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«» No Incredible Family - Chapter Four «»
« painful memories of past damage all past healing »
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Helen Parr sighs: this rabbit hutch of a house, that the government has grudgingly made over to her family while their own home is under repair, is no place for the energies of a Dash or a Mr Incredible. It does grate that she is getting next to no support from her nearest and dearest. Her best help, their best help, comes from the half-alive Violet and they all take it for granted even now; even after none of them were there for Violet when she died inside.
Helen wishes she could still take the family for granted but there is as much work to be done in rebuilding the family unit as there is in rebuilding the family home. Violet alone has been entirely broken apart; it has taken Helen months of patient enquiry to tease the story out of Violet crumb by crumb and even now Helen can hardly believe how much they all missed of what was right in front of their eyes. She runs the tale through her mind again and again.
… … … … …
Once they'd become global darlings it only needed Dash to comment how he wanted to know his best official speed and Cern was there to offer facilities. They jetted top class to Geneva. It was a gargantuan leap from the old drudgery to a five-star lifestyle and it rocked Helen's world.
Whatever about how it had all felt to Helen, it seemed that Violet was still half in hell and all she had in mind was the relief that her powers were improving and would improve more with a new region to practice in. Helen and indeed nobody had sensed how keenly Violet felt that she had been a deadweight on their first unofficial mission. All of the slips and mishaps around Syndrome the girl blamed on her own failures during their initial mission. Helen so much hated that her daughter felt so bad and yet (if Violet hadn't guilted out then) she never would have become the one to keep Dash alive in Europe later.
Unknown to any, Violet had become fiercely determined that her family would never be let down by her again. She had pushed her powers to the Nth degree and sought out every possible jot of training, information, education and clarification that she could obtain. In all the time between that first journey to Nomanisan and their journey to Cern Violet had privately devoted herself to being the hero and protector who could keep her family safe and make them proud of her; never mind any cost to her. It was a vow that was all too soon to be tested to the limits of Violet's capabilities.
The plainest, keenest, strongest and strangest advice had come from Edna Mode. She'd cautioned Violet not just to go barefoot, for as often as she could, but to go barebodied too. Edna had the greatest faith in the world in her costumery but it wasn't blind faith and if Violet was in a spot where she could not get hold of her costume than she had better not be a tenderfoot. Her feet had to be tough enough to stand up to anything — to stand on anything — and she had to be able to endure the elements with impunity; if she ever needed to become invisible on the spur of the moment, costume or no costume.
Nor was it the only odd habit that Edna had urged on Violet. The teenager might still be the shy, shrinking Violet who dressed to obscure as much of herself as might be hidden but these days she wore soft, loose styles; kickoff footwear and nothing in the way of hosiery or lingerie. It made for the quickest of changes from standing out like a signal-flag to being nothing at all.
Helen, Bob and even the agency had known none of this; not known a thing about how very staunch, tough and ready Violet had become. That they hadn't known about it before Geneva was just barely excusable but how did none of them observe it later — after the events in Geneva and all of their other adventures after that. It had taken all of Helen's painstaking enquiry over months cramped together in this temporary house before her daughter, oh so very gradually, let slip what had been going on with her for so long. It was a blessing that Violet had done all of that though — or else Bomb Voyage would for sure have killed away son and daughter by his savage attack back then in Geneva.
Bob and Helen were at an initial meeting at Cern and Bomb Voyage had chosen that moment (with his well known concern for all childer and citizenry) to lash out on his attempt to give a ferocious lesson to the superheroes: that they'd set out upon such a path of danger that they could never be sure of the safety of their very own darlings. He'd monologued it all out in detail; when he'd confronted the kínder by themselves, by the side of Lake Leman. It was his revenge for what he saw as the whimsical usurpation of French facilities.
He'd told the youngsters how his eggshaped Yeuxchasseur would catch sight of any movement by their cyclopean eyes and then fixate on the speediest of moving bodies before exploding on a proximity fuse into a shower of flechettes. Naturally he expected the superheroes to be the quickest: for if they refused to sprint (to keep on pacing till they were run ragged) then the Yeuxchasseur would go for the fastest moving being it found and, if it wasn't a Super, then it would certainly be a plain, civilian, bystander who was injured.
A cruel, adroit and rounded trap that gave the childer no opening to call for help or gather their wits. Dash was off in a flash: he had his costume on, being as he had expected to be running today (if not like this), but it was under a long and ordinary tee; he had been keeping his sister company and she was dressed in mufti.
