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A government cage; we're going to be rats in a government cage! Mr Incredible fumes to himself and isn't far wrong: to have a house and a home blown by a falling plane (even if it be the plane of the villain Syndrome) wins sympathy but to go up in smoke to the weak excuse of a gas leak wins suspicion. Metroville has always been a power-house stash-house for the Agency so it isn't any trouble to offer the Parr Family temporary housing while their own home is rebuilt again. For all that; the place Mr Incredible has just been shown is a bare shoebox of a nothing, with single bedrooms for everyone. They seem as much cells as rooms and the home a lab zone.
It all came about when Violet lashed out — after saying things no daughter ever should say. It isn't unusual for any girl to go through a phase of a crush on her pop but his girl was far more serious than that. Having powers it was hard to date the ordinary and, after Syndrome, hard to find the extraordinary. Helen and Bob had got the chills between them; Violet had got the hots and was as safe a bet as any guy could wish. Her very own powers had violated her own body; to where she would never have offspring. With her in the spring of her youth Bob Parr ran from feelings no father should have. He was leaping, bounding, pounding the route of his patrol and pondering the Valentine Day Massacre that had sparked this whole mess off. It had begun in the mall where he'd been hunting up a loving token for his wife.
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Malls! They were a special kind of a hell for Bob Parr, for Mr Incredible yet he would brave this one if he could buy back Helen's lovefire.. Superheroes were the cynosure of the day and their very images coined in the brand money. The Incredibles' protected bank account ran into six figures but it cost Mr Incredible to be called a brute of a beast; to cash in on his family so. No matter that a full ninety percent went to the government; the refreshed Supers Act that charged the rent meant that he was gagged from saying so. Even incognito then, Mr Incredible was made uneasy by the sea of heroism blanketing the malls and the more so that amongst all of the incredibilia there were also icons of his old comrades. All of the supers had been swept to dizzying heights as the nation found a wave of vitality in the wake of Syndrome's villainy
It had washed through every almost every walk of life. In posters, banners, windowdressings, mannequins and adverts. The superheroic and dazzlingly brilliant images went everywhere; marketed everything. They boasted and boosted a clear, bright, comic-book culture where light beat might every time. This had spilled over into the humdrum world as a boost of confidence and a surge of pzazz: people spent widely and wildly while trade grew and industry burgeoned. Uncle Sam was dancing and he was dancing a jig.
BAM BAM BAM — gatecrashers
Gunfire had Bob Parr wishing Supers were right here, right now ... at the Berettas flash and the rifles crash, to the echo of the Thompson gun. The gun that thugs had mounted on the gallery; which was right above the mezzanine he was on. He had a grandstand view of all of the action and saw that the thugs idea of a Valentine day outing was to ransack the mall and rob the innocent blind. They were off to a good start too: with all the mallcops corralled in a Sushi stall while the thugs made a meal of everything else. They used their highpoint gun at the topmost and smallest level of the mall to dare anybody to just try anything if they felt like being a colander. That level had been nearly deserted and surely had no guards on it so no help was coming from that quarter.
Far the worst was that Mr Incredible was reduced to Mr Impotent: if he moved so much as a whisper from where he stood he'd make the thugs aware of him and who knew what they might do then. He wasn't even in costume; hadn't his costume on underneath or any means by how he might call for his costume or his family. If he acted at all he'd blow his cover and maybe blow all he'd built of the family life he had fought for. He for sure wouldn't bet that the government would dig him out of a hole that he'd dug for himself; not at all when the issue of the exploded house yet spread a cloud of doubt over them. That was one time when Mr Incredible could do nothing but watch and pray that he wasn't needed to save the day.
The robbers were running riot; piling up baskets and trolleys like a horde of bargain hunters at the January sales ... only it wasn't toasters and jeans that loaded them down but wallets & watches, gems & jewelry, cards & coins, high-end & high-tech kit. Wherever and whenever an elderly frail baulked at handing over her valuables or some gentleman tried to make a defiant stand there would be a swirl of activity and of violence: a blow to the head or belly, the flow of blood and a body down. That nobody had been shot or knifed as yet was the veriest luck: a situation like this was bound to disintegrate into inchoate savagery. Nor was there the least hope of any authority intervening; not with the mallcops under guard and the mall under command of the mobsters The commoners (Bob Parr being one of those as things were) was in no shape to be anything but the most literal of captive audiences. This big moment would be played out in front of their eyes but not a one them would be able to claim to have played any part in it.
