Mordax et al

Title: Comics, Cookies, and Revenge
Category: Movies » Incredibles
Author: LejindaryBunny
Language: English, Rating: Rated: T
Genre: General/Romance
Published: 11-30-04, Updated: 05-12-06
Chapters: 24, Words: 82,165

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Chapter 11: Que Sera, Sera

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Comics Cookies and Revenge

By Lejindarybunny

A/N: Okay fangirls and boys, we’re into the double digits!

A profile pic of Vex, by me, is up in my deviantart gallery. Once again, greer-the-raven. I advise you to go check it out.

There are a few questions I have been asked by more than one person. I would like to take this moment to clarify a few things about CCR.

1. The main plot of CCR is Syndrome and his lieutenant going about trying to conquer the world, the forces that are in their way, and finding out a bit more about the supers.

2. Romance, while not the main plot is a part of the fic. Yes, I changed the genre from action/adventure/romance, to general/romance a while ago. The romance part did not change. I will not put more romance in because you want it, nor will I put less romance in because you want it. There is a set amount that I intend to be there. Enjoy it, tolerate it, ignore it, or read something else.

3. If there is a theme to CCR, it is the difference between the real and the ideal.

I hope this has cleared things up. I am not trying to offend anyone, or single anyone out.

The title of this chapter is in French. It means ‘What will be, will be.’

Disclaimer: The Incredibles, Syndrome, and all affiliated characters and ideas belong to Disney/Pixar. Vex is my character, as is anyone you don’t immediately recognize

Chapter 11: Que Sera, Sera.

All music, thumping with base, or tinkling and light, sounds the same when muffled from behind a series of thick doors, unpleasant.

Syndrome had tinkered with the computers for a few hours more, and repaired his damaged glove, before deciding that he absolutely needed to sleep. Even though it was technically only four in the afternoon. Whoever had invented time zones needed to die a horrible, horrible death, preferably one involving jetlag.

He had just wanted to fall into bed, simple, easy, quiet. Vex apparently had different ideas, according to the blaring of her music. Well, he’d just have to ask her to turn it down. He thumped loudly on her door with the back of his fist, hoping to be heard above the dull roar. She didn’t answer, so he knocked even louder. Nothing. Growing slightly irritated, he kicked the door roughly, in hopes of finally getting her attention. No such luck.

Fine.

He tapped the password out on the terminal, and the door opened. Syndrome stepped inside, and immediately headed to the source of the racket, perched on the dresser. He switched the radio off, and was greeted, finally, by silence. He had expected Vex to protest, but she didn’t even appear to be in the room…

Then, glancing over at the bed, he noticed, through the slightly parted curtains, that she was asleep. How on earth could she sleep through that? He wondered, with a bemused shake of his head. He had intended to leave right away, but he found himself watching her sleep again. All that was visible through the crack in the curtain was her face, and the top of her shoulder, which rose and fell slightly with her even breath.

He noticed that she’d fallen asleep with her glasses on. That couldn’t be comfortable, he thought, approaching her bed. He lifted the spectacles gently off her face, and folded them up, setting them on the dresser. As he did so, he noticed a sketchbook lying there with a mechanical pencil on top of it. She must have been drawing before she went to bed.

He picked it up, knowing that he was technically quite impolite, but he was curious, and what could the harm be? After all, he’d been to her art page on line. He glanced nervously down at her, as he opened the cover, afraid that she was going to wake up.

Many of the drawings were the same ones that he had seen in her gallery, but uncolored. Also there were doodles, and other drawings that she obviously felt weren’t worthy of posting. As he flipped closer to the back, past several sketches of Doctor Octopus, his eyes fell on something that quite startled him. It couldn’t be, was that really a drawing of…him?

The first thing that struck him was how flattering the portrait was, in its own way, cartoon style, but without falsifying his features. The sketch had a kind of amusedly disdainful look, his cape flaring, as he beat of the same rats that Mikhail had summoned. At the top of the page a ‘chibi’ doodle of Vex watched the antics in awe.

Syndrome stared in similar wonder and bemusement. Was she really so impressed with him as to draw ‘fanart’? He chuckled softly, and was reminded of his own childhood obsession with Mr. Incredible. The nostalgic memory quickly turned bitter, however, remembered his hero’s words of rejection.

“Fly home Buddy… I work alone.”

The redhead’s face twisted in bitter anger, as he closed the book roughly, and put it back in its place. His expression softened when he looked down at the innocent, sleeping form. He brushed his fingers against her cheek softly, “I won’t ever turn you away,” he whispered, “You’re my lieutenant.”

Vex smiled, and stirred in her sleep, starling Syndrome. He turned around quickly, and headed back to the door. Midway across his boot hit a squeaky floorboard.

Vex groaned, and turned over, muttering, “Turn down the stereo…”

Syndrome wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be annoyed.

000

Sharon was late for breakfast. She had to hurry to put her clothes on before her parents left without her. Stumbling down the stairs, still pulling her shirt down over her stomach she found her mother looking disapprovingly at her.

“Where have you been?” she demanded, hands on her hips. “I was getting worried!”

“Oh, sorry,” she shrugged. Something nagging at the back of her mind.

“Well, come on, come on. We haven’t got all day,” her father muttered. “You know I’m very angry with you.”

“What, why?”

“I told you to invite a friend along. You need more friends.”

“I don’t have any friends,” Sharon muttered.

“That’s nonsense, what about that nice boy from school, don’t you like him?”

“Oh. Mikhail. I killed him.”

“Well, that wasn’t very polite of you young lady,” her mother scolded as they bundled into the car. “Why on earth did you do that?”

“I don’t remember.”

“I’m sorry miss, that is not a valid menu choice,” the waiter bot droned.

“Oh, in that case I want-“

“My apologies, but all menu options are now closed.”

“Looks like you’ll just have to stick with what you’ve got kiddo,” her father said, patting her on the shoulder. He laughed, shoving a piece of blackened toast and a bowl of gruel at her.

“But I don’t want-“

“You call this caviar?!” the redhead demanded, throwing it at the waiter.

“Oh, there he is,” Sharon squealed, attempting to get up from the table.

He mother grabbed her wrists and held her. “No dear. I’m afraid you have to sit with your family today.”

“Let me go! I have to get to him! Can’t you see he’s in trouble?”

Syndrome was fighting off rats that just kept coming.

But her mother wouldn’t let go of her wrists.

“He’s going to die!” she sobbed.

“Since vhen do you care about life?” Mikhail demanded, helping Sharon’s mother hold her down.

Sharon reached up and pulled the knife out of his chest, and cut her own hand off at the wrist, freeing herself from her mother’s grasp.

She fell, toppling down the flight of stairs, and landing with a hard thump.

000

“Syndrome!” Vex gasped, jolted from her dream. She pulled her eyes open in the semidarkness to find her arms locked around one of the large pillows, and most of the blankets thrown from the bed. “What a horrible dream,” she muttered, squeezing the pillow tightly, and closing her eyes again.

Her time sense was completely screwed up. She had no idea whether she should let herself go back to sleep or not. She could have been asleep for an hour, or for twelve hours. The dream had left her with a bitter, slightly dizzy feeling, and so she let herself luxuriate under the covers for the moment.

She brushed the loose strands of hair from her face. She wished she knew what time it was, or what time it had been when she’d fallen asleep. She remembered that she’d been drawing, listening to music, and had just shoved the notebook out of the way when she’d been too tired. So why wasn’t the CD player still on? She didn’t remember getting up to turn it off. Which meant that some else must have come in and done it, and there was only one other person in the whole complex, and that was Syndrome.

She grew slightly embarrassed, and was glad she’d closed her drawing before going to bed. What if Syndrome had seen it? Well, then she’d just have been really embarrassed, since it was him she had been trying to draw.

She must have started four or five different times, but she couldn’t seem to get it right, so that she was happy with it. Either the jaw was wrong, or the eyes were slightly off, or it just didn’t look good enough to meet her standards. She wasn’t usually this picky about her artwork. She’d torn the bad ones up, after she finally had an acceptable one.

She sat up slowly, and pouted at the offending notebook. “It’s not that funny,” she muttered at it.

The spiral volume continued to mock her.

Vex yawned widely, and stretched, leaning up against the large headboard of the bed. The curtains that surrounded it made her think of the Harry Potter books, but the Siberian complex was hardly Hogwarts, now was it?

She rolled her eyes at herself. Here she was, far from home, the minion of a super villain, and she was still being all fangirly. Well, it was her nature to do so, she guessed.

Feeling a little bit stiff, and kinda grimy she wished she’d had the forethought to at least undress before passing out from exhaustion. Sleeping in her clothes two nights in a row was unpleasant at best.

Well, at least she didn’t smell.

Deciding that she was well and truly awake, independent of what time it was, she swung her feet out of bed and onto the floor. She stretched a little more, and stood up, pulling at her shirt and trying unsuccessfully to get some of the worse wrinkles out.

With a heavy sigh, she slipped on her shoes (at least she’d taken those off!) and headed out the door, with the vague thought of finding something to eat for breakfast.

She wandered down the hall, and as she got to the stairs, found Syndrome, once again in normal clothes, coming up them at the same time. It wasn’t the same outfit as before, however. Today he was in a green long sleeved shirt with heavy cuffs.

“Oh, hi!” she said, moving aside in order to let him pass.

He stopped though. “Oh good, you’re up. I was just about to come and get you.”

“How long was I asleep?” she asked curiously.

He shrugged. “Donno. At least fifteen hours.”

“Wow,” Vex marveled. “I hadn’t realized it I was that tired!”

Syndrome chuckled. “Jetlag will do that to you.”

“So…were you going upstairs?”

“Just to wake you.”

“Then should we go… downstairs?”

They headed down stairs, and Vex made for the kitchen. She was starving, again. If this kept up, she was going to start loosing weight.

So, she wondered, what was there to eat?

Syndrome seemed to read her mind, not that it was hard to tell what someone in a kitchen was thinking about. “You like pop-tarts?”

“Yeah, definitely,” she agreed.

He pulled a box of them down from a shelf, and fished two packages out, keeping one, and tossing the other at Vex. She caught it deftly, and inspected the packaging. The label was in Russian, of course, but other than that, it was perfectly normal. She opened the shiny mylar, and took a bite. Mmm, it was the smores kind.

“So,” she asked between bites, “what’s the plan for today, boss?”

Syndrome swallowed, a few crumbs of toaster pastry stuck to his lower lip. “We’re flying to Paris. Maurice agreed to fit you with a uniform.”

“Wow, okay,” she nodded, though inwardly a little apprehensive about more plane rides. But it looked like she was going to have to get used to it.

“Don’t worry though,” he said, “France is only a couple of hours away.”

“Oh good.”

“Just to warn you, Maurice is a bit…kooky, but we won’t be there the whole day. He’ll take your measurements and stuff, and the we’ll just hang around the city til it’s done.”

“Like buying a pair of glasses, only more so,” Vex mused. “Eye example, pick out the frames, then hang around the mall while they do the lenses.”

“Exactly,” Syndrome nodded.

“Oh, hey! That reminds me,” Vex said, setting the remains of her breakfast down on the table. She hadn’t had a chance to tell him about the money she had found in Mikhail’s room. “You remember how you paid for the base?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, the money’s still here, ya know. I found it in Mikhail’s room.”

“Oh, okay, that’s fine.” He went back to eating his pop-tart.

“So, uh, what do you want me to do with it?” she asked, watching his nonchalant repose.

He shrugged. “Keep it.”

“What?” Vex demanded, sure she hadn’t heard correctly. “You mean, keep it for now, right?”

He look at her incredulously. “Of course not,” he said, sounding mildly insulted. “Take it as a gift, okay?”

“But, but…Syn, it’s two and a half million dollars. Don’t you need it, or something?”

“If I needed it, how could I have paid it? I wasn’t planning on killing the guy ya know.”

She just kept staring at him. Syndrome was trying to give her two and a half million dollars, as if it was nothing. As if they were at the grocery store and the clerk had given back too much change.

“Vex, don’t be a dork. Do the words ‘unlimited funds’ mean anything to you?”

“Unlimited?”

“Virtually.”

“How much money do you have?”

Syndrome smirked. “You know Bill Gates?”

Vex just couldn’t come to grips with this. “You’re as rich as Bill Gates?”

“Not exactly.”

She sighed relived.

The redhead grinned evilly. “I’m richer.”

000

Syndrome watched in gleeful amusement as his lieutenant tried to come to grips with the fact that the money he had paid Mikhail, and which was now being given to her, was nothing. Not that he really blamed her. If he hadn’t made all of it himself, as an international arms dealer, he wouldn’t have believed it either!

“But, it’s too much. I don’t think I could even spend all of it if I tried.”

He was amazed that she was still so reluctant to take the money. Mirage had always loved it when he’d given her money, flying off to who knows where and coming back with heaps of expensive clothing. And then asking for more money a week later…Which kinda irritated him now that he thought about it. Maybe she had really just been in it for the money and prestige all along.

“Alright,” he agreed. “I’ll just have to help you spend it then. After all we are going to the most expensive city in Europe.”

“Well, okay,” she agreed finally. “So when are we leaving?”

“As soon as you’re ready,” he nodded.

“Oh, okay, then. We can leave now I guess.” She hopped up cutely from the chair, and dusted the crumbs off the front of her shirt. “Should I get the money then?”

“Don’t worry about it, I have a credit card,” he assured her.

“But then-” she began to protest, but then her shoulders sagged. “Whatever you say, boss.”

Syndrome rolled his eyes, and clapped her around the shoulders. “Geez, cheer up, will you You are the first girl I have ever heard of, who is upset about spending large sums of someone else’s money.”

She giggled. “Well, when you put it so eloquently,” she grinned amused, and seemed to lean closer to him, but then pulled away quickly. “Well, are we going to go? Don’t want to keep them waiting in Paris!”

Syndrome didn’t understand her. She liked him, didn’t she? She had drawn fanart, even let him kiss her, that once. But other than that, she seemed so nervous around him. Was he intimidating her? He didn’t know how he could possibly act more casually. But what if that wasn’t it, what if he was reading her all wrong? Maybe she had just gone along with the kiss so that she didn’t humiliate him in front of the prisoner. Considerate, certainly, but, he discovered, not exactly what he was hoping for.

Well, he’d see what happened in Paris, after he took her shopping, and maybe to dinner. Yeah.

Decisively, he followed after her to the hangar.

000

Vex wasn’t sure whether Jared had left and flown back, or stayed the night in the plane, or what, but he stood waiting for them in the hangar bay, pilot suit freshly pressed, and eye-patch firmly in place. Vex still wasn’t sure whether or not he was actually blind in that eye. She tried not to let it bother her, since Syndrome seemed to trust him, but still, a half-blind pilot, or even one who pretended to be half-blind, did not exactly inspire confidence.

“Good morning, miss,” Jared greeted, and Vex realized it was the first time that he had spoken directly to her.

“Uh, good morning Jared,” she acknowledged, and looked around for Syndrome. He was a little ways behind her, but he was coming. Vex felt suddenly embarrassed by the way that she had rushed away like that. She had just…panicked. The dream had set her on edge, she guessed. That, and the same apprehensions she’d had the night before.

The villain caught up with them. “Everything ready to go Jared?”

“Yes sir,” Jared said, opening the door for them.

After the fifteen hour plane ride, the site of the small, plush interior wasn’t exactly a welcome one for Vex; she collapsed in the same chair as she had the day before. “Well, here we are again,” she said, rather wearily.

“Still don’t like flying?” Syndrome asked with a smirk, sitting down beside her.

“Hey, in my own defense, I’ve only done it once before,” she protested.

“True, true.”

Unless of course, you counted when Syndrome flown her up to her bedroom window. She glanced over at him awkwardly.

“So,” she asked, fishing around by the seat, “What did I do with that crossword puzzle?”

Syndrome had been right, it took a surprisingly short time to reach their destination, a private landing strip just outside of Paris, and thanks to a phone call he had made en route, their was another car waiting for them. Vex didn’t know what it was. Exactly, some kind of expensive French sport’s car.

Of course Syndrome drove again, Vex didn’t even know how to drive, something she was beginning to regret on her second time riding with her boss.

“Why don’t you hire a chauffer?” she asked, as they whipped dangerously around a corner.

“I like driving,” he said. “Is that an problem?”

“No, no,” she reassured him. ‘I just don’t want to die, is all,’ she thought to herself. But then again, there were probably a lot more likely ways to die as the lieutenant of a super villain than due to his poor driving skills.

Vex imagined the headline. ‘Car wreck rids world of Syndrome Menace: Super villain causes three car pile up.’ She giggled.

As they drove through the city of Paris, Vex couldn’t help but be amazed. She had taken French class for several years in high school, and had always been disappointed that her parents couldn’t afford to send her on the annual trip abroad.

Actually, Vex realized amusedly, as they drove past the Arc De Triumph, she technically had a project due for the class on Monday. There was another point in favor of running away from home! She giggled.

Syndrome looked over at her. “Well, you’re feeling better.”

She was about to respond, when she noticed that they had drifted into the other lane, and there was oncoming traffic. “Syndrome! Watch out for the-“

He swerved hard, and they were back in the proper place of the road.

“Hey, no worries,” he said casually.

Vex glared at him half-seriously, clutching her chest. “You… are going to give me a heart attack.”

He just laughed.

A few minutes later they pulled up in front of a shiny new building with an antique façade. The front part, Vex thought, probably was the age it looked, while the rest had been rebuilt.

“This is it, then?” she asked.

“Yep, come on, he’s expecting us.”

She followed the redhead out of the car, and up to the door, which opened obligingly.

“Syndrome!” burst an exuberant voice, thickly accented in French, “Eet is so good to so you again, no? I was ‘orrified to hear you were dead!”

The man who rushed into the room was tall and quite thin, with a long main of golden hair hanging in delicate face. He wore black dress pants and a ruffled blue silk shirt. He grabbed Syndrome’s hand, and shook it soundly, and, before the redhead to escape, gave him a quick, tight hug.

Syndrome, forcing himself away as quickly as possible without actually shoving the frail man, looked back at Vex with a sheepish sort of ‘Oh god, why me?’ look.

“It’s good to see you to, Maurice,” he muttered.

Vex tried, and failed, to suppress a fit of giggles, and the French designer quickly turned his attention to her. He put his hands on his hips. “And zis must be the lady friend, mais oui?”

“Maurice, this is Vexxation, Vexxation, Maurice,” he sighed painfully at the look he was being given by both parties, Vex’s terribly amused, and Maurice’s vaguely furtive.

“Enchante, cherie,” Maurice greeted her.

“Et moi, aussi, monsieur,” she replied, shaking his hand, and putting the bit of language she knew to use. “Ca va?”

“Ah, bien, bien!” he seemed delighted. “Il semble que le garçon a un certain goût chez les femmes, après tous.”

Vex giggled as she understood what he had said. ‘It seems the boy has some taste in woman after all. “Ah, merci bien, mais, vous me embarrassez avec votre flatterie.”

Syndrome stood there, looking very out of the loop.

“Il ne parle, français?” Vex asked Maurice, gesturing to her boss.

“Pas du tout, certainment,” he assured, “So, perhaps we have best switch to English, no?”

Syndrome looked very put out. “It’s about time,” he grumped.

“Zo, we are here to outfit you, non, mademoiselle?”

“Yes, it’s for me,” she nodded.

“Come with me, come with me, mon cherie, ev vous,” he pointed at Syndrome, “Go. Amuse yourself elsewhere, I must have privacy if I am to create a masterwork for zis belle dame. I can not ‘ave you ‘anging about, vous lichieres pautonnier! Allez, allez!” Maurice said, giving him a shooing gesture.

Vex couldn’t help being highly amused. Maurice had called Syndrome a ‘lecherous villain’, and that wasn’t as good as the resigned attitude that poor Syn had. He seemed almost scared of the petite man.

Syndrome held up his hands. “Alright, alright already. Not like I’d wanna hang around this place anyway. When should I be back?”

“Trois heur, you will give me trois heur, before you set another foot in this shop. Out!”

The villain winced. “See ya later, Vex,” he nodded, and added sarcastically, as he ducked out the door. “Have fun!”

Maurice tapped his foot impatiently. “Honestly, zat man eez such an oaf.” He turned his attention to Vex. “Come with me to my office, cherie.”

To be continued…

Okay, reviews…

Deep Freeze Flareon: I’m glad you like the fic! What do you mean you’ve never seen the Incredibles? If that’s true, how did you find the fic? I’d love it if you did fanart!

Artymas: I hope there has been enough hilarity for you. There should be more in the next chapter, too. 😛 I’m glad you liked the chapter!

Dark Fire Angel: Hehehehe. Mikhail…is not quite out of the story yet.

CD Anders: As previously mentioned, that was not a flame. You are allowed to your won opinion, though the fic is not G rated, it’s rated PG13.

Maya Beebop: Yes, chapter 10 was slower than the others, this is because certain things need to be established to build plot. Not every single chapter can be a whiz bang of action and excitement, though, I’m glad you weren’t completely bored with the chapter. Yes, Maurice is gay. How could you tell?

Shadow Fox Forever: Go check out my gallery to see her costume!

RavensHaelo: I’m glad you liked Vex’s reaction; I tried really hard to make it work realistically. She didn’t regret it at first, because she had not come to grips with it.

See you tomorrow!

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Chapter 12: Behind You

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Comics Cookies and Revenge

By Lejindarybunny

A/N: There’s a special treat or two in this chapter.

Disclaimer: The Incredibles, Syndrome and all affiliated characters are the property of Disney/Pixar.

Chapter 12: Behind You

The blond led her upstairs to a small, comfortable office, which was almost more of a sitting room. Vex noticed that in the last two days she had been in so many beautifully furnished rooms that the novelty was finally starting to wear off.

“Sit, sit,” he urged, gesturing to the couch, and sitting himself in the chair opposite it. “Now, we will begin our discussion. First, I must ask, ‘as le garcon expressed any preference to you? ‘E ‘as a fragile ego, and we would not want no bruise eet, oui?”

Vex laughed. She liked Maurice more and more. “No, he hasn’t said anything, but I was thinking, I don’t want anything that’s going to look flashier than what he wears, since I’m his lieutenant…”

“Eez zat what you American’s call it zese days?” Maurice smirked.

“Maurice! I…I’ve known him for two days, okay?” She stared at him wide eyed. Did it seriously look like they were a couple? Maybe Maurice was just a big flake.

The Frenchman held his hands up. “Pardon moi, pardon moi. I merely assumed…It was tres rude of me.”

“It’s okay,” she assured him, “But can we just get back to my outfit?”

“Ah, mais oui, mais oui,” he nodded distractedly. “Zo, did you ‘ave any thing in mind then, pour vous?”

Vex considered this. Through the years she’d drawn herself in pretty much everything from outlandish opera costume, to cyberpunk body armor. But as she looked back on it now, she didn’t think any of it was good enough to actually wear. “Um, not really,” she admitted.

“Very well, get up zen, let me look at you,” he gestured for her to stand.

She stood awkwardly; rather uncomfortable that she was being mentally dissected by the French designer. It made her think of runway beauties and photo shoots, which didn’t help her self-confidence. Come to think of it, she hadn’t been particularly self assured at all today; she was practically a bundle of nerves.

Maurice was busy looking her over, and making various sketches in a design book. Perhaps Vex had forfeited her chance at input completely. That was a relief. She imagined Syndrome returning to find her in one of her own costumes and demanding to know what the heck she was wearing.

“No, no, no!” snapped Maurice suddenly, jumping to his feet. “What is this mademoiselle?”

She was taken aback. “Huh, what?”

“If my subject eez looking like an ‘omeless waif, zen what I design is ‘omeless waif material!”

“H-hey!” Vex protested. “That’s mean!”

“And? What are you going to do about it?” he tapped his foot challenging her. “You are going to get mad at me, yes? Or are you simpely some ‘omeless waif zat Syndrome ‘as taken in out of ze goodness of his heart?” the sharp faced designer sneered at her.

Now Vex really was getting angry. How dare he say that to her! “Excuse me!” she snarled, tensing and crossing her arms. “I don’t think you’re being paid to make condescending remarks, monsieur.”

“Yes, yes! Zat is it, mademoiselle!” Maurice laughed. “Stand zat way and I can work! Tres bien!”

He’d been trying to get her angry? Oh for crying out loud, couldn’t he have just asked her to stand a different way? It’s not like she wouldn’t have listened. Stupid flakey Frenchman…

“Ahhh…” Maurice said delightedly as he scribbled. “Now I see ou you are, ma cherie.”

“Oh?” she demanded.

“Shh! I must create!”

Vex rolled her eyes.

000

Syndrome drove around the city rather aimlessly, with three hours to kill, and nothing to do. Now out of Maurice’s disconcerting presence, he was rather annoyed that he had been so entirely dismissed. Not that he wanted to spend more time than necessary with the effeminate Frenchman, but he was suspicious about whatever Maurice wanted to do that he couldn’t with Syndrome there. More than likely he was being overly sensitive, but also, the car felt just a bit empty without someone in the passenger seat.

Well, in a few hours he’d go and pick Vexxation up, but until then, he’d just have to occupy himself somehow. He turned his thoughts to his new base, which tomorrow, would get up and running. Of course, that left him with the conundrum of what he was going to do when it was fully functional. Doctor Rasputin’s research intrigued him. He’d had no idea that the late doctor had worked on Supers at all, nor did it appear that anyone else did. One thing that Syndrome kept himself up to date with was developments in the Super community, and if anyone had been batting Rasputin’s theories around before now, he’d have known.

What caught him the most was that Rasputin had been able to suppress powers, or so he claimed, make supers into ordinary people. If Syndrome could find even some of his research…

Conventional science knew that supers were as old as humanity himself though in old times they’d been called magicians, witches, or monsters; it was some sort of accident of genetics, they said, and one that didn’t always breed true. No one knew what about a person gave them special powers, and, as Syndrome discovered, not a lot of people were trying to find out. Either you were a super, or you weren’t.

