Static Sparks (Good Karma)

Day 18...

Cole awoke and got up from the couch. He looked around and saw Spike standing next to the edge. He also noticed that Twilight was resting in the armchair. He smiled a little and walked over to Spike. "Been up long?" he asked.

"A few hours ago. Twilight was rather sleepy so she started to rest on the chair," Spike told him.

As they were standing there, Moya contacted Cole, "I've marked your GPS with the location of the next substation."

Confused, Cole asked, "Uh, shouldn't we be looking for the Ray Sphere and John?"

She sighed, "You should look at the big picture here. Whenever you restore a part of the city's electricity, your power escalates. That's a valuable use of your time, wouldn't you say? I'll contact you once you get the substation back online."

Cole turned to Spike, "You want to come this time?"

He looked back at the chair Twilight was in, then returned his gaze to Cole, "Yeah, she's doing better. I think I can go with you this time."

"Alright. Let's head out, but before we do," he said. He walked over to Twilight, gently slid his arms under her legs and behind her back, then slowly picked her up. He walked of to the couch and as carefully as he could he laid her down on the couch. Cole turned back to Spike and saw he was smirking at him. Ignoring the dragon he walked to the edge of the roof and they started toward their destination.

They reached the edge of the powered area and stopped. They could see a turret truck ahead of them. Spike looked at Cole, "So, what do we do about it?"

"Nothing," he said. Upon seeing Spike's confused look he elaborated, "We don't have to do anything, we can avoid it by traveling across the roofs. Plus, I don't want to use too much power in those areas."

"Good idea," Spike agreed.

They climbed the nearest building and started to head toward the sewer they needed to enter. Along the way they ran into a few Reapers. The two took them out fairly easily. Cole blasted two with several bolts each and Spike shot fireballs at the other catching him on fire, it quickly extinguished when they went down. Cole went over to them to see if he were still alive. When he found they were he restrained them.

Cole turned to Spike, "How is he still alive after being caught on fire?"

"Well, after the bridge, I decided to try out different things with my fire. It turns out I can use it quite offensively. That's where I got the idea of covering my fists with fire. I'm able to use my magic fire, the green fire, for more complicated attacks. I never tried before because for the most part there isn't much I would need to use it against and I was too small to do anything against the things that I would need to use it on. I can also extinguish it when I want it to. That's why none of the Reapers I've taken out have don't have anything worse than some burns," he explained.

"I guess that means, except with your strength, you don't have to hold back much," Cole said.

"I'm not that strong Cole," Spike said, modestly.

"Spike, you punched a Conduit Reaper half a block into a wall," Cole deadpanned. "You're pretty damn strong."

Spike blushed slightly and continued walking to their destination. Cole followed him to the manhole and they entered into the sewer.

"Hey Moya, we're in the sewer. Should have the power back on soon," Cole told her.

"Right," she said.

They walked forward and saw the transformer right in front of them. Cole walked up to the it, jumped up, and connected it. He saw a flash of the new way he could use his powers.

He grinned, "Hell yeah. This should make traveling much easier."

Spike looked at him curiously, "What should?"

"Let me show you," Cole said. He walked over to the wire that lead to the door they needed to head through. He jumped onto the wire. As soon as his feet hit the wire electricity emitted from them and he started to grind across the wire. He jumped off of it when he reached the end. Looking back at Spike he saw him staring slightly slack-jawed. He walked across the wire to Cole.

"That was so cool!" Spike shouted.

As Cole chuckled at Spike's enthusiasm and they continued walking, Zeke called, "Hey man."

"Hey Zeke," Cole said.

"Have you been paying attention to the TV jacker? I thought the guy was pretty cool until he started to do nothing, but talk trash about you and Twilight. I was thinking you two should go find him," Zeke said, with a tone of mischief in his voice.

"And do what exactly?" Twilight's voice came through the phone.

"Hey Twilight," Spike called.

