This story is rated PG for violence.
Disclaimer: Pixar owns The Incredibles.
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Night had fallen over Metroville. Dozens of citizens wearing fine suits, fur coats, and jewelry streamed out of the opera house doors. Among them were Robert "Bob" Parr, an insurance adjuster with a bulky torso and an equally bulky spare tire, and his much shorter wife, Helen.
"An excellent performance all around," Bob remarked.
"I agree," Helen responded. "But next time, when Calaf is trying to guess Turandot's riddles, try to resist the urge to whistle the Jeopardy theme."
"Uncultured swine," a passing old woman snapped at him.
As the loving couple walked toward their parked car, a sound like the smashing of stone mixed with the shattering of glass echoed through the busy street.
"Great Scott!" exclaimed Bob. "What was that noise?"
"It came from that direction," said Helen, pointing to the west. "I'll check it out."
Ducking into a nearby alley, she stretched her ultra-flexible body two hundred feet into the air, gaining a bird's-eye view of the surrounding cityscape. Five blocks away, something resembling a pair of spotted tentacles was waving about. One of the tentacles reared back and lunged, striking the front wall of a building and crushing the granite into rubble.
Helen whipped back into her normal shape and rejoined her husband. "Someone, or something, is robbing the Worst National Bank of Metroville," she informed him. "It looks pretty strong. I don't know if the police..."
"Say no more," Bob interrupted her. "This is a job for The Incredibles!"
"But our costumes are in the car," Helen protested.
Bob raised his fist into the air. "To the parking garage!"
They ran as quickly as they could, Bob huffing and puffing from the exertion, Helen winning a little extra speed by stretching her legs. They had hidden their superhero costumes in a secret compartment under the back seat. Fearing someone might see them changing into their costumes, they climbed inside the vehicle to do so. The car was quite small, not nearly as spacious and accessorized as the Incredimobile had been, back in Mr. Incredible's glory days. Bob's hulking frame left little breathing room for Helen, who resorted to squeezing her body while putting on her indestructible leotard.
The car doors nearly broke off as they sprang out, clad in their bright red costumes and black masks. They assumed heroic poses and glanced affectionately at each other.
"All we need now is a battle cry," said Mr. Incredible.
"What do we need a battle cry for?" asked Elastigirl.
"Because I don't like uncomfortable silences."
To cut short their travel time, Elastigirl twisted her body into a spring, wrapped around her husband, and bounced the five blocks to the Worst National Bank. The entire front of the building had been demolished, and alarm bells were ringing within.
Mr. Incredible pushed aside an overturned Ferrari as Elastigirl molded into her usual form. "Whoever they are," said the man of muscle, "they're still inside."
"No, we're not," came a mocking woman's voice from above.
A bizarre, but not uncommon, sight greeted their eyes as they looked up--a female figure in a tight blue spandex costume with a snake symbol emblazoned on the chest. She stood on the ledge of the bank's roof, flanked by two piles of bags containing stolen money. A blue bandanna mask concealed her face and hair.
"A supervillainess," Elastigirl observed. "Let me handle her."
"Are you sure? She just trashed the whole bank. She's stronger than she..."
As Mr. Incredible spoke, the costumed woman's left arm swelled and stretched, shooting down at him with incredible speed. The collision sent him crashing through layers of asphalt and concrete, until he finally came to rest in the dank floor of the sewer.
From Elastigirl's perspective, the villainess' arm had transformed into a snake-like appendage, more than a dozen yards long, extending through an enormous, fresh pothole in the street. Her husband was nowhere to be seen.
"Bob!" she cried out in fear. "Uh, I mean, Mr. Incredible!"
She had no time to ponder on his fate, as the strange woman's other arm had also turned into a snake, and was plummeting in her direction. Literally bending over backwards to evade it, she performed several back somersaults until she reached the opposite sidewalk. She glowered at the mysterious snake woman, as if hurling a challenge.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
"You can call me Anna Konda," the villainess answered.
"What's that? I can't hear you."
"I said, ANNA KONDA!"
With that, she retracted her right tentacle arm from the crater it had made, and fired it across the street. It seemed to Elastigirl as if she was facing an incredibly long spotted snake with five massive fingers for a head. The tentacle moved at fantastic speed and coiled around her before she had a chance to dodge. Few things could hold Elastigirl, however, and she easily wriggled out of Anna Konda's death grip by contorting her body. Infuriated by the rubbery heroine's refusal to die, the villainess yanked her left arm out of the asphalt, and Elastigirl found herself battling two gigantic, writhing, coiling snakes. She couldn't comprehend how Anna Konda's body stood up to the physical strain of controlling such massive limbs.
In the sewer below her feet, Mr. Incredible groaned from the bruises and muscle aches inflicted by the blow of the snake fist, as well as the rank stench filling the tunnel. Swallowing his pain, he leaped to his feet, bent his knees, and pounced upward through the gaping hole. He landed with a powerful thump on the sidewalk in front of the bank. While he devised a strategy for dealing with the snake woman's fast-moving appendages, he felt an unexpected tapping at his shoulder.