Truth be told, Syndrome hadn’t bothered with it either. After all, if it was just some kind of unpredictable fluke, as everyone said, then what was the point?

In his mind Syndrome envisioned world he controlled, in which children could be tested for powers as infants, and if they showed any, they would be immediately suppressed.

Children would grow up hating themselves, knowing that they should be special, but weren’t; had been cheated out of it.

A sadistic, predatory grin crept over Syndrome’s face as he flew down the Parisian highway. They’d know what he felt.

000

Readjusting to a normal life was going to be difficult after three years living in the lap of luxury on a tropical island. Mirage…Maggie, was glad to finally be out of court, but she couldn’t find it in herself to stay too near to home. All that her parents had known was that she was living abroad with a very wealthy man, and now, with the whole story out in the open, she felt ashamed.

In fact, she felt guilty twice over, first for going along with Syndrome’s plots which had hurt so many people, and then, for his death. Yes, she knew logically that he didn’t love her, and she knew that he had to be stopped, but she hadn’t meant for him to die.

With so much heavy on her mind it was no wonder that she had turned down her mother’s offer to stay at home for a while, and was currently staying in a nice hotel in Metroville. At least, she thought, the fiasco hadn’t left her destitute. She still had the credit cards Syndrome had given her, which, unlike the few assets in his real name, worked perfectly well, and wouldn’t run out for a long time. In fact, if she was even a little careful, she wouldn’t have to work for the rest of her life, which was just as well, as she didn’t have any skills, and had dropped out of college to move to Nomanisan.

She lay on her stomach on the bed, and flipped channels, hoping that watching television would keep her mind off of her worries. There wasn’t much on however, and she ended up leaving it on the local news. Most of the coverage on Syndrome’s attack had ended as repairs were under way, and they were back to talking about more normal things, like house fires and like the report she tuned into the middle of, kidnappings.

“…left her home around five o’clock. Sharon was last seen in the Spotlight coffee shop,” the news announcer said. “Several employees say that she seemed upset, and left the establishment with an unnamed man who is believed to have abducted her. Here’s what the man is believed to have looked like.”

The white haired woman stared at the screen in shock. It couldn’t be him. He was dead. But Mirage knew that face; she couldn’t mistake it for anyone else’s. Which meant Syndrome was alive.

“If you have any information regarding this man, or the whereabouts of Sharon Mitchell, please contact the police. There is a reward being offered. Our next story…”

But Mirage didn’t hear the next story. How could Syndrome possibly be alive? Mr. Incredible had said that that he had been sucked into a jet…unless, unless he had actually listened to her for once and sent the robot! She had been so angry with him, she hadn’t even bothered to mention it, or check.

So, everyone thought they were safe, but in reality he was up to his old tricks, completely off their radar. Sadly, Mirage believed, the girl he had abducted was in all likelihood a super, and probably already dead. But what should she do? Should she tell the police? It wasn’t as though she knew where he was, just that he was alive. Would that help them at all?

But she just couldn’t sit back and do nothing when he was killing people again! Especially not a poor, teenage girl! She didn’t know what to do, but she knew someone who would.

000

Many discarded pages, long minutes of standing still looking fierce later, Maurice finally seemed to have something he was satisfied with.

“Zere!” he announced grandly. “Now you may relax, ma cherie. Eet is finished.”

Vex stretched stiffly, and peered over at the delicate man. “Can I see it? Please?”

“Ceratainment!” he agreed, and handed her his sketch pad.

She took it, and gazed at the drawings. It was mostly black and completely form fitting, with a white V at her décolletage, a black choker, a white belt hanging decoratively around the waist, a pair of white gloves that went well past the elbows, black boots, and a cape, the same kind Syndrome wore, except it was set lower on the shoulders, more effeminately. “Oh, Maurice, it’s lovely! It’s perfect.”

Maurice laughed. “Ah, merci, merci. I decided zat we must work with what Syndrome was wearing. Sort of a matched set, non?”

Vex nodded. “You designed his, didn’t you?”

“Well, he ‘ad a great many ideas of his own, but I helped him realize them, and mais oui, it was made at my shop.”

“Do you design these kinds of clothes often?” she asked.

He laughed. “Non, non, zat would be Edna Mode’s specialité, not mine. ‘E came to me, because she refused to cater to his…extravagance.”

‘Whereas you’re quite flamboyant yourself,’ Vex thought amusedly, but did not say.

“Now, would you like me to explain zee benefits of zee outfit to you?”

“Uh, sure,” she agreed. Vex hadn’t thought there were any, other than looking extremely attractive, that was.

“Now, vous comprenez, the fabric eez not made in zis shop, rather I ‘ave it ordered it from Madam Mode, oui?”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“Ze fabric is bullet proof, fire proof, stain proof, and non-conductive,” he told her, ticking them each off on her fingers. “Almost indestructible.”

“Wow, okay…” she stared at the picture, and thought, ‘So basically, if I get hit in the chest, neck, or upper shoulder, I’m screwed.’ “Uh, but aren’t these parts vulnerable then?”

Surprisingly, Maurice shook his head. “No, you see, zere is actually fabric zere, it is simply completely invisible, and you can barely even feel it, oui?”

“Oh, alright,” she nodded but she thought it sounded a bit like an emperor’s new clothes situation. She trusted Maurice though.

“Now, le garçon will not be back for another hour yet. I will ‘ave Michelle bring us something to eat while we wait for him.”

“Thank you,” Vex smiled, sitting down on the couch again.

“So, you must tell me,” Maurice said curiously, leaning forward, “‘Ow did you become acquainted with un garçon like Syndrome?”

Personally, Vex was wondering exactly how much Maurice actually knew about Syndrome. She remembered that he had said he had heard Syndrome was dead, so did that mean he knew about the Omnidroid incident?

“Well…It’s complicated,” she began. “How well do you know Syndrome?”

“You mean, do I know of his ‘illicit activities’, non?” he said with a smile. “Oui, oui. So long as le garçon does not wreck my shop, je ne m’inquiète pas ce qu’il fait avec du son temps.”

‘I don’t care what he does with his time’ was what Maurice had said. “Oh, okay then…” she shrugged. “You know who Mirage is?”

“Ah, oui, cette femme,” Maurice frowned, “le garçon has brought her to my shop many times.”

“You didn’t like her?”

“Let us say I do not believe she was not a compagnon approprié non?”

“What was she like?” Vex couldn’t help but ask.

“She had excellent taste in things that she did not need,” he said, “but continue with your story, sil-vous plait?”

“Well, Mirage deserted him, and everyone thought he was dead. So, he wanted to get his operations running, but I guess he thought he needed a second in command. So he kinda, stalked me over the internet.”

“Vraiment?”

She nodded. “We talked for a few minutes, and he asked me to meet him somewhere,” she told him, starting to see that the whole story sounded kind of…insane. “I agreed, and he told why he wanted me. I said yes, and just kind of…left. Everything.”

Maurice watched her bemusedly. “Well,” he chuckled, “Such is ze force of his personalitié, non?”

“It sounds crazy, doesn’t it?” she sighed.

“Non, non, vous êtes une femme courageous,” he assured her. “Zere are not many who would follow their hearts as vous.”

“I suppose…”

“Do not suppose, believe in yourself, ‘ave zat same courage with you at all times.”

Maurice was right, wasn’t he? She had been quite brave, or at least quite rash, when she had let Syndrome carry her off into the night. Why was she hesitating now? The next time he gave her an opportunity to get close to him, she should take it! Right?

“You really thought we were a couple?”

“Oui, mais, I should have known zat you were not, ‘ow shall I say, official, as yet. Ze way le garçon looks at you is cautious. ‘E does not know if you will reject him if he, ah, ‘makes a move’, non?”

“You think so?” she asked, and then continued. “Why do you call him that all the time? Le garçon, I mean?” She’d been curious about it from the beginning.

“Ah,” Maurice laughed. “Eet is because when ‘e turned up at my shop, I could only remember him as a small boy, non?”

“You’d met him before?” Vex asked, puzzled.

The Frenchman chuckled nostalgically. “Ah, oui, oui. I was not always a fashion designer, you know.”

“Oh?” she was just becoming more confused.

“‘Ave you ever heard of ze criminal, Bomb Voyage?” Maurice asked with a grin.

“Yes, of- wait, you were Bomb Voyage?” Vex stared at him incredulously. Well, it certainly explained why he didn’t care that Syndrome was a villain!

“Ah, oui, oui, I was quite the menace, years ago.”

“But- how would you know Syndrome anyway? He wasn’t a villain when you were.”

“Vraiment, mais, écoutez vous, and I will tell you the story.”

“Okay,” Vex was on the edge of her seat, listening.

“When I was twenty, and full of desire pour fortune et notoriety, I robbed banks as ze infamous Bomb Voyage. One night, I was accosted by le hero, Monsieur Incroyable, who was zen accosted ‘imself by un petit garçon, in ze most ridiculous attire! Ze boy, he insisted zat ‘is name was ‘Incrediboy’, and ‘e was trying to convince ze hero to let him become a ‘sidekick’.

Seeing an escape, I put a bomb on ze boy’s cape, hoping Monsieur Incroyable would be occupied trying to rescue le garçon to worry about moi. I was right of course, so everything worked perfectly. Zat was also ze night zat the Hero restrictions began. I like many of ze criminals of ze time, used zat to our best advantage. I amassed enough money to return to France, and used it to begin my fashion business.”

“Wow,” Vex said, a few more pieces of the Syndrome puzzle falling into place. He hadn’t gone into any kind of detail when telling her he wanted to be Mr. Incredible’s side kick. Probably because it was a very bitter memory. But now she knew a little more.

“So you see, when ‘e came to me seven years later, already beginning ‘is little enterprises, all I could remember when I looked at ‘im was ‘is ten year old self, Incrediboy, non?”

She nodded. “Why did you become a fashion designer though?”

“Ze occupation called to me, and I had ze money to try whatever I wanted, non? I could be as daring with my fashions as I liked.”

“Chasing a dream?” she asked.

“Oui, chasing a dream,” he agreed. “Oh, mademoiselle, can I trust you will be discreet with zis information? All zis time and le garçon ‘as never recognized me. I would like to keep it zat way, you see?”

Vex nodded. She liked Maurice, and Syndrome didn’t really need to know his fashion designer was an ex-criminal. If it ever did become vital information, she’d tell him. But it wasn’t like Maurice was going to attack them.

The door opened and a woman with a tray of food came in.

“Ah, here is lunch,” Maurice nodded. “‘elp yourself ma cherie.”

000

Of all the people Violet expected to be at the door, the person who was there when she answered it was fairly low on the list.

“Mirage?” she asked, puzzled.

“Hello,” the white haired woman greeted. She seemed a little nervous, and quite frankly, she didn’t trust her. “Is your father home?”

“Uh, I think so…” she turned around and called over her shoulder. “Dad! There’s someone at the door for you!”

He dad showed up a minute later. “Who is it, Vio- Oh. Mirage, hello. It’s nice to see you.”

‘Nice to see you out of court, you mean’ Violet thought to herself. Her dad so had a crush on the blonde floozy.

“It’s nice to see you too, Bob,” she said. “Can I come in? I have something important to talk to you about.”

“Oh, of course!” her dad nodded, and ushered her into the living room. “Go upstairs, okay, Violet?”

“Yeah, sure dad,” she nodded. ‘Yeah, right. And let you flirt around while Mom’s at the grocery store?’ She headed upstairs, and was accosted at the top of them by her younger brother.

“Hey Vi!” he asked excitedly. “Who’s here?”

“It’s Mirage,” she whispered. “If you go to your room and don’t cause trouble while I listen in, I’ll tell you everything they say, alright?”

She hated bargaining with the kid, but it was the only way to get things done without him messing them up.

“Uh,” he deliberated. “Allllright. But you better tell me everything.”

“Alright, alright, now shoo, okay?”

Dash zipped off.

Violet peeled off her outer clothing, kicking it behind the laundry basket, so that she was just in her super suit. She’d taken to wearing it all the time, minus the gloves and boots, under her clothes, it didn’t weigh anything, so it wasn’t inconvenient.

She disappeared, and crept down the stairs. She was in luck, the conversation hadn’t gotten beyond dad offering her coffee yet.

“You said it was important?” her father asked.

“I did. Have you been watching the news lately?”

“Yeah, but it seems like it’s mostly good news these days, with the super laws finally being repealed.”

“It’s not all good news Bob,” Mirage said. “Did you see the report on that girl from the suburbs they think was kidnapped?”

“The one in Upstateville?”

“Yes.”

Violet suppressed a gasp. They were talking about Sharon’s disappearance! But why would Mirage think that was important? Violet narrowed her eyes.

“The drawing they’re running of her kidnapper, it’s Syndrome, I’m sure of it.”

What?!

“What?” her father demanded, echoing his daughters thoughts, “That can’t be, he’s dead!”

“No Bob, he’s not. The Syndrome that got sucked into the jet was a robot, but I didn’t know that, until just today.”

‘Yeah, sure you didn’t,’ Violet glared at her. But what on earth would Syndrome want with Sharon?

“Okay, I’ll accept that,” her father nodded. “But why would he want to kidnap this girl?”

“I don’t know for sure. My guess is she was a super, in which case there’s not much hope for her,” Mirage hung her head.

A super? Sharon? Violet had never had any reason to suspect that her some time friend had any powers, but then, to her knowledge, no one knew that she was a super either, so it was possible. But that meant she might be dead! Violet was horrified.

“Do you know where he is?”

Mirage shook her head. “No, he hasn’t contacted me, and he never gave me any of the information on his aliases, or other places he might go. He was a secretive man.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know, Bob. I really don’t. I just thought you needed to know he was alive, so you’d be on guard. He’ll probably come after you again.”

“I figured.”

“Not soon though, he hates you, but he’ll want to build his defenses first.”

“We’ll be on guard. The first time he makes a move, I’ll get him”

Her dad nodded.

“I have to go,” Mirage said, standing.

“You’ll tell me if he contacts you, or you think of anything else?”

She nodded. “You’ll tell me too, won’t you?”

“Sure.”

Mirage shook his hand, and even at thirteen Violet could tell that she wanted to do more than that, but didn’t. She nodded to him.

“I’ll show you out,” he offered.

“No need,” she walked down the hall, and out the door.

‘So that’s it?’ Violet demanded of the woman, in her thoughts. ‘You tell us your old boss is back, and he’s got my friend captive, and that’s it? You’re going to wait until he ‘makes a move?’ Sharon’s in trouble now!’

A week ago Violet would probably been having public histrionics about it in the stairwell, but now, she had learned to bite her tongue when it wouldn’t do any good to throw a fit. Obviously her father wasn’t going to do anything, since he believed Sharon was dead. Violet however, refused to accept it, and so she would have to do something herself.

She tiptoed up the stairs, picking up her clothes, and tried to slip into her room without being noticed. No such luck, of course, Dash caught her.

“Well? What did they say?”

Violet rolled her eyes. “Syndrome’s back.”

“What!?”

“Shhh!” Violet urged. “He’s not here or anything. Calm down, okay?”

“But he died in the explosion.”

“Not according to Mirage.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. Don’t say anything to mom and dad, okay?”

He nodded.

“I’m going to my room.

000

Syndrome hadn’t quite driven around the entire three hours; he’d done a little shopping. For instance, he’s been happy to find a video store that sold American DVDs, and had picked up a few, knowing he’d regret not having anything to watch at the base.

As he headed back to Maurice’s shop he saw a set of mannequins in the window that caught his attention, and he lurched to a shop in front of them. The driver behind him, who had narrowly missed a collision, sped past, shaking his fist and swearing loudly in French. Syndrome ignored him, getting out of the car.

The mannequin in question was wearing a pale blue midriff sweater, with a hip-hugging black skirt, both of which were covered by a spider-web of loose silver mesh, a black translucent shall was thrown over the shoulders, silver bangles adorned the wrists and it had high black boots with silver buckles.

‘Well now,’ Syndrome thought to himself. ‘Vex can’t very well go shopping in Paris in what she’s wearing,’ he rationalized. After all, you had to be fashionable to buy fashion in France, or no one would take you seriously. He wanted Vex to be taken seriously.

Syndrome marched into the store, and had the woman who worked there box up the entire outfit, not even asking the price. Well, he had said he was going to help Vex spend the money, so here was a start.

He took his purchase back to the car, thinking about where he would take Vex while they waited for the costume to be made. Had she been to Paris before? She spoke very good French, as far as he could tell, maybe she would want to sightsee. Mirage had just wanted to buy everything she laid her eyes on.

Obviously he’d take her to diner at La Tour d’Argent, a beautiful restaurant that overlooked the river, and Notre Dame Cathedral. This reminded him, he ought to call the place now. He wondered how much he’d have to bride this time, to get one of the window tables that had been booked weeks, if not months, in advance.

He called the restaurant, and was stubbornly American until they put someone on the phone that could speak decent English, and made the proper arrangements, booking one of the private rooms. All set then. Diner was at seven. Other than that, they could go wherever Vex wanted.

Syndrome hoped that devoting the day to her would rid Vex of the residual timidity she was having around him. She liked him. She must. In all her fanfiction, she always got together with the villain. He had taken that into account when he approached her.

Obviously she was hanging back because- Because why? She had seemed pliable enough the day before. Maybe he had been too forceful, and scared her?

He recalled the events of the day before, trying to think of any of Vex’s reactions that might indicate that she didn’t like him in that way.

000

Syndrome, upon going upstairs to fetch the sandwiches had decided that it was time to put on his uniform. He had been so long without it that when he donned it, and admired himself in the mirror, he couldn’t help but be impressed anew at the imposing nature of the dark figure he cut.

“Fear me!” he commanded the mirror, pointing accusingly and glowering. “I am Syndrome! All tremble before my mighty and power!”

The mirror wasn’t quite so impressed.

Syndrome smirked, and continued on his errand. He hadn’t expected, when he reached the brig, to find his prisoner already awake and argumentative as well, from the sound of it.

“I do not understand, vhat loyalty do you owe to that monster?”

Well now…he had been intending to go straight in, but now Syndrome hung back, waiting to hear how she answered the question.

“My own”

“But vhy? Do you not know vhat he is? A killer?”

“So?”

He smirked, amused by Mikhail’s ignorance of who Vex was. All that the Russian saw was the bubbly, slightly self-conscious exterior. He had no idea the kind of things she thought, the kind of things that she wrote about.

“I see. So you are the type of voman who is best charmed vith vicked viles.”

Syndrome smothered a snicker behind his hand, still enjoying being the proverbial fly on the wall. So, was he finally catching on?

“And what if I am?”

Then you are a fool! Can you not see he is a man who cares for nothing but his own?!”

In the end, he had been unable to convince Mirage that he cared about her. Maybe it would be better if he headed that thought off at the pass this time.

“You’ve got me there,” he had said, setting down his burden, and standing beside the girl. “Vexxation is mine.”

He put his arm around her, grabbing her closer to him. He saw her look up at him with adoring eyes, eyes that just agreed with him. He had the sudden urge to kiss her. Syndrome was not a man who made a practice of denying his impulses. Vex had melted almost instantly.

000

And then, Syndrome recalled, deciding to test his power over her further, he had instructed her to torture and kill Mikhail. That had to have been what had her on edge. After all, she had mentioned it already, asking if he trusted her. And he had shrugged that off.

Syn took a deep breath. There was only one thing to do. He was going to have to…apologize. Assure her that it was a one time only thing, and that starting tomorrow he’d have minions to do that sort of thing.

Except that he wasn’t certain that was it. Syndrome clenched his fists on the steering wheel. Damn it, why did women have to be so mysterious. Fine. On top of apologizing, if things didn’t clear up by tonight he would just have to ask her what was wrong.

And if she didn’t tell him? Or didn’t like him?

Well, that was fine. She could just be his lieutenant then. ‘There are other girls,’ Syndrome assured himself. ‘It’s not like this one is all that special.’

Except…

Shaking his head and cutting off his own train of thought, he pulled up in front of Maurice’s for the second time that morning, hopped out of the car, bringing the box for Vex with him, and strode inside.

He was greeted by a waifish young lady in Maurice’s employ.

“Bonjour, Monsieur,” she nodded.

“Yeah, hey. Tell Maurice that I’m here to pick up Vex.” He adjusted his sunglasses, and leaned casually against the wall. Why was he being so negative, anyway? He’d just have to make sure that Vex couldn’t possibly resist his charms.

“Oui Monsieur, I will tell him. Wait here, sil-vous plait,” she hurried away.

To Be Continued…

Okay. Tidbits regarding the chapter. Le Tour D’Argent is a real French restaurant. See what it looks like at www. tourdargent .com

Also, please tell me your honest opinion of Maurice. I’m dying to know.

Shadow Fox Forever: Yes. Yes I do.

CD Anders: here’s some more. Hehe. How’s that for amusing?

WormmonABC: The Jabberwocky is awesome, as are BNL.

Maya Beebop: I bet you didn’t guess the other plot point about Maurice! I hope you liked this chapter!

Dark fire angel: I love French.

WormmonABC: Haha not so random anymore, eh? The bedroom scene is one of my favorites. Aw, come on, I’m sure your story isn’t bad.

RavensHaelo: I tried to make him a wacko, but not too Ednay.

DJ Caligula: Well, at least someone likes the romance aspect!

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Chapter 13: Surprises

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Cookies Comics and Revenge

By Lejindarybunny

A/N: My father, the vile man that he is, disallowed me from typing today. So, I couldn’t get a whole chapter done. So I am breaking this chapter up into two parts.

Disclaimer: Blah blah blah, read the disclaimer in a previous chapter.

Chapter 13 part one: Suprises

Vex and Maurice were having crapes and coffee when the woman bustled in the door again. “Monsieur Maurice, il y a un homme ici pour la fille.”

The Frenchman smiled, setting down his cup, “Ah, so, le garçon ‘as returned,” he stood up. “Come, ma cherie, and I will ‘ave work begun on your costume.”

Vex nodded and followed Maurice out of the office, and down into the main hall. Syndrome was indeed waiting for them. He was leaning against the wall looking utterly bored, his eyes hidden behind his sunglasses. She wondered what he had been doing the whole time that she had been at the shop, noticing that he had a rather large box sitting on the floor beside him.

“Hey,” he greeted, tipping the shades down and grinning at her. “Have fun?”

She nodded. “Maurice is a very charming host.”

“Ah, merci. Mademoiselle,” the designer thanked her.

Syndrome rolled his eyes. “So, when’ll the outfit be ready?”

“You may pick it up zis evening, of course. It will be ready by eight, oui?”

“Good,” he nodded. “Oh, hey, can Vex use one of your changing rooms?”

“Mais, oui.”

Vex looked at him, and down to the box. “What for?” she asked.

“Well, I figured you’d want a change of clothes before we went out,” he said, “So I took the liberty of getting you one.”

Vex blushed. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Sure I did. Unless you don’t want it.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that at all,” she said, embarrassed again. She kept inadvertently irritating him when it came to money and gifts. It was natural though, no one had ever gone around just giving her things for no reason, especially not things as expensive as Syndrome seemed prone to. “Is it in the box?”

He nodded.

She walked over, a bit intimidated. It sounded like he was in a kind of a bad mood. Had anything happened while they’d been apart? She looked down at the box, wrapped in whit paper, and up at the man in the dark coat and glasses. Why should she be afraid to get near him? After all, he had come for her. So what if it would be complicated? She had run away from home with a man she had known for twenty minutes. If that didn’t complicate her life, what could?

“Thank you,” she said with a smile, and grabbed him into a hug, and, on further impulse, kissed him quickly on the cheek. Or at least she tried to, Syndrome turned his head at the last moment, and she ended up brushing against his lips instead, but just for a moment. He smirked at her and she picked up the box, once again surprised, and gratified. “Where’s the changing room, Maurice?”

“Right zis way, mademoiselle,” he said, winking at her as he led her down the hall, and added, “My compliments.”

She giggled.

She at on the bench in the large changing room, set down the box, and began to take the wrapping off delicately. She slipped the top off, and inspected the new garments. She gasped. They were absolutely beautiful, and exactly something that she’d want to wear. She hurried peeled her old, worn clothes off, and put on the new ones. There were even shoes and jewelry to go with it! She looked at herself in the mirror, and felt almost like a different person. So glamorous and grown up, but beneath the clothing she was still herself. Like a child pretending to be a princess.

Two days ago she’d been just another girl in high school, with no friends, and too much homework. Just a fangirl who was constantly being told by her parents to focus on reality. Now here she was, like some kind of dark Cinderella.

It wasn’t a dream though. Everything she did had real consequences.

Her parents, they would be grieving, searching frantically for their lost daughter. The teachers would say it was such a shame, such a waste. And Mikhail wouldn’t ever do anything again.

She wouldn’t go back. Couldn’t possibly. Sharon Mitchell might as well be dead, and Vex would fight like hell if she had to, to keep it that way.

She stared deep into the mirror’s eyes, and laid a hand to the image.

She didn’t expect it to pass through.

Vex screamed.

000

Syndrome was waiting impatiently for Vex to get back, so they could leave. He glanced over at where Maurice was standing, which the Frenchman seemed to take as a cue to start talking.

“Zo, mon garçon,” he began, “‘ou is she to you, really, eh?”

His head snapped up, and he frowned at the designer, irritated that his business was being intruded upon. “I told you, she’s my lieutenant,” he snapped.

“Oui? You ‘ave no other interest in ‘er whatsoever?” Maurice raised his eyebrows. “Zat is not what I saw just now.”

“It’s none of your concern,” Syndrome glared at him.

He leered. “Your welfare ‘as been my concern, mon petit garcon, since you stepped into my shop, years ago. You are lucky I don not take such obligations more seriously, non?”

The redhead grimaced uncomfortably. He knew that Maurice had a ‘thing’ for him, but the Frenchman usually kept it more satisfactorily discreet, in open conversation.

“You took zat girl from her home like some sort of thief in ze night,” he continued, “And now she eez, understandably, in love with you. Zo, you ‘ad bettair act like a man, rather than a child in ze body of one.”

