The day started out normally for Virgil and his friend Richie, as they walked towards Dakota Union High that morning. As usual, Richie was prattling on about some scientific thing that Virgil couldn't quite understand.

"...and if I can figure out how to manipulate the different wavelengths so that they're absorbed by a semiconductor, we could make more efficient solar cells, as well as all different kinds of lasers, and even—"

As they approached the school, Virgil noticed The Tsunami Trio standing outside chatting. Though currently, it appeared the Trio was down one member.

"Hey, there's Frieda and Daisy!" he interjected, hoping to get out of being Richie's sounding board for the time being.

Thankfully, in the midst of her own babbling, Frieda glanced away from Daisy and saw Virgil and Richie walking towards them.

"Hey, Virgil. Hey, Richie," she greeted the boys. "You're just in time to hear my ideas for the Spring Fling this year."

Virgil and Richie exchanged knowing glances. Maybe this hadn't been the time to interrupt what colorful, preppy conversation the girls had been having. Virgil almost wished he had stuck to Richie's conversation. Almost.

"Hey, where's Zoey?" he asked, looking around. There was no sign of her.

Frieda frowned. "I don't know, she hasn't shown up yet. She usually meets us here."

"Hm, that's weird," Richie said.

Virgil shrugged. "She's probably just late. What teenager isn't late to school at least once?"

Frieda narrowed her gaze at him, placing her hands on her hips. "I haven't."

"Well, almost everyone."

"Wouldn't wanna ruin your perfect attendance," Richie pointed out.

Frieda flipped her hair sassily. "Well, yeah, if I wanna be valedictorian I need to keep a 4.0 GPA and keep my attendance record clean.

"Guess that ship has sailed for us, huh, Richie?" Virgil said, shooting his friend a playful glance. They expected nothing less out of their preppy, hyperactive pal.

"Guess so," Richie agreed, mirroring Virgil's expression. Unbeknownst to their female friends, they usually had good reason for being late to class.

Suddenly, the four of them heard the sharp ring of the morning bell, signaling the start of the passing period.

"And I guess we better get a move on," Virgil said. "Wouldn't wanna be responsible for a mark on your record, Frieda."

Zoey's eyes slowly fluttered open, as she finally awakened from her state of unconsciousness. The first thing her eyes were greeted with was a plain, white tiled ceiling.

At first, she thought she was in the hospital, but as her eyes began to wander, she noticed the room was completely bare, and what she was lying on wasn't exactly the most comfortable.

Sitting up, she looked down to discover a hard metal bed underneath her. Whoever put her here didn't exactly value her comfort.

Slowly, it started coming back to her. School. The backpack. Darkness.

Ebon.

A feeling of dread began to form in the pit of her stomach. She was now his prisoner, in some unknown place. Naturally, her eyes began to scan the room for an exit.

She noticed the only way out that she could see was a door with a small window. With a mix of curiosity and urgency overtaking her, she stood up and walked to the door.

Peering out the window, she saw a giant room, which appeared to be a recreational room, containing a pool table and a dusty couch in the corner of the room. Cracks ran up and down the walls, which were chipped and covered in cobwebs. Obviously, the place hadn't been used in a while.

What was more disturbing was what, or who, was sitting on the couch. There was no sight of Ebon, however, to her dismay, a familiar red-headed bang-baby wearing a red t-shirt, along with a bird-like creature wearing its hair in a high ponytail were casually lounging on the beat up piece of furniture.

Sensing movement out of the corner of their eyes, they glanced up to see the girl watching them.

"Look, she's awake," Talon pointed out. "We should go get Ebon."

"Ugh, fine," Hotstreak grumbled, standing up. "Though I don't really see the point of doing all this anyways."

"Okay, now we're going to be discussing Kinematics," Mr. McGill announced in his usual monotone voice. "Please turn your textbooks to page 335."

Like the rest of the class, Virgil reluctantly began flipping through the pages of his physics textbook, wondering how he was going to survive the remainder of the class period.

