City Park – 6:30 pm - Friday August 15
"Gear!" Static called out as he landed by his green-cladded superhero partner. "Figure anything out?" He'd just been chewed out by his dad for the usual list of irresponsibility, and had nearly been grounded when he asked to "stay over at Richie's place for a group project," since that was the only story they could think of. Apparently Richie's cousin's lost cat wasn't a good enough excuse.
"I'm not sure honestly…" Gear held a scanner over Danny's hand where some green slime had appeared after his first few attempts at controlling his powers.
"What is it?" Static and Danny watched Gear as Backpack beeped confirming its previous analysis. Richie knew there were no errors in the scans, but the chemical composition made no sense. It was impossible for any living matter to produce unless… but he would sound completely crazy if he actually said that.
"Is it bad?" Danny asked nervously.
Gear continued to stare at the green substance. "Well I wouldn't say bad. Though I wouldn't say good either."
"So what is it then?" Static asked. He was starting to worry for the kid. Far too many bang babies had lost their bodies and some even died because of the rapidly changing chemicals.
"Well…" Gear scratched his head wondering how to answer. "My scans show that the atomic structure of the substance is minutely radioactive." At this Danny freaked out and quickly wiped his hand on the grass. Gear quickly amended his statement, "I didn't mean in the normal spectrum of radiation."
Static had stepped back also. He was relieved to hear that it wasn't dangerous, but now he felt irritated that Richie could never just get straight to the point. "Then what did you mean?"
"Well the only thing radiating from this is a single length of light waves."
"So it's green. We already knew that."
"You don't get it. Normally the color of an object is based on light that reflects off of it. This stuff is producing that wavelength of light on its own." Gear knelt down to scan the substance a third time.
"You mean it glows. I got a couple of glow sticks at home that do that. You saying those are radioactive to?" Virgil knew the question was stupid but the annoyed look on Richie's face was too good to pass up.
"Those glow because of a chemical reaction. Unlike this stuff which has a completely stable chemical composition."
Danny stared off at the street lamps while the two heroes bantered back and forth. His head was spinning. How exactly did he produce something that even Gear was having trouble explaining? If he tried to control his powers at home and some of this goop showed up, what would his family say? …Who was he kidding… They probably wouldn't even notice. Unless he was getting lectured they didn't care what he did.
Danny turned back to the conversation as Static seemed to be losing his patience. "Gear would you just spit it out already."
"It's Ectoplasm."
"What…" Danny blinked at him. "You mean like the stuff from ghostbusters? You're joking right?"
Virgil stood with his hands on his sides, staring at the green goo. "You did say it felt like your heart was stopping."
"Yeah but… What does that mean?" The glance between the superheroes was all the answer Danny needed. "I'm dying?"
"Maybe not." The smile that crossed Gear's face was unnerving. Not because of how it looked but rather because Virgil knew it was the same smile Richie always had before a long brain-blast explanation. "Maybe you're becoming Un-dead. Like a ghost or zombie."
"How is that any better?!"
Gear thought about it but couldn't come up with any answer, "Uhh…"
"It's better because that means we have time to get you to a hospital to make sure your powers stabilize."
"NO. No hospitals." With his outburst, Danny's eyes flashed a startling shade of neon green.
This was going to be the hardest battle with this kid, or so Virgil thought. But there had to be some way to convince him. "What if we can go without your dad finding out? We know the guys in the lab working with the big bang gas and they wouldn't object to working with another bang baby with a secret identity." Danny's expression eased up a little.
"Yeah," Gear chimed in, "I'm sure we can get you a super costume and head over there before anyone notices you're gone."
Danny sighed and mumbled that no one would notice anyway. Shivering, he got to his feet. Okay. Where to?"
XXX
It was quite a sight seeing two super heroes in a Costume store tossing different articles of clothing to a nervous looking kid. Gear set up backpack to scramble camera signals the moment they entered, and Static had politely asked the people in the store to ignore them. Then when politeness didn't work, he magnetized a number of clothing racks to create a nice barrier to hide them from view.
"How about this?" Danny stepped out in a trench coat and sunglasses.
"It's perfect, just like a 90s movie cop." Gear laughed digging back into the racks. "Here, try this one." He tossed over a superman cape. "If you're going old school do it right." Danny raised an eyebrow and dropped the cape on the floor.
"Anything good up there?"
Static floated at the upper level of their little "wall" digging through jumpsuits of assorted colors. "Only if you really wanted that ghostbusters feel, or maybe lady gaga." He landed by Gear with plain mask, thinking it would at least help. He held it out to Danny who was leaning against the changing room wall holding his head. "Don't worry even with something this small they won't recognize you."
"It's not that… I… I'm feeling really nauseous."
"Probably just nerves. Change back into your normal clothes and we'll just get the mask."
"Right…" Danny pulled the curtain shut behind him. Static and Gear went about returning the clothing racks and rejected costumes to their rightful places. "Okay ready." The curtain opened and Static and Gear's jaws hit the floor.
