My apologies for the shortness of this one, but - in all honesty - it didn't need to be very long. You'll get what I'm saying, I think. At any rate, please remember to stop when you see "Meanwhile, on the outside..." and make sure you've got your guess ready, and reread if you need to.

This is your final warning: this is a short chapter.


This one's from a movie.


Everyone winced on the impact. Though none of them could physically feel their host slam into the floor, they knew what it felt like. More importantly, though, was their "friend" who had accompanied them. Joy, with his jaw jutting out as usual when he was in a grim mood, looked over to Sadness. "How's it looking?" he asked.

Sadness looked at a rapidly-printing piece of paper coming out of the console's sleek, minimalist surface; only the absolute necessary buttons and levers were present, and those - too - were customized to fit in with the room's heavily stylized aesthetics. Next to Joy, a single red lever rested. The lever was currently in its "active" position. When inactive, machinery whirred and the room shifted and morphed into an average-looking apartment-like area. However, when the lever was active (as was currently the case)...

Well, sharp curves, jet-black surfaces, and slanted angles jutted out everywhere, for nothing but style.

So, even as Sadness took out the thin piece of receipt-looking paper, it somehow looked cool.

"Hmm," Sadness said, "Well, boys, we've got quite a problem. I think we've injured our man. And..." she sighed, "Well, it looks like he's not too happy with us for stepping in and delaying his meeting with God."

"Ungrateful," Anger said with a shake of his head. Disgust faintly nodded in agreement.

"Well," Fear said as he adjusted his constantly-slipping mask, "We'd better investigate this further, look up there!"

He turned a knob, and the monitor's contrast increased, bringing the black-and-white image further into focus. They were in a bank.

"Uh... so?" Disgust asked.

Fear raised a single eyebrow. Disgust suddenly got it. "Ah," he replied.

"Ah indeed," Fear concurred. Then, to Joy, "Sir, I think we could do worse than get our package out to safety and make sure this isn't what we think it is."

Joy nodded, "Agreed, let's rock, roll, and get this outta the way. We're not late yet, are we?"

"Uh..." Disgust began, but Fear cut him off.

"Nevermind," the purple emotion quickly added, "Please don't answer that."

"Fear's right," Sadness said, "We gotta focus on this situation, our date can wait."

Disgust scoffed at the understatement. "Date, indeed." But he didn't say another word. The group went right to work, getting the civilian to a safe location before investigating what was more than likely a trap...

Which was just fine to Joy. He couldn't suppress his smile. He loved a good trap. It made the bad guys look stupid when their precious plans go sideways, and - more importantly - it made them look good. Very good. He chuckled to himself, thinking about how much he loved his job. The smile was quickly wiped from his face when the explosion happened.

"A trap!" Fear shouted, "I knew it!"

"Perfect," Anger snarled with a grin.

"I couldn't agree more," Joy added, cracking his knuckles, "Anger, could you get a few good taunts up?"

Having already pulled the cassette tapes out, the red emotion snickered to himself, "Way ahead of you, sir."

"Let's just make sure nobody else gets hurt," Sadness cautioned, "you boys play so rough sometimes..."

"Sadness," Joy said with his usual suave demeanor, "What's the fun in not playing a little rough?"

As all the banter was going on, Disgust slouched over. Beneath that green mask of his, he was closing his eyes shut tightly and sighing heavily. 'We are so gonna be late,' he thought to himself.


Meanwhile, on the outside, the heavy bank door was being pushed aside as Mr. Incredible confronted his arch nemesis. With a dramatic glare and an equally dramatic snarl, he said, "Bomb Voyage..."

The freaky French arsonist went slack-jawed, his smugness turning to indignation. "Monsieur Incroyable!" he declared in disgust.

Mr. Incredible was ready to rumble, his fists clenched and his jaw set, but the mood was killed - absolutely killed - by the whiny voice of a prepubescent little twerp.

"And IncrediBoy!" Buddy declared from across the room.

"IncrediBoy?" the confused villain asked.

Mr. Incredible simply sighed and hung his head in frustration. 'That's it,' he thought, 'I am not going to be at the wedding on time. She's... she's gonna kill me.'


Alright, so - yeah - this one was very short. It didn't need to be any longer, though. I felt like this scene would have drug on had I added more and more detail, and I also feel like - if you've seen The Incredibles - this one would be fairly obvious right away:

1. The impact at the beginning was - of course - when Mr. Incredible rescued the one man from suicide.

2. The style of the room, and how it could change from a normal apartment to a stylized, spy-like 50's control center, was supposed to be a huge hint that this took place in the Incredible's universe.

3. The mask that I said Fear and Disgust had on was supposed to clue you in on them being in the mind of a superhero.

4. Joy, obviously, thoroughly enjoying this was supposed to reflect Mr. Incredible's overall demeanor at the film's start - sure, he liked helping people, but come on - you could tell he was a little cocky and loved the excitement of it all, too, maybe even more than he liked helping people (though not by much - I'm not implying he's a bad guy, here, just that he gets very excited about crimefighting).

5. The reference to "bad guys" was another hint at a superhero.

6. The monitor being black-and-white should naturally conjure up images of a time before color television, again hinting at the world of the Incredibles (at least near the start of the film).

7. Last of all, the references to "being late" were to re-enforce what was going on in the movie; at the back of Mr. Incredible's mind, he was constantly checking to see how close his wedding is, and always coming up with "I've still got time." Incidentally, this goes back to how much he loves his job.