He turned around, and a fist plowed into his chin. The next thing he knew he was lying ten feet away, and a man wearing a blue spandex suit and matching bandanna was standing over him, smirking triumphantly.
He jumped up and confronted the strange man. "I've had worse," he boasted.
"Let's see what you can do, Mr. Inedible," the spandex-clad man mocked him.
Goaded into action, the man of muscle drew back his left fist and let it fly with all his might. It came within a few inches of the man's face before encountering an invisible barrier...and bouncing off harmlessly.
"Owww!" roared Mr. Incredible, shaking his fingers. The pain only made him angrier, and he lashed out at the masked man with his right fist. The effect was the same--an unseen obstacle stopped his punch cold.
The man was clearly protected by some form of defensive energy wall, and hurting him was simply a matter of applying a superior opposing force. "Deflect THIS!" bellowed Mr. Incredible as he grabbed a fallen chunk of granite and threw it with tremendous power. The rock shattered into fragments against the mysterious man, but after the dust cleared he was still on his feet, unfazed.
"The laws of physics don't apply where I'm concerned," the man gloated. "My mental barrier can neutralize any force directed against it, no matter how strong. For I am...IMPREGNABLE MAN!"
Mr. Incredible laughed derisively. "You need a new press agent, pal," he remarked.
"What's wrong with my name?" his foe complained. "Are you making fun of my name?"
As Mr. Incredible pounded uselessly against Impregnable Man's barrier with fists, rocks, and anything else he could wrap his hands around, Elastigirl had succeeded in binding Anna Konda's snake arms together by twisting around them like a pretzel. The tentacles possessed incredible strength, however, and her stamina was beginning to give out. As she gasped and strained, yet another spandex-clad figure strolled casually in her direction. At first her sweat-soaked eyes reported that the newcomer had the shape of a young teenage girl, but then she blinked, and a young teenage boy was pulling off his bandanna mask before her.
She had never seen anything like his face--it seemed to radiate beauty. Flowing blond locks cascaded about the sides of his perfectly sculpted head. Despite herself, Elastigirl stopped caring about her battle against the bank-robbing villains. She only wanted to gaze into the youth's gorgeous face until the end of time. She relaxed her grip on Anna Konda's tentacles and slowly resumed human shape, her eyes remaining fixed on the boy.
"Like what you see?" he said in a petulant tone. "Of course you do. For I am...THE TRANSFIXER!"
While Elastigirl stood hopelessly mesmerized, Anna Konda raised a tentacle high into the air and let it plunge toward Mr. Incredible, who was hammering at Impregnable Man's shield with a volley of punches. It struck him directly in the back, driving him forward into the invisible barrier...which didn't move.
The age-old question of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object remained unanswered, but Mr. Incredible had just learned from firsthand experience what happened to someone who got between them. He felt as if all his internal organs were fighting to escape through his throat. His muscles screamed in agony. He struggled for breath.
As Anna Konda's snake fist withdrew, he fell onto his back and became quite unconscious.
Impregnable Man surveyed the incapacitated hero with pleasure. "He won't be leaping over tall buildings for a while," he quipped.
No longer troubled by The Incredibles, Anna Konda employed her snake arms to load the bags of ill-gotten money into a small, rocket-shaped, three-seater vehicle parked on the bank roof. Once finished, she stretched out her tentacles, picked up the two accomplices, and hauled them onto the roof. The boy known as The Transfixer had been replaced by a teenage girl with flowing blond locks, who proceeded to tie her bandanna mask over her head.
Elastigirl snapped out of her trance and shook her head in confusion. "Huh...?"
Alarmed by the sight of her prostrate husband, she sprang to his side and attempted to revive him. The sound of a rocket motor reached her ears from the top of the bank building. The small vehicle bearing Anna Konda, Impregnable Man, and the boy-turned-girl known as The Transfixer was rapidly rising into the sky, fire shooting from its underbelly.
"They're getting away," Elastigirl muttered silently. "I can't stretch far enough to stop them."
While she urged her husband to regain consciousness, the escaping villains exulted over their success.
"The Incredibles are no match for us," boasted Impregnable Man.
"Our powers are more powerful than their powers," gloated Anna Konda.
"Nothing can stop Triple Threat!" cried The Transfixer.
As the three-seater rocket vanished into the night sky, Mr. Incredible's eyelids fluttered open. "Urrrgh..." he moaned.
"Are you all right, dear?" asked Elastigirl with concern.
"Replace every organ in my body, and I'll be good as new," mumbled the man of muscle.
Relieved that her husband still had a sense of humor, Elastigirl fondly embraced him.
"Owww..." he grimaced. "Please don't embrace me there."
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What is the terrible secret of Triple Threat (besides their evil superpowers and stuff)? Will The Incredibles be able to stop them? Don't miss the next thrilling chapter!