An explosion lit up the night, and his life was turned inside-out.
"No, stop! There's a bomb!" For all the good it did, he might as well have been yelling at a brick wall. The kid had launched himself from the window, the home-made cape fluttering inches out of reach of his outstretched hand. He wasn't sure how long he'd stood there as the fluttering scrap of blue darted down and away. It might have been a few seconds, a few hours, a few days for all he could remember. The flash from the ground had come an eternity later, followed shortly by a bone-grinding rumble that he had felt on the sixteenth story of the First National building.
At the time, he hadn't even remembered when exactly Bomb Voyage made off with enough bullion to set the explosion-happy madman comfortably for three life-times. Nor could he have told anyone what the mass of reporters was asking him as they crowded the bank's spacious lobby. He was vaguely aware of someone--it turned out later to be Frozone--fending off the media storm as he made his way outside. Outside...to see the crater. The smoking husks of two police cruisers and a fire engine, a scrap of charred fabric--it might have once been blue--hanging from the skeletal ladder torn from its housings.
He remembered now, of course.
He sighed as he pulled his mind back into the present. Twelve years ago, to the day, and he made sure he never forgot. He had once heard one of the older Supers, a hydropsion by the name of Guardian, tell him that he never kept count of the people he'd saved, the cities that he'd defended or the villains he'd bagged.
"There's only one count that I keep track of, and that's the number of people I couldn't save." He'd taken the old Super's words to heart, but it only seemed to make the stab of pain worse as he thought about what this day meant. Four police officers, three firefighters, seven civilian bystanders. And one over-enthusiastic kid whom he'd been wishing would leave him alone for five minutes.
"Got your wish, Incredible." He whispered bitterly. He absently checked the watch before returning to stare out over the city. His city, as he thought of it, even though he'd shared it with two other Supers for the past several years. Everseer and Psycwave should be closing up shop soon, he mused. The small but busy clinic they ran together closed at six sharp, come rain, shine, tidal wave, or meteor shower. Everseer saw to that. He briefly wondered if any of the patients knew of the irony that a man with nearly untreatable Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder was co-heading a mental health clinic.
Then again, the city of Ferropolis was known for two things, and neither was overly observant townsfolk. Begun as a simple iron mine in the late 19th Century and later expanded with a refinery and steel plant, the downtown area still hugged the mountains to the east as the remainder of the city sprawled out into bustling streets and stores before giving way to cookie-cutter suburban sprawl, followed in turn by rolling farmland that stretched to the outskirts of Metroville.
Beside the old mines and caverns, which still brought in a steady trickle of tourism dollars, the city was home to the "Indomitable" Mr. Incredible. At least, that's what the magazines called him.
It was a lot better than what they used to call him. Oh, they'd had an absolute field day when they somehow dragged out the full story. Mr. Incredible had allowed a boy, a mere child, to become involved in his superheroics. And the child was now smoke and dust. Literally overnight, his title as poster boy for the forces of good was as good as gone, and he was being torn apart on every news station that could hire some hack "analyst" to run a story. Then Oliver Sansweet had sued.
It had taken two years, two black, miserable years, before he'd managed to get out in public again. His "triumphant return" had been a handful of cut-rate villains terrorizing a small-town bank, a job that he would have all but ignored before The Incident.
He'd taken to calling it that, labeling it in capital letters inside his own head and pinning it to the wall of his brain even as the rest of the world moved on. Eventually, he'd been back to his old evil-bashing self, outwardly at least, saving the world on a weekly if not daily basis from killer threats far and wide. His renewed training had put him in the best shape of his life and then some, and more than a few said he'd developed true invulnerability in addition to his other powers.
They could say what they wanted; he knew that he wasn't strong enough, wasn't fast enough, that he couldn't save everybody. So he kept training, even as his "secret identity" suffered through three job dismissals in as many months and he finally decided that the whole tradition was stupid and futile. Bob Parr was done, he promised himself, because Bob Parr was normal, and normal equaled weak as far as Mr. Incredible was concerned.
His communicator beeped, an insistant, demanding trill that he both needed and couldn't stand to hear. Flipping open the small device, he was met with the face of his long-time best friend.
