Things became slightly...off in Eric's world after that night. His day was much the same. He worked his cases and did his job the same as he ever did. The only thing that changed there was that he noticed Wolfe more. Without realizing it he began to watch the younger man and not completely in a "looking for mistakes" kind of way, though he did still get some kind of enjoyment out of pointing out mistakes to the rookie CSI. Anything he could hold over Wolfe was greatly appreciated by him, because while his days were the same his nights had become completely different.
In contrast to what his nights used to be like-clubbing, partying, sleeping-they were suddenly completely different. Training with Icewolf was a different experience all together from anything he had ever done. There was so much more of a spiritual nature to it than he had expected and that made him worry that it would interfere with his Catholicism. Icewolf assured him that meditating and getting more in touch with his inner self had nothing to do with religion and made a point of making Eric feel like an idiot for even thinking so.
Along with the meditation came a vigorous physical training. Icewolf was a relentless, slave driver in Eric's eyes. He constantly pushed Eric just that little bit further than was necessary. He wondered if it was anything like what recruits went through in boot camp. Because he had heard that in boot camp the drill sergeants broke recruits down so that they could rebuild them stronger and better than before.
Eric didn't feel better than before. After three nights of intense workouts that included more push-ups, pull-ups, and sit-ups than he ever wanted to do and a cross town venture that left him feeling like he had managed to run across every roof in town Eric felt sore in places he never thought possible. And he absolutely hated the smug ass smile on Wolfe's face every morning when he limped while trying to look like he wasn't limping into work every morning. Calleigh was starting to give him curious looks while Horatio didn't seem to notice anything at all.
"You're doing this as punishment for something you think I've done to you, aren't you?" Eric demanded as he entered Icewolf's underground headquarters.
Wolfe was there in Icewolf form standing in front of the big monitor that Eric had yet to see working. The younger man shot him a look that clearly said "shut up" so Eric did. But not because of the look. He was silent because there was a big unfamiliar face staring at him from the monitor. The dark-skinned man on the monitor seemed to study Eric for a moment before turning his attention back to Icewolf.
"It's busy up here tonight are you sure you want to do it tonight?" the dark man asked.
"What kind of busy?"
"Obviously not omega level, but we've got some wounded," the man replied. "I mean, you signed up for the simulator tonight, but I just thought you should know your partner will be seeing a lot of capes."
"He'll deal," Icewolf replied. "It's not like anyone is going to bite him."
"I'm right here," Eric growled.
Icewolf shot him a furious look, which really kind of took the fight right out of Eric. He needed to learn a look like that. Criminals would crumble.
"You're still on for your scheduled time," the man on the monitor said. "Hawk and Dove are in Orlando I'll have them swing over and pick you up."
"Do they need back-up?" Icewolf asked, immediately sounding concerned.
"They're wrapping up. They'll be in Miami within the hour."
"Thank you, Mr. Terrific," Icewolf replied. "But next time would you tell me about something so close to my city?"
"Sorry Icewolf, but I knew you were busy training your partner and since it wasn't in Miami..."
"Not my partner," Icewolf grumbled.
The man, Mr. Terrific apparently, looked for a moment like he was trying to hide a smile. "I'll make sure the simulator is ready for you."
"Thanks."
With that the screen went black and Icewolf turned to Eric. "Learn some manners, Delko. Don't interrupt my conversation like that again."
"You were talking about me like I wasn't standing here."
"I thought maybe you would want your secret identity to be secret, Delko," Icewolf snapped in response. "Mr. Terrific isn't going to go blabbing it, but if you can't keep from making stupid mistakes like that you're never going to survive this new world you're entering."
"Stop talking to me like a goddamn child!" Eric yelled.
Icewolf puffed up impressively and Eric took an subconscious step back. "Don't like how it feels? Once again you can dish it out but you can't take it."
"Hey, I--."
"Shut up, Delko and transform."