Cole smiled, "Hey Twilight. You get enough sleep?"

"Yeah, I'm feeling much better," she said. "Did you put me on the couch?"

"I'm glad to hear that and yes I did. I didn't know when you would wake up so I thought you should lay down instead of sitting up," Cole said.

"Thank you Cole," Twilight said.

"Your welcome," he said. "As for what, probably just to show him that we aren't what he thinks we are. We don't even know where he is though."

"We'd show him more than that," Zeke said. "He's probably barred himself in the old TV station in the Historic District. The guy really needs to learn to not run his mouth so much."

"Even if we did find him I doubt he would want to talk to us," Twilight said. "And that is all we would do Zeke, nothing else. If we did, it would just be proving him right."

"That's why I said you should do more because just talking wouldn't work," Zeke muttered. "But I see what you mean about it casting you in a bad light." He sighed and ended the call.

"What's with him?" Spike asked.

Cole smiled slightly, "It's kind of similar to Twilight. He doesn't like that I'm being treated the way I am, but unlike her, he likes to think of unorthodox solutions to problems."

As they continued, Spike thought, 'While I'm sure he cares for you, Twilight loves you. She thinks she's hiding it, but I saw the way she looked at Flash Sentry. It's much deeper this time, but it's similar.'

After a while they came across a wire that stretched across a small chasm. Cole turned to Spike and knelt down, "Climb on Spike. I'm going to grind us across."

He hesitated for a minute, but climbed onto his back. Cole stood and jumped on the wire, then started to grind across it. As he neared the end of the wire he jumped to a platform. When he landed on it he saw another wire attached to it. Before he let Spike down he jumped to it and headed to the other side. Once on the other side Spike jumped off of Cole. They saw that there were several Reapers ahead of them. They raced toward them, jumped and, almost simultaneously, kicked the Reapers in their chests. They were sent flying into the wall. When Spike reached the ground he pounced at the last Reaper and brought his claws down across the him. As the Reaper grabbed his chest Cole tackled him to the floor and restrained him.

They continued on their trek. The two had to cross some more wires. They soon reached the substation. As they reached it Cole recharged it and, when it restarted, they returned to the surface.

Reaching the outside, the power had returned to the part of the city they were in. Moya contacted them "Good work you two. I have somethings that I want you to look at. One of them may lead us to John. When you're ready let me know."

"So what should we do now?" Spike asked.

"Well she said when we are ready, so how about we help some people?" Cole suggested.

"Sure let's see if we can find anyone," he agreed.

As they walked around looking for someone to help, they noticed a man in a green jacket with a white hood that looked like it was covered in patches and jeans. They walked over to him to see what he wanted. "Hey Cole. Do you think you can show me some of your moves so that I can take some pictures?" the man asked.

Cole looked at the camera and he had an idea. He asked him, "Hey do you have more than that one camera?"

The photographer looked down at it and then looked back at Cole. "Yeah, I have more. I would need more in case something happened to the others especially now. Why?"

"I was wondering if we could have one. I would like to take some pictures with my friends for us," he explained.

The man grinned, "Sure. You can have one. I happen to have another one with me, but first could I take some pictures of you?"

"Alright. What do you want a picture of?" Cole asked.

"How about you healing someone," he said.

Cole looked around and noticed that there were a few people in pain. He felt kind of bad he hadn't noticed before. He walked over to the them and healed all four people. After they thanked him he walked back to the photographer and asked what else he wanted to see.

He thought about it and said, "Can I see some of just your melee attacks? There's probably a Reaper around here somewhere."

Cole looked around and thought for a minute. He turned to Spike and asked, "How about you and me spar for a minute?"

Spike and the man looked at him. Spike looked at him confused and the photographer looked at him incredulously. "Why?" Spike asked. The man looked at him, shocked that he wasn't just saying no. Spike had reverted to normal like he usually does when he travels around the city. He didn't care if the city knew, but figured he could surprise any Reapers they came across. The reason being he looked very different when he changed.

