living if we move him now. But only one time if we can help it" J'onn adds, trying to be positive while disagreeing with Batman's idea before he can say it "it may be dangerous for Richie."
"I've you've read my thoughts then you know that Static has to see that Richie's alive in order to calm down," Batman says testily, now administering a green vial of liquid into Richie's arm, "and that's key if we don't want two world threatening problems on our hands."
…
"Ready Kaya?"
"Check" she says, giving John a thumbs up
Arching his arm like an Olympic discus thrower, John whips his Lantern energy, lashing the green pad Kaya is standing on with tremendous force, sending her flying up to the top surface of the bubble like a rocket. Pinning her arms ahead for speed like Superman, she focuses her shadowy energy all the way from her toes to her fingertips, half protecting herself from the lighted bursts coming at her from Static's field below, finally stabbing through the top, to land feet first on the lightly blue demi-sphere, gazing toward the sun. Although it felt like being a giant on top of the world, her thoughts lead her to Static, and Gear- She knew that something had happened; the only question was what-what could have happened that Batman would not mention? He had rushed out of there with 'that' look-she knew 'that' look from years of learning under a master almost as stern, and that it meant…..but now she should focus. 'They'll be fine. I can trust them…' Quickly pressing her hand to her ear, she contacts Superman and the rest of the aerial party. The pentagonal shield glowed blood red in the sun. As Superman flew up to her kingdom on top of the world, she thought she should be more concerned about the mission, but it was just exiting to meet him again, having only met once before, and she was very young back then.
"Yes sir, Batman said that you were needed to get through to Static" she answers as she finishes informing him of the situation.
"Wait-you mean he won't listen to Lantern?"
Clark is surprised. They had met only a few times before and even he could tell that Green Lantern was the one Virgil looked up to the most.
"Yes" she says despondently, "he is…in great pain. Bruce thinks that you are the only one who can get close enough for him to even hear you, and we have to do it fast" she ends.
"Right, let's go" Superman agrees. Clark carried her Lois Lane style back into the shield, her powers granting them passage; she couldn't say that she did not enjoy being carried by Superman. 'The girls back home will never believe this', she thinks, giggling inside her head in spite of the situation. She had a feeling that the field had gotten weaker when they passed through, but the feeling did not last long. Once both of them were inside, the flaming lightning had gotten twice as big in her absence, it seemed. And the Green Lantern was not having any luck convincing Static to power down, nor did he manage to come within 20 feet of him because of the immense electrical field.
"Gear!" Kaya breathes in shock, as Martian phases out of the trees and materializes with Richie unconscious in his arms, looking worse for wear. Kaya rushes over while taking a metal device from her pack and examines the wound.
"How is he?" she says, now adjusting Richie's arm for blood circulation.
"Still alive, but not for long unless we can stop the endalite-" J'onn says urgently, putting Richie on a grassy patch of land.
"-The endalite?" Kaya cuts across incredulously, looking behind her at the Martian in confusion "This is a result of the acceleration?"
"The time distortion theory applies here; I observed it in Gear's injuries" he answers patiently.
"I ask your forgiveness sir, I was…surprised…" Kaya trails off, her cheeks carrying a red hint from speaking in such a way to a superior. She laughs to herself: "heh…if Jonah heard me say that I'd be in for it when we got home…cleaning duty until I fell asleep standing up…"
"It's alright" J'onn says understandingly
"Maybe if we can get him far enough away from here the endalite effect will weaken," she says, turning her attention back to Gear "if there were only some way to-I need Static! He can help me cure Gear!" she sputters, her face wild with revelation.
Superman looks toward the young, bright star in the growth, mustering his best poker face. But then he remembers the skinny black kid from Dakota… with the goofy jokes and the steel heart, who reminded the entire league about the power in friendship, in trust, and he thinks: 'no, that won't be needed, this is Static'
"I'm on it" he says simply, walking into the billowing current.