Syndrome was taken aback by the small man’s rude comments, and blunt attitude. How dare someone like Maurice, insult his masculinity!

The man must have seen Syndrome’s expression twisting into dangerous anger, for he held his hands up submissively. “Forgive me. I should not say such things.”

“Damn right,” he snarled, relaxing only slightly.

“I undairstand zat you are ‘estitant after ze end of such a bad relationship.”

So, Vex had been gossiping, it sounded like. Well, it wasn’t exactly a secret that Mirage had betrayed him, it had been all over the news.

“But to punish one woman for ze crimes of another is a terrible thing. And zat is all I will say,” Maurice concluded.

Syndrome adjusted his glasses nervously. Had she told Maurice about Mikhail? Was this what the discussion was about? Syndrome didn’t think it sounded that specific, though, just Maurice harping on him in general.

“What did you and Vex talk abo-” Syndrome’s quarry was cut off by a piercing scream.

“Vex?” Syndrome’s eyes went wide, and he dashed in the direction of the cry. He came to a locked door that he knew to be the changing room. He pounded on it. “Vex, are you alright?!”

“I-I’m fine, Syndrome,” her voice came from behind the door. “There was a spider, and I freaked. Sorry.”

Syndrome rolled his eyes, and hung his head back in annoyed relief. “Its fine,” he grumped. What had he been worried for anyway? There wasn’t anything that could hurt her in the shop, after all.

“I’m glad you came though,” she said. “I’m done changing.”

The door opened, and Vex stood in it. She looked startlingly pretty; the black skirt hung over her hips so, and the blue sweater was stretched alluringly across her chest. The silver mesh and black shawl gave her a mysterious, sophisticated air, and the boots added about and inch to her height. Syndrome just…stared.

“Do I look okay?” she asked insecurely.

The villain found his voice. “Beautiful,” he said, grinning at her. “Stunning in fact.”

“You really think so?” she turned around, looking back at herself in the mirror.

“I know it,” he said, grabbing her wrist, and pulling her back to him. He had been planning on kissing her, but something more urgent caught his attention as he saw her hand. “You’re bleeding!”

She looked startled. “I am? I don’t know how that happened. I…must have given myself a paper cut on the wrapping paper.”

He pulled her close to him, both facing the same direction, and kissed her fingers where the blood was already drying. “Some paper cut,” he said, observing the amount of blood.

“Yeah,” she breathed, nuzzling up against him, “I should rinse it off.”

He looked down at the top of her head, and caressed the locks of her brown hair. “In a minute.” He turned her around. He had been planning on waiting until after dinner to ask, but now was so much more convenient, and he didn’t have the patience to wait. He looked her in the eyes. “Tell me, Vex, you’re honest opinion of me.”

He was afraid of how she’d answer. Worried she’d say ‘You’re a great boss’, or ‘friend’ or any number of things he was not hoping to hear.

“I told you before,” she breathed. “Cunning, imaginative, audacious, decisive…But I didn’t say how much I like you…or how handsome you are.” She leaned up, and kissed him. Not a kiss on the cheek either, but the way that he had kissed her before.

“Ehehehem,” Maurice coughed a moment later, surprising both of them with his presence. “I am very ‘appy pou ze two of you, but I do ‘ave ladies waiting to use zis room.”

“Oh! Sorry,” Vex said hurriedly disentangling herself from Syndrome, much as he was unwilling to let go of her, and heading to the washroom.

To Be Continued…

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Chapter 14: Means

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Comics Cookies and Revenge

By Lejindarybunny

A/N: CCR should be back to it’s normal schedule tomorrow, I apologies for the delays and the short chapters, unfortunately, I unlike Vex, am not free from my parent’s tyranny just yet.

More lovely fanart for CCR can be found at ookami-ayane’s lovely deviantart page, make sure you check her scraps too, for a pic of Vex in her costume! Also, at deviantart beth-star has also done some! Make sure you have a look!

Disclaimer: Incredibles and all affiliated characters are property of Disney/Pixar.

Chapter 13 part Two: Means

The weather in Siberia had never been friendly to man in his natural state, hence the reason he had invented clothes before deciding to migrate up north. Mikhail didn’t have that luxury. He had awoken in the middle of the snow covered landscape, unaware of how he had come to be there, and without any sort of protection against the environment.

‘A lesser man would have frozen to death now,’ he thought to himself, as he trudged through the snow, trying to make it to a road. ‘A lesser man would not have survived what I have been through at all.’

His skin was blue with a cold he didn’t seem to feel, and his feet trudged along with a calm that had nothing to do with reason.

He had nothing now to distinguish him from the level of beats; no family, no home, no money, no possessions. Only a heart that was unwilling to say ‘give up’, only that that tingling in the back of the mind that urged him on. Survive!

Normal men could not survive on will alone, but Mikhail had never been such a man.

Vex turned the tap on with her clean hand, and cool water poured from it. She put her other hand, the one that was covered in blood beneath the gentle flow and watched as it was stained red for a moment as she did so. She had convinced herself that it was just a hallucination of some sort, her fingers passing through the glass of the mirror as easily as through the air. As a child she had pretended that she could step through mirrors, walk through walls…

She had been under an enormous amount of stress in the last two days, whether it was positive or negative didn’t matter. The mind could only take so many changes in a short amount of time, before it began to deal with them in odd ways.

A hallucination of passing through a mirror was a perfect candidate for such a thing, because obviously there was no other explanation. And obviously she had cut herself on a bit of paper, in her excitement over unwrapping her new clothes.

All the blood gone, she turned her hand over, to find the wound. She inspected each finger, and especially her palm, expecting to see a white tear somewhere in the flesh. But there was none. She stared.

That couldn’t be right. Blood had to come from somewhere; it didn’t just appear on your hands for no reason. Not unless you were Lady Macbeth, or something. What, will these hands ne’er be clean? She quoted in her mind. Maybe there was no blood at all, except that it was Syndrome first who’d spotted it.

She clenched her hand hard into a fist, her nails digging into her palm, almost piercing the flesh. Then she realized what she was doing, and relaxed it.

There was no need to be upset. Everything was fine. And Syndrome, she reflected, Syndrome liked her! That was definite; why else would he have grabbed her, held her? Demanded to know what she thought of him.

She rubbed her hands together nervously, one more time, and left the wash room, to find Syndrome waiting outside for her.

“Well, are you ready to get going?” he asked.

She nodded him, and followed him out of the building, and back into the city of Paris. As they climbed in the car, Vex inspected it for any dents, or scratches, but found none. Frankly she was amazed that someone could drive as poorly as Syndrome did, and get away with it. Or maybe he didn’t drive poorly; maybe he drove that way deliberately. Come to think of it, Vex couldn’t imagine a man as intelligent and technically inclined as Syndrome would not be able to drive properly. It had to be a conscious choice, a choice to be fast, and dangerous.

She felt safer, as she realized this, sitting in the car beside him again. After all, he couldn’t possibly get into a car accident, if he was driving deliberately.

“So, where are we going?” she asked.

“I was going to leave that up to you,” he replied, pulling away from Maurice’s shop.

“Oh. Uh, okay,” Vex tried to think of where she would like to go, but all she could think of were the same landmarks that everyone associated with France, none of which were great places to buy clothing, which had seemed to be Syndrome’s intention. “Um, could I maybe get a list of choices? I’m not really familiar with Paris, you know.”

“Uh, well, there are all these little shops,” he said, gesturing as they practically flew past. “Or we could go to the ‘Galleries Lafayette’,” Vex cringed as he mangled the soft sounds of the French, “if you’re looking for the Paris version of a department store.”

“Well, that sounds like a good place to start,” she agreed.

“Good,” he said, whipping through the next turn.

Vex regarded him, and his sure sense of direction. Whether he knew the names of the stores or not, he seemed to know the city of Paris quite well. She wondered what sort of business would bring him there. “Are you in Paris a lot?”

“Yeah, a bit. Mirage was always wanting me to come along.”

Vex felt a pointless stab of resentment towards the woman she had seen only briefly, and not in person. “How long were you two together?”

He shrugged. “About three years.”

Vex was taken aback. Three years? It seemed like forever to her. “And she just, betrayed you? Just like that?”

“Yeah,” he replied darkly. “Look can we talk about something else?”

“Sure, sorry,” Vex assented, not bringing up the fact that he’d been the one to mention her. “So…what did you do while I was with Maurice? Besides buy me clothes.”

“Oh, I bought a few other things. Some DVDs, some games. Well, a lot really,” he admitted, “Mostly replacing the stuff I lost on Nomanisan.”

“Nomanisan?” Vex asked, wondering what he meant.

“My island,” he informed her, getting a sort of faraway look in his eyes. “Possibly the most beautiful place on the planet.”

‘Nomanisan…Island…’ Vex thought, why does that sound familiar? Nomanisan, noman…isan…

Vex groaned loudly. “Syndrome, that’s terrible!”

Syndrome chuckled wickedly. “So you got it, huh?”

“No man is an island,” she nodded. “That’s just a horrible, horrible pun.”

“Glad you like it,” he grinned.

“Did you name it that just to be cruel to mapmakers?” Vex asked wryly.

“It wasn’t on any maps,” he replied.

“Just an in-joke then?”

“You could call it that.”

000

Vex was asking him all the questions he didn’t want to answer. Why Nomanisan? It was a reminder, and an admonition. Without support, even the greatest men fell. Lack of support had been his own downfall as well, when someone he thought he could trust had turned traitor.

And they were the words, that if Syndrome time’s master, that would constitute his reply to that rejection spoken long ago.

‘I work alone.’

No man is an island.

Syndrome doubted that Incredible had even understood the barb, or if he had, that it was directed at him. Even after all these years it still stung like salt on a fresh wound. To devote yourself to the emulation of a man you thought was a hero, only to be brushed aside as a nuisance, a pest.

To this day, he remembered the hours of time he had spent in dedication, the clipping of newspapers, the merchandise, the careful study of motive and desire. The care he put into designing and making his costume; even coercing his mother to let him bleach his hair, just to be that much more like the man he admired.

But most of all, he remembered the dream that lay in stark contrast to the hash reality.

‘You always say to be true to yourself, but you never say which part of yourself to be true to! Well I’ve finally figured it out, I’m Incrediboy, your ward!’

Mr. Incredible’s eyes would have softened with recognition, just for a moment, and then, determined again, holding Bomb Voyage roughly by his collar.

The would have nodded, ‘I’ll hold this villain here, you go get the police, Incrediboy’

Incredible claimed to be fighting for justice, but in a just world what he would have seen in the young boy that Syndrome had been was a person not unlike himself, someone ready to give everything they had for an ideal, to fight for it, and if necessary, to die for it.

“Are you alright?” Vex asked him concernedly, after he had been quiet for a moment.

But this was neither a just, nor an ideal world. It was a world where dreams could fail in an instant, and shatter into a broken, cold reality, as Buddy Pine had discovered so early.

“I’m fine,” Syndrome replied.

000

Violet sat on her bed, her knees curled up, with her elbows resting on them, leaning against the headboard, trying to think of a plan. Sharon was obviously not dead, as Mirage had so rashly stated. Syndrome, from what the young super could tell, was not the brightest pin in the box. If he had been, he’d have executed all of them, when they’d been captured, instead of locking them up, and leaving them to their own devices. No, if anything, Sharon was probably locked up, being told hourly news of how terribly worried her parents were.

The only thing that stopped Violet from immediately rushing off to save her from the clutches of the villain was the small problem that she, like everyone else, had no freaking clue where he was.

She turned over and lay on her stomach, hands propping up her chin. And there was nothing she could do about it. Not for the first time, she wished she had a more effective power. In this case, the power to read minds anywhere in the world would have helped out a lot. Unfortunately, wishing for something she didn’t have didn’t do her a lot of good.

So what was she good at? Sneaking in and out of places…and that was about it. Which didn’t do a darn thing if she didn’t know where it was she was supposed to sneak in to.

Or did she?

Mirage had given Vi’s dad her phone number and address, before leaving, in case he had any information to share. Violet, however, didn’t believe that Mirage was telling everything she was knew. So maybe if Violet followed her, she would find out, or at least get a clue to where Syndrome was hiding.

It wasn’t a sure-fire plan, by any means, but it was the best that she could come up with on short notice.

000

The driver of the truck honked at the man standing in the middle of the road, long before he was close enough to tell that the man in question was completely unclothed, not to mention, his skin was a shimmering, icy blue. Both curious and concerned, though he ordinarily would have never stopped for hitchhikers, he pulled aside.

“What the hell are you doing, man?!” he demanded in Russian, rolling down his window. “You are going to die! In fact you look like death already!”

The blue man held out his hand calmly and suddenly several strange creatures appeared, like wingless bats from hell, and attacked the driver. Scrabbling, and pulling away from the beasts, he cracked his head against the side of the window, and fell unconscious.

“I feel like death as well,” Mikhail replied conversationally, as he reached through the open window and unlocked the door. He unbelted the man from his seat, and methodically stripped the limp body of all of its clothing, and donning it himself.

Almost as an afterthought, he tore the arms off of the inner shirt, and bound the driver’s hands and feet, before tossing him into the back of the truck’s cab.

000

The Galleries Lafayette was no ordinary department store. It was six floors of glorious high fashion. Things Vex had never been able to dream of ever being able to afford. It was true Haute Couture, and though she didn’t quite want one of everything, it felt like she came close.

Syndrome didn’t seem to mind however, in fact, indulging her this way seemed to both amuse and gratify him, and Vex wasted large quantities of time popping in and out of the dressing rooms, making sure Syndrome got to see everything she tried on.

Her eventual purchases were chosen mostly on the grounds of how he reacted to them, in fact. If an article of clothing seemed to bore him, she immediately put it back. Except, of course, for a few key articles that she absolutely could not live without once she saw that she could have them. The most indulgent of these affects she had laid eyes on as they were passing through the men’s department.

It was a coat, floor length, and olive green, exactly like the coat that Doctor Octopus had worn in the Spider-Man 2 movie…minus the tentacle rips of course.

Syndrome noticed her oddly veering direction, as she stopped walking, and craned her neck to see it.

“Can’t…resist…fangirl senses…tingling! Must… have Doc Ock coat..!”

The villain snickered

“Do you know what the girls on deviantart would do if they saw this?” Vex demanded.

“The same thing you’re doing now?” he wagered amusedly.

“Exactly!” she nodded. “I can’t not get it. It would be a blasphemy.”

“Well, go ahead then,” Syndrome grinned. “But I draw the line at welding metal tentacles to your back.”

To be continued…

And that concludes chapter 13! I’m afraid I’ve had too many reviews in the interim to reply to them all, the practice will resume next chapter.

I’d just like to say I’m glad everyone has been enjoying the story! Welcome to all you new reviewers, and thanks for sticking by me, to everyone who’s been here since the beginning.

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Chapter 15: Staying for Dinner

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Cookies Comics and Revenge

By Lejindarybunny

A/N: c4bl3fl4m3 has been involved in some lovely art for CCR, and also, I suggest you take a look at vexxation .deviantart. com as well.

Disclaimer: Incredibles and all that belongs to Disney/Pixar. Darn.

Chapter 14: Staying for Dinner

Vex had never seen as beautiful a restaurant as Le Tour D’Argent, let alone been in the private room of one.

As they entered the Maitre D’ greeted them warmly, and his manner only improved when Syndrome introduced himself as Isaac Douglas.

“Ah, Monsieur Douglas,” the man greeted excitedly. “Oui, oui, right zis way, everything is ready.”

Vex glanced up at Syndrome as they were led away into the reserved chamber. That couldn’t be his real name, she thought, it sounds suspiciously like a pseudonym. It was with a jolt that she realized that she didn’t even know his real name. Sure, she didn’t mind calling him Syndrome, quite the contrary, Vex had always been of the opinion that people were who they believed themselves to be, but she still wanted to know who he had been. Even if she never called him that.

The room was rich with luxury and the window they sat beside looked out on the river Seine and Notre Dame. The sun was just below the horizon, and the city outside was cast in twilight purples, with just the barest hint of orange left from the sunset. Vex gasped when she saw it.

“Is that a ‘Syndrome, you’re amazing’, I hear?” he murmured wryly to her.

“Definitely!”

They sat down at the elegant table, already set with various rich, delicious looking appetizers. The Maitre D’ uncorked and poured a bottle of wine.

“Ze first course will arrive shortly, Monsieur,” he assured Syndrome. “Is zere anything I can do for you in ze mean time?”

“No, not a the moment,” he replied dismissively.

“Very well, Monsieur,” he nodded deeply, and left them alone in the room.

The room was dim, and the table was aglow with the light of candles and Vex watched soft, flickering shadows play over Syndrome’s face.

“This is magnificent,” she said in wonder. “It has to be the most beautiful place in Paris. But, aren’t things like this usually booked months ahead of time?” Vex wasn’t sure, but she thought that she must be taking Mirage’s place at a date that had been planned long ago.

“Usually,” he told her taking a sip of wine. “But I pulled a few strings this morning to get it for you.”

“This morning?” Vex said, wide eyed, and taken aback. “Wow, those must have been some strings! Do you know the President of France or something?”

Syndrome chuckled darkly. “Purse strings,” he said with a smirk, “and if I hadn’t called, it would be the President of France sitting where we are now.”

Vex’s impressed-o-meter was practically through the roof. “You bribed the staff enough, to get them to reseat the President of their country?”

“Yes, sweetheart, that’s exactly what I did.”

“Thank you,” she smiled at him, and her heart did a little dance. He called her sweetheart! She gazed out the window, down at the Cathedral below.

“I’m glad you like it.”

“How could I not?” she asked looking up again. “This has been the second most amazing day ever.”

“Only the second?” he asked curiously. The glow of the candles brought out the deep golds and oranges in his hair, some of which was loose from his ponytail, and glimmered in his eyes. “What would be the first?”

“Day before yesterday,” she told him. “When you came for me. I don’t think I told you yet, how deeply, deeply thankful I am. You rescued me, Syndrome.”

His eyes softened, and Vex thought she saw there, behind confusion and doubt, a spark of joy at this revelation. “You think so?”

“Not think, know. My soul was withering and dying as I was, and then you came, and you took me away. No matter what happens after this, whether we succeed or fail, whether I live or die, you saved me.” Vex poured her emotions out, letting them hang in the room like the candlelight, and hoping Syndrome would understand how she felt.

“I-“

That was when the Maitre D’ and a small bevy of other serving men bustled into the room with trays of food.

Vex felt very restrained and charitable as she gave them all a glare of death, for keeping herself from immediately jumping up and lighting all their kidneys on fire.

000

It was almost a relief for Syndrome to have the tension of such a vulnerable moment so rudely broken. That didn’t mean he was any less angry at the interruption, but it was nothing on the way the Vex was glaring at them.

Seeking to smooth the moment over, as the busybody waiters prepared things on the table, Syndrome quipped. “Is anything the matter? You seem, Vexed.”

Her gaze immediately snapped away from the offending serving men, and she gave a snorting sort of giggle. “You just love those bad puns, don’t you?”

“Why, do you find them punishing?”

Vex cringed, but still giggled. “Okay, that’s just not witty.”

“But it made you laugh,” he pointed out.

“Point,” she said, grinning bemusedly, as the waiters trooped from the room again. “So what is all this?” she asked, gesturing at the food laden table. “I missed the running commentary.”

“Yeah, that would be because you were too busy trying to make all the waiters’ heads explode,” he chuckled. “You should have seen their faces too. They thought you were going to jump up and stab them all with a fork.”

She laughed. “Then who would bring dinner? You still didn’t answer me, though.”

“There’s a good reason for that,” he explained wryly. “And that’s because I don’t have a clue either. But, I advise you to avoid it, if it looks like snails.”

She began to assemble a plate. “Let it never be said that I don’t trust you entirely too much.”

“What are you implying I’m not trustworthy?” he joked.

“Insert Jack Sparrow ‘honesty’ quote here,” she replied, pointing her fork at him.

“And now you’re implying that I’m dishonest,” he grinned, recalling the quote she was referencing.

Vex stared at him. “Oh. My god. You know the movie.”

“Of course I do, what, you think just because I was living on a remote island, plotting various nefarious schemes, I didn’t have time to watch movies?”

Actually, as Syndrome said this, he realized that was what most people would assume. One didn’t typically put the role of the villain together with the role of a geek. Unless you counted the sixth season of Buffy…

“I grovel at your feet,” Vex replied, making a little hailing motion, from her chair.

“Oh, really?” Syndrome smirked. “Maybe you should save that for after dinner.”

The fangirl’s face went bright red.

000

Violet had snuck downstairs and copied down the address and room number of where Mirage was staying. Luckily it was on a familiar bus route, and luckier still it was Saturday, so she could actually go.

“Mom, I’m going to go to the mall, okay?” she asked, leaning into the living room where her mother was sitting.

“Do you want me to drive you?” she looked up.

“No, it’s okay, I’ll catch the bus.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ll be fine, mom,” she assured her, and headed out the door.

She didn’t like lying to her mom, but it wasn’t as if she’d be able to get anyone to agree with her. And she just couldn’t do nothing. Sharon was in trouble, and it was up to Violet to help.

The bus ride was unpleasant, but mercifully short, ending in the expensive district of down town. That was another strike against Mirage in her book. If she was staying in this nice a hotel, Syndrome was definitely paying for it.

In the impressive hotel lobby, she quickly spotted a ladies room, and hurried inside. She put her normal clothes in the small duffle bag she had brought, and disappeared.

The stuffy hotel guy looked bored, and it was a cinch to creep up behind him and grab the spare room key. But now she had to be even more careful. One thing people would be really suspicious of? A room key floating midair.

She kept close to the wall, hoping the key would get lost in the patterned wall paper, and made her way up the stairs to the room. The stairs would be way safer than the elevator, since nobody took them except in emergencies.

Unfortunately, Violet realized as she stood outside Mirage’s door. She had another problem.

‘How can I get in, without her noticing the door open? Darn it, Violet,’ she thought to herself. ‘You have to think of these things before you rush off!’

She got an idea. It looked like the keys had been a waste of effort, since she wasn’t going to need them after all. She set them down on the floor, and knocked on the door.

Violet heard footsteps, and imagined Mirage looking through the peep hole and seeing no one. The footsteps retreated, and Vi only waited a second before knocking again.

“Who’s there?” came the muffled question from behind the heavy door.

Violet of course, said nothing.

Mirage retreated again, and Violet knocked a third time.

This time the footsteps were thumping and irritated. Violet heard the click of the door being unlocked and she crouched low to the ground.

Mirage pulled the door open fiercely. “Okay, who the hell is there?!”

As she did so, Violet slipped through the door, low to the ground, and hid in the closet, the door open just a crack so she could see and hear.

“Oh for goodness sake,” Mirage closed the door, exasperated. She collapsed on the bed, and turned on the TV.

‘Greeeeaaaat,’ Violet grumbled to herself, ‘Now all I have to do is wait here for her to actually do something. I am such a moron…’

000

“Thank you for dinner,” Vex said, kissing Syndrome as they exited the restaurant almost two hours later.

“My pleasure,” he said, running his fingers through her hair. “Now, shall we go pick up that costume of yours?”

An eager thrill went through her. In all the hours of shopping, and running around the city with Syndrome, she had almost completely forgotten the reason that he had brought her there.

“Definitely!” she said, keeping herself close to the man as they made their way to the car. The night had grown very cool, and the shawl just didn’t make up for not wearing a coat.

They clambered into the car, and Syndrome once again sped off toward Maurice’s shop.

“Can I ask you something without offending you?” she asked him, suddenly making the decision.

“I don’t know, can you?” he raised his eyebrows at her.

She turned, studying him, his long, amused face, boyish grin, fiery red hair, and asked carefully. “Will you tell me what your name was, before you became Syndrome?”

He glanced over at her. “If you want,” he shrugged.

“If you don’t want me to know, I understand.”

“Aw hell, you could find it easy on the internet,” he ran a hand over his jaw, and admitted, “It’s Buddy Pine. Short for Balthazar,” he cringed visibly on the last part.

“Buddy, huh? I kinda like that,” she told him.

“Start calling me by it and you go back to being Sharon,” he threatened half-seriously.

“I was about to say,” she added, “But I like Syndrome better.”

“Good,” he nodded approvingly and put his arm around her shoulder, steering with one hand.

It didn’t take them long to get back to Maurice’s, and when they did, the designer hurried out to meet them.

“Bon soir!” he greeted with an emphatic grin. “You ‘ave returned at just ze right time Mademoiselle, your attire is awaiting you in ze dressing room. Come, let us see how it looks, eh?”

Vex was honestly a little apprehensive about returning to the room where she’d had that weird delusion, but to get her costume, she would conquer it.

“I’ll be right out,” she told them, smiling at Syndrome, and clicked the door shut behind her.

The suit was hanging on a peg, and Vex inspected it as she took it down. It was made of a shiny, stretchy material, which glowed rather like leather, stretched like spandex, and felt like no fabric she’d ever touched. The body was in one piece, like a bathing suit, and she discovered as she put in on, that Maurice had not been deceiving her when he said the parts that looked vulnerable were actually covered. She sat down on the chair, and pulled the boots on next, then the gloves, and then buckled the belt so that it fell loosely around her hips.

That, she discovered in the mirror, looked pretty snazzy by itself, but there were two more pieces before it would be complete. With a sort of reverence that she was sure only fangirls knew the feeling of, she took down the cape and mask. She affixed the cape to where it connected to the suit at her shoulders, and watching her own transformation in the mirror, held the mask in the palm of her hand, and slowly, slowly touched it to her face.

She looked up.

There stood proudly some sort of dark knight, kin to the Sith lords, or the Generals of the Negaverse. This was the embodiment of everything regal, and powerful, mysterious, and slightly cruel. The beauty of the night sky with stars overshadowed.

No, she realized. Not the embodiment. The radiation of it. All that was buried within her, and the costume simply let people know it was there. Not a disguise, a warning.