Cole smiled, "Well so we don't have to go around the city looking for a Reaper and he can get two different kinds of melee attacks for his pictures."

Spike thought about it for a minute and agreed, "Sure, let's show him what we can do." The man looked between them, not believing what they were saying.

They walked to an alley away from any people, so they wouldn't have to worry about hitting anyone. The two separated and went to opposite sides of a back parking lot. They lowered into a offensive poses. Spike was the first to move, changing into his dragon form as he raced toward Cole with his fist raised. He threw it forward only to be blocked by Cole bringing his arms up. Cole pushed Spike back and spun while raising his leg to kick Spike in the stomach. He jumped back and dodged Cole's kick. He responded by spinning himself, but instead swung his tail at Cole's chest. It struck home, knocking Cole slightly from the ground as he was pushed back. He managed to stay standing from the attack. Cole grinned and charged toward Spike bringing his fist up in an uppercut, hitting Spike in the jaw. He staggered back feeling the electricity course through his body from the attack, but managed to shrug it off. The two stood there staring at each other. Then, smiling, jumped back into the sparring with each other.

As they fought the photographer kept taking pictures. When he got enough he called out to them that they could stop. When they did the two fell to their knees panting slightly. They grinned at each other, feeling slightly closer. Cole walked over to Spike and held out his hand. Spike took it and let himself be pulled to his feet. The man ran up to them shouting, "That was amazing. I knew you were strong Cole, but the kid was amazing to." He looked down at the boy. "I think one more thing and then I'll be done then you can have a camera and let you guys go do what you do."

They nodded and Cole asked, "Ok. What do you want me to do?"

"I was hoping to see you both actually. I was wanting to see you destroy some cars," he said.

Cole and Spike looked at each other. "Sure, but why?" Spike asked.

"To see your attacks. Since there aren't any Reapers around and, even now that I know how strong you two are, I figured you shouldn't hit the other with them," the man said.

They saw several abandoned cars in the lot they were in. Cole and Spike walked to a different car. Cole threw several shock grenades at the car. As they went off and the car exploded the photographer took his picture of the power. He looked over to Spike and motioned that he was ready. Spike turned to the car and let out a stream of fire onto it. The metal and tires started to melt. After several minutes the fire must have hit the gasoline causing the car to blow up.

After taking the pictures that he wanted the photographer walked up to them. "Thank you for letting me take pictures of your powers. Here's the camera I promised," he said, offering it to Cole.

He raised an eyebrow at the man. "You realize I can't hold that because of my powers right?" Cole asked. "I'm pretty sure the electricity in me would jump through the metal and cause the film to melt."

The man chuckled nervously and hand the camera to Spike. They started walking through the city. After a minute Spike asked, "Why did you want this camera?"

"The same reason I told that photographer. Except that it's for you and Twilight," Cole said.

Spike asked, "What do you mean? Why is it for us?"

"As much as I like you guys I know that after we deal with this you two will try to find a way back home," Cole said, with a sad smile. He saw the shocked look on Spike's face. "Come on Spike. I doubt Twilight hasn't been looking for a way back to Equestria. I mean you two have friends and family back there, right?"

"Yeah, we do," Spike said.

"So either you two head back there when this is over or they come here and take you back before or after we finish what we are doing," Cole said.

"I'm sure they would help us if we asked," Spike said, indignantly.

Cole shook his head, "Nothing against your friends, but they would probably say that it wasn't their place to meddle with another worlds problems."

Spike knew they wouldn't say that, but figured he couldn't change his mind, so he didn't argue. Instead he asked, "So what are we going to do now?"

Cole looked at a nearby clock. "How about we go see how much better Twilight is?" he suggested.

Spike nodded, "Yeah, I'd like to see how she's doing."

With that the two headed back to the roof.