See? I'm updating. On Friday. When I said I would. If anything, I deserve some credit for that. I'm doing better than I was...
Well, here's chapter three, changed but not substantially. A handful of readers will find some important changes in here, or rather, one or two important changes that have a lot to do with what I was building up to when I stopped posting.
Read on.
She wasn't sure when she woke up, exactly. She wasn't sure of a lot of things. Was Tony still here? It didn't sound like him, anyway, walking quietly and being careful not to slam the cabinet doors (not that there was much in them). Well, if not Tony, who was in the kitchen? How had she gotten to the couch? Had someone put her there? Why was she covered in band-aids? Tony would move her somewhere more comfortable when she fell unconscious, but he would not take the time to patch her up.
Violet tried to sit up on her aching arms, but found the couch didn't want to let go of her; it was strangling her, her arms were pinned to her sides… The blanket she was wrapped in- too tightly, of course, she must've turned over in her sleep and gotten tangled- had gotten stuck under the cushion.
What happened…? Violet rolled off the couch, hitting the ground with a light thump, and instinctively turned invisible.
Calmly, he unwrapped the silver packaging on the strawberry Pop-Tarts and took a bite. Mmm. Artificial jelly. Savoring the taste, he wiped a few crumbs from his mouth and turned to throw the silver and blue wrapper away; it was then that he heard the thump behind him, and spun around, looking for the source. He saw nothing.
Well, nothing except a floating pair of ripped jeans, accompanied by an equally torn t-shirt and a still-new hospital bracelet. Violet didn't seem to realize that she was invisible- or she had forgotten she wasn't in her suit. Whichever was the case, she wouldn't have done it on purpose- what if he was normal?
Wait, he thought sarcastically, I forgot. I am.
"W-who-" She panted, trying to get the words out.
"Who am I?" He finished, smirking. In all honesty, he couldn't wait for her response, even if it was violent. Really, now, imagine-
Violet flicked back into visibility, frowning slightly, and he took this as a Yes.
Why does this man seem so familiar? Oh, my God, that looks like-
"An old friend." He answered her question, smirking.
"S-s-s-" She stuttered, then gave up.
Throwing a force field around herself in panic, she screamed.
When Mirage and Neal returned, they found him sitting at the kitchen table, calmly sipping a cup of coffee and reading the paper, as if this was the most normal thing for a criminal to be doing in his enemy's daughter's apartment at 11:30 at night. Neal noticed a strange look of dread in his eyes, but didn't mention it.
"Syndrome!" Mirage cried out, running to him. "What's going on here-"
"Shh." He said, annoyed, then shook his head as if she was being unreasonable. "She, ah, just went to sleep awhile ago."
It had been four or five hours since Mirage and Neal had left the apartment- Mirage had to fly back to Nomanisan to pick up the unexpectedly needed surveillance equipment (not to mention several henchmen to set it up) while Neal had been driving around, trying to find a hotel that would suit Syndrome's comfort. He had found a three-star about six miles away, and immediately bought out the suite.
Syndrome, cold-hearted as he may have been at large, had changed considerably since the jet accident. His hair was the same, though at the time, it hadn't been slicked up as usual. That might draw a little attention in the hallway. He was a little more appreciative of life, or at least, he had become so in the past few years. The life lesson hadn't hit him until a few months after the accident; he had been watching old news coverage of himself, and it had suddenly hit him that by eliminating the supers in order to be seen as the one true hero, he was placing himself in an untouchable category. In essence, he was doing exactly what Mr. Incredible had done, and exactly what had driven him to do what he had. That night, he aborted all plans for another bout of revenge on the Incredibles and fired half of his guards, silently molding back into the role of weapons dealer. Albeit it may have still been an illegal path, it was much less guilt-ridden.
See, he had several body doubles. One had been on board with him, and it was him that had been sucked into the jet engine. The real Syndrome had been hurt in the crash (and all the other doubles had been killed when the base exploded, but that was a pretty self-destruct-button-like situation) but not badly, thanks to quick use of his zero-point energy. Not so horribly, anyway, that he couldn't return to his secondary base with his pride and rest for a few days with a sprained wrist and a few bruises, maybe one broken rib, but that was easily fixed by the medical team. Of course, he wasn't quite so quick to hurt anyone now, he understood the value. Or, as much as a cold-blooded killer could. But was he such a cold-blooded killer? Really, now, he had been planning on stealing a kid and raising him. Sure, the kidnapping part was wrong, but, the raising part…
"Well, what do we do now?" Mirage asked tiredly. It was understandable that she was so exhausted; she had been running around all day, preparing for this.
"Have the men set up the screening equipment back in our hotel room, then come with the FOW2's." He replied swiftly. "Neal and I will stay here for awhile, to make sure her attacker doesn't come back."
"Did you find out who it is?" Mirage asked quietly.
Syndrome shook his head, staring off at the closed door of Violet's bedroom. Mirage frowned in confusion at the number of beer bottles that had appeared on the counter, but didn't say anything, instead choosing to go and retrieve the guards to set up the cameras.
For a short while before she had finally learned the reason Syndrome and his team had come, Violet had fought against him, trying to prove she was strong enough to beat him down… but she wasn't. The fact that he didn't fight back- didn't see her as a threat?- bothered her more, made her more angry. But she was hurt, seriously hurt, and didn't know how much longer she could hold herself up; she was already dizzy, and her head was throbbing, but she knew that with her metabolism and quick healing, she would feel better within the hour. After ten minutes of just uselessly beating her fists against his chest, she eventually gave up and slid to the floor, clutching her head. Surprisingly enough, Syndrome had squatted down next to her, put a hand on her shoulder.
"Are you alright?" He said professionally.