As she turned to look at herself, the cape billowed and waved slightly, responding to the tiny motions of her shoulders, but something more troubling caught her eye.

There was a small amount of blood on the mirror, where she had touched it that morning.

Vex peeled off one of her gloves, and licked her thumb. Hesitantly, she touched the mirror. When her hand didn’t go through, she gained confidence, and rubbed the glass, trying to wipe away the crimson smudge. But it wouldn’t be washed clean, though she scrubbed at it fiercely.

Frustrated, and rather alarmed, Vex peered closer, and discovered that the mark wasn’t on the surface of the glass, as she had though, but scattered within it, as though the maker had bled upon it as it was made.

‘It must have been there before,’ she rationalized. ‘A complete coincidence.’

She turned sharply, her cape swishing around her heels, and opened the door.

It was the same reaction from the morning, only more so, and this time Vex grinned confidently.

She grabbed the edge of the cape, and bowed sweepingly, imitating the cartoon villains she had idolized for so long.

Syndrome chuckled, and reached down, pulling her face up. “Get up,” he said, “You’re making me feel underdressed.”

Vex laughed, standing immediately, and hugging him tightly. “Other than that, how do I look?”

“Wickedly wonderful, darkly dazzling, villainously vivacious…”

“And other Marvel comics-esque alliterative epithets?” she grinned.

“Exactly.”

Vex pulled his shoulders down slightly, and leaned upwards, kissing him deeply, not wanting to let go. Syndrome was her super villain, one whose heart she didn’t have to patiently share with other fangirls, or anyone else. He had stalked her, and rescued her, and made her his subordinate. Just her. Nobody else could have him.

“Interesting,” Syndrome mused, as they finally parted, smirking down at her.

“Oh?”

Maurice coughed, and Vex found him standing there, arms crossed. “If ze two of you are quite finished?”

Vex pouted at him, beginning to think that people in general really liked interrupting her and Syndrome.

000

Violet was startled out of a near drowse when the phone rang. Suddenly, she was alert, and awake, and listening for every scrap of the conversation that she could hear.

“How do you know that name?…Oh, that’s right. But, how’d you get this number? …What kind of information?”

Violet’s ears pricked up. This was just the thing that she had been waiting for! Obviously, one of Syndrome’s old henchman was on the phone.

“You know where Syndrome is?”

‘Score!’ Violet grinned to herself. ‘Now come, on, tell me where he is…’

“Keep talking…” Mirage scrambled in the dresser drawer for something “…I do now.”

Mirage repeated a set of coordinates she was being given, as she wrote them down, and Violet committed them to memory.

“Yes…Just one thing. How did you find him?…Hello? Hello?”

She hung up the phone.

‘Yes!’ Violet congratulated herself. ‘I didn’t come here for nothing! Now, how do I get out? Should I wait for Mirage to leave?’

That was probably the wisest thing to do, but Violet didn’t know how long it would be until the woman did decide to go anywhere. Luckily, soon after the phone conversation had ended, Mirage got up and headed to the bathroom. Hastily acting on the opportunity, Violet crept from the closet, and out of the hotel room.

To be continued…

dKiWi: Thank you very much, I love getting reviews, the more the better. The Nomanisan island thing was a conclusion I arrived to shortly after seeing the movie the second time, when I was considering the relationship between Incrediboy and Syndrome. I am so glad you like my interpretation.

CD Anders: Is Mikhail alive? That’s a good question. I suppose you’ll have to keep reading to find out, won’t you? (evil grin) Long live the Ock Coat!

RavensHaelo: Beware of crystal gazing, it can be…misleading. Or truthful. Or both. Mikhail scares you? …interesting…

Shadow Fox Forever: I’m glad it didn’t take long too!

See ya tomorrow!

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Chapter 16: Making Plans

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Comics Cookies and Revenge

By Lejindarybunny

A/N: I’ll mention now that this is another bridge chapter; so don’t expect a lot of action, so much as reflection. Next chapter is when the ‘fun’ really begins. Oh, and go check out my deviantart account, greer-the-raven .deviantart. com for some new Syndrome art! More coming this evening, so check back later!

Disclaimer: Disney/Pixar owns the Incredibles. Not me, sadly.

Chapter 15: Making Plans

It had taken Mikhail the better part of the day to come to a proper town. Upon doing so, he dumped the still unconscious form of the driver by the side of the road, and drove off. He was sure someone would be along to assist him in a few minutes or so. Mikhail, however, had urgent business elsewhere.

He spent the better part of the night finding another town, and, upon doing so, checked into a seedy motel. This was made more awkward than it should have been, as Mikhail’s skin had not lost the blue sheen that it had gained in the icy wasteland. Mikhail glared at the attendant, and he handed over the room keys.

Mikhail had collapsed into the tattered chair in the corner of the room, and picked up the phone. He dialed a number that would have been very familiar to his father. “Hello? This is Mikhail Rasputin. Yes… Yes. I have a favor to beg of you…”

000

Before they had started the flight back to Siberia, they’d had to load all the various and sundry things that had been bought in Paris. Vex, who was back in the outfit that Syndrome had bought for her that morning, sat rather wearily in her accustomed chair.

It had been a long day. A good day, yes. But still tiring. If the plane ride were any longer she’d have let herself fall asleep, but as it was, she would rather stay up the next two hours.

“So, what’s the plan for tomorrow?” she asked.

“Oh, tomorrow’s when things really get started,” Syndrome replied with a grin. “That’s when the hired help will be arriving.”

“Neat,” Vex nodded. So tomorrow things really started getting up and running. “I always wondered how one actually ran a secret evil base.”

“Easy. Make sure everyone knows what they’re supposed to be doing, and delegate responsibility for all tasks that don’t vitally require your attention.”

“That makes sense,” she nodded.

“Well good, because some of that is obviously going to be delegated on to you.”

“Obviously,” she was, after all, his lieutenant, and that couldn’t all consist of trips to Paris. Where would the fun in that be, anyway? “What sort of things?”

“Oh, overseeing that the minions are doing their job, mostly. Like anybody else, if they don’t know they’re being watched, they won’t get anything done.”

She got minions to command? Now that was just awesome. How many people could say they had honest to god minions? “Sounds fine to me. What time are they supposed to be coming?”

“Mid to late afternoon.”

“Okay,” she nodded. Then she thought of something. “Hey Syndrome, can I use one of the computers tomorrow morning?”

“Any time you like, just, don’t mess with the security without telling me.”

“Of course not! I just have a few fics and things I want to check up on.” Not only that, but her account at deviantart was probably full to brimming with deviations her friends had posted. She hated going for days without checking it, because then she could never give the messages the attention they warranted.

“Then that’s fine,” he smirked.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” she grinned sheepishly. “Practically living out a Mary-Sue fic of my own and I still want to read the stuff. What can I say? I’m a fangirl.”

“I wouldn’t change it,” he assured her.

“Oh good.”

Vex yawned. She was more tired than she had thought. ‘Oh well,’ she thought to herself. ‘I might as well get comfortable at the very least.

She shifted herself in the chair, and laid her head on Syndrome’s shoulder.

“Vex?” Syndrome asked a moment later.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been meaning to tell you something.”

“What’s that?” she snuggled her head up against his warm, soft body.

“I wanted to… apologize”

She looked up at him, wondering what he could possibly think he had done to offend her. “What for?”

Syndrome sighed heavily. “For the way I tested you yesterday. I should have trusted you from the beginning.”

Vex shook her head slowly. “It’s okay. I understand. Someone you thought loved you just betrayed you, and so you didn’t quite trust anybody. I’d probably be the same way.”

He ran his fingers through her hair. “So, you aren’t mad?”

“No, I’m not mad at you at all,” she murmured. She wasn’t upset with him. And now that he had apologized, she was almost angry with herself, for having been a bit upset before. But it didn’t really matter right now. What mattered was that Syndrome liked her, and wanted her around, and had duties for her, and didn’t mind that she was a silly fangirl. Lying up against Syndrome made her feel even sleepier than before and soon she was drowsing.

000

Vex’s breathing became slower and steadier, and Syndrome knew that she had fallen asleep. He smiled slightly, and petted her cheek, glad that she wasn’t angry, or hurt.

He was glad also, that he’d managed to ask her about her feelings. He had been right all along, she did like him.

And boy did that suit look good on her…

Tomorrow operations would finally begin. And after that, he could get some more research done on Rasputin’s findings. There was something important there, Syndrome knew it. If he located the source of Super powers, well, Rasputin may not have cracked the secret of bestowing them, but it seemed he had the art of taking them away.

If ever there was a way to truly rip apart someone’s soul, it would have to be to take away his powers.

Syndrome spent the rest of the plane ride contemplating and planning. When they arrived back in the hangar of the base, Vex was still sound asleep and she looked so peaceful and happy that he couldn’t bring himself to wake her. Instead he scooped her up in his arms, and carried her inside, and down to her personal apartments.

He laid her down on the bed, and removed the most uncomfortable looking articles she was wearing, the glasses, shoes and jewelry, and set them by the bed before covering her up with the soft, cream-colored coverlets.

“Good night,” he told her softly, and left the room.

000

Vex was surprised to wake up in her bed, after all, when she’d fallen asleep, it had been on the plane. And instead of waking up cold and stiff, clambering down and inside, she was already warm and comfortable.

‘Syndrome must have carried you,’ she thought to herself, smiling happily and hugging the big pillow on which her head had been resting. She rolled over, looking for a clock, before remembering that she still didn’t have one!

‘Well, grr on that,’ she pouted. ‘I better filch one from the barracks before all the minions arrive tonight.’

She yawned, and stretched, feeling amazingly good and well rested. Sitting up she noticed that the boxes of clothing she had bought were stacked in a corner. She felt vaguely guilty about him lugging them all up the stairs, until she realized he’d have just zapped them with him gloves. Like telekinesis.

Vex swung herself out of bed, and decided, ‘it’s time for a shower’. The bathroom in her private quarters wasn’t nearly as opulent as the one in the hallway, but that was more of a swimming pool, really, and that wasn’t what she wanted.

She peeled her clothing off, and turned the tap so that water hissed and steamed down from the spigot. She stepped into the shower, pulling the curtain closed behind her.

The first spray of water on her cold shoulders was startling, and also rejuvenating. The room filled up with a hot, misty steam as she stood there, just luxuriating in the feeling of the heat against her skin.

It was the first familiar, comfortable, safe thing she had done in three days. It wasn’t spending horrendously large amounts of money that she couldn’t bear to think about on clothes that she hadn’t known she wanted. But it wasn’t worrying about whether or not she would have her homework done on time, either. It wasn’t loyally snuffing out the life of a man she had known for an hour and a half at best. Nor was it wasn’t sitting alone in the lunchroom with a notebook and a package of Twinkies. It wasn’t falling into a mirror, or turning her back on the only friend she had or running away from home with what she could fit in a duffle bag, and leaving her mother to grieve.

There was good and bad in every possible life. Her life wasn’t perfect, it never would be, but it was getting pretty damn close. She wouldn’t take back any of it. ‘We all are our choices; we are who we make ourselves. And I, narcissist that I am, happen to like myself quite a bit at the moment.’

But for the moment, she didn’t have to make any choices. She could just forget who she was altogether, neither Sharon, nor Vex, and simply be. This was purely a hot, relaxing shower, making her forget all the doubts that played in her mind.

After she had scrubbed herself thoroughly, and the water was threatening to turn less than pleasantly warm, she turned off the tap, and grabbed a large, fluffy green towel, drying herself off. Her dark brown locks hung damply in her face, as she grabbed her glasses and rubbed the steam off with the corner of the cloth. She breathed in the moist, sauna-like air and felt happy.

After dressing in a fuzzy, tunic-style sweater, and corduroy pants, she grabbed the bag with her disks and CDs, and the CD player and headed out of the room. Doing as she had promised herself she grabbed one of the little digital clocks from the barracks and shoved it in her pocket before going down to the control room. It turned out that it was only eight in the morning. She wondered if Syndrome was up yet?

If he was, he was still in his private suite, because he wasn’t in security, nor did any of the camera’s display his whereabouts. That was fine with Vex. ‘I’ll have some time to get a little guilt free fan time in,’ she thought as she switched on the computers.

Unfortunately this was harder than Vex had anticipated. Wither Deviantart, it seemed, was having issues, or Syndrome’s computer was. She was almost ready to give up, when it finally allowed itself to display.

And then her account was gone.

Vex swore violently, and began to set up a new account. ‘After days I finally got the stupid thing to accept devi-art’ she exaggerated in her journal, and proceeded to wrathfully embellish her tribulations.

000

Violet had decided to wait and see what Mirage did, before doing anything herself. She wanted to see if the woman would do as she had said she would, and tell her father. If she didn’t, Violet would…what?

Tell her father that she had lied about where she was going and stalked Mirage? Oh yeah, he would so love that.

‘Can you say, ‘grounded’?’ Violet grumbled to herself. ‘What am I supposed to do then, go find Sharon myself? I don’t even know where these coordinates are for.’

Well, she could fix that easily enough she supposed. Just go look it up on the internet, unfortunately, she knew Dash was using it at the moment, playing some dumb game no doubt.

So what would she do, if Mirage didn’t say anything? Maybe call her own father and anonymously tip him? How could she change her voice enough that it wouldn’t be recognized?

Nobody had ever told Violet that being a super hero was going to be so difficult. Or was it just being a teenager? If she were older she could just run off and rescue Sharon, easy. That was how it was done after all. How could you be a super hero when you had to worry about homework and curfews?

‘How can you be a super hero when your only powers are to make yourself invisible and cast force fields?’ Violet couldn’t fight, all she could do was defend herself, and run away.

‘Maybe I should ask mom if I can enroll in a martial arts class,’ she thought to herself.

000

Syndrome had gotten up rather later than he had expected to. He donned his costume, hair and everything, He’d be wearing it almost all the time again, now that things were finally moving forward. As he wandered downstairs to the kitchen, blue and black cape billowing out behind him, he noticed that Vex was obviously already awake. She had left her door open.

In the kitchen, he grabbed the last package of pop-tarts out of the box. Sugary, quick, filling, easy to eat, and oh-so bad for you, they had fed him throughout most of his life. As an added bonus, they weren’t messy, so he could eat them no matter what he doing. The Omnidroid mark one had had a few toaster pastry crumbs alongside it’s wiring.

Syndrome dusted his hands together, brushing the sugar-crumbs from his gloves, and decided it was time to get to work. It wouldn’t be as early a start as he had hoped for, but he still had an hour or two before he’d have to orient the mercenaries who’d be arriving.

When he arrived at the control room, he found Vex sitting, her back to the door, at the computer, hanging around her deviantart page, with music playing loudly from the stereo.

Syndrome grinned and swaggered up behind her, he put his arms over her shoulders, and his face by here. “Boo.”

“Eep!” Vex squeaked, jumping in her seat. “You startled me!”

“No, really?” he smirked and asked curiously, “So, what have you been up to?”

“Snarking at your stupid computer. Deviantart ate my page or something, and now somebody is bitching me out for exaggerating in my journal, and not knowing computers very well.”

“Sounds fun,” he replied sarcastically. “What do you mean it ate your page?”

“The whole thing’s gone, all my art, journals, page views. The whole shebang. I had to start a new one.”

“That sucks,” he sympathized. “You need to get dressed soon, you know.”

She looked up at him in confusion.

“You can’t greet minions in that,” he explained, tapping the edge of his mask for emphasis.

“Oh, oh right! Duh,” she shook her head. “Sorry, lost in fangirl land. I’ll go change now.”

He nodded as she got up. “You mind if I close this? I need to get some work done.”

“it’s fine,” she said, walking out of the room. “Could you log me out of my account before you do?”

“Yeah.”

He looked at the page she had left it on, and contemplated reading her journal. After all, if she put it on the net it was fair game, right? He decided against it though, if he did, he might spend all day nosing around the site, and there were things he needed to do.

He logged Vex out, and pulled up Rasputin’s files.

000

Hours later Mikhail was beginning to come to terms with the fact that his skin was, in all likelihood, going to be permanently blue. It was simply another injustice that Syndrome had served him. Well, Mikhail Rasputin was going to do his very best to pay the man back.

Reconnecting with his father’s mob connections had been an easy thing, especially since the organization was in fact, in debt to the Rasputins for a few key services that had been provided. Mikhail had never quite known what his father had done for them, and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to. He didn not relish working with criminals, but if that was what it took to get his justice, then so be it.

The favor he had asked was to locate for him the current location of a woman he knew might want Syndrome as dead as he did. It had been a simple task, and Mikhail had not hesitated to call her, and tell her where the man was. Now he simply had to see what would come of such an action. If his guess was right, she would pass responsibility off on to a much more elusive character, one who would be able to better help Mikhail further his goals.

That man was the hero Mr. Incredible, who had brought Syndrome low not two weeks prior. Mikhail wasn’t a fool. He knew that his talents would not stand up to Syndrome’s alone. But, so help him, it would be his own hands that snapped the villain’s neck.

To be continued…

RavensHaelo: Yay! Refrences rock. I’m glad you got them. Personally, I couldn’t eat snails, it would just squick me out too much.

Maya Beebop: Even in real life, doesn’t it always feel like every time you’re starting to get into something, someone comes along and ruins your fun? I’m glad you like me having Violet in it, I told ya it wouldn’t all be just Vex. Violet is an integral, integral part of the plot.

Shadow Fox Forever: Designing costumes is hard.

WormmonABC: No, I don’t have a beta. Once CCR is completely finished, I will go back and edit it the way I did when I wrote Darwinian Rhapsody. Hehe. Ock-coat.

Megan The Vampire Slayer: Can do.

VegetandAru I was wondering where you’d disappeared to! Glad to know you’re still liking the fic.

Megarabelle: Glad you like the idea. There should be more up there soon.

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Chapter 17: Mercenary Tactics

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Comics, Cookies and Revenge

By Lejindarybunny

A/N: Due to familial matters, I am no longer able to update at the frantic once a day pace that I started with. Trust me, this is not my choice. Chapters will be posted every other day, or every three days, depending on how vindictive my father is feeling.

Yeah, here I am, 19 on the 15th of January, still whining about the same problems I had writing fanfic when I was 15…

I recomend if you haven’t already, that you go check Deviantart for new CCR stuff.

A note on the rating of this fic. The movie the Incredibles was rated PG, so therefore, in a PG-13 fanfic, I am allowing myself to show and imply as much as was done so in the movie. Nyah.

Disclaimer: The Incredibles, Syndrome, and all related characters belong to Disney/Pixar. No money is made from this endeavor.

Chapter 16: Mercenary Tactics

Violet had been asleep when she heard the phone ring, lost in a sea of tangled blankets and tangled thoughts. The clock on her dresser said it was only eleven at night, not long after she had gone to bed. Long strands of black hair falling over her face, she strained to hear the telephone as it was answered.

“Hello?” it was her mother who picked up. “Oh, Mirage, Bob said you might call…No, he’s out right now.”

Violet’s eyes widened, so Mirage had decided to call after all. Not something Vi had expected, but definitely a good thing. Well, probably a good thing. At least it meant that she wasn’t going to have figure out how to tell dad about her little spy adventure. …Probably. Too bad she couldn’t hear what Mirage was saying.

“Yes, he did tell ?…Of course, go ahead.”

The raven haired girl pulled the blanket up over her shoulders as she sat up quietly.

“Okay. Thank you…yes. We’ll check it out… Are you going to-? I’ll tell Bob you called…Bye.”

She heard the phone hang up, and quickly lay back down as her mother walked past her door, which was open a crack. The look on her mother’s face was of mild consternation, concerned, but not quite worried.

‘Am I the only one who is freaking out over this?’ Violet demanded of herself. ‘Is this like so typical for mom and dad that they don’t even care?’

Of course, technically nobody knew that Sharon was a friend of hers. Yeah, she might have mentioned her once or twice around the house, but it wasn’t something she’d gone around displaying publicly. Maybe if Violet had actually shared that information with someone, there would be a little more upset. But as it was, Sharon was just some girl who had been kidnapped, probably killed. Oops, sorry, nothing we can do.

Now Violet felt pretty bad, like she had been a pretty rotten friend. Not that it was all her fault, by any means. After all, shouldn’t a high school Junior have friends with like, cars, and stuff? And not hanging around with somebody barely old enough to go to the mall by herself, Vi added ruefully.

Maybe she should tell somebody how much this was upsetting her. But then, they were probably already going to go check it out tomorrow, as her mother had implied on the phone, so why bother? Why bother whining about it when it would probably be fixed up anyway?

She pulled the covers up over her chin. They’d bust into wherever Syndrome was hiding, kick his butt, and Sharon would be back in school on Monday.

000

Vex was draped over one of the chairs in the control room, cape dangling near the floor, doodling in her sketchbook. Syndrome had usurped the main screen, and had asked her to monitor the security feeds and alert him when the plane arrived. So she sat; one eye on her work, one eye on the screens, vaguely bored, vaguely excited.

She was erasing a graphite smudge on the paper, when she saw an approaching aircraft on one of the outer long range cameras.

“They’re here,” she said, nodding to the screen.

Syndrome looked up from his terminal. “Good. I showed you how to open the hangar, so do that for me, then we’ll go up.”

She nodded, and sat up to the keyboard, lowering the base defenses, and opening the hatch for the plane to enter. Syndrome stood, and reached a hand out to her. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet.

“Okay, let’s go,” he said, leading her out of the control room.

“So,” Vex asked, jumping on the chance to actually get her question answered. “What exactly are these guys? You mentioned want-ads but that really doesn’t tell me much.”

“They’re mercs,” he explained, as they climbed into the elevator.

‘Ah,’ Vex thought. ‘Now that makes sense.’ Mercenaries, sell-swords. Men who fought for the highest bidder.

“Don’t let them intimidate you,” Syndrome continued warningly. “Yeah, they’re grizzly and think they’re tough, but after me, you are the one in charge of them. And they’ll give you the respect you deserve, because otherwise, they break their contract.” He smirked.

She nodded, thinking, ‘Rule number one, show them who’s boss. “Right. They won’t intimidate me, Syn.”

“Good. Oh, by the way, I inputted a lower level access code for the security doors, to give to the mercs. So, make sure when you’re entering yours that there’s no one watching you.”

“Got it,” she nodded a second time. ‘Rule number two,’ she thought, ‘don’t trust the minions.’

The elevator opened at the far back of the terminal, and she and Syndrome stepped out, lingering beside it, as the plane came in for a landing. As it did, Vex felt a rush of cold air, and saw the light of the grey Siberian sky. She was glad the base was so well heated, though the costume, she noticed, kept her quite well insulated.

The plane was huge, much, much larger than Syndrome’s little private jet, easily seating a hundred people, plus cargo. Vex waited impatiently with Syndrome as the plane came to a stop, and a few minutes later, the mercenaries began to disembark.

She followed Syndrome toward the large crowd, trying to imbue her steps with the same confidence that he walked with. It wasn’t difficult, as all she had to do was to let herself fall into the pattern of the malicious duchess she was wont to role-play.

They must have made quite the impressive pair, she thought, clothed in black, capes billowing behind the, The mercenaries certainly all stopped their chatter at their approach, and gave them full attention.

“Gentlemen,” Syndrome said loudly, clasping his hands behind her back, adding, in deference to the few rather macho looking women scattered through the crowd, “and ladies. I am Syndrome, your employer, and this is Vexxation, my second in command.” He gestured to her.

Vex looked up, and nodded slightly in acknowledgement.

“From this day forward you will carry out any orders given by myself, or Vexxation. Without question. Of course, all of this is outlined in your contracts. Therefore, those of you who have been hired in a specialized capacity, please follow me. The rest of you, the first order of business is to remove the cargo from this plane. My second will show you where to put it. You may claim your personal belongings after this has been carried out.”

“The tech labs?” Vex murmured to him.

“Yep.”

Vex waited as all of the mercs filed over, and piled large boxes from the plane. She crossed her arms, and resisted the urge to tap her foot. Instead she looked over at Syndrome, who was overseeing the technicians, and leading them down into the base, for some kind of briefing, Vex assumed. She loved the air of command he possessed, his eyebrows raised imperiously, and his cape brushing her heels.

When all of the cargo had been pulled from the aircraft, and it seemed each mercenary had as much as he could carry, she strode toward them.

“Follow me, thank you,” she said. “The freight elevator is this way.”

It was one thing to have minions who respected you; it was another to have them think you were a heartless ice bitch. The first was productive, the second was not. …Unless you were dealing with Youma, she recalled, thinking of Mark Latus’ fanfiction ‘Thy Kingdom Come’, but these were regular people, not soulless demons.

She led the first dozen or so men into the elevator, “Wait here,” she told the rest, as she rode down to the second level of the base. The freight elevator opened up into the large, empty technical laboratories.

“Pile it against the wall,” she instructed. “and then wait here. It doesn’t have to be unpacked yet.”

As the mercs worked, Vex headed back upstairs to get the next batch.

‘See?’ she pointed out to herself. ‘Not hard at all, huh? Tell them what to do, and they do it,’

After she had led the last of them down into the labs, and all of the boxes were neatly stacked she dismissed the lot of them to go get their things, as Syndrome had mentioned. Now what to do? She wandered over to one of the door panels, and pressed the PA on it.

“Syndrome, please respond to terminal…15,” she glanced at the number, as her words rang out through the base.

A moment later Syndrome’s face appeared on the intercom screen. “What’s up Vex?”

“It’s all unloaded, I sent them to get their junk,” she replied.

“Good, I have one of the techies posted by the plane to point out the barracks. They should be bickering over who sleeps where for the next hour or so,” the red-head rolled his eyes.

“Oh, fun,” she giggled. “Just like summer camp.”

“Summer camp…of doom!” Syndrome wiggled his eyebrows comically.

Vex burst out laughing. “Has anyone ever told you that you remind them a bit of Bobby Buttnick from ‘Salute Your Shorts’?”

“That’s low Vex,” he grinned.

“Come on, the hair, the freckles, the eyes, the attitude?” she chuckled. “You two could practically be twins!”

