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«» No Incredible Family - Chapter Nine «»

«» all about life beyond home «»

« with the house fixed the family comes home but they're not who they were »

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Mr Incredible has barely escaped from the worst battle he has ever faced: the one against himself and a plunge into darkness. All of the superheroes have a new burst of life: thanks to a redrawn Supers Act and a doting public. Mr Incredible is the champion of champions amongst them all. For all of that: the media still couldn't help but paint dark shadows into his family life. It had robbed him of good friends and public goodwill. Recently it had got to the point where he could see no point to doing good He had too been in a whirl of frustration and jealousy: Even now Mr Incredible has a most unpublishable life: Helen is not giving him bed rights and his own daughter is offering him the same. Mr Incredible had taken to ever more patrols, just to escape the dilemmas of his life, but he found no kind of relief there. Mr Incredible only found grief: in a bright, new, young, heroine who was outclassing him at every turn.

Rainbow is the mothlight who haunts the edges of his life and even threatens the brand and identity of the Incredibles by her success. They all of the Incredibles have their brand niche for marketing into: boys and sportsters pacing the racey Dash, the wifely and homely mirroring Elastigirl and her lifestyle tips, the menfolk walking in the powerpack footsteps of Mr Incredible an Invisible formed into the unlikely mould of pin-up girl. Whatever about that; there are still the long-term, die-hard fans who respect Mr Incredible for the human he is. Thankfully for Mr Incredible, for his town and for his family he has run up against one of those fellows and got back a sense of values; before turning into human a omnidroid in the way that Violet does.

Meaning that, when he is awakened by the emergency phone, Mr Incredible is promptly awake and responding. The news is that Frozone is phoning through; about a weekend of crowds gone insane across Metroville. There are spontaneous demonstrations at the zoo, block wars in suburbia and a riot uptown. Frozone is driven out of retirement just because one irruption is exactly by where he lives. He has been good enough to phone his one-time friend but that is all. The problem is firmly on the hands of Mr Incredible.

After some recent misfortune the Incredibles are only just moved back into the family home; but they are rapidly up and on the spot as Mr Incredible awakens them and primes them. Elastigirl and Dash are to quieten down suburbia. Violet is to be let loose on the zoo — to be sure there are concerns about her ability and stability these days but they are too thin on the ground not to make use of her. Mr Incredible believes that all of everything is nothing but a distraction and he saves himself to go to the heart of the crisis. He has a game of hide-and-go-seek to play out between hero and villain. This is a pattern that he has known before: of ordinary and blameless folks inexplicably turning into an enemy. It is only a diversion by a single criminal with a gift of mind-control to form a throng of unwitting villains.

Wherever Cleave is that is where the genuine crime is and it is going to be any place that is quiet and calm; the one place in the day giving no reason to draw the attention of any of the forces of the law, With all of the civic powers in demand all over Metroville it falls to Mr Incredible to find the locus of the problem. He has a fair idea where to begin: the richest and quietest part of the town appears to be entirely free of any disturbance. That all is looking kosher in the financial sector is saying to Mr Incredible that it is where he needs to be hunting.

Mr Incredible soon finds how right he is: the cheerful, quiet hum of happily working people fills the air; as all of the weekend shifts export out all of the moveable assets from their respective firms and into a handy removal van. The epicentre of all the activity is a shortstuff version of Santa Claus, in a suit and after an attack of vanity: hair trimmed and darkened, belly gymed away and the man himself is away the moment Mr Incredible arrives. The superhero landing catches the attention of everyone there, most foolishly Mr Incredible came down in the heart of the crowd. That is a strategic error that he is going to be most sorry for. Cleave has not the power to issue explicit instructions to his victims but only to induce a general mental state into a critical mass of the populace. It is as likely as anything that the folks who had been robbing out their firms had thought they were doing an entirely legitimate clear out.

Now all of the throng appear to be under the impression that they are a lynch mob and Mr Incredible is the one to be lynched. There is nothing that he can do except flee: not one of his attackers is anything but innocent and undeserving of the devastation his fists can bring on them. This is what has always made Cleave the hardest villain to fight: how he uses the one weapon no superhero can stand against; the innocent bystander. Mr Incredible is going to have to have that fight though, as he has dashes round a corner and into a dead-end. It is even too short and narrow for him to so much as get up the impetus for a leaping escape. He is truly trapped.

Worse yet is the swirling, glistening black fog that is filling the alley, like a mist of coaldust caught in a ray of sunshine. Mr Incredible scarcely dares to wonder what new and evil surprise will reveal itself. Slowly then the miasma begins to fade away (first from ground level and then on upwards) to unveil: metallic, silver boots; long, limber legs; a short, scalloped skirt; a bare, muscled midsection; a swelling, eye-marked chest; wings, a dragon helmet and a dark-red tunic ... all topped off with spikes of white hair, like horns. New superbeings have been springing into view everywhere (since the rewrite of the Supers Act) and plenty like to strut their act in the Incredibles' town.