"Woah…"
"You said it…"
Danny stared between the two of them. "What? Is there something on my face?" He turned back to the dressing room mirror. His once black hair was now shining silver, and his blue eyes had turned green. "What the heck!" He ran his hands through his hair frantically, even squished his face a bit in the hopes that he was dreaming, or at least wasn't melting.
"Yo D! Relax." But heavy breathing was as close to relaxing as Danny could get. Gear grabbed backpack and scanned him. "Scans show you're fine. No abnormalities."
"My hair is white!"
"But that hasn't affected your physical condition."
"My hair is WHITE!
Static shook his head, "Yes it's white. But you're a bang baby. Stuff like that happens sometimes. Take Hot-streak for example. His hair gets set on fire, yet he never ends up bald." He decided not to mention the other bang babies who Had gone bald. "But you know." Flying back to the rack of jumpsuits, he grabbed a black and silver one. "Here try this on."
Danny said nothing but slowly took the suit. He came out a minute later in the full body suit and mask. Silver which perfectly matched Danny's hair covered his neck, hands, and feet. On anyone else it would have looked really lame, but if a ghost were ever a superhero, Virgil knew that this is how it would dress. "Ah but. Lose the mask. It's hard to recognize you with the hair as it is."
"I don't suppose you have cash on you?" Gear asked, putting the last clown costume back in place.
Static stuck his hand in his pockets and turned them out. "How much do you think a paperclip and a stick of gum would get us?"
"Don't worry. I got it." Danny grabbed his wallet from his pants pocket. The girl organizing things behind the cash register looked like she had been waiting for that moment. She jumped up to help, smiling shyly at the three teen heroes. Danny pulled a $50 out and handed it to her. "You can just keep the change. Sorry about the mess." The jumpsuit was only $23.45 but it was to make up for the next request. "Just keep this event to yourself."
The girl nodded. She was grinning broadly. Danny had a new fan. He made his way to the door where the two superheroes were waiting.
"You give a big enough tip there? What are you some rich kid?" Richie laughed but he was wishing he had that kind of money to spend.
"Maybe it was a bit much," Danny dodged the second question by asking where they were headed to next.
"We can fly over to the bang baby wing of the hospital." Static pulled out his flying disk and pushed open the door.
"You know it might help if he could fly to. Maybe we should teach him."
"I don't know… Maybe we should get straight to the hospital."
Danny tried to avoid noticing the stares and the crowd that was beginning to form around them. One person called out to Static and Gear. "Who's this new kid? New partner?" Static used some energy to pull the camera away from the guy. It was amazing how accustomed to the attention they were. The way Gear handled things while Static grabbed Danny and took off, it was incredible.
"We got news vans incoming." Gear announced when he caught up with them. Static could see the Channel 8 News van from the corner of his eye.
"Where's the nearest traffic jam?"
Backpack quickly spit out the gps traffic data. "Twenty first street."
Danny hung on tight to Static. He didn't even care if it was weird to be hugging another guy. Fifty feet of open air was the only thing on his mind. "Shouldn't we land?" He yelled the moment they had lost the news van.
Static slowed. He knew the news crews would be checking out the local hospitals for any new bang babies. They were annoyingly obsessive like that. "Gear, let's head to the junk yard. Lay low for a bit."
"Right behind you Static." By the time they landed, Gear was already picking up different reports from both the news and the police of the new bang baby sighted with the cities favorite heroes. "Well looks like a hospital is out of the question. For a little while anyway." Danny didn't care, he was just glad to be back on the ground.
"Is my hair still white?"
"As snow." Gear laughed.
"Great…"
Static looked around at the old broken cars. "Since we can't go anywhere right now, why don't we get some work done on controlling your powers?"
"Great so I can get covered in that radioactive slime again?"
"Well your other option is floating away when we aren't around to catch you."
Static had a point so Danny gave it a try. It would be well over an hour before he could fly right side up and control his intangibility. Luckily the night was warm and they had plenty of time.
XXX
The landlord banged his fist against the door. "This is the last straw McLain! If you don't pay the rent for the last month I'll have you out of here before you can even pack your bags!"
The young woman groaned and rolled over under the covers. She'd been feeling sick for months but last night she finally found out why. Her head pounded from the hangover from her celebration. That man saw her come in late in the morning, he should know she was hung over, but he just kept pounding away. Grumbling she reached for her guitar, and lightly brushed for her fingers across the instrument.
A massive explosion blew the door apart. The landlord fell backwards down the stairs and didn't move. Amber quickly stuffed things in her bag. Her guitar was the last thing she grabbed before rushing out the door.
A/N: Well guys I'm surprised that so many people left reviews on a crossover story. I'd like to try and continue it but I'll need to know that people are actually reading it and care about it being continued. No reviews on a chapter might mean I drop it. Sadly I'm busy, and this story is fun but not my priority. I'm here to please, and will continue with reviews.
Love you guys! Thanks for reading!
Side note: YES I KNOW IT IS EMBER! But it is also a widespread head-canon that her human/living name (you know, before she became a ghost) was Amber. This is what I'm going with in this story because Ember sounds like a pretty weird name for a real person.