"Hey, 'Zone. Didn't expect to hear from you so soon after that whole Dark Brotherhood fiasco." His friend's face broke into a smile over the small screen. Frozone--Lucius Best in his "day job" as a news station meteorologist--had remained by Incredible's side almost constantly for the two years after The Incident, constantly encouraging, joking and laughing as he slowly pulled his friend back into the world of heroes. Along the way, the once proud "Coolest Bachelor on the Continent" had found himself a wife, a family, and--he claimed--a whole new reason to put on the mask.
"Hey yourself, Incredible. I saw you on the news yesterday, you do an awfully smooth interview." The super-strong superhero inwardly groaned, remembering his rather short brush-off of the reporters. Hey, even Supers got tired of standing in front of cameras, right?
"Look, I apologized to AAD and MNO, and paid to replace the news van. Let's just pretend it never happened. How's the wife and kids?"
"The wife's the same as usual, mad that she can't use her powers until the baby's born. Wally's a mess to deal with as usual, but Vi's really doing all right in first grade. Teacher says she's never seen a child like learning so much."
"Good to hear, 'Zone. And tell Helen to calm down and enjoy the time off. Hey, I gotta go," He said as the communicator gave another demanding beep, "Looks like one of the subway lines malfunctioned and we've got the B train headed for trouble. Say hi to the family for me, alright? Incredible out." He pocketed the device as he slid behind the wheel of his M.E.V. The Multiple Environmental Vehicle had been through a few changes since the days it had first been introduced.
For starters, it could now fly at supersonic speeds.
The city streaked by below him as he tore across the sky to his destination, but his mind was elsewhere. It always was whenever Helen Best was mentioned. A fairly significant reason for this was that she almost became Helen Parr.
Despite her insistance upon extenuating circumstances, the fact remained that he had left her standing at the altar. During his worst times, he'd actively pushed her away, attempting to sever all ties to his old life. As the M.E.V. touched down just outside the subway terminal, he briefly thought of the events leading to her second trip down the aisle. No one was entirely sure how, and he himself had little recollection, but Lucius had explained it that they had become friends in their joint worry over him, and it had progressed from there. When Incredible had finally "killed" Bob Parr, it had apparantly been the last straw for the super still known proudly as Elastigirl. They had repaired the relationship, to be sure, but it was never more than friends, and he still thought he detected a thin layer of ice in her voice whenever they spoke. When he had recieved the wedding invitation, he had been stunned, then numb, then had felt about six different emotions in the space of ten seconds before finally admitting that he was happy for his best friend.
The rail line was an easy fix, so long as he was careful around the electrified third track. Watching the now safe train rush past the station, he allowed himself a few moments of pride on a job well done. Then he went back to the vehicle.
The outcry over the wedding was substantial, both in their civilian lives and with colleagues at the NSA. A white woman and a black man getting married? And what about the kids? Frozone laughed it off in their subsequent talks, saying that people would get used to the idea sooner or later. Incredible had always responded that it was the 1950's, that they'd had nearly a hundred years to get used to it, but they never did and it didn't look likely that they would any time soon. Lucius and Helen were determined, however, to stand strong, and Incredible had to admit they had been remarkably resiliant. Then again, after fighting nuclear-equipped android armies, mad scientists with black-hole generators, and mutant monsters from another dimension, what the neighbors thought probably didn't phase them much.
The first child, a vibrant, outgoing girl with the slender figure of her mother and the dusky skin of her father, had come quickly. Named Vivian, the girl just as quickly showed signs of her own talent. She was a geomancer, and a good one, reshaping the earth with ease from molehills to mountains. Incredible remembered his last birthday present for her, a book he had been given once for saving a priceless collection at the Natural History museum. He had skimmed through a time or two, but "Uncle I's" gift had quickly become Vivian's favorite in a quickly growing library devoted to her thus-far life long ambitions of being a paleontologist. He was still surprised that a seven-year-old could pronounce the word.
Almost exactly five years later, and along came Wally. He hadn't manifested his power quite as quickly as Vivian had, but the day he learned to walk had been the day his parents had needed to re-learn the term "baby-proof". Wally was a speedster, and once he figured out that his legs could take him places he'd never looked back.
He also had the usual speech oddities so common to the very young, and he had yet to pronounce his own last name accurately, settling instead on "West". Wally West...it has a nice ring to it, Bob decided, his perch on top of a downtown skyscraper resecured as the late afternoon sun began its final descent to the horizon.
His communicator trilled again, this time revealing a woman's face, "I thought you'd be off by now." She purred, "Working late again?"