He shook his head amusedly. “They’re setting up in the security room, come down and see me in the main lab, okay?”

“Will do,” she smiled.

“Syndrome out,” he smirked, the display going black.

Vex laughed happily as she took the elevator down to the main lab. Syndrome just made her so happy, happy like nobody else ever had. It was completely insane, here on the one had was this driven, dominating genius, who made her melt like putty inside, and on the other hand, here again was this dorky fanboy she could share in-jokes with, who just made her giggle and want to give him a big glomp. Vex didn’t know what she could possibly have done to get so lucky, or if she should be worried that there was some huge jolt of karma just waiting to spring on her and say ‘Ha! Gotcha that time, didn’t I?’

Vex pressed a hand to her chest, feeling the hard lump of silver beneath her costume, her Loki pendant. ‘Keep me lucky,’ she begged silently. ‘At least for a little while longer.’

The elevator stopped at the lab, and she stepped out. Syndrome was sitting in a swiveling chair, his back toward her, and Vex saw the opportunity to repay him for startling her earlier. She crept up silently behind him, and dove to his shoulders with a glomping hug.

Or at least she tried to.

At the least she tried to, because, at the last second, he turned the chair around, and grabbed her, pulling her onto his lap, and kissing her before she could recover from her surprise. Vex reveled in the warmth and strength of his embrace as their tongues wrestled and caressed.

“Aw,” she pouted, as the kiss ended, “How’d you know I was coming?”

He pointed at the monitor in front of him. “Cameras, sweetheart.”

“Tch, cheater,” she crossed her arms, resting her body against his.

“Hey, you knew I was a villain when you ran off with me,” he pointed out, brushing her cheek at the point just below her mask.

“Oh sure, counter me with logic,” she smirked, wrapping her arms around him.

“Well I can’t just let you walk all over me, now can I?”

“No, that wouldn’t do at all,” she breathed, as he leaned down and pulled her into another kiss, running his fingers over the sensitive spots on her sides. Vex shivered.

“Nice as this is,” Syndrome murmured, “Why don’t we take it, elsewhere?”

000

Violet’s mom and dad were having a conversation at the breakfast table when she wandered in that morning. She lingered behind the doorway, just in case they were inclined to stop when she entered.

“It’s only reconnaissance, Helen, there’s no need for you to come along,” her father said.

“Oh, yeah, because we both know how well that worked last time.”

“Look, if you come, who’ll watch the kids?”

“The kids don’t need watching anymore, Bob they can take care of themselves for a little while.”

“And we both know how well leaving them home alone worked last time,” her father replied, throwing back the earlier sentiment.

“Oh, so you want to bring them along?”

“That’s not what I said. I think you should all stay here.”

“Because you prefer to work alone?”

“No. Because I don’t think we need that many people just to see if Syndrome’s really there or not. “

“And what if it goes bad, what then Bob? For all you know, this could be another trap!”

“Mirage said-“

Violet’s mother cut him off mid-sentence. “And you believe her?”

“I can’t believe you don’t,” Bob shot back. “After everything she did to help us You don’t trust her because you happened to walk in when she was having an emotional moment.”

“I don’t trust her, Bob,” she said, sounding highly offended, “Because she worked for Syndrome for years. Because she helped him kill supers. You think she didn’t know what she was doing? You can’t just erase that, Bob, can’t make that go away. One good deed doesn’t stop her from being an accomplice to…to genocide.”

“I’m not trying to say she was right, Helen, or excuse her action in any way.”

“No, you’re trying to defend her.”

“Because she’s changed.”

“So you say.”

Violet was practically holding her breath as her parents argued. Truth told, she sided completely with her mother, well, except for the part about having to stay at home. She was glad that somebody shared her opinion of Mirage, unlike her father, who seemed half in love with her, or her brother who definitely had a crush. ‘Men!’ she though scornfully. Dangle a blonde bimbo in front of their faces and it won’t matter if she had a knife to their throat.

The young super took it upon herself at this point to stop the fight, and putting on her most cheerful face, strolled into the kitchen as if she hadn’t heard anything. “Morning mom, dad,” she said smiling. “What’s for breakfast.”

“Oh, good morning honey,” her mother greeted, the argument suddenly buried with a single consolidating look between the two adults. ‘I didn’t cook anything yet, but I can make you something if…”

“No, I’ll have cereal,” she said, pulling a box of corn pops out of the cupboard. “It’s fine.”

She grabbed a bowl, and the milk and slumped down at the table.

“Is Dash still asleep?” her father asked.

“Yeah,” she shrugged. “No cartoons on Sunday.”

Violet had resolved last night not to mention Sharon as her friend, but it seemed that if she didn’t, she was definitely going to be left behind when they went to tackle Syndrome. She heaved a large sigh.

“Is something wrong, honey?” her mother asked. “You seem down.”

“It’s not that boy you’re seeing, is it?” her father added.

“No… It’s not Tony,” Violet shook her head.

“What is it, Violet?”

“Well. It’s just my friend, Sharon, she wasn’t in school on Friday, and I’m really worried about her, because it says on the news that she was kidnapped.”

Bob and Helen Parr exchanged a look, and her mother nodded almost imperceptibly. Violet’s father put a hand on her shoulder comfortingly.

“Violet, it…looks like your friend was kidnapped by Syndrome.”

“What?” Violet demanded, feigning disbelief. “But he’s dead!”

“It looks like we were wrong on that.”

“Vi,” her mother broke in, sighing. “Your father and I were going to do some reconnaissance on where we think Syndrome might be hiding. Would you like to come along?” Helen gave her husband a withering look that said ‘cross me if you dare’.

“Yeah. Thanks mom.”

000

Later the same day Syndrome made sure that all of his new minions had their matching uniforms and body armor, and everyone was scheduled for their various duties. A lot of them were busy assembling the equipment in the tech lab, a process Vex was dutifully overseeing. Syn glowed warmly when he thought of the girl’s soft kisses and warm smile. Mirage, for all her dignity and beauty had often been cold and aloof, whereas Vex was so warm, and full of life.

In the main lab, he worked on one monitor, combing Rasputin’s files for information on his various projects and the equipment still in the lab, while he had another monitor linked to the camera feed, watching Vex as she stood, long hair falling in front of her mask, while the mercenaries assembled equipment.

‘Do I really look like Bobby Buttnick?” he wondered to himself amusedly, recalling her earlier words. ‘Well, maybe a little.’ Except the actor had a much narrower face than the villain did.

Syndrome’s thoughts jumped immediately as he caught sight of a potentially useful file. Dampener notes. If that was what he thought it was…

As his blue eyes skimmed across the page, a grin spread over his face. This was it.

“By applying a certain type of energy in constant amount it has been successfully tested that an extraordinary metabolism may in fact be suppressed entirely. The method involves a field of a certain wave length, which must be constantly applied, as the Para-waves which cause said metabolism are constantly in a state of replenishment. Following here in is a log of the information relating to the constant filtering of para-waves.”

This was exactly what he wanted. Or at least…a brilliant place to start.

000

Vex stood quietly watching the mercs from a corner. It was a simple, if boring task, as they didn’t need much direction. The technical mercs were there to show them how it was done. She was just there to look authoritative. Darth Vader overseeing the Death Star’s completion, or something.

She sighed, and wondered if a cup of coffee would ruin her image. The thought of a hot mocha cappuccino filled her mind with the remembered aroma. She glanced over at the workers, who were all quite busy. Surely no one would miss her if she just ran off and got something to drink out of the pantry?

She turned on her heel, cape swooping around her ankles dramatically (god she loved how it did that) and walked out of the tech lab into the elevator. As it descended slowly, she rested her shoulders peacefully against the wall. Her life was perfect. Handsome, funny, intelligent man who would give her anything she wanted? Check. Vengeance on all who had wronged them soon to be carried out? Check. World soon to be at their feet? Also check.

Vex sighed dreamily, thinking of the bright freckles that adorned Syndrome’s face beneath his mask. The elevator doors parted, and she stepped out into the private apartments. Inside the well stocked pantry, she was unfortunately unable to find anything resembling a cappuccino machine. But she did find a regular coffee maker, and there was plenty of milk and sugar, and maybe she would even put some chocolate syrup in it…

She peeled off her long gloves and began to rinse out the coffee pot with cool water. Running her fingers beneath the faucet she felt a sudden strange tingling deep inside her chest, and a horrible dizziness gripped her. Vex cringed, and swallowed hard, but the sensation didn’t go away, in fact it got worse. She started to cough, harsh, racking chokes, and she set the pot down, holding up her hands to her mouth as she doubled over before the sink.

For a minute her head was spinning, and she couldn’t breathe; there was nothing but the coughing. And then as suddenly as the sensation had begun, it was gone, and Vex was left wheezing, clutching the side of the sink with one hand. Slowly, gaspingly, she regained her breath, and the spinning feeling in her head subsided.

‘What the hell was that,’ she demanded to herself, her throat feeling like it had been torn apart with hooks. She grabbed a glass, and drank the sweet, cold water. The first sip burned somewhat, but then it began to feel better again. Vex sighed deeply. She’d probably just, swallowed a bit of dust or something.

‘Oh yeah, because dust can totally-‘

She stopped mid thought. There was blood on her hand, and on the lip of the glass that she had been drinking from. Vex reached up, and wiped her lip, feeling a hot, sticky substance. She had coughed up blood.

As she stared, the glass, which she had been holding tightly, slipped from her grasp, and shattered on the floor, breaking into a million tiny pieces. Vex felt sick to her stomach. She had been holding the glass. She hadn’t let go of it, had she? And yet there it was, in pieces.

She sat down heavily in the chair by the table, gripping the back of it tightly, trembling. Something was wrong, very, very wrong.

To be continued…

CD Anders: What real things are you referring to? I assure you, I’ve done things similar to this, and never had difficulty, if it’s the deviantart page you’re referring to.

WormmonABC: Eee! Someone who likes my fluff! hug Go check my d-art page. One of the drawings you requested is up.

Artymas: A crush on Mikhail? Hehehehe. Interesting choice…

Shadow Fox Forever: If you take over the world? I want France.

Like I said, I won’t be updating every day anymore, at least not until the holidays are over, but I will as close to it as possible.

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Chapter 18: Inner Dialogue, Inner Demons, Identity

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Comics, Cookies and Revenge

By Lejindarybunny

A/N: Fanart announcements! You go see Crittarka’s deviantart account. She has a lovely, lovely portrayal of Syn from the first chapter, and RavensHaelo did a great rendition of Syn and Vex. It’s in her scraps section.

As for me, I put up a little piece of Vi fanart.

This is a rather short, but very important chapter.

Disclaimer: The Incredibles, Syndrome and all affiliated characters and ideas are property of Disney/Pixar.

Chapter 17: Inner Dialogue, Inner Demons, Identity

Vex sat hugging the back of the chair, her body shaking with fear, and hurt. Glass shattered on the floor, blood on her hands and lips.

“What’s wrong with me?” she whispered to herself, staring at the glittering pieces of glass. ‘Something’s wrong with me…’

Blood and glass, dizziness. The mirror she’d dismissed. There wasn’t a way to dismiss this, not when it felt like someone had taken a hook and dragged it up her larynx. Vex dragged the tips of her clean fingers across her throat, unable to sooth the pain inside.

‘You should tell Syndrome,’ one part of her whispered. ‘He’ll know what’s wrong. He’ll know what to do.’

‘No! That’s stupid,’ another part insisted. ‘There’s nothing wrong. So you coughed a little bit, so what? Why is that suddenly so scary for you? Don’t be such a weakling.’

She sat shuddering as her inner demons warred between panic and self reliance. She must look ridiculous now, hugging a chair like some frightened little girl in a Halloween costume. Her chocolate colored locks falling in front of her mask, obscuring her vision. There was nothing she wanted to see at the moment anyway.

‘If I tell Syndrome, he’ll be upset. I don’t want to make a big deal of this. Whatever is wrong will go away by itself like every other medical issue I’ve ever had. After all, I never stay home from school when I’m sick, why should this be different?’

‘Well gee, maybe it’s the glass that somehow mysteriously fell out of the hand you were clutching it with? And it’s not like you were grabbing it so hard it broke, otherwise your hand would be cut, and it’s not, now is it?’

Well, no, it wasn’t. Come to think of it, it wasn’t cut when she had been bleeding in the changing room either, and she hadn’t coughed anything up that she recalled that time. The logical, pattern seeking creature inside her naturally tied the two events together, trying to determine what common elements they had.

Blood, obviously, though the difference between them was the apparent source. Glass also might be a factor, the mirror and the cup… Dizziness, and the feeling of passing through something.

Vex felt better now, with her mind focused on solving the problem instead of simply whining to herself about it, detachedly logical, instead of scared and emotional.

Now, what seemed to be the strangest element of all? That would have to be the blood that seemed to have been caught inside Maurice’s mirror. She had rationalized that away before, but now she wasn’t so sure she should.

She stood up from the chair, and knelt down on the floor beside the glass.

‘There shouldn’t be any blood at all on the glass,’ she thought, ‘because I didn’t cut myself, and the worst of the coughing didn’t start until after I’d dropped it.’

She pulled her white gloves back on, wonderful, impervious material that they were made of, and began to pick through the glass, looking for any blood. At first, she didn’t find any, and her this-is-weird-o-meter was dropping to a nice, comfortable level. After all, there was nothing particularly out of the ordinary with just coughing up blood.

The glittering shard of red-stained glass just about dashed that thought to as many pieces. She picked it up in her hand, and held it to the light. The blood was not on the surface, neither dry nor wet, but again, tiny flecks of red seemed to be imbedded inside the shard.

Vex felt her insides freeze up. Once could be rationalized, but twice? That was enough of a pattern to really frighten her. It was as if her hands had passed through both the mirror and the glass, but, left something behind.

Vex grimaced. ‘Ridiculous! How could my hand go through a solid object? It just wasn’t possible. Solid objects could not exist in the same place at the same time. Not in conventional science, anyway. But weren’t there things in this world that insolently defied conventional science? Maybe she couldn’t rule out anything.

She took a deep breath, as she stood, composing herself, and not allowing herself to be frightened. She walked purposefully over to the cup board. Taking her glove off once more, Vex braced herself, tensing her shoulders for pain, and picked up another glass.

Nothing happened. The glass felt firm and solid, even though she held it quite gingerly, her fingers trembling slightly.

‘See? Nothing is wrong. Your hand didn’t go through the glass. Everything is fine.’

‘Is it really? Test it.’

‘There is nothing wrong, Vex. Walk away, and go back to your duties.’

‘Test it.’

‘Walk away.’

‘Test it!’

As always, her curiosity got the better of her caution. Vex pursed her lips, frowning, and set the cup down on the counter. She stared at it determinedly, and rested her fingers tentatively on the rim of the glass. She stared at the back of her hand.

‘This isn’t going to work.’

‘Why not? Why is matter solid? Should it be solid?’

‘Well…’

‘You know there’s no good reason for matter to be solid. The atoms in your hand should have quite enough room to pass comfortably beside the atoms in that glass, to go straight through it. Anyone ought to be able to do it.’

‘But they can’t. Matter is solid.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘What if I want to be sure?’

‘Be sure then. Be sure you can’t do it. Walk away.’

‘I shouldn’t be able to do it.’

‘But what if you can?’

Vex took a deep breath. She firmed her hold on the glass, pressing down just a little harder. ‘Pass through,’ she urged the molecules in her hand. ‘Pass through’

The glass stayed as solid as ever.

Vex closed her eyes, lifted her hand a little, off the lip of the glass.

‘There’s nothing there.’

She brought her hand down, and met no resistance.

Blind panic gripped her heart, and she jerked back her arm, clutching it to her chest before she opened her eyes. The glass just sat there, mocking her. Vex leaned forward, and inspected it. There was no blood, on or in it. She felt fine.

So how the hell was she supposed to tell if she’d just missed the cup completely?

‘Good going Vex,’ she congratulated herself. ‘I loved the part where you shut your eyes like a frightened puppy.’

Vex swung her arm angrily, intending the negligent gesture to knock the glass from the counter, and join its brother in pieces on the floor. But her arm passed straight through the glass, and this time she saw it happen.

First she just stared, disbelieving what her eyes had told her. There was no way. No way…

She put her hand through the counter, and pulled it out again. The only thing she felt was a slight tingling sensation. She did it again.

“Having fun?” a cold, harsh voice demanded behind her.

Vex turned. Syndrome was standing in the doorway. His sparkling blue eyes were aglow with the fire of fury behind his mask.

“Syndrome I-” she began. She had to explain, before he thought-

“You’re a super,” he snarled, advancing on her. His boots crunched on the broken glass.

“I-“

“You tricked me!” he roared, shoving her roughly back against the wall with one hand.

Vex winced in pain, and stared up at him pleadingly. “I didn’t know!”

“You lying, treacherous bitch.” His face came closer to hers with every word, and she could see herself reflected in his wrathful eyes, as he held her pinned.

“Please, don’t hurt me,” she begged, genuinely frightened, tears welling in her dark eyes.

“Why shouldn’t I?” he growled, sneering at her. “You know what I do to supers.”

“Let me explain!”

“What’s there to explain? I thought we were alike. I trusted you. God, I fell in love with you, damn it,” he pounded his other fist against the wall, just inches away from her face. “What I fool I’ve been.”

“No,” she insisted, her voice shaking, the tears rolling down her face. “Syndrome you have to l-listen to me.”

He glared at her, and his grip didn’t relax the slightest bit, but he said nothing.

“Think about my fanfiction, Syndrome,” she urged, searching in his eyes for something besides mistrust, and hate. “Why would I write that if I h-had any real powers? Syndrome, please, trust me; I didn’t have any idea that I could do a-anything until just now. Do you remember when I screamed in Maurice’s? That was because my fingers went through the mirror. I convinced myself it didn’t happen, until it happened again. And, and I-I had to figure out what was going on.”

Syndrome’s fingers tightened against her shoulders for a moment, and then he released her completely, turning away in disgust. Vex slid down the wall, collapsing to her knees on the floor, shuddering and crying.

“Syndrome, I’m s-sorry, I didn’t-” Vex’s words were cut off by a fit of vicious coughing, that horrible tearing sensation in her chest returning, and she gasped, and choked violently, her hands flying up to cover her mouth.

000

Anger and bitter jealousy churned in Syndrome’s heart like bile, warring with the newer tender emotions he had for Vex. A very large part of him wanted to hate her, wanted to hate her because she had something that he didn’t. He felt betrayed by the fact that he had gone, and he had rescued her, only to find out she didn’t need it. Even if she hadn’t known until now, it didn’t matter. She was a super.

He couldn’t kill her. He had been close to it, in his burst of temper, but now that rational thought crept in, he knew he couldn’t. But he couldn’t have her near him, either, a constant reminder, a constant potential threat.

He’d have to send her home; that was all. Just forget he’d ever known her. What business did he have being in a relationship anyway? They never worked out. He couldn’t rely on anyone but hims-

Syndrome stopped rigidly, as he realized where his thoughts were taking him, what he sounded like in his own mind. Send her home? Rely only on himself?

‘Fly home, Buddy.’

If he did that, wasn’t it just like Mr. Incredible sending him away because he didn’t have any powers? He clenched his fists. Why did life have to be this complicated?

Syndrome was jolted from his thoughts, as he heard a raucous fit of coughing. He turned suddenly, and saw Vex shaking, and choking on the floor.

“Are you alright?” he demanded.

She shook her head, and flattened herself further against the wall, unable to speak through her wheezing and gasping. Syndrome knelt down, and put one hand on her chest, and one on her arm, trying to sooth her. He felt a stab of guilt and self-loathing as she shrunk back, cringing in fear of him, even through her coughing.

“Shhh, it’s okay,” he said, his face softening.

Her coughs were subsiding into generally hiccups and panting. She was crying again, and she hugged her arms around herself, holding his arm to her chest, and crying against it.

“I’m sorry I frightened you,” he whispered. “Please, please stop crying.”

“It’s not that,” she whispered, her voice hoarse from the fit. “There’s something wrong with me…”

Syndrome felt ashamed. “Vex there’s nothing wrong with you being super, I’m sorry I said-“

She shook her head, and held up one of her hands. It was covered in blood.

“What the hell?”

“Remember in the changing room?” she asked, resting her head on his arm. “I said I cut myself? I didn’t I don’t know where the blood came from. And- and when I looked again, there was blood trapped inside the mirror, where my fingers went through it. And just now, when I thought I dropped the glass, there’s blood inside that too.”

“And you’re coughing up blood.”

“Yes.”

Syndrome did not want to be thinking what he was thinking. But before he’d come down to see where Vex was, as she wasn’t on any of the cameras, he had been looking through Rasputin’s files. One of the first symptoms that Rasputin had noticed, that made him think something was wrong with his elder son’s powers, was prolonged coughing, often with blood.

All the color drained out of Syndrome’s face as he put his arms around Vex, and pulled her to her feet. “Vex, baby doll, we need to get you down to the lab. Now.”

To be continued…

Maya Beebop: Sorry to leave you with yet another cliffhanger. I’m sadistic like that.

WormmonABC: Haha, something like that. Its nice to have another Evo fan aboard. Now I’ll go and hug my Toad plusie.

Shadow Fox Forever: Hehehhe. Dooom. Doom and France.

Artymas: Really? Funny, I’ve actually never seen that movie. Not really up my alley. My friend who’s in a Sith club really loves it though.

RavensHaelo: Dun, dun, dun. I wish I had her pendant.

Til next chapter fanboys and girls.

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Chapter 19: Insubstantial

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Comics Cookies and Revenge

By Lejindarybunny

A/N: Hey guys. There’s some new art up at greer-the-raven, and a new Syndrome website with CCR extras, like character bios and a reference reference. Haha, I almost forgot to give you the link. www. freewebs syndromefan

Disclaimer: The Incredibles, Syndrome, and all affiliated characters and ideas belong to Disney/Pixar.

Chapter 18: Insubstantial

Vex let Syndrome scoop her up and set her on her feet. He had been furious a moment ago, was he really so calm now? She wanted to deny, but he had really frightened her with his outburst, so much so that she had feared for her life. Would he really have killed her? She didn’t think so. He’d apologized, too.

And now he was back to the way he normally was, and he was really concerned about her. Hell, she was really concerned about herself. Coughing up blood, she admitted, was bad. But Syndrome seemed to think it was more than that. The way he was reacting, it was as if he already knew what was wrong with her, and it was bad.

He kept his arm around her as they walked to the elevator. Vex wiped her face with her hand, trying to wipe away the tears, and make her face stop being red. If she had only gone straight to Syndrome, she thought, the whole mess of yelling and mistrust could have been avoided, because he’d have known she had no idea what was going on. She let out a small, shuddering sigh. ‘You just had to let your curiosity get the better of you’.

Syndrome pulled her closer, as they stood in the rising elevator.

She looked up at him, and his troubled visage. “Do you know what’s wrong with me?”

He looked at her, and ran his fingers through her hair. “I… might.”

She leaned up against him. “Would you tell me?”

“I’m probably wrong, it’s just a hunch.”

Syndrome was saying he was wrong about something? That was way below his usual confidence level. Which meant that he was hoping he was wrong. Which scared Vex. Was she looking death in the face, so soon after things were finally starting to look up?

The elevator opened into the lab, and he led her into it.

“There’s a test I want to do,” he said, “Before jumping to any conclusions.”

“Okay,” she nodded, wondering what kind of tests he could do in Rasputin’s labs. Syndrome walked across the room to a large device that looked like a cross between a dentist’s chair and some high tech virtual reality headgear, Vex lingered behind him.

He gestured to the thing. “I need you to sit down in this,” he told her.

Vex regarded it dubiously. She had never been much for doctor’s visits or the like. “What is it?”

“It’ll measure your brainwave activity. It’s completely harmless.”

Brainwave activity? Why on earth would he want to do that? Unless, she remembered suddenly, the research she had stumbled onto in Rasputin’s files several days ago. “You think I have Piotr’s disease,” she gasped.

Syndrome gave her a pained look, as though wishing she hadn’t guessed so easily. “It’s possible. It’s just something that I want to check. To make sure you don’t, ya know.”

Why hadn’t she thought of it before? Of course it seemed like she had it. Every time she bled, or had one of the coughing fits, it was when her powers were stirred up. She had been close to linking the two occurrences; she just hadn’t had the time.

“Okay,” she said, giving in, and sitting in the chair.

“Just relax,” he said, and patted her on the hand as he slipped the strange device over her head, and the world went dark. Vex suppressed a thrill of unreasoning fear, squeezing her eyes shut, despite the fact that it made no difference from when they were open. She heard Syndrome walk away, and sit down, and suddenly there was a whirring noise in her ears. Obviously the machine was starting up. Vex tried to do as Syndrome had bidden, but she felt herself trembling.

An eerie blue light came on inside the enclosed space of the helmet. Vex expected to feel some kind of weird sensation or something, but she didn’t feel anything.

She tried to think of comforting things, things that weren’t related to maybe dieing, or Syndrome being enraged by her suddenly having super powers. Vex’s heart tightened in her chest. Super powers, something she had wanted since she was a tiny little girl, something she felt she needed, and now, when she finally didn’t need them, suddenly she had them, and they were a bad thing.

‘Life’s not fair, is it?’ she thought ruefully, ‘you see, I, well I shall never be king…’

She snorted to herself. What a stupid defense mechanism to have, quoting things whenever she was upset. But they made her feel better, none the less, the familiarity, and the feeling of comprehension.

Super powers, she had super powers. And what could she do? She could phase through things. ‘Oh goody, look at me, I’m Kitty Pryde,’ she thought, disgustedly. ‘If I suddenly have the urge to start wearing pink and saying ‘like’ all the time, I swear I’ll kill myself.’

Not that it wasn’t a kinda cool power, but it wasn’t very offensive, was it? It’d be great for getting into places though. She imagined what she’d being doing with it, if she was still at home. Probably doing something really stupid like robbing people’s lockers at school or something equally immature and Brotherhood-y.