Being that shade less conspicuous he did his best to keep to the congested streets; where he had the most chance of hiding among the crowd of people and gaining respite from an endless and unwinnable contest. To be sure he could outpace, outsmart, outmanoeuvre those devices but only until his energy flagged and his speed bled away. All in all he was keeping to quite a small circuit at the heart of the city and was doing well enough yet knowing he couldn't keep doing well enough for long enough but having no notion of how to arrest his motion.
The only good that Dash could claim was that he was clearly the fastest moving object in the area so he could be certain the Yeuxchasseur would be concentrated on him; which kept the locals perfectly safe. That is as safe as anyone might be in the vicinity of a downburst of razor shards; which Dash was adamant to prevent for as long as it was humanly possible. Human was the problem however; even a hero is a human and has limits and Dash was very close to his.
Violet's dilemma was of an entirely other sort; she was no Dash so — although she could certainly outspeed the dour, solid citizenry — she'd never be able to kick up enough of a pace to get herself out of danger. Her only chance was to be an invisible heroine. It took all of everything of the advice that Violet had taken from Edna to make the escape a success against those autobombs that pursued her. She had slalomed away from the hunters and down the lanes of Geneva — as garments flew from her like autumn leaves from off a tree.
One last evasion down an alleyway and then Violet was gone from view of the Seeingeye Bombs, the Yeuxchasseur; the evil that Bomb Voyage had sprung upon the Incredibles. Then she glided her skinned self between the burghers of the town. However, all of the while she took care to catch sight of whoever it might be — at any one moment — that the Yeuxchasseur were coming down upon.
These days she sure could walk and chew gum at the same time so she was entirely able to stay unclad and unseen and do more besides. Even as she kept herself vanished she knew she could still and at the same time cast up an energy barrier; to deflect off any of the flechettes. from every innocent victim. To be sure a flock of the Yeuxchasseur had gone off after Dash but not all of them by any means and so whoever it was that was around and a shade faster than the other citizens they were in need of Violet's assistance. It was a strategy that worked time and again until she began to weary and to lose both her timing and her targeting.
From then on more and more of the flechettes found their way through; even if they were doing but minor damage to the ordinary populace — because the varied paces of the strollers kept the attacks at wellspaced distances from one another. It wasn't going at all so well for Violet: so as to be certain that she kept an ironclad shield up on every innocent victim she found herself too close to a shredding rain of flechettes too many times. Violet only ever suffered from incidental fallout, not from a total complement of weaponry, but accumulate enough near misses and you'll be in as much trouble as if you've suffered a direct hit. All of her vulnerable body was tigerstriped scarlet even if it couldn't be seen by any eye.
In just the same way as Dash, she was facing the limits of her human frailty. She knew she couldn't keep every individual protected from assault indefinitely; if only there was a way to bag up all the Yeuxchasseur in one net. Then the plan came to her and she chased down the other knot of hunters to reach her brother, her fellow target. Rapidly the unseen Violet murmured her plan to Dash; it was nothing more than the old bait and snatch.
Dash was bait; he shucked off his tee, whipped out the mask and was suddenly a fully costumed, bright beacon of a superhero. He made a straight line run to the Square of the Broken Chair. There, amongst the fountains, people tended to dally and laze; that meant that the Dash display of an ever accelerating speed was certain to draw down all of the Yeuxchasseur. Once the full of the waspnest was in one spot Violet spun a sphere of force around the entirety of the Yeuxchasseur.
Then she exerted all of her will; focused everything of herself down on one adamant goal. She fell to her knees, bare, bloody and exposed but was completely unaware of it — as all of her energies were locked onto the effort of pressing the cage of her will down ever smaller and tighter on the Yeuxchasseur. In the final end, the inevitable happened and the explodables exploded but this was not at all the same Violet who had lost a plane over the ocean — she was somehow equal to the whole force and contained and quelled the blast; even as it pure stole away her consciousness.
If it cost her that then it cost them both their one chance to see one of the wonders of the Scientific Age. Once the Geneva carnage had begun then the sensitive instruments at Cern had nosed it out and monitored the wunderkinder at one remove. That had not been at all enough for those keen and inquisitive minds or the anxious parents. They all had bundled into a van, along with a bundle, of instruments and got to the Square at just the time to record the how Dash had managed to draw all of the missiles together and get them to impact on each other. Helen groaned at the memory: that really had been the impression herself, her husband and all of the onlookers had taken away; of Dash saving the day and of a girl who had only managed to get herself in an awful stew.
To know now that all the time when Violet was all but passed out (from her superhuman effort as she put her scheme into action) the girl had heard her brother praised to the sky. To be fair to Dash: he never had got the full of the plan; he only knew that Violet had asked him to get to the square and go his fastest. He didn't understand what had happened any better than anyone else. Indeed, Helen now understood (but only in hindsight) that with the state Violet had been in … not only was the girl unidentifiable to the scientists but she didn't stand out at all from any of the other victims of this explosive incident. Had anyone understood at all where the power surge had come from it ought to have been those scientists.