He glanced up at the door for the tenth time since class had started. Still no sign of Zoey.

"I wonder where Zoey is," he whispered to Richie.

His friend shrugged. "Maybe she's sick," he suggested.

Virgil narrowed his eyes. He had a feeling that there was something else going on.

"We should check on her after school to make sure she's alright."

He knew there was such a thing as being late, however, with all the events that had transpired recently, it couldn't hurt to check and make sure she was okay.

In another part of the juvenile detention center, Ebon was monitoring the security cameras that were placed in Zoey's cell. So far, nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. She still appeared to be sleeping, after her little teleportation trip with him had rendered her unconscious.

The whole situation was very reminiscent of when he had captured Hawkins. The plan had gone perfectly up until that goofy sidekick Gear had shown up, along with Static himself a few minutes later.

Ebon narrowed his eyes, recalling the incident. Hawkins had appeared to still be in his cell when it all had gone down, though Ebon wasn't entirely convinced the footage hadn't been tampered with, considering the cameras had somehow been damaged after the fact. And it was no mystery that the geeky sidekick was no stranger to technology. Something about the whole thing seemed off to him. He didn't know what exactly, but maybe a little conversation with Parker would help clear the air.

"So why are we holding her prisoner again?" Shiv asked, interrupting his train of thought.

The blue-haired bang-baby was sitting in the chair beside his leader, loudly munching on some chips while they watched the security cameras.

"I told you already, fool," Ebon began. "We're gonna use her to get some information about Static."

"Ah, gotcha," Shiv replied, munching on another chip. "But why not just ask Static himself for info?"

Ebon grunted, feeling himself quickly losing his temper. He knew it had been a bad idea to let his flaky crew member join him in the surveillance of the girl.

"Look, I told you already—"

Before he could chew the younger bang-baby out completely, he was interrupted by the sound of the door opening. The two meta-humans turned around to see Talon standing in the doorway.

"She's awake," she informed the gang leader.

Ebon, who had been distracted for a few moments by Shiv's antics, looked up at the monitor and saw that, indeed, the girl was no longer on the cot and was pacing around the room.

"You're right," Ebon said. "Let's go greet our new houseguest."

"Well, this is the house," Virgil said, as he and Richie approached the door of Zoey's residence. Since they had been there just a few days ago, it wasn't too hard to locate. Plus, Richie had a photographic memory, which helped a little.

After giving each other an uncertain glance, Virgil rang the doorbell. Both boys braced themselves for someone other than Zoey to answer, yet, after waiting a minute, no one came to the door.

Richie shrugged. "Maybe they didn't hear you."

Virgil flashed his friend a skeptical look. "Who doesn't hear a doorbell?"

"Deaf people," Richie retorted, causing Virgil to glare at him.

Despite his buddy's out-of-context remark, Virgil rang the doorbell once more, just to be sure.

Still, after another minute of waiting, no one answered.

"Look, Richie, I'm getting kinda worried," Virgil said, turning to his friend. "It's not like Zoey to disappear suddenly without telling anyone. Even Frieda didn't know where she was."

"She said she'd check up on her after her journalism club," Richie added. "But who knows how long that'll be before she gets around to it?"

Virgil frowned, glancing down at the ground. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say Ebon's responsible."

Richie's eyes widened in alarm. "Ebon? Are you sure?"

Virgil glanced back up at his friend. "Well, think about it. He was after her at the mall. And if I know Ebon, he doesn't give up that easily."

"He must be convinced Zoey knows something," Richie deduced.

"At least, I hope she doesn't," Virgil answered. "But if she doesn't, I don't think Ebon is gonna let it go."

Both boys looked at each other with concern, the realization dawning on them that their friend had, once again, been kidnapped by their arch-foe.

"In that case, we better go find her," Richie said.

Virgil nodded. "And I think I have a pretty good idea of where she might be."