Author's note: I'm really sorry to announce that I'm gonna have to put this story on temporary hold. Unfortunately things have become so busy for me that I cannot continue the story at this time. Don't worry, I'm not quitting this story and have every intention of finishing it. I'm glad that I have fans for my story as well. I'll try to update ASAP, but I don't know when that will be. Again, I'm really sorry for this, but that's the way life is, I suppose. With that, enjoy this chapter and please review. Thank you.
Chapter 10
I admit that the second thoughts that I had before we got my new suit came creeping back by the time we arrived back at home. I think that the experience at Edna's mansion was so overwhelming, not to mention totally strange, that I forgot about my reluctance of being a super and my decision to no longer be involved in what was going on. Getting my own super suit didn't help matters, either. It was like I said earlier, getting a suit made me feel like I was now committed to becoming a hero, and I knew that I just wasn't ready and in a way probably never will be. I knew that Mom was right when she said that something could always happen, but at the moment I didn't really care. When I got involved in the fight at the mall, not only did I almost die but I almost killed a person myself. God, what would've happened to me if I really did end up strangling Leon to death? I didn't think that I would be able to live with myself. How could my mother live with the fact that she killed three people, even if it was in self defense? How could any super live with the fact that they can kill a person just like that? I guess that they were able to accept the fact that situations like that just came with the job. Still, it had to be extremely hard for them to deal with something like that, and I'm certain that I wasn't the only super in the world who was so terrified of their powers that they swore off ever becoming a hero.
I looked down at the box in my hands that contained my new suit and sighed. I was starting to wish that we never went out and had it made. It represented the very thing that I was hoping that I would never become. Now that I had a suit, I was wondering what I would actually do with it. I highly doubted that I would be wearing it anytime soon. I couldn't just throw something like that away or give it away to anyone else. I probably could just simply hide it away and be done with it. That would probably mean that I would never get to try it on as it would more than likely be too small for me in a year of two. I'm not going to lie, I really did want to try it on. I wanted to see how it would look on me and how it felt to wear. I wanted to know how just much the gloves would enhance my fire powers. I knew though that I couldn't do it. That would be like giving in. So why did I agree on getting a suit that I would probably never wear? I really don't know. Maybe I just didn't want to disappoint Mom or Edna. Maybe I just got so caught up in the moment that I couldn't really do anything but agree. I mean, I probably could've said no at any time, and now I had a suit that I didn't want. I was sorry that I had to disappoint them, but that was the way I felt and it seemed unlikely that I was ever going to change my mind.
I also took some time during the drive home to think about exactly what this Project Etybonan really was. What exactly was the word Etybonan? Was it even a word? Could it be an acronym for something? There was something weird about that word, I just knew it. I couldn't put my finger on it, though. All I knew about it was that it involved the destruction of Metroville and the possible involvement of ATI, the company where my dad worked. How exactly was Metroville going to be destroyed? It was no big secret that ATI created advanced and even classified weaponry for the military. Were some of these weapons going to be used? I thought of the men we fought at the mall yesterday and saw that they were wearing uniforms that were made by ATI. Were they a part of this? What exactly did they hope to accomplish by robbing a First MetroBank branch in a busy shopping mall? It didn't make any sense. This whole thing didn't make any sense. Could all this be the work of some new supervillian? There hadn't been a supervillian attack on Metroville in ten years. I was too young at that time to remember, but I heard that it was a villain named the Atomizer. He had this weapon called a nuclear accelerator cannon. Don't ask me how it worked because I never seen it in action, well actually, I've never seen it at all. Anyway, he threatened to use this cannon on Metroville unless he was paid a ransom of a hundred million dollars. In the end he was taken down by the Incredibles, although it all didn't go to plan and they nearly lost their lives in the process. Since then there had been no major attack on the city or even a hint of a supervillian plot, at least until now.