"Daylight savings just started. It's only 5:58, remember? Just waiting for Everseer to close up, then I'm headed back to base. It's actually been pretty quiet today."
"Good, you deserved a break after last week. Well, I suppose I'll see you eventually. Mirage out." The screen flickered then darkened, and he put the device away as he absently leaned on the side of a rooftop vent.
Mirage was...unique, even in his experience. The woman had appeared out of nowhere on the streets of DC as a child, begging for money. No alias, no matching fingerprints, no DNA match, she truly seemed to be as ethereal as the name she gave first to police, then the NSA agents who interviewed her the next day. Gifted with the ability to change her appearance at will, she had worked with the National Supers Association for years as a covert operative and infiltrator before finally settling down to the comparatively quiet life of a fashion designer.
Granted, she was designing mission-wear for superheroes, but that was beside the point.
He had first met her roughly three years ago, when one of his own suits had been torn to rags in a particularly nasty bout with robotic crabs attacking Lanceport to the south, and had left his encounter with the young woman feeling decidedly dazed and confused. Her personality was off-putting, to say the least. A blend of crisp business, playful yet intelligent wit, and sultry seductiveness had kept him on his heels for the entire meeting, as well as most of their following session of field-testing the new suit.
She had demanded to accompany him on the assignment, working with several of their counterparts from the Asian Superhuman Agency to uncover a smuggling ring stretching from Beijing to Berlin. She claimed to simply miss the more exciting days of her old job, but over time her presence on his missions had progressed to the point that she was thinking of re-entering operative work full time, leaving her design work to her prized apprentice Edna.
The communicator gave three short blips, the sign from Psycwave that the city was now under their protection. He slid back into his vehicle, briefly entertaining the thought of convincing Mirage to stick with her designing. Then he sighed as the engine roared to life, knowing that the conversation was an old and hard-fought battle long since won in her favor. Even worse was the fact that both Lucius and Helen had taken Mirage's side, claiming it would be good for him to have a partner after years of solo work. He tried telling them that he liked solo work, that this way he had one less person's safety to worry about, but did they listen?
Still, he had to admit that she could take care of herself. She had even saved his skin during a mission to Quebec, evading capture to deactivate his restraints and successfully foil a plan to trigger a Canadian Civil War.
Street-lights winked on as the sky continued fading towards night. A red light stopped him, and as he sat waiting he continued thinking, absently drumming a new song he'd heard on the steering wheel. It was actually a song that she'd recorded somewhere in England a few months back, by some guy called Jimmy-something. Henry? No, Henderson? That's not it. He would have to ask her later. He made his way back "home", a converted part of the old mines that he used as a base of operations and living space. The city was happy to find that the NSA would now pay for the upkeep of that portion of the mine, so the space they had volunteered was so huge as to be ridiculous.
The engine quieted as he opened the door, exiting into the cool, dry air of the underground garage. He had decided against conventional heating and cooling systems, instead allowing the mine's ventilation shafts to do the work. The result was cool in the summer and warm enough in the winter, so long as he kept a fire going in the main room.
The door from the garage slid open, admitting him into the spacious cavern that had been converted into his main work space and living quarters. Without even needing to look, he knew that his surveillance equipment was in use, just as he knew who was currently using it.
"Sometimes I wonder if you even have a place of your own, or if you just live off of me in exchange for running the computers." A mane of silver hair poked around the massive leather chair, built for his extraordinary frame, and the current occupant gave a short laugh as she spun lazily around to face him.
The silver extended to about a foot past her shoulders, along the way framing a face with sharpened features that yet clung to some kind of youthful delicateness. Twin emeralds seemed to shine playfully out of olive skin, above a clearly amused smile.
"Well, Mr. Incredible, a simple 'hello' would have done nicely." Mirage said, flicking an imaginary speck of dust from the loose grey sweater she was wearing, "Of course, can I help it if your little hideaway down here completely puts to shame anything the NSA has ever given me?"
Incredible waved away the beginnings of a verbal sparring match. Ordinarily, he would have enjoyed the banter, but today he just didn't have the energy. "I'm heading back out, just thought I'd check in and see if you had gone home for once...wherever your home is." Okay, so he had a bit of energy left, but Mirage was still left frowning slightly as the garage door once again slid shut.