Eric definitely didn't like being bossed around, but arguing back had proven to only lead to harder workouts. Icewolf was a slave driver after all. So instead he just did as he was told. It had become increasingly easy to make the transition to the hybrid form. That was all that was easy though. They hadn't worked at all on his elemental ability and Eric was feeling just a little bit anxious about that. Still, Wolfe always seemed to be looking for a reason to quit the training and as much as Eric hated to admit it the training was necessary. And it wasn't like he could just call another hero to train him especially since the elemental abilities seemed to require special training. No, Wolfe was the only one who could teach him.
A few minutes later they headed out, securing the hideout behind them. Icewolf seemed to converse with someone through some kind of in-ear communicator. They went rooftop to rooftop for a few blocks before Icewolf brought them to a stop. Eric watched in awe as a kind of jet-like craft appeared out of the cloudy sky and dropped straight toward them, maneuvering at the last moment to land away from them. A ramp lowered to the ground and without hesitation Icewolf walked up it into the ship. Eric hesitated a moment before he followed suit.
Inside the ship they were greeted by a young man in a blue and white costume. "Hey, Ice, good to see you."
"Dove...don't tell me Hawk's flying..." Icewolf said hesitantly.
Dove smirked. "Okay, I won't tell you Hawk's flying."
Icewolf rolled his eyes, but a friendly smile lifted the corners of his mouth. Dove smiled back and then shifted his gaze to Eric. The smile widened.
"Hey, nice to see you in control of yourself," the blue and white superhero said. "I'm Dove."
"E--um...I don't have a superhero name yet," Eric said, though he shook the hand offered to him.
Icewolf snorted. "We'll just call you Blue for now."
"Way to be obvious, snowball," a voice called from the front of the ship.
"No one asked you, featherhead," Icewolf called back.
"Play nice kids," Dove teased.
Icewolf laughed and patted Dove on the back as he passed him on the way to the front. Eric was left standing, feeling slightly left out, as the three superheroes began to banter back and forth. He could feel the camaraderie between the three. It felt a lot like what he used to have. It sent a pang of hurt deep in his chest.
He drove the feeling away and forced himself to walk to the front. He quietly took a seat behind Icewolf, feeling more out of place than he ever had. He listened as the three heroes talked about their last big adventure together with mentions of another hero called MidKnight. Eric wasn't familiar with him, though he had been trying to learn about more of the superheroes during his free time.
"So, this is the furball I knocked out, huh?" Hawk said, catching Eric's attention. "What's your element, wolf?"
"We haven't figured that out yet," Eric replied.
"Why not?" Hawk and Dove asked at the same time.
Icewolf smirked. "Because he doesn't have enough self control to be tapping into his elemental power. The last time he did it he nearly fried me along with the bad guy."
"So, fire then?" Hawk asked.
"Doubtful," Icewolf replied. "there's already a fire wolf."
Eric watched as Hawk and Dove shared a quick glance, but didn't comment. Silence followed then and Eric completely understood it. It was obvious by their reactions that Hawk and Dove didn't share Icewolf's optimism that Firewolf was still alive. It was also obvious that Icewolf didn't want to acknowledge the possibility that his partner was dead. Eric didn't blame him.
"Oh, Ice, wait until you see the duty schedules," Hawk spoke up, breaking what had been a growing uncomfortable silence. "You're going to be on monitor duty with Unknown."
"Oh man," Icewolf groaned. "That's going to be boring."
"Unknown?" Eric repeated curiously.
"Unknown recently returned from a long hiatus. He speaks less than Batman and usually just does a lot of glaring and eye-rolling," Icewolf explained. "Not a very friendly guy, but great to have as your partner."
"Hey, he could probably tell you what your element is," Dove added. "He can sense those kinds of things."
"If you can get him to talk," Hawk muttered, half distracted by flying the ship.
"Which isn't easy to do," Dove admitted. "He barely has any patience for us younger guys."