The radiation experts watched and wondered and whispered to the parents that whatever forces their dark daughter was harnessing they were doing more damage to her than to anyone else and she had best not ever think of starting a family. That hidden secret (once thrown out) had cast a very long shadow indeed: unbeknownst to all Violet wasn't entirely out of it and had heard all to well the news that harrowed her down to her very soul.
Violet had known! Even now, so far after the incident, Helen can still barely swallow it: that in all those months, when she and Bob had not even been able to knuckle down and have a serious talk about The Talk that was needed; in all of that time Violet had known. She'd known and known too that nobody was trusting her even enough to tell her about her own body.
Helen winces, as she remembers how it hadn't hardly been Violet who had concerned any of the family back then. After immediate wounds, the problem was about how hard it was going to be for Dash to give up that run that he had set his heart on. With all of the consternation that was stirred up in Geneva the judgement was that it would be far the best to decamp for home immediately. Dash did not ever get his test run but had to hear that the immediate, empirical, results from the field made him far more like his father than he ever cared to be — having a Power whose power depended on the weight of the mood that he was in.
… … … … …
Which is the sum and total of all Helen can get out of Violet; however much of an effort she puts in or by whichever angle she comes at her daughter. Violet will admit to being unhappy about not being good enough and to being upset over how the story of her own body unwound. That is all and everything which she will tell about how she felt and how she is feeling. Everything else about her training, learning and battling are kept to scant dry facts.
Violet might be there in body yet the girl is fast vanishing from her family in every way that counts. Helen hates to do so but she has to be a virtual spy on her own daughter: to learn that Violet has redrawn all her electives at school; to move into physics, chemistry, biology and really science in a large and unexpected way; apart from some languages. Like any girl her age Violet puts in hours on her computer and her phone but the calls are long-distance, untraceable and not always English. Rick Dicker made what he called a weather check, when Violet was at school one day. He had the girl's tech away for long hours but, by the chagrin on his face, the Agency must not have been able to crack them at all. Puzzles enough but then there are the hours Violet spends with Edna Mode and just where can a schoolgirl find the cash and the nous that Violet has?
Out of a past of devastation and a present of mystification Helen is at a loss to account for how the stranger who Violet is fast becoming can also come to be so much of a homebody and childminder; while her brother and parents all do their best to spend their lives way outside of the suitcase that the government calls a home. If Violet wants to housemind and babysit then Helen is only too glad to have any support whatever, in this tight place. She will take what she can get and not look further. Far, far later and much too late Helen will know how she should never have left Violet as a dangling thread!
As ever though; Violet cannot win to the head of anyone's priority list. Helen is entirely serious about getting her law certificates and being an active legal eagle for powered people. The public and the authorities alike are to fickle to be trusted; while even her own husband is too giddy to be entirely reliable. Helen has always kept her own ground and she means to keep on doing so; even if future battles are going to be in the courts. The only help that Helen can depend on is coming from Violet and that is a puzzle in itself; after all that has happened to the family (to Violet most of all) how is it that the girl can take so aptly to babyminding?
Dash is only a kid; Helen can understand why he'd rather stay over at pals than jostle around in this pig pen and he has so very many of them that he never seems to stay in the same place for one day or night. Bob, though, is her husband and (as hard as a place this small is for a person as large as he is) he ought to be making an effort for her. Instead of that he seems to be spending most of his time haunting their wreck of a home and chivvying the builders into working harder, longer, better, faster.
That is a worry all of it's own. They will be moving back to the family home soon but there is just no way it will be quite the home it was and they aren't quite the family or team that they were. All of their lives seem to be fractured into befores and afters whether that be a Supers Act; Nomanisan; Omnidroids, Syndrome & demolition or Violet & demolition. The capstone to that is that Helen knows, with a sense of dread, that Mr Incredible Parr will never welcome or adapt to any difference in his world.
His world was the shining and glorious one of the superhero heyday. He did not ever accede to the Supers Act and expected the world to go back to exactly the way it had been; once the climate for heroes brightened again. He just never got that you never get to go back to the way you were. He will certainly not find the exact same home-life. team-life or family-life as he did have. Helen cannot bear to think how far off the rails her daughter and (even more worryingly) her husband might go. It is almost all to much for even an Elastigirl to stretch enough to cope with. Helen can only resign herself to facing whatever demons will come knocking at the door when they move back into their reborn home. Still and yet she hasn't plumbed the depths Violet has sunk to; to know that the demon to fear most is within doors.