What a moment it was too ... when a red and black blur pinballed over the groundfloor mallwalk and a violet sphere swelled out of the sushi stand. It exploded outward and razed the cage that held the mallcops; so the entire troop was set loose to take down the felons. Invisible herself wasn't having it so easy as she looked to be that slowed and tangled by the remnant of the concession that she was a standing target for the two crooks who had been keeping guard. Brutal machine-pistols were levelled and aimed; fingers were tight on triggers and only then did Invisible lift her hands up on outstretched arms, so she made a tee shape. A violet globe formed around each of her clenched fists and then blasted out at the twin targets: one killer took a crack pure in the skull that whipped her head back so sharply that you could hear it break and the other of the pair had a thunderblow to the heart that stopped him dead.
All of which was the entrance of the Incredibles, at least two of them: the speedster Dash and the soapbubble spinning girl. Primary toned lighting raged through the complex, tearing apart the storm cloud of crooks, ripping apart the mood of terror and despair that had fallen on the scene only moments before. The grimy everyday ordeal of a mugging, a robbery, a thievery had turned into a starburst miracle of exhilaration. Wherever it was that Dash flew then another one of the cons went down and never got up again: as the felon was pounced upon and ensnared by the mallcops. Bob Parr had never had a grandstand view of his own children in action before and, now that he was getting exactly that, he was hardly able to believe how bright the world could become in just a blink of an eye.
That "Blink of an Eye" was Invisible, who was able to disappear as easily as she was able to inflate a sphere. Dash was perhaps taking all of the glory and attention with his barnstorm show at the heart of it all. That was only to say he made the grand distraction so nobody stopped to ask where it was that the girl had got to. A rattle of gunfire from above advertised the answer: apparently Invisible had become apparent to the Thompsonsists and they'd turned the Tommy Gun onto her. Bob Parr desperately craned his head around; he had to know what was happening to Violet. He was just in time to watch as his girl whirled out some bodysize spheres that rumbled down upon the guncrew.
It was defence and self-defence: they had beyond any doubt fired on Invisible first; but that was the whole height of the mall to fall. Bob Parr winced as he counted every thump and bump as the felons made the ground: one, then two, then three, and finally eight; eight coffins to be made! Ten skittles were down; that was if you counted the sushi stall battle. Invisible had hardly paused to draw breath; Violet had not wasted a moment on the fate of the crooks she had stopped.
The heroine belted down the stairway and along across the level below Bob Parr. From his eagle eyrie viewpoint he was able to catch a glimpse of a motion; there was a thug slipping into a niche across from the path that Violet was on. The villain had his gun cocked, aimed and ready; he was set for ambush and for a murder. Bob Parr was lost then: he had frozen and was caught up in the moment; not knowing whether to take action, to break cover, to move or to yell. Long before he was able to do anything the gun had crashed, and the bullet sung a path to a dying scream that pierced Bob's head.
In the very instant of firing, at that last crucial second, when there was no time to hesitate or consider, then and only then had Violet caught sight of the hazard and flung up a forcefield to save herself. It had snapped over the alcove even as the bullet was leaving the gun. The shot had ricocheted to make a waste of the thievish face; one that not even a mother would recognise. That was what had happened, that was what had to have happened: just one desperate, split-second, act of self-preservation and eleven felons to the morgue. Bob Parr had seen the incident from start to gory end and he knew he was right. He knew that Invisible Girl could not have seen the danger and the snare, could not have anticipated and turned the trap on it's head; because if she had seen — if she had — the comic book dream was no dream but a nightmare.
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The memory strikes Mr Incredible as hard as any bullet. That instant of doubt about Violet marks his very soul. It is exactly that which has led to the row which saw Violet kick off into one superpowered teen fit. For perhaps the first time ever Violet completely lost the plot and let rip with more power than all of the family together could overcome. The casualty was their home and the consequences he does not yet know. He is already uneasy around Violet as she targets him as a man more than a father and that he entirely doesn't want; or so he tells himself.
He can't have her on the team for that reason alone and then there is that she never shows the verve that all of the rest of the family do. How can he sideline his very own daughter though and what to do if he does? Who can fill that place in the team, in the family, in his life? Helen is barely with him these days in so many ways and in bed least of all but he cannot, must not, will not let Violet take those roles. Mr Incredible Parr groans and rages at a universe that has given him everything he could want except a full family and anyone at all that he can call a partner. Superpower that he is he should be more mindful than that — if you must tempt fate know that the answer you get will never be the one that you would wish for.
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A/N
Yep ye are right ye cute hoors this was a solo fic once. Fecked myself by getting clever and thinking folks would join all my Incredibles jigsaw fics up by their own selves. Well shite that for a plan: looks as tho they all have to be sewn up by me. Same sceal is true for most of chapters after too.