"Speaking of younger guys, MidKnight wants a rematch," Hawk said, glancing over his shoulder at Icewolf. "Says you cheated."
Icewolf snorted. "He would."
Eric listened as the three began to banter again, sounding for all the world like old friends. He glanced around the cockpit and that's when he realized they were leaving the Earth's atmosphere. The sky outside gradually grew darker before becoming a field of stars for as far as he could see. Before he could fully absorb that sight he saw the Watchtower looming huge and impressive. Eric stared in awe, watching as a ship just like the one they were in left the massive station and headed away from Earth.
"Javelin 13to Watchtower, requesting permission to dock," Hawk said, drawing Eric out of his stupor.
"This is Watchtower, you're cleared for landing in hanger six," a voice replied. Eric wasn't surprised that he didn't recognize it. There were going to be a lot of superheroes that he didn't know.
Five minutes later the Javelin made a smooth landing and Eric followed Icewolf out of the ship as Hawk and Dove stayed behind to shut down the ship's systems. The hanger was huge with three more Javelins as well as spots for two more. A group of people were moving toward the Javelin, but before he could ask any questions Icewolf grabbed him by the arm and led him through a set of doors and into a corridor. They passed two superheroes he didn't recognize. They greeted Icewolf and shot Eric a curious look but didn't stop to meet him.
"Don't mind them. They've probably got a mission," Icewolf said.
"I'm not sure I can deal with meeting a whole lot of new people anyway," Eric admitted.
Eric could hear the smirk in Icewolf's voice as the superhero asked, "Hungry?"
"No," Eric replied, but his stomach rumbled in disagreement.
"We'll stop by the mess hall first. We got here before I scheduled our training session," Icewolf said with a hint of amusement.
Eric was lost within the first few seconds of the trek through the halls that all looked alike. Twists and turns and Eric got the feeling Icewolf was trying to get him lost. In fact he was sure they passed through the same expanse of hall three times, but one more turn and through a door led them to a room. A big room with lots of tables and lots of food. The mess hall. And there were lots of superheroes.
"Hey kids," said a red clad figure that was suddenly in front of Eric. Red uniform with a lightning bolt on the chest along with bolts on the side of the head. Oh yeah, this one Eric recognized. "New guy, cool. I'm Flash."
Eric stared at the legend before him. The Flash was one of the founding seven. He had defeated the Brainiac/Lex Luthor entity by himself not to mention all the times he saved the world with the original seven. Eric didn't know a great many details about the Flash, but at least it was one superhero he recognized.
Icewolf elbowed him in the side. Eric shot him a glare, but the white wolf merely motioned his head toward the Flash...who was holding out his hand and looking amused.
"Oh, errr," Eric grabbed the hand and shook it, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, and stuttered. "I..um."
"We don't know his element yet, so we haven't come up with a codename," Icewolf explained. Eric just barely refrained from shooting him a grateful look for saving his pride. "I was hoping to catch Unknown, do you know if he's here tonight?"
"Assisting Atom in the lab," Flash replied. "Good luck there."
"Thanks," Icewolf said. The two bumped fists before the white wolf grabbed Eric by the elbow and led him further into the room.
Eric's mind was still stuck on the fact that he had just talked, well more like stuttered, to the Flash. "That was the Flash."
"Yeah, he's a nice guy," Icewolf said as if it was nothing. "We've worked together a few times. He's real good about meeting the newcomers and making them feel welcome."
Eric didn't respond. He just followed Icewolf to the food and loaded up a plate with anything that looked good. Icewolf explained that among the staff they now had a full-time chef to make sure there was always enough food. Eric just ate the food and tried not to feel too overwhelmed. Fat chance of that.