Almost an hour later, and gravel crunched under his feet as he exited the M.E.V., now disguised to look like a civilian car. The jacket and pants, thrown into the car this morning, felt decidly loose and foreign, but it was better than the media figuring out that Incredible was still visiting Municiberg City Cemetary. A few more minutes along the carefully-tended gravel pathways, and he came to his destination--a small marker, or at least it had always seemed to him, lonely and out of place in the midst of larger and more intricate stones. Four lines of carved text glittered metallically in the moonlight:
Buddy Vernon Pine
1943-1955
A True Hero
Fallen Before His Time
"Sorry, kid," Incredible muttered, "Should've been faster. Should've been a lot of things." He absently kicked at a small tuft of grass heroicly resisting the strict grounds-keeping, and he wondered about the past. What might have happened if he'd been able to save the kid? Looking back, he knew the kid had to have been some kind of genius. Maybe even a technopath, it would certainly fit with the idea of a twelve-year-old inventing flight-capable foot-wear.
"Dyna-Guy would have killed for some of those back in the day." He grinned as he remembered his fellow Super's perpetual groaning about his old power gauntlets which, while letting him fly, prohibited him from actually doing anything with his hands mid-flight.
The rocket boots had been one of the first Super Suit components to come out of Mirage's design workshop, working from blueprints found in Buddy's bedroom. The royalties involved had made the Pine family extraordinarily rich, and he hoped that it was at least some consolation that their son's work was now practically standard issue for Supers the world over.
Yes, the kid would have made a fine inventor and all-around super-genius one day, perhaps even working with the NSA itself. And if the kid hadn't been killed, he and Helen...best not to focus on what might have been.
But the past wouldn't stay quiet, and he could almost hear the kid pleading with him, promising that if Incredible would just give him a chance, the boy would win his respect. The kid had been so enthusiastic, maybe he could have let him come along and stay in the M.E.V., the thing was bullet-proof. If only...if only...then he could feel Buddy's gloved hand, small and warm in his own massive paw...
Wait, he could really feel it. His eyes shot open to see a midnight blue glove gently wrapped around his own fingers, a grey too-large sweater threatening to swallow the smaller hand.
"You know, I don't think I've ever been out here. This place is sad, but I guess it has to be. Nothing ever really begins here, just a bunch of endings." He wasn't entirely sure whether Mirage's comments were directed at him or herself, but at the moment it didn't seem to matter. He attempted to extricate his fingers, and he almost succeeded before her grip tightened. He looked back to her face to see her eyes, now an icy blue partially covered by short black hair, boring into him.
"I've never seen you with your mask off. I guess I never stopped to think how a simple piece of material can change the shape of someone's face." She gave a playful smile, "Don't think I've ever seen you in jeans and a jacket either. The overall effect is quite pleasing, I have to admit." Not even waiting for a response from the temporarily silenced Super, she bent down to examine the small plaque.
Finally finding his voice, he directed as stern a glare at her back as he could manage, "I've always done this alone, Mirage. and--"
"Fine, you're doing it alone...but I'm here too, so play nice."
"I'm trying to be serious here, this is..."
"This is what, exactly?"
"It's something that I...that I do..."
"I can see that. But I'm working with you and I deserve to be a part of this, too."
"But...what? A part of...do you even realize what happened?"
"Yes, I do. I can read, you know, and you've got several old newspapers stacked up in a corner back at your little hideaway." Through this entire exchange he'd been staring at her back, now she stood and turned to him, "What I meant, Incredible, is that this thing has been tearing you up for years, and the psychological after-effects have the potential to cloud your judgment. That, and several of your allies have mentioned to me that you need someone to work with, someone who can keep you from pushing yourself past your limits, and if I'm going to work with you I need to know if there are any situations that may compromise your ability to complete a mission."
"I don't need a partner and Mr. Incredible doesn't have limits." He found himself becoming increasingly frustrated as she coolly stared at him, her mouth set in a neutral line.
"Mr. Incredible is a persona, an idea. Ideas may be bullet-proof, but the men and women who wear them are not. You met your limits once, and--"
"And people died," Incredible cut across her, but Mirage calmly nodded and pressed on.
"Yes, people died. People die all the time, and having Supers operating nearby does nothing to stop that. If anything, the removal of Supers could be seen by some as a good thing. Life expectancy in several cities would skyrocket, including Ferropolis."
"And this is making me feel so much better."
"It should, actually, because what I'm trying to say is that Supers, by our very nature, can't live in a world built for more...fragile beings without breaking a few eggs."
"Gamma Jack's been talking to you, hasn't he?"