Mr Incredible knows that it isn't just any bit-player that he is facing now, though. This can only be that new heroine: the one he has been hearing so much of that he is weary of it. She has to be the rainbow girl who has been dancing like a ghost in front of him lately. For every incident that he has gone after recently: she has got there before him every time, played the hero, vanished without a word and never let him get near to her. Now (in the middle of a catastrophe he can't hope to defeat) she finally chooses to make herself known to Mr Incredible and he can only wonder what her game is.

« Eyes shut »

She says with no introduction, or explanation and yet Mr Incredible obeys — he can hardly be in a tighter spot than he already is. Through his shut lids he dimly senses a haze of light dancing in the alley. There is a tap on his shoulder and he opens his eyes to see a horde of the unspelled going back to where they were before. They are all gradually reviving and are not at all concerned about him or her. It is an immensely better result than Mr Incredible had any hope of; just instants ago.

For all that; it still leaves the felonious Cleave uncaught. That villain is long gone and lost within the alleys. There is no chance at all of finding him now. However, it seems that the lass has still other tricks to bring into play … as she draws Mr Incredible into the open and the entire area begins to fill with a fine and pearlescent fog. The source of which appears to be the girl herself. Even from underneath her mask she gives out an air of intense concentration. Without a word of any request she perches herself on his shoulders, and commands him.

« Rooftops. »

Mr Incredible exerts the strength that is his: to raise them both to the vantage point that they need. It seems that the eerie fog is some form of a personal radar that allows her to guide him to their quarry. By gesture alone, the heroine guides Mr Incredible across the roofscape; until they are perching above a fleeing Cleave. Gently sliding the girl from off of his shoulders Mr Incredible goes and eases the silver foil protection from off of a satellite dish nearby. Foil in hand: he drops from the heights onto the streets. Mr Incredible drops like a stone, and has Cleave enfoiled and blocked from the use of his powers long before the criminal even knows he is discovered. The villain is found and bound and foiled and in such a way that Mr Incredible can enjoy the first pure win he has had in far too long.

Mr Incredible looks upward and towards the lass who has assisted him so voicelessly. She stands atop the balustrade at the peak of the highest skyscraper ... stands for but a moment and then steps off. She drops earthwards in a diving pose: her body is arched and held stiff in a tee formation. He hasn't a second of warning for her building-high ballet act. Mr Incredible has felt an air of the wild and reckless about the girl long before he met her but this is beyond insanity. She lets herself fall through the air: trusting to Mr Incredible and not to her own powers. He scarcely has time to brace himself and set himself … to be able to catch the girl and keep safe hold of her.

Bracketing his hands about her chest, as he catches her, he senses the femaleness of her beneath his fingers. Before she has so much as unbent her body (as she is still poised in his hands just as if they are a pair of ballet dancers) her face is that close to his he can feel her breath mingling with his. Has any man, any superhuman man, ever had a more wide open offer of a kissable and willing girl? For all of that: it is the human man who comes to the fore; the one who hasn't kissed anyone but Helen for years and who delays too long now. Mr Incredible hesitates that long that he breaks the moment; it turns from what it was into her reaching around his head: to pull him close and kiss him intensely. Lowering her to earth and lowering his hands to her waist he draws her entire body close to his … so very tightly that he can sense the tensing of her nipples through the skimpy supergarb they wear. Their lips meet again: in ferocious kisses that soon find their tongues meshing and his own body hardening against hers. Their breathing comes shorter and harsher as they clasp each other more tightly and intensely. Mr Incredible at last frees one hand to seek the edge of her skirt. Her hands move too yet they come down hard on his ears: in a stunning clap that has him reeling as she whirls away and leaves with one hushed word left behind her.

« Helen »

Mr Incredible swears and hammers every wall within reach. After all of the tensions with Helen of late he has only earnt frustration again. He can easily imagine the joke he will be to his family when they hear this. But … do they have to hear? He has plenty enough good news to share with the family over dinner tonight and nothing wrong that he needs tell them. The patrol and the mission are a complete success and whatever else just needs not be spoken off.

To be sure Mr Incredible will say nothing of the girl he almost won but his memory stills replays it all. He can still feel the slight weight of her on his shoulders and elsewhere; see, in his mind's eye, the smooth, sculpted, shape of her legs, as they ran down over his chest. He knows, intimately, how firm, warm and strong those limbs are; from the way that she guided him left or right, fast or slow and all by the pressure of those legs alone. Sweet as those legs had been, still sweeter was the valley between them: the fork of her body that had nestled the nape of his neck ... nestled and pressed against his body with deliberate intent; till the curves and contours of her lower lips were imprinted on his flesh. Yes! On his flesh that is burning yet; from the blaze that she has ignited with the fire between her thighs. Clad in her skirt and with little else below her waist there had been nothing but a mere, thin, wisp of cloth that separated their skins.

Over and above it all he has the impressions of those final close moments. Her conscience won the victory today but Mr Incredible is sure they will meet and tussle again, Mr Incredible senses a bright, new chapter opening in his life and hopes (with all his heart) that the mirage (his Mirage) is true.

Truer than he knows: the Rainbow heroine that he met only made herself shine to meld with him. Yet, for all of her infatuation, the girl is at least as honest as not to make the first move; not as there is a wife having first claim. Had Mr Incredible begun that first kiss much of history would have run otherwise; but for now Violet must strip off her disguise and endure her hunger as best she can,