Once they were done eating, and after more heroes came over and introduced themselves, Icewolf led Eric out of the mess hall and through another long confusing trek through the same-but-apparently-not halls. They passed a few more heroes, who didn't stop their argument to introduce themselves, and then Icewolf stopped and began to press buttons on a control panel of some sort. The display flashed passcode accepted and the door clicked open. Icewolf then turned and motioned Eric to follow him inside.
Inside was a brightly lit lab with all sorts of equipment that Eric couldn't even begin to place. He wasn't nearly enough of a techno-geek to guess what half the stuff did. But it wasn't the equipment that really caught his attention. There was a man working at one of the tables who seemed completely oblivious to the fact that anyone was there. Reminded him a little of how Speed was when he was engrossed in his work.
The man was dressed in what looked like a completely white costume that seemed to blend perfectly with the sterile whiteness of the lab. It was actually one of the first really...plain costumes Eric had seen. Everyone else seemed to take some pride in having a snazzy looking costume that the public would surely come to recognize. The man working at the table had nothing extraordinary about him.
"Hey Unknown," Icewolf called out.
The white clad man turned his head just enough to nod an acknowledgment at Icewolf and reveal pure black eyes in the process. Eric was slightly taken aback, but brushed it off. He was going to be seeing weirder things than that.
"I was wondering if you could do me a favor," Icewolf continued.
Unknown turned and Eric noted his eyes were narrowed. Was that anger or speculation? How were they supposed to know if the guy didn't say anything?
"Okay, well, my trainee's elemental ability has been activated, but he doesn't have enough control to actually tap into it. I was wondering if you could possibly tell me what element he has?"
Unknown studied Icewolf for a moment more before he turned to Eric. The white clad man moved to stand directly in front of him and then placed a hand on his shoulder. Eric didn't expect anything to happen to him, he expected it to be on Unknown's side of things. But all of a sudden Eric didn't feel like he was in a lab at all. He felt...well he wasn't sure what he felt at first. He felt wind, yes definitely wind. And rain and then the unmistakable flash of lightning followed by a deafening rumble of thunder. Then ice and a cold wind that seemed to blow right through him. He trembled and tried to curl in on himself. Then just like that he was back in the lab and Unknown was staring at him with those deep fathomless black eyes.
"I'm fine," he told the man.
Unknown nodded and backed off. The man then went back to his work as if nothing had happened. Eric turned to Icewolf, who was watching him expectantly, and frowned.
"I can't be certain, but...I think I have the powers of a storm."
"A storm?"
"Lightning, wind, water...," Eric listed, trailing off in thought.
Icewolf was staring at him with horror written all over his face. "You can't—I--all the elements of a storm?"
"Yeah," Eric replied. "Guess I'll be more powerful than you."
"That's completely beside the point," Icewolf snarled. He took a deep breath and tried to calm down. "I have no idea how I'm going to train you with so many elements."
Eric started to reply when quite suddenly someone else was with them. He saw something small move out of the corner of his vision and barely had time to notice it was growing before there was a full size man standing beside Unknown. The costume of the newcomer was red on the legs, midsection, and hands and then blue from the upper chest to the head. Much like many of the other superheroes the blue cowl had white out lenses to hide the eyes.
"The problem was the nanofiber connections," the newcomer said, addressing Unknown as if no one else was there. Then he seemed to notice there were others in the lab. "Oh, Icewolf, hello."
"Hello, Atom," Icewolf replied. "This is...Stormwolf."
"Nice to meet you," Atom said, holding out his hand. Eric wasn't quite as awe struck by Atom as he had been by Flash, but he knew that this hero had once saved the world too. "I didn't know you had another partner."
"Not my partner," Icewolf replied quickly. "He's my trainee."
Atom laughed. "Right, trainee."
At the same time Unknown turned around and smacked Icewolf on the back of the head. Icewolf gasped and jumped back from the mysterious hero. There was no mouth to be seen, but if eyes could smirk then Unknown's definitely were.
"Shut up," Icewolf muttered, giving them both a playful glare. "We've got training to get to."