Mirage's face registered blank surprise for a moment, then she was laughing so hard she looked like she might fall, "Jack?" she managed to get out between breaths, "Jack? Oh my...you have got to be joking, you think I would spare two seconds to talk to that pompous idiot? Please, he thinks the sun shines out of his..." Again her voice was momentarily lost to a fit of laughter, "This is wonderful, I wish I had a recording of that." She laughed herself into silence before turning back to meet Incredible's eyes, her face once more serious.
"You don't have to worry about me going all, "Master Race" on you, Incredible. Honestly, I don't see how Jack can still get away with it, especially considering all those horrible things they found at the end of the Second Great War. All I'm saying is, some measure of invulnerability is inherent with all of our powersets, not just with the dedicated fighters. Supers as a whole are simply physiologically tougher than non-Supers, and we can't always tread lightly around bystanders."
"My job is, and has always been, to protect people. Are you trying to tell me that my entire life is a lost cause?"
"No, Incredible, I'm not. Believe me when I say that your life, your drive, has been anything but a lost cause. Another few years and you'll have probably saved more lives than Penicillin, and you've become the role model for a new generation of heroes."
Incredible sighed, "Look, I know that you're just trying to help, but there's no changing this." He gestured helplessly at the marker, "At the end of the day, all that matters is that the kid's not coming back. If I'd moved a little faster I could've caught his cape and pulled the bomb off. He wouldn't have died, and none of this would have happened. I--"
Mirage calmly cut across him, "No, none of this would have happened...or maybe it might have happened anyway, just different circumstances. The future is unknowable, but the past is unchangeable. Buddy Pine died, and his death has made you into the Super you are right now. You are driven by the desire to protect and serve the people of this city and of the world, and in doing so you've pushed yourself to be the best you could possibly be."
"And I'm still not fast enough!" Incredible shouted, "I'm still letting people die! I have to get stronger and faster, I need to learn how to fight smarter, I still need to...to..." At this point he couldn't find any of the words that had sounded so wonderful in his head, in fact his brain seemed to be giving up on this whole exchange as he let himself settle onto a small bench nearby.
"I'm not...not strong enough," He finally managed, staring at the dimly lit gravel pathway. A moment later, he felt Mirage's hand on his shoulder. Looking up, he saw her in front of him, her face lowered to his eye level with the ghost of an amused smile tugging at her lips.
"I believe that's the point of partners, Incredible. If we work together, you won't have to be." He watched as her blue eyes flickered and faded, replaced by a whirl of colors that glittered like a tumbling prism. He saw violet sparks give way to brilliant gold bursts, flames of red burning through blue ice in a dance that had him completely entranced. Finally the wildly dancing colors subsided, settling on her favorite shade of green as he suddenly realized he'd been staring.
The buzzing communicator in his pocket was a perfect way to hide his embarrassment. "What's happening?" He asked, flipping the small device open to reveal a map rapidly zooming in on a set of coordinates.
"Coordinates are just outside of Lanceport, threat of destruction by terrorist calling himself Xanek. It is confirmed that Class B military bionics are in use. Be advised, NSA computers do not have a match on the terrorist, assume a first-time encounter. Repeat, intel on Xanek is zero, proceed with caution." The NSA dispatcher said.
"Acknowledged, Incredible out." He shut the device with a small snap. "Class B...I hate cyborgs." He got up from the bench, setting off for his car at a jog.
"Who knows? Maybe this Xanek spent all his money on the weapons and didn't invest in a good AI," Mirage spoke up from beside him, easily keeping pace with Incredible.
"If he's a first-timer, there's a chance," Incredible responded, "Cross your fingers and hope for stupid cyborgs." He reached his car, door open and waiting, and slid into his seat. As he was about to start the engine, he heard a tapping at the passenger window. Looking over, he was completely unsurprised to see Mirage gesturing for him to unlock the door.
He rolled down the window slightly, "And what happens if I say 'no'?" Mirage smiled and tapped the side of her own vehicle, parked next to his. Incredible sighed.
"Fine, get in. Might as well save the NSA a little gas money." The door clicked open and Mirage settled herself into the passenger seat. As the car reached the main streets of Municiberg, Incredible triggered the transformation sequence and shot off into the night. As the road blurred, he thought about the upcoming mission, the ghosts of the past, and the chaotic swirl of colors dancing across an eye.
I'm not strong enough.
If we work together, you won't have to be.