The blue light suddenly went off, and she felt Syndrome standing in front of her. He lifted the helmet off of her head, and put his arms around her shoulders tightly.

“Syndrome?” she asked, concernedly.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered softly to her. “I’ll fix it. I promise.”

Vex’s heart sank into her stomach.

000

Violet’s parents spent a good amount of the day getting things ready for their little recon mission. The first thing her mom had done was call a proper sitter for Jack-Jack. Much as Vi’s father kept trying to act like this was some kind of false alarm, nobody wanted any of the elements of last week’s fiasco to be in place.

Actually, the sitter Mrs. Parr got was Lucius’ wife Honey, who would certainly be able to take Jack-Jack, even at his most rambunctious.

Violet had sat in her room most of the morning, while preparations were made. As far as she could tell, mom would be piloting again, and had borrowed a plane from the same person as last time.

Not for the first time, Violet wished she knew more about her parents’ lives as super heroes. Before the laws were repealed, mom had gotten upset whenever dad had tried to talk about it at all, and now that it was relevant, everyone seemed to busy.

Violet didn’t know what she was supposed to be doing with her powers. She was too young to be fighting crime properly; and anyway, mom and dad had decided it would be hard to keep their identities a secret for long if they all went out was a family. Also, they were still really protective, despite the fact that they had supposedly proven themselves on Nomanisan.

Dash didn’t care, he was just happy to be able to do sports now. Mom and dad were back to their hero duties, switching off of course, so that there was usually somebody at home at least. Violet seemed to be the only one left without direction.

She didn’t even know what she wanted to do with her powers. It wasn’t as if she could really be an effective hero on her own, not unless she really did take karate lessons. But was that what she wanted to do with her life? To always be fighting? Sure it was cool in theory, but was it her? Violet didn’t know. She sighed heavily, and stood up. She heard ‘getting ready to leave’ activity in the living room, and knew it was just about time to go. Mom was giving last minute instructions to Honey, who would almost certainly completely disregard them in favor of her own brand of caretaking.

Violet had jeans and a purple turtleneck on over her costume already, so she didn’t need to get anything.

“Dash, Violet we need to get-” her mom called as Vi stepped into the hallway.

“I’m ready,” she said, nodding, as Dash motored up beside them.

“Alright,” their father said as he led them all out to the car, “I want to remind both you kids that this is serious business, okay? We probably won’t find anything, but you need to be ready to defend yourselves if things go wrong.”

Violet nodded, and sat down, staring out the window, as they rolled out of the driveway. The car ride was boring, and long, and the plane ride promised to be equally so, however, Violet was interested to note that it wasn’t exactly a conventional plane they were taking.

“Whoa cool,” Dash exclaimed, looking at it.

“What is that?” Violet asked, taken aback by the small, sleek silver aircraft.

“It’s a government secret, that’s what it is,” her mother said, winking at her. “It can get us to where we’re going in just over five hours.”

“How long does it normally take?” she wondered.

“Closer to fifteen.”

Violet was definitely glad it wasn’t going to take that long. After all, she had school tomorrow. School with Tony, she thought with a smile, recalling their first date the weekend prior. He was so cute, and he had so many friends. Being around him made Violet feel very much appreciated and in the spotlight…except when it made her feel awkward, which also was prone to happing. She’d laugh at the wrong thing, or say something a little off, and suddenly everyone would be staring at her, and it would be up to Tony to end the silence.

Filling silence was something that Tony did really well, Violet thought as they boarded the plane, her mother taking over the pilot seat. Violet collapsed into one of the seats, and let her mind wander until they reached their destination.

000

Syndrome had sent Vex up to her room, to listen to her music, or draw, or whatever. Something relaxing, with orders to call him on the PA if she felt so much as the slightest bit sick. Meanwhile he busied himself trying to figure out how Rasputin had cured his son. The files were generally brief, and some of them even seemed contradictory. For instance to in the prototype power suppresser Rasputin used a sort of short range energy field to interfere with the production of Para-Waves, but to stabilize Piotr’s condition, he’d implanted something in his head.

Syndrome didn’t want to do anything invasive like that. Besides, Rasputin made numerous mentions of the chip altering Piotr’s personality, and changing Vex was something that he did not want to do. He’d toyed with the idea of simply trying to suppress Vex’s powers altogether, to avoid the surgery, but it hadn’t worked for the Doctor. Besides, Vex might think he was doing it vindictively.

Okay, maybe it had occurred to him a little vindictively. He wasn’t proud of the fact that he was jealous of her, he knew he shouldn’t be, after all, if he didn’t work fast, the same power he was envying would kill her.

But he couldn’t help envying her just a little. She had what he’d always wanted.

Syndrome sighed, putting away the file on power suppression for later use, and began to dig around in the notes for Piotr’s chip, to see if there was a way he could combine the two ideas, stabilizing Vex, without doing anything to her brain.

The problem that the doctor had run across, stabilizing Piotr, as opposed to blocking the power out, was that the wave frequency needed to be attuned specifically for his brain waves, and needed to be able to adjust itself for the dips and spikes in his para-wave production. The chip was implanted to create a feedback mechanism, so that the device would know exactly how much to suppress or induce. Syndrome needed to figure out a way to create get feedback without having it directly tied to the source.

Vex…Syndrome didn’t know what he’d do if she died, or became very ill. He didn’t think he could deal with that. Not after everything he’d been through lately. Failure after miserable failure. He could feel Mirage laughing at him, Mirage, who he had thought had loved him, and seemed only to be playing games. If she were here now, he might end up doing something rash simply to ease the tension that was twisting inside of him.

000

Mirage sat in her hotel room stewing with guilt and irresolution. She had theoretically done all she had to. She had given Mr. Incredible the coordinates that the mystery man had given her. She should just be able to let it drop. It wasn’t any of her business any more.

So why couldn’t she just let it go? Why couldn’t she let him go? On the one hand she knew that Syndrome had to be stopped, whatever he was doing, on the other hand, this other part inside her wanted to go to him, and beg his forgiveness, make him take her back. Tell him she was sorry for what she had done.

Mirage hated that part of her. Syndrome was a heartless bastard. Maybe he had always been one, maybe it was his enemy that brought out the worst in him, but Mirage knew that no matter what he had felt for her normally, in that instant when Mr. Incredible had had her, Syndrome really hadn’t cared if she had lived or died. Oh, he cared about her, typically, in his own twisted way, but at that point it hadn’t mattered. Hurting Mr. Incredible had meant more to him than her life did.

And Mirage just couldn’t deal with that.

Could anyone? It was just inhuman; to want to punish someone so badly that nothing else mattered to you any more. How could Syndrome have so much anger and hate in his soul?

He preyed on her mind, now more than ever, when she had the possibility of confronting him. If she did see him again, what would she say? How could words express the deep wound that he had made in her?

She knew if she were to confront him, though, the words would come. She wanted to tell him just how badly he had hurt her, instead of beating around the bush like the last time they had spoken.

The last time…

Mirage hadn’t expected it to be the last then, and she was sure that Syndrome hadn’t either. And maybe, if they had crossed paths again afterwards, things would have happened differently. Maybe she would have succumbed to his charms and fallen back under the spell of his eyes- lies.

There was nothing in Syndrome except malice born of greed.

000

Mikhail regarded his icy visage in the cracked mirror of the hotel bathroom. “I look like a dead man,” he muttered bitterly to himself. “How can I go out like this?”

But he had to. He was tired of eating from the ill-stocked vending machines outside the hotel room, and he needed fresh air to clear his head. He had been lucky that the man in the truck had had so much money in his wallet, even if the clothes he wore made Mikhail viciously itchy. He adjusted the collar of the sweater once again.

He sighed, and ran bony fingers through his unkempt brown hair. He left the hotel room, and locked the door behind himself. The hotel lobby, or rather, the shabby entrance way where a grubby clerk sat reading a magazine, smelled of cabbage, and Mikhail was glad to leave it behind for the crisp, cold air of the outside.

The brown overcoat he wore brushed just above the now as he trudged down the street, attracting stares from the few other people who were outside. He was a marked man.

Mikhail growled to himself, thinking of his imp-faced enemy. How he longed to have a hand in the felon’s destruction. He wished that he had not passed responsibility over to that woman. Perhaps he should call her again, and ask if she would put him in contact with Mr. Incredible.

If he explained his case, surely she would not deny his thirst for vengeance.

It didn’t take Mikhail long to reach his destination, as the motel was in the center of the very small city. He by the universal sign of comfort and civilization, and into the greasy restraint. After all, if you were in a McDonalds, things couldn’t be all bad.

To be continued…

Shadow Fox Forever: My best yet? Oh dear, I’ll have to work hard to top it then

RavensHaelo: I warned you crystal gazing could be tricky! Glad to surprise you.

CD Anders: hehehehehhe

WormmonABC: You like Toad too? You should read my fanfictic Darwinian Rhapsody! It’s finished, too. (I know, I know, shameless self-promotion)

Maya Beebop; Angry Syn was hard to write, I’m glad it pleased you.

Artymas: Yeah. Like Kitty. Cuz Kitty was so my like, favorite character. Not. 😀

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Chapter 20: Who’s Afraid of Thomas Wolfe?

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Comics Cookies and Revenge

By Lejindarybunny

A/N: Holidays suck. Family sucks. The wait between chapters sucks. I apologize.

Disclaimer: The Incredibles, Syndrome, and all affiliated characters are property of Disney/Pixar.

Chapter 19: Who’s Afraid of Thomas Wolfe?

Vex lay between the sheets of her massive bed, with the covers pulled tightly around her shoulders, so that only her nose and the top of her face stuck out. She was still in her costume, he cape was tangled up somewhere down there with the rest. She lay there, staring at the wall. Syndrome had sent her there to relax a little but while he worked. How could she relax? How could she possibly relax everything was just dissolving all around her?

She was a super and of course it was what she had always wanted, but what if now Syndrome really did hate her? What if all his care of moments before was just an echo? Or a flat out lie? Should she be afraid that he was plotting something? She didn’t want to be thinking that way, but, oh, he had been so angry. And he had hated supers for so long. How could he forgive her, the way he had seemed to? She wanted to accept it at face value, but…

His mood shift had been so sudden. Maybe if he’d have hated her for an hour, she’d believe more that he didn’t. But Syndrome was a man of snap judgments.

Vex turned over, burying her face in the pillow, when she found her mask came between her cheeks and its soft satin. She’d forgotten she was wearing it. She pulled it off her face roughly, and the world was plunged into a blurry haze. She tried to remember if her glasses were somewhere in the room. It was a nice feature of the mask, at least, to be vision corrective. She sighed, and set it down on the bedside table, finding her glasses there too, but she didn’t pick them up.

The room was all colored smears, like Monet painting of lilies, and Vex didn’t want to have the world in such sharp relief right now. She lay back down, and nuzzled her face against the pillowcase, thinking of her room at home, with its comforting familiarity of touch and smell. Her room at home smelled like the cinnamon edge of old cigarettes, since both her parents were heavy smokers, but this room had such an artificial smell. Maybe potpourri and mothballs, both of which she’d probably find if she opened the dresser drawers. She hadn’t yet, all of her clothes were still stacked in boxes in the corner.

She missed her old clothes, her heavy, shapeless sweaters with thick, loose knit, softness instilled in their artificial fibers after many, many washings. She missed her faded black jeans strewn over the floor, and her shambled bookcase, and her computer not two feet from her bed.

‘Gods,’ Vex thought to herself. ‘Oh god, I’m homesick. Stop. Stop it I don’t want to be homesick. There’s nothing I want at home that I want bad enough to go back’

‘Hell, you don’t even miss people. You miss clothes and clutter. You miss familiar tactile sensations, and that is all. This room is too spiritually cold for you, because you haven’t lived in it yet, it’s sterile, and it isn’t at all comforting. And when you’re dying, that is not what you need. Which is why hospitals suck.’

‘I’m not dying! I’m not.’

‘Aren’t you? Piotr died.’

‘Not of the disease.’

‘Who said it’s the disease that’s gonna kill you?’

Vex clutched the pillow close. ‘Syndrome is not going to kill me.’

‘Are you sure?’

She bit her lip. ‘It doesn’t matter if I’m sure or not,’ she hissed back at herself in her mind. ‘Because I trust him.’

‘He’s not trustworthy.’

‘I don’t care if he’s not. Maybe I’m not trustworthy either, and he trusts me.’

‘He did. And look what you did with his trust.’

‘It wasn’t me! I didn’t, I didn’t mean to. It’s not my fault.’

‘Isn’t it? You wanted super powers. You can’t say you didn’t.’

‘Did. Past tense. After I met Syndrome, it didn’t matter.’

‘Vex, Vex, Vex…Three days does not a person change.’

‘Yes it can!’

‘Oh? Let’s see. Forgetting for a minute, that they make you sick, would you freely give up your powers, right now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh really? I don’t believe you.’

‘I don’t need them. I can be powerful without having Powers. Syndrome didn’t need them.’

‘Yeah, well I hate to break it to you, but Syndrome’s a hell of a lot smarter than you.’

‘Shut up! I was well on my way to being exactly what he is when he interrupted.’

‘And you think that’s a good thing? My, you really are warped.’

‘Screw you!’ Vex turned over in bed, and pulled the covers up over her head. This was stupid. What was she supposed to do anyway? If Syndrome was going to kill her there wasn’t much way to stop him. He’d killed practically every other that had crossed his path.

‘So you’re just going to let him kill you?’

‘Hell no! I’m not suicidal.’

‘Would you kill him?’

‘What?!’

‘If it were his life or yours.’

‘I- I don’t know. And I hope I never have to find out.’

000

The plane ride did not feel like ‘no time at all’ to Violet. It felt like five hours. Which was not cool. Luckily, the plane ride had been completely uneventful. This also meant it had been completely boring, and Violet had spent most of the time just staring out the window at the mostly cloudy skies.

It didn’t feel like they were going all that fast, but she definitely felt it when they started to slow down. She looked down at the vast, snow covered expanse that they were centered on, and saw mountains approaching in the distance.

She looked over at Dash, who was playing a gameboy, and then over at her father.

“So what’s the plan, anyway?” Violet asked.

“Well, your mother will fly us over the coordinates, and see if we can find anything. If we do, we go from there.”

That was what she had figured. Her dad was a real ‘touch and go’ kind of guy.

“So we’re close, right?”

He pointed out the window. “You see those mountains? That’s the general area we’re aiming for.”

So they were really close. Violet peered harder at the mountains. Was Sharon down there? Was Syndrome? Vi glanced around the plane. All of them were sitting there calmly, as if moments from a possible fight for their lives. What with how close they were, mom had probably been sitting up in the cockpit for the last half hour reliving the nightmare of the last time they had flown close to Syndrome’s base.

Vi tensed herself with the realization that yes, they might get shot at again at any moment, and she would have to be ready. Not like her failure last time.

It wasn’t a failure that Violet would repeat. She might not know exactly what she wanted to do with her powers, but at least she had the confidence to use them where appropriate. And, whatever else, using them to save her life, and the life of her family was appropriate.

Still conscious of possible danger, but more at ease, Violet sighed, and watched out the window again. It would almost be strange if they weren’t shot at actually.

000

Vex was awoken from a deep sleep by the insistent buzzing of the com-panel by her door. At first she thought it was her alarm clock, and she ended up slapping the bedside table several times before she realized that it wasn’t, and stumbled out of bed, to the panel.

She pressed the button. “H’lo?” she yawned.

“Vex,” Syndrome said, his face appearing in the small screen. “I need you down in the control center.”

“Okay,” she nodded, trying to wake up, and wondering what could be wrong.

“Make sure you put your mask back on,” he urged. “Syndrome out.”

The screen went dark.

It took Vex a minute as she grabbed her mask from by the bed, to remember all that was wrong with the world; that she was one sick super. Great.

She set her mask in place, and with a swish of her cape, thanked Maurice that the outfit she’d been sleeping in was wrinkle-proof. Who would be intimidated by a sleep-rumpled villain?

She ran her fingers through her brown hair, shaking it out, and hurried from the room, forcing the sleep away from her mind. Something was wrong, if Syndrome needed her right away.

This thought was cemented by the fact that as soon as she stepped out of the private apartments she was greeted by harsh, blinking yellow lights. Yellow alert. The base was on yellow alert. ‘How very Star Trek,’ she thought, taking the elevator down to the control room.

The doors parted, and she saw some of the mercs sitting at various terminals, Syndrome standing in the middle of the room.

“What’s wron-” she began to ask, but stopped, when she saw what was displayed on the main screen; a strange, high tech plane in their airspace. “Oh. Who is that?”

Syndrome shook his head. “We don’t know; they haven’t attempted contact yet.”

“Do they know we’re here?”

One of the mercs spoke up. “They shouldn’t be able to detect us within the mountain.”

“So we’re all set then, right?” she asked Syndrome. “I mean, they might just go away.”

“They might,” he agreed. “We’ll have to wait and see. Come over here.”

Vex stepped toward him, a bit leery. Did he think she had something to do with the plane?

But he put his arms gingerly around her shoulders and asked quietly, “How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay,” she said, nuzzling her cheek against his arm. “I was napping.”

“Sorry to wake you.”

“It’s okay, it was important.”

Standing in his arms, she watched the pane as it came very close to where the hangar entrance was concealed, but if flew past. Vex breathed a sigh of relief. But before Syndrome could issue an all clear, the plane turned around for a second sweep.

“It looks like they’re trying to spy or something,” Vex observed.

“Yeah,” Syndrome agreed, frowning. “Yeah it does.”

The look on his face said he was considering his options. Vex was wondering what he was going to do as well, when she was caught off guard by the plane doing something decidedly not normal. It was hovering over the foot of the mountain. Hovering. And then it landed, straight up and down.

“Uh, Syn?” she looked at him concernedly.

He nodded to the mercs. “Ready the base defenses, and raise to red alert.”

And then something more troubling happened, and Vex felt Syndrome’s whole body tense. Four people descended from the plane, all in matching red suits and black masks.

“Oh holy…” Vex breathed.

“Do we have laser cannons out there?” Syndrome growled.

“We do, sir,” the merc confirmed.

“Then ready the-“

Vex put a hand on his shoulder. “Syndrome, do you think it’s a good idea to attack just yet?”

“Of course it is!” he snapped. “We’ll catch them off guard. I’ll finally have him.”

She saw his blue eyes getting that icy hardness again.

“But the base isn’t even at full strength,” she insisted. “Look at them. It doesn’t look like they know we’re here. I don’t know why they’re here, but unless you want to jeopardize the whole base…”

“You’re daring to tell me what to do?”

Vex breathed in deeply, half-afraid of his wrath, but this was one thing she was going to hold firm on. “No, Syndrome. I’m giving you my advice. Listen, Evil Overlord list number 17. ‘When I employ people as advisors, I will occasionally listen to their advice.’ They shouldn’t be able to detect us, why let them know we’re here? Why attack impulsively now, if they give you the chance to prepare everything perfectly to crush them? But that’s just my opinion. I don’t think you should initiate combat unless absolutely necessary, but it is certainly your choice if you think it’s a good idea.”

She saw his eyes shining with anger, and his chest puffed up arrogantly, but he diffused. “Fine. But if it even looks like they know we’re here…”

She nodded, amazed that she’d actually been able to get him to agree with her. Of course, a logical argument helped, but she’d expected his temper to get the better of him. Maybe he’d used up his temper for the day. Gods she hoped so. Was it still today? She wondered, or had she napped all the way into tomorrow? She’d have to check later.

She watched the Incredibles closely on the screen. Just like she had seen briefly in the paper a week ago, it was Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl (though Vex privately thought she ought to be Elastiwoman by now) and the two kids. A stick thin girl with dark hair, and a little blond boy. She watched the four of them speak together briefly, and then split up slightly, as if they were looking for something. Vex saw the little boy disappear suddenly, and a track of snow was kicked up. He must have super speed.

But it was the girl that had caught Vex’s attention. There was something oddly familiar about her… But what? She watched her carefully through a tense five minutes as Syndrome stood beside her, obviously itching to blast the shit out of the family.

He didn’t get the chance though, as the foursome soon reconvened, spoke a moment more, and then boarded the plane.

Vex had to bit her lip, resisting the urge to say, ‘I told ya so,’ to Syndrome.

They watched for another few minutes as the plane took off and flew away.

“End red alert,” Syndrome said, sounding disappointed, “I want those tapes gone over with a fine toothed comb. I know there are no voice recorders out there yet, so I want them installed, and in the meantime, see if you can piece together anything they said by lip-reading.”

“Yes sir,” the merc nodded.

“You can go back to your room, Vex,” Syndrome told her dismissively.

“Actually,” she said, “Do you mind if I take a look at the tape too?”

There was something really familiar about that girl, and Vex was going to figure out what it was.

To be continued…

RavensHaelo: I hope I keep you and your crystal guessing. No, things aren’t looking especially bright between Vex and Syn, are they?

Artymas: Quicker isn’t always better, you know. But you’ll have to see what happens with Vex and the disease.

WormmonABC: Yeah, I really wasn’t very good back then. Well, it got better as I wrote it, but it still wasn’t great. Yay! You got my Scar reference! I love that whole scene. Interesting theory you have there.

Maya Beebop: Yes, it is loose/loose, isn’t it? Heheheheh. How will they get along now? Well, we’ll just have to see. Thank you for all your praise, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

Nini The Electrocuted Sheep: I’m glad you decided to give CCR a chance. I know the premise sounds bad. It’s been done to death in every fandom, but I hope I’m doing an okay job.

VegetandAru: Aw, I’m sorry things are rough. I’m glad you’re still reading. Remember, Syndrome wants you! To read CCR…lol

I really don’t think there will be as long a gap between chapters as over the holidays, but just remember, most fanfics don’t even get updated once a week. I try my best but sometimes things beyond my control get in the way. I am not going to quit CCR, so just be patient, and the story will continue. Hopefully in the next two days.

Love ya all.

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Chapter 21: Evil’s Necessities

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Comics Cookies and Revenge

BY Lejindarybunny

A/N: Again, apologies for the time in which it now takes me to post. I hope you believe the chapter to be of sufficient quality to be worth the wait.

Disclaimer: The Incredibles, Syndrome, and all affiliated characters belong to Disney/Pixar. If they belonged to me, well, first of all Syndrome would have been the star, but second of all, I’d have bought myself an island named Nomanisan, with all that money.

Chapter 20: Evil’s Necessities

Violet couldn’t believe they hadn’t found anything. She sat distractedly in the plane on their return trip, her arms crossed, staring down at her knees. There was nothing there. No Syndrome, no Sharon, not a trace that they had ever even been there. Who had called Mirage? Had Mirage known that it was a wild goose chase? Vi suspected some sort of set up. But they hadn’t been attacked, so it wasn’t a trap. What was the point?

She needed to go back and find out, but just sitting there waiting for Mirage to make a move wouldn’t work. Violet knew she had gotten very lucky with her timing on the previous trip, either that, or she hadn’t been as unnoticed as she had thought. But she couldn’t approach Mirage directly either, because Mirage knew exactly who she was, and would tell Vi’s dad.

‘What’s the point of having two identities if everybody important knows who you are?’ she demanded silently.

What she needed was another identity, one that nobody knew was connected to her, not even her parents. Correction, especially not her parents. With the freedom of being unknown she could act as necessary, and confront Mirage.

Her parents’ friend Edna Mode had a non-disclosure agreement with all the supers she worked with. If Violet went to her for a costume, and asked her not to tell anyone, that was a secret the excitable little woman would keep.

So what did this mean? Had she decided to take up hero work? At least for this instance, yes, because her friend was in trouble. And afterward, she did want to keep the option open.

Vi sat back in her seat, trying to relax, and get rid of the vague feeling that there was something she was forgetting.

000

Vex sat in the control room, watching as two mercs reviewed the tape of he Incredibles’ little ‘visit’. She kept her eye on the figure of the young female super, whom she was certain that she had seen somewhere before. If only the mask wasn’t obscuring her face…

But what could she do about it? After all, that was what the mask was for, obscuring someone’s identity. But it was ridiculous, all it did was cover the eyebrows and a bit of the cheekbones. If you saw a super side by side with his secret identity it would be obvious who he was, but you never saw them with the proper frame of reference. But Vex certainly couldn’t go comparing the girl to pictures of everyone she had ever met. But…

She was struck suddenly by inspiration. What if she fed a picture of the super girl into photoshop and digitally erased the mask? Even if she didn’t immediately recognize her, it ought to give her at least a slightly better chance of doing so.

She sat down at one of the unused terminals, and brought up the security files, pulling out the recent footage, and selecting a shot with a good view of the mysterious super’s face. She saved the shot, and imported it into photoshop. Selecting the same basic color as the girl’s skin-tone, she carefully covered the black of the mask, until it was ‘erased’.

When she was done, she certainly didn’t have a perfect photo, but she had enough of an idea, to become… concerned. She stared at the screen in disbelief.

‘That looks like…’ she blinked, ‘that looks like…Violet.’

It couldn’t be. The quiet, troubled-seeming eighth grader could not be a super. Vex liked Violet, even despite her recent distance. Vex wasn’t sure if she was angry, or not. And if she was, was she angry at Violet, or at herself for never seeing that Vi was a super?

Vi was a super. Vi was a super. What kind of fair was that?

Vex stood up from the terminal, and walked away, dazed. Violet was her enemy. She suddenly felt very alone.

It wasn’t as if they had been close, but she had still felt like they were friends; that was why she had been so hurt to find that Vi didn’t seem to regard her the same way.

Vex felt strangely disconnected from the world, she wandered aimlessly through the base, walking through the barracks level. She found herself standing outside Mikhail’s room. She laid her hand on the door. Mikhail’s room was comfortable, lived in, it had a normal computer. It reminded her of her room at home.

But she had promised herself that she wouldn’t go in there again. Because Mikhail was dead, she had killed him. She had no right to go in there. She imagined herself sitting down at his computer, or laying in his bed, pretending she was at home, in her own room. That she wasn’t super, that she wasn’t dieing, that her life wasn’t completely turned upside down.