"Yes, just peachy." She said sarcastically, gritting her teeth. "What do you think!"
"Who did this to you?" He asked quietly, narrowing his eyes.
She was taken aback, confused at his question. Why did he want to know? To recruit him onto his team, train him to be his sidekick, as he had once said he would do with Jack-Jack?
"I don't remember." She hissed defensively. "All I remember is being hurt, and you- and you in the kitchen!"
At this point, the tired, injured super came to the conclusion that if she pretended to think Syndrome was the attacker, she could get by without telling the truth for a while longer.
"Right." Syndrome drawled, raising an eyebrow, then apparently gave up on this question, switching tactics. "Are you hungry?"
"What?!" She exclaimed, confused. "You attack me to the point of losing consciousness, and now you want to know if I'm hungry?"
"Cut the crap, Violet." Syndrome rolled his eyes. "You know as well as I do I'm not here to attack you. Are you hungry or not?"
Chastised, she paused, then responded meekly that she wasn't, she was just fine. Her stomach chose just now to complain loudly that she had not been able to eat her ramen, the stomach acid inside it wasn't enough, and it might enjoy some food right about now; preferably something involving a lot of carbohydrates. Syndrome stood up quickly, moving to the cabinets, and pulled out another package of Ramen, as he had thrown the cold soup on the table into the garbage.
"This stuff is horrible for you, you know." He remarked, pulling a pot out of the drying rack.
"What did you expect, lobster bisque?" She demanded, and he chuckled.
"You really need to learn to control that temper." He shook his head.
She paused, then sighed.
"If you're not here to attack me, even though you've made that the clear reason, why are you here?"
"Reconnaissance." He answered simply, then paused, uncomfortable. "We wanted to see how much you know."
"About what?" She asked apprehensively.
"About your family." He said quietly.
Alarms went off in Violet's head about her usually frequently visiting family. It was Monday; her mother always called on Sunday afternoons, without fail, and in the extremely rare case she couldn't, she would call Saturday night. Her mother had not called yesterday.
"What happened?" She demanded, her voice getting higher and higher pitched.
"Listen… Violet, I'm-"
"Tell me!" She yelled, the super's usually tired voice almost an octave higher than usual.
Syndrome sighed, then sat her down at the kitchen table, abandoning the empty pot and Ramen package on the stove.
"Violet…" He began, hands folded, and she promptly burst out crying.
"How many of them?" She sobbed, her face in her hands, knees coming up to her chest, heels of her feet rested on the chair.
Syndrome paused, unsure of how to answer; something inside him squirmed guiltily. Wait- what was that? Pity? For his enemy's daughter, someone he hardly knew, someone that he had once been plotting to kill? No. It couldn't be. Dismissing this emotion, he sighed and laid his hands flat on the table, closing his eyes; at the moment, he didn't want to see her expression.
"All of them."
He waited for the news of her family's death to sink in, holding his breath. ½ a second, 1 second, 1 ½…
"You killed my family!!" She shrieked, eyes wide and blind, and Syndrome jumped up.
"That's not what happened!" He roared. "Listen to me!"
She suppressed another sob, slowly turning her gaze at him in fear, shock, misery…
"There was a mole in the NSA." Syndrome said slowly, voice heavy. "Since your family's was the last file accessed, they managed to get into that one. The program kicked them out just as it reached Parr, Helen. Your file wasn't opened. They sold the information to a super defamation league. They were lynched."
She cringed at the term, at this new revelation- her family, gone, all of them. Violet was the only Incredible left; other than Frozone, the only Super left.
"B-but," Tears were flowing freely now, and she made no attempt to stop them, "Dash and Jack-Jack were away on vacation…"
"We went to go contact them." Syndrome sighed again. "When we got there, they had already been there. It was too late. I'm sorry, Violet."
Syndrome tried to look the distraught super in the eye, but found it physically impossible; this was the girl that, not six years ago, he himself had made every effort to kill.
No, no, he corrected himself, he had only explicitly wanted Incredible dead, though, at the time, found killing his daughter to be spectacular revenge. Violet stood shakily, pausing for a moment as if teetering on the edge of a giant cliff, before breaking into a run from the kitchen into the living room. Midway there, she tripped- it looked like her ankle might've been twisted, possibly sprained. Crying out in utter despair, Violet fell, crumpling into a heap on the ground. Syndrome tried to help her up, but she pulled away from him, mustering dignity enough to collapse on the couch, crying quietly to herself.
Syndrome sighed, shaking his head at how monstrously that had gone, and turned towards the fridge. WIth a little more force than necessary, he grasped a beer bottle in his hand and slammed the fridge door shut. It set off a set of chimes hanging from a magnet on the door, and he winced as Violet stirred, sniffing to herself, and peered at him. Her eyes lit on the bottle in his hand, and she let out a sigh of defeat, screwing up her face in frustration. Syndrome opened the door again and took out another bottle before walking over to the couch and handing it to her solemnly.
"I'm sorry."
So, I have a task for you:
Old readers- do you notice/ know what the changes are, and do you think there's any way I could've handled them better? I felt it was kind of choppy. Also, in the future, I'm going to have a few questions on Mirage, so dredge up all you can from memory about her and what she did before and after That Much Bigger Than Everything Else Thing She Did.
New readers- How do you feel about Syn at this point? I hadn't put anything in the last version about seeing himself as Mr. Incredible, but transitioned right from "They'll pay," to "I'm here to protect you," with not much transcience in his character between then. Opinions on how you think the deaths of the Incredibles would affect everyone, opinions on everything. Favorite line, least favorite line, whatever. I want to know what you think, besides "update soon, please!"
"Update soon, please" doesn't earn you review cookies :P
So review with substance!
irishpiratess