She looked away from the door disgustedly.

‘What are you doing?’ she demanded. ‘You want things to be normal? Isn’t that what you ran away from? That is a door you closed Vex.’

‘I know.’

‘It sounds like you’re starting to regret that.’

‘No way!’

‘It sounds like you want to go home.’

‘No I don’t! …I just…’

‘Just what?’

‘I don’t know,’ she turned away from the door, and walked back down the hall.

000

By the time Violet and her family got home it was past midnight. She dragged herself inside, and sat down on the couch. Her mom came inside, and checked the answering machine. Vi’s ears pricked up when she heard Tony’s voice.

“Uh, hi Violet, it’s uh, Tony. I was just wondering where you were, cuz you know, you were kinda supposed to meet me at the movie theatre tonight…”

Vi’s eyes grew wide for a moment, and she slapped herself on the forehead. “Oh no, my date! I can’t believe it was tonight.”

“Well,” her mom said. “It’s a little late, why don’t you call him tomorrow and apologize.”

“Okay,” she agreed. But inside she was doubly upset. How was she going to explain missing Tony? What was she going to say, ‘Uh, sorry Tony, I was in Siberia?’ Yeah, that would really fly. Especially because she certainly didn’t need to keep her identity a secret. Of course not. Vi collapsed heavily, lying sideways on the couch, her arm thrown over the back. She would just have to tell Tony she’d forgotten, or that she’d had to baby-sit Dash, or something.

She didn’t like the thought of lying to Tony. But it was a necessary evil this time. At least he hadn’t sounded upset on the phone. A little confused, but not upset. It wasn’t like she had meant to not be there, she hadn’t even been in the country. Although, she hadn’t even remembered about it, all day. He hadn’t been an important thing on her mind.

Vi sat up, and pulled herself off the couch. It was time to go to bed. After all, she had to get to school in the morning…and…damn it! She hadn’t done her homework either.

‘Ugh!’ she though. ‘This is why being super sucks. You can’t get anything normal done at the same time.’

She resolved to try to get the work done on the bus in the morning. There couldn’t be that much of it, and even if she didn’t get it all done, it was just that once. She certainly wasn’t going to be making a habit of it.

She dragged herself up to her room, and collapsed on her bed, pulling off her hair band, and then switching from her super suit into her pajamas. She laid back, on top of the covers, and stared at the ceiling, a bit of her black hair falling in her face.

Life was so simple for normal people. They didn’t have to try to balance two separate lives in the same person. When they said they were going to be somewhere, it didn’t end in some sitcom-esque situation, with lies, and running back and forth trying to be in two places at once.

‘If only I were a normal person,’ Violet thought as she pulled the blankets up, ‘everything would be perfect.’

000

Syndrome was brooding in his lab, just sitting there, staring at the terminal. The Incredibles had found him. How had the Incredibles found him? It was impossible! Nobody knew he was alive, well almost nobody. There was Vex, Maurice, and the Agency, from whom he had hired the mercs. Had someone at the Agency sold him out?

Syndrome narrowed his eyes. The Agency would sell anything, provided it was for the right price. Syndrome didn’t know of any interested party, however, who had enough money to override the expenses he paid. Unless…

Mirage, he suddenly recalled, still had access to the account he had given her.

‘Wouldn’t it be ironic,’ he though with rising irritation, ‘if I funded my own being sold out?’

Well, he’d have to cancel those accounts, wouldn’t he? It would confirm to Mirage that he was definitely alive, but since she obviously already knew, it wasn’t like that mattered, and taking away her precious credit cards would cripple her. The bitch. Imagine, if you really had died she’d be living it up on your money for the rest of her worthless life.

Syndrome picked up his cell phone, and was about to call the bank, when a merc, Jordans, Syn thought his name was, appeared on the com-monitor.

“Sir, the garbage from the brig has been disposed of as per your orders.”

‘Ah, Mikhail,’ Syndrome thought, ‘good riddance to bad rubbish.’

Although that brought up another possibility as to how the Incredibles might have learned his whereabouts. The Russian could theoretically have contacted them before his attack, and subsequent demise. But how? Syndrome had run across no evidence that Doctor Rasputin had known the identities of any supers outside the reach of the Russian mob.

“Very good, Jorndans,” Syndrome thanked him. “Dismissed.”

The screen turned off.

Maybe the Russian, and not the Agency, had been the one to contact Mirage. After all, he had indicated that he had been watching the case on television, and it would be easy for the mob to get him the contact information. Mirage in turn, would have alerted the Incredibles.

Great. Mirage was certainly building up a case against herself for him to track her down and exact his vengeance. He had been willing to leave her on the back burner, as long as she stayed out of his business, but if she was going to be a nuisance, that was an entirely different matter.

He picked up the phone again. The first thing to do was still to rid her of funds.

Syndrome heard the swish of the door opening, and turned to see who was there. It was Vex, and Syndrome could tell immediately that something was wrong; she looked shaken, and unhappy.

“Hi,” she said quietly, stepping into the room, the door closing behind her.

“Hey, Vex,” he greeted, “Are you okay?”

She shrugged, and walked up, pulling over a chair and sitting down beside him.

“I’m sorry I was so pushy earlier,” she said, crossing her arms over the back of the chair, and resting her chin on them. “I shouldn’t have tried to tell you what to do.”

Oh, so that was what it was about, because he had snarked at her. “Hey, hey, it’s okay baby. You weren’t being pushy, you were just giving me your opinion. You gotta understand. Mr. Incredible? He really pisses me off, and so I snapped at you when I didn’t have a reason.”

“No,” she said, her shoulders slumping, “I’m always telling people what to do. ‘Don’t shoot them’, ‘sit at my table or I won’t talk to you’. Gods, I’m such a bitch. No wonder everyone hates me.”

Syndrome was taken aback by the sudden bout of self-loathing. It wasn’t, however, something he was a stranger to. He put his arms around her shoulders. “I don’t hate you,” he assured her.

“Sure, you don’t now. Hell, you barely know me. Trust me, once I’ve hung around for long enough, you’ll get pretty sick of my company. Just like everyone else.” She hung her head, the strands of chocolaty hair falling in front of her mask.

The redhead scowled. Feeling bad about yourself was a part of life he knew well, and he also knew that it wasn’t something that other people could snap you out of if you didn’t want to be snapped. But damn if he was going to just let her talk like that with no contradiction. He grabbed her shoulders more tightly, and swung her sound in the swiveling chair to face him. He put his face close to hers and stared deeply into her wavering brown eyes.

“Listen to me,” he growled. “You think I care what other people have to say about you? Screw that! So you’re a bitch, so what? Are you going to tell me I’m not one of the biggest bastard’s you’ve ever met?” He didn’t give her a chance to answer. “Vex, baby doll, I love you, not despite your supposed flaws, because of them. Because you’re a fangirl, and because you’re a ‘bitch’. Because you understand what it’s like to be abused and ignored, and you haven’t curled up into a little ball, no way! You want revenge; you want to show them that they shouldn’t have messed with you. So one thing I’m not gonna tolerate is you being all down on yourself because of that. That’s weak, that’s giving in, and being what they want to make you. You have to be true to yourself, not who people want you to be.”

Syndrome hadn’t known he felt quite so strongly on the subject, but he felt the passion in his own voice as he half-consoled, half-consoled the confused young girl who stared up at him. Suddenly, as he finished his little monologue, the tears that were growing in Vex’s eyes spilled over, and she began to cry. She pressed herself into his chest, and threw her arms around him, crying on his shoulder. He put one arm around her waist, and stroked her hair gently with the other.

“I hate people,” she sobbed muffledly. “I hate them.”

“Shhh,” Syndrome said, holding her, and rocking her back and forth gently. “I know, I know.”

“It’s just so stupid, and pointless, and nobody’s ever who they pretend they are, but they still hold you up to this fucking mirror of perfection, and if you don’t fit it…”

“It’ll be okay, Vex, I promise we’ll make them pay.”

She looked up at him, her face red and streaked with tears. “Syndrome…do you really love me?”

“Yes,” he said firmly. “More than I can tell you.”

“Even though I’m a super?” The look of insecurity was fixed firmly in her eyes.

Syndrome honestly thought about that. Yes, he was upset that she had these powers, but he would not, would not let that turn into bitterness against someone who understood him so well. “Even though you’re a super.”

“Syndrome?”

“Hmmm?”

“I don’t want to die.”

His eyes widened and he pursed his lips. “You think I’d let you?” he demanded.

He leaned down and kissed her gently, wanting to ease all the hurt that was inside of her.

Somewhere inside him, he had thought that once he had taken her away from her normal life, suddenly everything would be perfect for her. But that wasn’t true. Also, he realized, that same part of him, hadn’t even been rescuing her specifically. In a way he’d been trying to rescue himself, as he had been long ago.

But now he realized that nothing was ever perfect. Even if he had become Mr. Incredibles’ sidekick, what good would it have done? After all, heroism had been banned just weeks after he had been so callously turned away. Maybe some things were simply not meant to be. Maybe Vex and he were destined to be bitter and unsatisfied, to have to sneak and steal every moment of happiness they could have.

Fine then.

Syndrome and Vexxation each held each other tightly, clinging to the comfort and support that neither had had before in their lives.

To be continued…

My apologies that there are no review replies this chapter, I am pressed for time, and figured the bulk of people would want to have the chapter sooner, rather than review relpies. Anyone is of course, free to IM me about CCR, either at my AIM, Saevitia Snape, or at my yahoo messenger, lejindarybunny. Replies will hopefully return next chapter.

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Chapter 22: Initially Out of Hand

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Comics Cookies and Revenge

By Lejindarybunny

A/N: I want to thank Amanda Quick and her novel ‘Wait Until Midnight’ for reminding me of the joys of writing serially. It’s about a lady writer in the eighteen hundreds who’s chapters of mystery/romance are published weekly in the paper. Of course, she gets herself into a mess oddly reminiscent of her own writings. Go read it! (After you finish this chapter that is)

Thank you all for being patient with me. I told you CCR would be back.

Disclaimer: The Incredibles and all affiliated characters are the property of Disney/Pixar. Vex is mine.

Chapter 21: Initially Out of Hand

Mirage got the phone call a little past midnight.

“Hello?” she asked picking it up.

It was Mr. Incredible. “Hello Mirage.”

“Did you find anything?” she demanded immediately.

“No, it looks like somebody pulled your leg Mirage.”

She pursed her lips. “Nothing?” The man had seemed sincere on the phone, it was hard to believe that he was somehow having a laugh at her expense.

“Not a single thing.”

“Okay, well, thank you for looking into it Mr. Incredible.”

“Any time.”

With a sigh she hung up the phone, and sat on the edge of her bed. She gazed over at the dresser where a large canvas bag sat. Before Mr. Incredible had headed off, she had withdraw quite a lot of money from Syndrome’s bank account… just in case. But it looked like she had nothing to worry about.

Maybe she was foolish to think he was still alive. Didn’t they say everyone had a twin? The man who had kidnapped that girl just happened to look like her former… ’employer’, that was all. And the phone call was someone trying to harass her. Though god only knew how they had gotten her contact information.

000

Syndrome was sequestered in his laboratory poring over Rasputin’s files. He’d been in there for hours. There was a half- empty coffee cup beside his elbow, just waiting to be knocked over, and a completely empty coffee pot next to that. His hair was slightly wilted. There were dark circles under his blue eyes, but those same eyes were possessed of a fierce determination.

Syndrome hadn’t felt this sleepless intensity on a project in… years. It was something that had been common in his younger days, when he had been inventing like a madman and gaining power a frightening rate. Once he’d actually had that power however, he’d stopped feeling that sort of fervor; urgency replaced by calmness and control. Let other people worry over sleepless nights.

But now the feeling returned in its fullest. It was a sort of half-feral state. No matter how hard the exhaustion pressed in, he would keep going until it was finished, or it wouldn’t get done. He stared down at his notebook; scribbles of schematics and remarks covered the whole page, many of them hastily, and angrily, crossed out. But the last one, that wasn’t crossed out, it was circled, and underlined many times. The pencil that had done the underlining lay broken in half next to the notebook.

Syndrome sneered at the computer screen. He had beaten them. Beaten Rasputin, and, once again, beaten nature herself. He took a deep breath, and leaned back in his chair satisfied.

Then he collapsed to the floor, unconscious.

000

When Violet told her mother she was going shopping after school she immediately felt guilty. It was technically true…sort of. So she wasn’t going to the mall… and the clothes she would be getting would be provided as a gratuity…

But she wasn’t lying! …not any more than she had to, anyway.

Violet stared out the window of the bus, a few strands of hair falling in front of her eyes. She was lucky; she wouldn’t have to walk too far from the bus stop to Edna’s mansion. A super suit. She was going to get a super suit in order to interrogate Mirage.

It was both frightening and exciting at the same time. Vi looked around at the numerous people on the bus, quite a few of whom were more than a little creepy looking. What if something happened to her? Her parents wouldn’t even know where to look for her… But then again, how likely was it that anything would happen?

And she went doubting herself again. She needed to stop doing that if she wanted to be at all successful in- in what she was doing. And she found, strangely enough, that she did indeed want to be successful.

She heard the bus driver call out the name of her stop, and stood, making her way to the front and dropping her fare into the tin. Stepping down onto the street, she looked around at the ritzy neighborhood. She knew how to get the rest of the way, when she was small, her parents had occasionally taken her and then-baby Dash to Edna’s fancy parties. Sadly, fewer and fewer of the ex-heroes had come to attend over the years, until Edna had just stopped. As Violet walked down the gleaming pavement she found that this was the first time that thought had saddened her in a way that didn’t involve missing out on party food.

The house, though she wasn’t sure such a large structure even counted as a house, loomed before her, with its iron gates rising up and blocking her way. She looked over and found the intercom. She pushed the button.

“Who is it?”

“It’s, uh, Violet…”

000

It had been almost three days since Vex had found herself sobbing in Syndrome’s arms. A little while later he’d holed himself up in his lab, giving her instructions to monitor the entire goings on in the base while he was occupied. It wasn’t a particularly difficult task, she just had to make rounds and make sure that everyone was doing what they were supposed to and not slacking off somewhere. She hadn’t really felt like she could enforce her authority at first, since most of the mercs were quite a bit larger than her, but strangely they were quite inclined to do as she said. Most of this was obviously due to their wonderful training, but sometimes they actually seemed to be a little intimidated by her.

There was one incident in fact. A couple of guys were supposed to be on guard duty, and they kept sneaking off to play cards. The third time she’d caught them at it, she’d gotten pretty damn angry. After she’d gotten done yelling at them, after fifteen minutes or so, they hadn’t seemed inclined to shirk what they were getting paid to do again. Vex had left feeling rather self-satisfied, but needing some tea for her throat.

Of course, she’d gone to look in on Syndrome every little while, but he seemed quite absorbed in his work and not inclined to make coherent conversation. She’d give her report and he’d mutter incoherent ‘uh-uhs’. She was pretty sure he wasn’t even listening.

Vex sat at the kitchen table munching on a box of Keebler elves. She stared at the yellow and white-checkered tablecloth.

‘Why did Rasputin have a yellow checkered table cloth?’ she wondered, just before deciding, ‘I’d better go look in on Syn again.’

She sighed, pushing the three-quarters eaten box away, and stood up. She hoped he was alright. She didn’t think he’d slept in all that time. She headed out of the living quarters and knocked on the door of the lab. There was no answer.

“Syndrome?” she called.

Still no answer.

She sighed again. He probably couldn’t hear her. Well, she knew how that was anyway, her mother had complained about it often when she was writing. Vex tapped out the access code on the control panel, and the doors slid open. The sight that met her eyes frightened her quite a bit.

Syndrome was sprawled on the floor by his chair. His coffee cup was broken beside him.

Vex covered her mouth to suppress a shriek and rushed over to him, falling to her knees and grabbing his shoulders.

“Syn? Syndrome?” her eyes were wide as she shook him, trying to wake him up. He didn’t move. Her lip began to tremble.

‘Not dead, not dead, he can’t be dead.’

‘Why the hell would he be dead? Damn it girl think rationally.’

‘What should I?’

‘Remember those CPR courses? Check if he’s breathing.’

Vex cursed herself for being so irrational at first. She placed her hand next to Syndrome’s face and was relieved to feel his slow, warm breath.

She breathed a sigh of relief. He was just asleep. The big stubborn doofus had probably passed out, refusing to get up and go to bed.

‘See?’

‘Yeah, okay, now what? I can’t leave him here.’

‘So put him in bed.’

‘Yeah, how? You think I can pick him up?’

‘You do have a point there…’

Vex looked over Syndrome’s prone body. She noticed his hands were bare; he’d probably taken them off earlier. Which meant, she grinned. She could use them to pick him up! Vex had been looking for an excuse to try Syndrome’s zero-point gloves. She stood, and gazed around the room. They were lying next to the keyboard as she had expected. She picked one up and put it on. It was a little big for her, and heavier than she expected. Now, how to get them to work?

There were a few buttons on the wrist, but from watching Syn use them she knew that none of them activated the zero-beam thing. So that left inside. She felt around the inside of the glove, wiggling her fingers around. But she couldn’t find any kind of trigger mechanism. She frowned. It occurred to her that at some point, maybe she should have asked Syndrome how they worked.

With a sigh she took the glove off and set it down again. What now? She’d just have to wake him up. Great. She took a deep breath, and prepared herself. She really hoped he wouldn’t be angry.

She knelt down beside him again cautiously, and tried again. “Syndrome. Syn, wake up.” She poked him. He stirred, but didn’t wake. She poked him again. And again. She rolled her eyes. He certainly could sleep couldn’t he?

Well, she could do one of two things. She could either dump water on him, or tickle him. She weighed the two in her mind and wondered which of the two would be wiser, considering Syndrome’s fiery temper. She decided water was out. How pissed would he be to wake up sopping wt. Whereas tickling she could stop as soon as he opened his eyes.

She smirked amusing, and wiggled her fingers. She shouldn’t be enjoying this. Oh well. She put her hands on his stomach and began to tickle him.

It didn’t take long for Syndrome to start squirming and finally wake up with a cry of, “what the hell!”

Vex immediately backed off, though she couldn’t suppress a giggle.

Syndrome, sitting up and leaning against the desk, tried to glare at her, but couldn’t really manage it through his exhaustion. “Wha-?”

“You passed out,” Vex explained. “I couldn’t move you, so I had to wake you up. And you were pretty hard to wake up.”

Syndrome frowned at her, but didn’t seem to be able to argue with her logic. He yawned wide, and stretched, trying to get out the kinks from sleeping on the floor for however long he had been there.

Syndrome opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it. The he grinned. “I did it, Vex.”

She looked at him questioningly. “Did what?” She realized that she hadn’t actually known just what he was working on.

He reached up and groped behind him on the desk until he grabbed the notebook. “It’s not a cure,” he admitted. “And I have to order some parts, but I’ve invented a device to stabilize your condition without plating anything in your head and …without obstructing your powers.”

Vex’s eyes widened with delight and she suddenly leapt on Syndrome and gave him a fierce hug. There were tears in her eyes.

Syndrome, though initially winded by the glomp, put his arm around her shoulder fondly. “Hey, I told you I’d take care of it, right?”

She nodded.

He lifted her chin up with two fingers so that their eyes met. “You doubt me?”

She shook her head. “Not for a second.”

He leaned in close and kissed her softly. Vex felt her heart flutter.

Syndrome ran his fingers through her hair. He yawned again.

Vex frowned concernedly. “You oughta go to bed.”

Syndrome shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Come on,” Vex stood up, and grabbed his hand, trying to pull him up with her. He tried to get up, but clumsily slipped back to the floor, pulling Vex down with him. She both winced and giggle as she landed on top of him. Syndrome chuckled as well, and pulled himself to his feet, dragging her up with him.

“Yeah,” Syndrome said, finding his balance. “bed would be a good idea.”

000

The small, excitable woman ushered Violet into the huge mansion, chattering away all the time, as Violet started around at the place she hadn’t seen since she was a small girl. Most places from your childhood looked smaller when you saw them older, but not Edna’s. It looked just as big as ever.

“It’s wonderful to see you dahling, I have to admit I hardly thought I’d see you coming her all on your own…” at this Edna looked back, and her eyes narrowed slightly.

“Uh, yeah. I wanted to talk to you… by myself,” Violet mumbled.

“Yes? Well, come, come, sit, sit. Now, sit down my dahling, please,” she tapped her foot as Violet sat down cautiously in one of the chairs.

Vi wiggled nervously in her chair. What if Edna wouldn’t do it for her? What if she told her mother what she was trying to do? She gulped. But it was too late now. Edna would demand that Violet tell her why she was here.

“Now, my dahling, what brings you here to my home, hmmm?” she folded her hands on her lap, and peered at Vi, questioningly.

It made her feel distinctly uncomfortable. “I well, that is… I wanted to… see you.”

“Oh! So you enjoy my company hmm, I remember when you were a little girl, yes dahling, always just , disappearing in the middle of a sentence, yes? Very amusing but!” Edna’s tone of quick but fond remembrance turned suddenly slow and insinuating, “we both know that is not really why you are here…”

Violet’s resolve died under her knowing gaze. “I…”

“Well! Out with it! Come, come my dear, I haven’t got all day.”

Violet didn’t say anything.

Edna leapt out of her chair. “What are you waiting for!”

Violet winced. She didn’t like being yelled at. “I want a suit,” she muttered.

“What was that dahling? I couldn’t quite hear you,” she said in a sweet, singsong voice.

“I said I want a suit,” Vi repeated more firmly, crossing her arms.

Edna grinned. It was almost a sneer. “Oooooh, you want me to make you a suit do you? Well, I don’t know what’s wrong with the one you already have, unless…” her eyes narrowed again. “Your mother, does she know you are here?”

“Well, no…”

“I thought so! Yoooou want to go into solo work, am I right? Don’t try to deny it girl I know my business yes? You’re tired of always going out as a team, you want to be your own star!” she gestured wildly.

“Well, that’s sort of it,” Violet agreed hesitantly.

“I like it!” Edna grinned. “Hmm, lets see, you need a new costume, yes, and you’ll want to do something about that hair, much too telling, hmm? But you can’t just cut it, that would give you away also. I take it you won’t want your parents in on your new identity?”

Violet was shocked at how, not even nonchalantly, but excitedly, Edna was taking her request, which she realized she hadn’t even gotten to specifically ask. “Right,” she nodded. And Edna didn’t have any problem hiding it from her parents! Vi had known the designer had a subversive streak, but this was just too cool.

“That makes it more difficult, yes…But! I am up to the challenge! Now! Shoo! I have work to do! Come back in week, nice to see you bye!” Edna waved at her, all the while leading her back outside to the driveway and to a limo with a tall driver standing beside it. “This is James, my chauffer, he’ll take you home, won’t you dahling? Oh, but make sure to drop her off a block away, yes?”

A thrill of infectious excitement went through Vi’s spine. Things were going better than she ever could have planned. In one week, she’d have her own secret identity.

To be continued…

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Chapter 23: Reflections and Consequences

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PREVIOUSLY ON CCR: Vex had appeared to contract a disease related to her newfound super powers, caused by erratic activity of the parawaves in her brain. Syndrome worked long and hard to discover a cure or treatment, based on the research that Dr. Rasputin, the previous owner of Syndrome’s new lair, had made years earlier. While successful in inventing such a treatment, Vex arrived to find him passed out from exhaustion. Meanwhile back in the suburbs Violet Parr continued in her personal evolution as a super, seeking a new costume from the famous designer and friend of the family, Edna Mode.

Comics Cookies and Revenge

By Lejindarybunny

Disclaimer: The Incredibles and all affiliated characters are the property of Disney/Pixar. Vex is mine.

Chapter 22: Reflections and Consequences

Mikhail could be patient when the situation called for it, but he wasn’t really patient by nature. Long-suffering was really more of an adjective he might use to describe his waiting habits. And so, the Russian avenger paced around his small, shabby apartment, ruminating on his earlier phone call to Mirage.

Nothing, she said. They had found nothing when they went to the base. How could this be? Granted it was invisible from outside, but how could that bastard Syndrome have failed to alert them to his presence. All of Mikhail’s contacts assured Mikhail that the grudge Syndrome bore Mr. Incredible was as powerful as Mikhail’s to Syndrome! (Though in no way as justified of course).

And yet the American ‘heroes’ had gone home, believing his information to be false! It was so frustrating, so very unbelievably frustrating.

One of his ‘rats’ chattered anxiously at his feet, reflecting his mood. Mikhail clenched his fists and kicked a wall. Damn that Syndrome. Damn him to hell along with that deluded wench of his!

000

The cuffs sat on one of the long, cluttered tables in his private workshop. It had taken only two days to have the key component flown in, and after receiving it; the only thing left was to put it together. And of course, to see if it worked.

Syndrome leaned forward, peering at the device, his elbow on the table and his chin in his palm. All the tests indicated that the cuffs should act as a stabilizing agent, to stop the deteriorating condition of Vex’s ‘parawaves’. When switched on, the cuffs would emit a low-grade electrical field that would mesh with her brainwaves and calm the irregular spikes and low points that were causing her powers to harm her.

And then, Syndrome sighed to himself, she’d be able to use the powers to her hearts content without any ill effects. Joy.

The villain glanced over at the machine that was used for measuring the amount of parawaves, of super potential, that a person had. If Syndrome stuck his head in there, he knew how it would read. All levels normal.

He rubbed his gloves hands together. It didn’t matter; it didn’t matter a bit! He was as powerful as any super there was. More powerful even! Wasn’t that what he had set out to achieve in the first place? When he had struggled to get to Mr. Incredible’s side as Incrediboy, all those many years ago, that was what he had claimed. That you didn’t need powers to be somebody.

He snorted. Well, he certainly was somebody now, wasn’t he? A little heard side of his personality muttered. Oh yes, a rich and powerful businessman. A billionaire. An arms supplier, who sold his inventions to third world nations so that they could slaughter one another. He was Syndrome! He’d killed dozens of supers too, and wasn’t that just the neatest thing? Don’t forget the most recent one. Contributing to the delinquency of a minor!

Syndrome told his conscience to go take a hike. Too little, too late. To regret what he’d become would be naïve and foolish. In the course of his life Syndrome had done and gotten exactly what he wanted.

Exactly what he wanted.

Supers were weak compared to him.

Everything he wanted?

Syndrome’s gaze flickered up to the clock on the wall and he contributed his confused thinking to the late hour.

“I need more coffee,” he moaned quietly to himself, brushing a stray lock of hair out of his face and back above his head where it belonged. He wondered if Vex was asleep, and if she was, should he wake her up to give her the cuffs, or just go to sleep himself?

Well, he’d figure that one out when he got there. He picked the cuffs up, and stood, exiting the lab.

Despite the late hour the base still hummed with activity, a sight that gave him much comfort. Minions in threatening body armor proceeded up and down the corridors in their various duties, the fluorescent light gleaming on their reflective glasses, their steps measured as they carefully avoided any and all deathtraps. If he went into the main construction bay he’d be able to see how construction of his latest weapon was proceeding. He was tempted to take a detour in order to do just that, but no, he was looking for Vex right now. And coffee. He definitely needed coffee. Now, preferably.

He stopped a random minion. “Get me some coffee,” he commanded, “I’ll wait here for it.”

The minion didn’t even hesitate. He just nodded, said, “Yes sir,” and trotted off, presumably in the direction of coffee.

Syndrome smiled. Yes, life was good. He had his money and power, his base, his minions, his schemes, his weapons and his lovely assistant. All he needed was exactly what he was working for, his revenge.

He hadn’t been sitting idly by since the Incredibles’ little scouting mission, oh no. His minions were working on a couple of different projects he had planned. The biggest was of course what he called ‘Weapon X’. The omni droid had failed in the end, for a simple reason. It was a machine, and it thought and acted like a machine. It had no human intelligence to react to commands and changing situations.

Weapon X was not a robot, it was a machine designed to be piloted by a skilled human or humans. It would have a minimal AI ‘autopilot’ but nothing that could conceivably work against him.

Unlike the Omnidroid, Weapon X was bipedal so that the controls would be more intuitive to a person. It was a ten story giant mechanical warrior with an insanely powerful arsenal. Syndrome began to laugh at the idea of treading through the city, leaving house-sized footprints in his wake only to bend over, and politely tap on the door of Mr. Incredible’s lovely suburban home. And when he answered…

Syndrome’s chuckle had become full out maniacal laughter by the time the minion returned with his coffee. Syndrome calmed himself, coughed a bit at the end of his laugh, and took the coffee. The minion didn’t comment.

000

Violet was sitting in math class when it occurred to her that she hadn’t seen Tony, even in school, for over a week. That wasn’t such a surprise, since they didn’t actually have any classes together, but… she hadn’t seen him in the hall, or at lunch either.

First Vi felt bad and embarrassed that she hadn’t even thought about him for days. With her mind on other things such as Mirage, and her own impending costume, it had just slipped her mind. Then she realized that she hadn’t even remembered to call Tony and apologize to him for missing their date!

Now she felt really embarrassed, and even a little angry. Was he avoiding her because he thought she had stood him up? It wasn’t like that at all! She’d just been… too busy to care? Did that fall under the heading of standing up anyway, even if it hadn’t been her intention?

There was no help for it. She would just have to find him and apologize.

Her resolve strengthened to smooth out the understanding, she began to stand up. Then she realized she was still in class and it would have to wait for a few minutes.

Violet sighed and tapped the butt of her pen on the desk. She liked Tony, she really did. But lately he didn’t seem to be taking up as much of her life, as when he’d been an unattainable crush. She was a little confused about that. Shouldn’t she be thinking about him more, now that they were really going out?

No, that wasn’t the problem. It was really just that things kept getting in the way.

The bell to end class rang and Vi stood up. She had one thing in mind. Find Tony, apologize to him. Was that technically two things? Not important, she decided.

000

Vex was not, in fact, asleep. She didn’t like to admit it, but she was having trouble sleeping so she’d commandeered one of the plush minion rec rooms, complete with couches, TV, snacks and even a ping pong table. She had hung a hastily scribbled sign on the door. It read:

DO NOT DISTURB!

(unless it’s important)

All too often in movies, villains either missed crucial information, or ended up killing servants for disobeying them all because they were ‘not to be disturbed under any circumstances. And, while Vex wasn’t teleconferencing with foreign dictators, or watching Our Hero writhe in a terrible death trap only to leave at a crucial moment so he could escape, she did want a little privacy.

She was watching Star Wars.

She lay, stretched out on the largest couch, wearing comfortable cloudy-blue flannel pajamas, with a bowl of popcorn. There were two empty cans of cola on the coffee table, and she was working on a third.

Vex had raided the minions’ video library to find her choice. There hadn’t been much in English, and even A New Hope had subtitles in Cyrillic at the bottom. That didn’t bother her however, the familiar movie was comforting, and that was what she needed.

Vex had faith in Syndrome, gobs of faith, oodles. That didn’t stop her from being nervous, however. Although she fought to keep it in check, every so often her hand would pass right through something, and pain would lance through her body. It wasn’t a great state of affairs.

But she could quote most of the movie, and the hum of lightsabers was stupidly soothing, and the popcorn was well buttered and soda was her friend, and everything would be all right. She would help Syndrome command his minions, and crush his enemies, and not die.

Listening to the Imperial March, Vex wondered what it might be like to rule the world. Certainly Syndrome already came close, with his tons of money that could buy preferential treatment over the President of France. If she were honest with herself, Vex would admit that she did feel a little different than she had before all this. For instance, it was easy to give orders to minions once you discovered that they actually obeyed you, rather than laughing in your face. And watching the construction of a tremendous mecha was thrilling. The confident personality that Vex had only played at in her former life seemed to be merging with her own; except when she took off the costume.

Then she was just plain, fangirly little Sharon.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” she said, immediately pausing her movie. She was a little worried about what could be important enough to disturb her.

She heard the door open, and she turned to find syndrome standing in the doorway, holding a tall paper cup of coffee.

A smile broke out on her face, which had been filled with doubt.

“It took me a while to find you,” he said, with a smirk.

“Sorry,” she shrugged.

“Star Wars?”

“Hey, it was that or Doctor Zhivago.”

“In that case,” Syndrome replied with a wry grin as he sat down beside her, “I applaud your discerning taste.”

Vex laughed.

Syndrome put a hand on her wrist. “I have something for you.”

Her heart fluttered a bit.

“It’s finished.”

Syndrome showed her the other item he was holding, a pair of bracelets, or manacles of a metallic sheen. Inside she could see circuitry winding around them, outside they had inset four ovals of pure green jade.

“They’re beautiful,” Vex said, laying her fingers on one.

“They’re not a cure,” Syndrome admitted. “You’ll have to wear them all the time, but they’ll stabilize your brain wave patterns. You’ll be able to use your powers.”

Vex looked from the bracelets, to Syndrome’s freckled face. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

“Here,” he picked up one of the pair and opened it. Vex offered him her wrist with no hesitation, and he latched it on. She felt a tingling sensation for a moment, and again when the other one was snapped on. And then nothing. Just relief.

“You shouldn’t have any more problems.”

“Good,” Vex nodded, resting her heard against Syndrome’s shoulder. “That means I can concentrate on helping you with the Plan now.”

“Good,” Syndrome grinned. “But not just yet.”

He hit play on the remote and the movie resumed.

They sat in silence for a few moments, relieved and tired, enjoying the company of one another.

After a little while, Vex spoke.

“Syndrome,” she asked, “do you think you could really build a lightsaber.”

“You know, I never thought about it,” he admitted. “Probably.”

000

Violet’s free period was spent hurrying up and down the corners of her school, searching for Tony, whom she knew also had a study hall at the same time. She knew this, because, well they’d spent the time making out one day a few weeks ago…

Now he was nowhere to be found. He wasn’t in any of the designated study rooms, or in the library, or the gym, or the cafeteria, or hanging out by the lockers. With ten minutes left before the next class, Violet had begun to regret bothering. Maybe he wasn’t in school at all today. Maybe she hadn’t seen him in days because he was ill and had to stay home.

She sighed. She had time to check one more place, and then she’d have to go up to history class.

Vi headed down the nearly empty, dimly lit corridor, resigned to the fact that she wouldn’t find him. If Tony was here today, he was doing his best to be inconspicuous.

He place she was headed to was in the far wing of the school. Under the stairs that led to the second floor, there had several years ago been a small alcove there, and it had been a popular place for skipping class. During recent building renovations however, they’d put a door over the alcove, and everyone just assumed that it was locked, and generally forgot that the alcove, and even the door, existed in the first place.

Violet knew a secret. The door wasn’t locked. And anyone who had the cunning to slip into it while no one was looking would have complete and utter privacy. It was where she and Tony had gone to make out that one time.

He wouldn’t be there of course, but she had decided to search for him, and she had to be thorough about it, just to prove to herself that he wasn’t around, and that she had tried her hardest to apologize.

Violet rounded the corner to the stairway, and put her hand on the doorknob.

She heard a noise from inside, and blinked. Nobody else knew about the alcove, did they? She turned the knob, and opened the door, just a crack.

She peered inside.

A moment later she closed it again, and practically ran back down the hallway, and to the bathroom, tears welling in her eyes and a fierce anger clutching at her throat.

Oh, she’d found Tony all right.

She’d also found her classmate, Claire Brewster.

To be continued…

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Chapter 24: New Inventory

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Comics Cookies and Revenge

By Lejindarybunny

Disclaimer: The Incredibles and all affiliated characters are the property of Disney/Pixar. Vex is mine.

Chapter 23: New Inventory

Syndrome leaned on the metal rail watching as below him in the construction bay, Weapon X was being assembled. It was easy to see the progress from day to day. At the start they had assembled the basic endoskeleton, making sure all the joints were in the right places. For the past week they’d been building the ‘musculature’ of the mecha, weaving wires and cables like sinews and nerve endings. When they finally put the armor plating on it, then it would be time to take that baby out for a test drive.

The red head stood, and swaggered away from the viewing platform and was immediately accosted by a saluting minion.

“Lord Syndrome,” the man addressed.

Syndrome fought the urge to roll his eyes. The urge won He had a fairly good idea where that mode of address came from. He wondered idly if he ought to hide the Star Wars movies from Vex. She seemed to be getting a little… obsessive in the past few days.

“Yes, what is it?” Syndrome asked.

“Its one of our ships, sir. Its been captured by pirates.”

The redhead stared at his minion in disbelief. “Pirates,” he repeated. “You mean Pirates as in eye patches and ‘x marks the spot’?”

“Uh, no. Pirates as in seafaring bandits with machine guns and motorboats. They killed the entire crew, sir.”

“God damn it. Well, which ship was t?”

“The Banquo’s Ghost, sir. An arms shipment to Prince Abachaba.”

“Oh wonderful, just wonderful. The bastard probably high jacked it himself,” Syndrome grumbled. “Fine, send him a message; tell him it’ll be late.”

He wouldn’t be happy about it, but tough luck. Syndrome made a note to revise his mental image of pirates, which was apparently outdated. Classic, but outdated.

“Is that all?”

The minion nodded. “Yes, my lord.”

His eyes rolled again, almost by their own volition. Well, maybe it was better than ‘Boss’ which smacked of ‘Inspector Gadget’ and it wasn’t ‘Herr Docktor’ which was a good thing.

“You’re dismissed.”

Coffee: that was what he needed. And food. And to see what Vex was up to. With that resolve he proceeded away from the viewing platform out into one of the many labyrinthine corridors of the mountain lair. They were lit with florescent tubing that gave the whole place a very sterile, hospitalish feeling. Syndrome thought he was one of the few people that actually liked hospitals, they gave him a feeling of controlled chaos; a space wherein men and women fought to combat the inevitabilities of nature with the weapon of medicine. In a world without Supers, Buddy Pine might have become a doctor. He liked to think he would have been a good one.

But that wasn’t how life had played out, and now Syndrome made giant robots and light sabers in order to impress his control upon the uncontrolled universe. It was a little bit more visually impressive than medicine, anyway.

Syndrome was surprised when he didn’t find Vexation in viewing room A. For the past few days she had been holed up in there, playing one of the Star Wars video games. He had to admit her mood had improved since he’d presented her with the Parawave Stabilizers, and while only natural, that change for the better please Syndrome greatly. It had been disheartening to see the normally exuberant girl moping about the base.

Well, if she wasn’t playing video games, or watching movies, where would she be? Perhaps she was in the computer hub adjacent to his lab checking her email or something. Perfect, if that was where she was he’d have a chance to show her the fruits of his most recent effort.

When he arrived at the lab it was dark, and the hulking equipment cast eerie shadows on the walls that loomed like beasts. He heard from across the room however, the soft tip-tapping of a keyboard. His guess had been correct.

Quietly, without turning on the lights, he crept across the room towards the place where a door was ajar and light spilled out. He picked up the small, cylindrical item from his work bench, and continued his sneak up.

Syndrome smirked to himself as he opened the door without so much as a creak. There was Vex, in costume, her cape detached and slung across the back of her chair, framed in the hazy light of the gigantic computer monitor. He watched her for a moment, typing with that odd fervor, and when she still failed to notice him, walked up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder.

Vex yelped and almost jumped out of her skin. Panting, she cast a wide eyed glare at Syndrome, who was shaking with laughter.

“Don’t dopooooo that!” she exclaimed.

The red head took a deep breath and leaned heavily on the chair, regaining some of his composure. “Heheh, sorry, you’re just too easy.”

She stuck her tongue out at him, crossing her arms.

“Consider it payback for the ‘lord Syndrome’ thing,” he teased.

“What you don’t like that?” she giggled. “Anyway, its not like I told them to call you that. They just heard me say it and assumed it was correct.”

“Oh is that so?” he raised his eyebrow.

“I can stop, if you want.”

“Nah, its fine.” He turned his attention up to the monitor. “So, what are you writing?”

“Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic fanfic,” she admitted.

“Uh-huh.”

“HK-47 gets transferred into a human body as the result of an accident.”

“How’s that work?” he asked curiously.

“Well, its really more of a psychological piece about how he reacts to it.”

“So in other words you have no clue.”

“None whatsoever,” she said, returning his wry grin, “You’re not supposed to put it that way though.”

“I’m hungry,” Syndrome said, changing the subject completely. “You want to get something to eat with me?”

“Um…” Vex blinked a few times.

“What’s up?”

She laughed. “I just realized I haven’t eaten in the last seven hours or so.”

“I’m taking that as a ‘yes’. Eat now, write incredibly bizarre Star Wars fiction later,” Syndrome took her gently but firmly by the shoulders, and led her out of the room.

She didn’t even argue the point. Well, not very much.

000

Someone was knocking on her door again; Violet bet that it was her mother.

“Sweety, are you all right?”

Yep, she was right.

“I’m fine mom, I’m just doing my homework.”

“Are you sure?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes mom, I am sure.”

“Well, if you ever want to talk about it, I’m here for you.”

Violet waited until her mother’s footsteps were down the hall to let out a tremendous sigh. She was laying on her back on her bed, with her head over the side. The whole room was upside down. Three days ago she’d found out that Tony was cheating on her with Claire. Not only that though, that wasn’t the part that made her so amazingly angry.

Later that day she had happened to be in the girls’ bathroom, when she heard what she should have known from the start. Tony had been with Claire the entire time he and Violet had been dating. Vi was nothing but a side dish. A joke.

Vi had practically gone nuts. She was humiliated, crushed. But she still couldn’t confront Tony on it, not face to face. Everyone would laugh at her. Everyone had apparently known… except her. Well, maybe Claire didn’t know either, but even that was suspect.

That day she’d come home and said nothing, just locked herself in her room, without talking to anyone, and hadn’t come out for dinner. Then she hadn’t gone to school yesterday. Her mom had wanted to know what was wrong, but luckily, she hadn’t pressed the issue. Violet knew she’d have to answer soon, but that was going to have to wait until she felt less hurt and betrayed.

Vi had gone to school today though, and done something that she shouldn’t have, something that she was ashamed of. She had brought her costume with her, wearing it under her normal clothes, she hadn’t known then what she intended to do with it, but she knew she was going to do something.

What had ended up happening was that she had, invisibly, watched Tony putting in the combination to his locker. Later, when no one was in the hallway, she had opened the locker, taken out everything in it, books, notebooks, personal items and all, and dumped it in the trash.

Vi had thought it would make her feel better, it did, a little bit but it seemed so petty in comparison to what he’d done. Just the same she felt guilty about it. Two wrongs didn’t make a right after all.

She sighed again and sat up, glancing at the clock. It was only four thirty. It wasn’t quite time yet. Still, maybe she should explain to her mother what had happened to make her so upset, before she went skipping off into the night.

She stood up and opened the door. “Mom?”

000

They were in a Mexican restaurant. Well, technically it was a Russian restaurant that served Mexican style food. It was a Mexican restaurant in Russia. Vex wasn’t sure if she’d been able to Syndrome exactly why that was so odd.

It was, however, quite nice to get out of the Lair for a little bit, Vex thought. The seemingly endless series of corridors was filled with hazy electric lighting no matter what time of day it was. Granted, a snowy afternoon in Saint Petersburg wasn’t exactly sunshine city, but at least there was some natural light. The people in the restaurant were eye-catching now, simply because they weren’t wearing face concealing body armor.

“Can you speak any Russian? All the conversations in here sound like gibberish,” Vex asked. She was a chronic eavesdropper in public places, and not being able to understand anything was a little unnerving.

Syndrome was sitting across from her in a maroon sweater and khaki pants, his hair back in a pony tail. He shrugged. “A few words. The menus are in Engl- well, Mexican… sort of. Well, you’ll be able to figure out what the food is, anyway.” He grinned.

“How do you pronounce ‘Coca-cola’ in Russian?”

“I think its just, ‘coca cola’, babe.”

“They’re not going to put any alcohol or anything in it, are they?”

Syndrome raised an eyebrow. “Why, do you want some?”

“No, it makes the coke taste nasty. I just always heard that Russians were famous drunks.”

Syndrome laughed. “You better hope nobody in here speaks English!”

“Everything I know about Russian I learned from Pavel Checkov,” Vex grinned sheepishly.

“Wow, and people used to say I had no life.”

“Oh yeah? What stopped them?” Vex shot back.

“Mostly the laser-wielding robots.”

She really didn’t have a witty response for that. “Yeah… that’d about do it.”

“Oh hey, speaking of your rampant fangirliness, I have a present for you.”

Vex brightened up immediately, but before she could enquire further, their waitress, a svelte young woman with long black hair and heavy mascara appeared at their table to take their order. Vex, who couldn’t make out a word of her ‘bizarre lingo’ got away with pointing at the menu and hoping she knew what she was ordering.

“So what’s this present?” Vex asked curiously as the waitress retreated to the kitchen.

“Well, I had meant to show you while we were still at the lair, but I forgot. So you’ll have to wait.”

“Bastard,” she pouted half-convincingly and crossed her arms. “I want it now.”

“Well you can’t have it now.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not the sort of thing you wave around in public. Well, okay, not the sort of thing most people wave around in public. And it would be too attention drawing.”

Vex raised an incredulous, “Is that an innuendo?”

He laughed. “Not quite.”

“Well, tell me what it is then.”

“No, then you’ll want me to give it to you even more.”

Vex thought for a moment. “I’m going to come over there and attack you for it, in a minute.”

“I’d like to see you try that,” he grinned roguishly at her.

“I just might!”

The waitress set their drinks on the table, along with water, and straws. She said something that Vex again, didn’t understand a word of. She assumed it was something to the effect of ‘your dinner will be ready shortly’.

Vex took a sip of her coke. It tasted normal. She took a longer gulp to show her approval. Syndrome meanwhile was stirring sugar into a cup of coffee so black Vex was surprised it wasn’t drawing nearby planet’s into its gravity.

“Tell you what,” Syndrome said finally, “I’ll give it to you when we get outside after dinner, alright?”

Vex agreed to his terms, and the conversation turned to other topics as their waited for their food.

000

Once again Violet stood in front of Edna Mode’s imposing properties. The fashion designer had asked her to come back in a week, and that was how long it had been. Plus an extra day, just for good measure. She pushed the intercom button hesitantly, expecting to be greeted by the imposing security guards. Instead, it was Ms. Mode herself.

“Hello?”

“Helloooo?” the pitched voice of the designer rang out from the speaker. “Oh! Violet my little dahling it IS you! Come in come in come in I have been expecting you!”

The gate swung open, and now security did greet her, with a golf-cart type vehicle that took her up to the mansion. Edna was waiting for her at the door.

“Violet! You must come in! I have much to show you! I triumph! That is the nature of my project, yes! Hmmm, come with me dear.”

Vi allowed herself to be led through the halls by the hyperactive little woman, feeling just a little uncomfortable, but glad to know that she wasn’t unwelcome. Disarming her security measures Edna led Vi into a small viewing room, where they sat down and Violet was offered some tea.

Behind a glass window there was a mannequin in Violet’s size was wearing what she presumed to be her new costume. She had too admit, it was pretty cool looking. It was a mostly black bodysuit with silver highlights around the shoulders, forearms, and boots. There was a belt and a belt-pouch.

Edna pointed to it ecstatically. “Isn’t it lovely my deah? High grade, stainless tight weave. Nearly unrippable. Of course like your old costume this one will also disappear with you. And I have elevated shoes to make you appear a bit taller than you are. But, now I will show you the real masterpiece.”

Edna Mode picked up from the table a small metal ring, She held it up to the light, and Vi could see circuits around the inside. Then, abruptly, Edna grabbed hold of Violet’s hair, and pulled it back. Shocked more by the suddenness of the action than its presumptuous nature, she held still as the ring clasped her hair into a pony tail.

Edna held up a mirror. “Now, look, look my deah.”

Violet stared into the mirror, shocked. Instead of just seeing herself in a ponytail, the face that looked back at her was… older, and didn’t quite look like her.

“What do you think?” the designer chirped.

“Its… wow. How did you do that?”

“Oh, a little of this, a little of that. Nanotechnology, 3-d image generation. Its only a miracle of modern science and fashion dahling. It can also reconfigure your hairdo as well. Look!” Edna was holding a simple black domino mask, but it seemed to control the metal band somehow, because when the side of it was pressed, Violet watched in amazement as her hair seemed to creep up her shoulders, until it hung Cleopatra-esque around her chin.

“I look like a totally different person…”

“Impressive, no? Now you will not have to worry about even your parents recognizing you!”

“Its amazing! Thank you so much!” She turned around and hugged the diminutive woman.

Edna almost seemed embarrassed, despite her gregarious personality. “Well, I am only doing my duty to fashion and the world dahling, but I am so glad you like it. You will make me proud, right my little dahling?”

“Oh of course, I promise!”

“Now, let me show you just how it works and we will see you off home. Though I doubt you will be staying there so very long tonight, hmmmm?”

000

“Check please,” Syndrome asked the waiter in Russian. Well, vex assumed that was what he said. For all she knew he could be propositioning the woman. But seeing as they were shortly brought a bill for their meal, it was probably about the check.

“I’m full,” Vex said. “I had no idea Russians could make decent Mexican food.”

“It’s a niche market,” Syndrome replied, as the waitress handed him back one of his dozen or so credit cards. “So, I guess you’re going to wanting that present in a minute, huh?”

Vex sat straight up in her chair. She’d almost forgotten about that. “Yes, definitely!” she exclaimed.

“Well then, let’s be on our way.” He offered her his hand, and pulled her up and into his arms. He kissed her on the nose.

Vex giggled and followed him out into the snowy streets of the city. It was twilight, and the last shards of daylight were clinging like embers to the hem of the horizon. They stood under a street lamp that winked on as they approached it.

“Now, I worked hard on this, so you better like it,” Syndrome said with a grin.

“Well, by the way you were hyping it, I’m sure I will. Now gimme,” she demanded good naturedly.

Syndrome reached into the pocket of his long coat and produced what appeared to be a metal cylinder, about ten inches in length.

Vex stared at it for a moment before realizing what it was. Her mouth practically fell open. “A lightsaber! You built one! Does it really work?”

Syndrome nodded. “Mostly anyway. Its not actually a contained energy beam, because there’s no practical way to cut the laser off like a sword, it just keeps going. When you switch it on, a metal rod, like a filament, quickly telescopes, and produces light, heat and electricity, creating a combined burn/shock to anything itcontacts. It won’t actually cut anything, but it’s a real weapon and it looks exactly light a lightsaber when it’s on.”

“Can I see? Can I turn it on?”

Syndrome handed her the hilt. “You can find the on/off switch, I’m sure, just make sure its pointed away from you or me.”

Vex was grinning like a maniac as she held it in her hand. “Its heavy,” she commented. “A good weight.”

Vex pressed the button, and a beam of deep blue energy seemed to erupt from the hilt of the weapon. It even made ‘the lightsaber noise’. She stared at it, entranced as it hummed and lit up the cold, dim air. It was like she was holding a real lightsaber. She waved it back and forth.

“Its beautiful,” she gasped.

“Deadly, too,” Syndrome added. He looked quite pleased with himself. “You’ll have to practice with it in the gym. I built in a stun/kill setting also.”

She played with her new ‘toy’ for another minute or so, and then shut it off. She tackled Syndrome with a giant hug.

“Thank you! Thank you so much! This is the best present ever!”

He smiled. “I wouldn’t have done it for anyone else, but for you…”

“I absolutely love it!”

It was just a whisper in her ear. Barely audible, but she knew it was real. “I absolutely love you,” Syndrome said.

To be continued…

A/N: Again, I’m really sorry for the long wait between chapters everyone. I’ve been having a hard time juggling my new life, working and living on my own, but I think I’m starting to get the idea. Hopefully I will be able to write more often, but no promises.