Whatever was going on, I told myself as well as Leon that this was no longer my problem. My involvement in this had caused me only nothing but trouble from the get-go. It was making me paranoid. I just had to stop and not continue with this any longer. Did that mean that I no longer cared what might happen to Metroville? Of course I did. I cared very deeply about Metroville. It was my hometown. I was born and raised there. If something terrible ever happened to it, I would be totally heartbroken. At the same time, though, I figured that I didn't have much of a chance to do any good anyway. I mean, we weren't the only supers in Metroville. Of course, there weren't nearly as many supers in Metroville as there were during the Golden Age, and unfortunately the Incredibles were no longer around. That didn't mean that the other supers in the city weren't great. There was my mother Electricia, Prototron, Meteor-Mite, Sky Hawk, and a few others. There was also that woman at ATI who was supposed to be a super herself. I began think a little more about this woman. If she was a super, then why couldn't she stop this herself? Was it all too much for her to handle alone? If that was the case, then why did she contact Leon and Chance to have them contact me? We seemed to be the most unlikely bunch of supers to be of much use in something as big as this. Weren't there other supers that she could contact? Not only that, I never wanted to be involved in anything like this at all. I felt like I had been dragged kicking and screaming into someone else's fight. If she knew about me as much as Leon told me, then she should've known that I wanted to keep myself a secret. It was so infuriating to know that someone out there knew about me but I didn't have even the slightest idea who she was. I thought that it would only be fair if she would at least give us a hint to who she really was. She did seem to know my dad, but that was no real help. Hundreds of women worked at ATI. However, I was willing to bet that few of them were top-level like our mysterious friend. That narrowed it down, but I was still in the dark. Maybe it really could be as simple as asking my dad.
The only problem, when we arrived back at home we saw that Dad wasn't even back yet. Now I was really starting to worry, actually more like I was getting scared. It was after five in the evening. Normally he would be home by now, but he hadn't been since yesterday morning. Something was terribly wrong here, I just knew it. I knew that there was the slightest of chances that I could be overreacting and that he was out doing something with his colleagues, but every fiber of my being was screaming that something was going on here, something very bad. I wondered if I should tell Mom about everything I knew. I know that I've been saying that for the past two days, but during that time I was very unsure of hat was really going on. I still was, but I felt that I knew a little more now than when this first started, and even that wasn't all that much. However, it looked like I didn't really have to say anything, because Mom seemed to sense that something was wrong with this, also.
"Where is he?" she asked more to herself than anything. "They can't have him working on some project this long."
She parked the truck in the garage and turned off the engine, but still sat there for a moment. She was staring straight ahead at the wall, not really moving much. It was very obvious that she was thinking very deeply, and that it had to do with Dad. I was wondering what exactly she was thinking about this whole situation.
"Mom, is everything okay?" I asked her.
"What?" She seemed startled by my voice, but she quickly regained herself. "Oh, yeah. Everything's fine, honey. I'm just thinking of something, that's all.
She got out of the truck and I followed close behind. I knew by the way she was walking that she thought that everything was not okay. I couldn't blame her either. I was thinking the same thing. Once in the living room she went over to the phone and checked the answering machine. There were no new messages. She stood there for a moment longer before she picked up the phone and dialed a number.
"Hello, is Stephen Wells there?" She was calling ATI. "May I speak to him please? This is his wife calling….Yes, I'll hold." She was shifting slightly side-to-side on her feet. It was a sign of nervousness. After about a minute she spoke again. "He's busy? May I ask what he is doing at this time?...Oh, well, please tell him to call home immediately, okay?...Thank you."
She hung up the phone and stood there for a while with what looked like a very worried expression on her face. I definitely didn't like the sound of that conversation. I haven't seen her look that worried in a very long time. In fact, I didn't think that I've ever seen her look like that. It was actually scaring me. After a few moments she let out a small sigh, cleared her face of that worried expression, and then looked at me.
"You might want to put that suit in a safe place," she said. "Here, follow me."
I looked down at the box that was still in my hands. I forgot that I was still carrying it. I followed her into the kitchen where she opened up the door that led down into the basement. We went down the stairs and into the dark basement. I rarely ever went down there as there was really no reason for me to. All that was really down there was the washer and dryer and several other things we put down there to keep out of the way. She led me over to the far wall. I was about to ask her what we were doing over there when she raised her left arm and tapped something on her watch. To my absolute amazement, part of the wall slid open and revealed a secret room! I knew that it shouldn't have been much of a shock to me since I was sure that she had some secret compartment or something that she hid her suit. I never expected that she had a whole room hidden behind the basement wall, though. It was probably why I never came across it. After I found out that I was a super, I went around the house searching for any evidence of a secret room but I never went down into the basement. When I was four, my uncle told me a stupid story about how there were monsters that lived in the basement and waited for young kids that wondered down there so that they could snatch them. Yeah, I know how crazy and unbelievable that sounds, but I'm sure that when you were four you believed practically anything your relatives told you. I even believed the story about the monsters hiding under your bed for a short time. Anyway, that story scared me so much that I refused to go down in the basement for a few years. My parents tried to set me straight, but I refused to believe them. By the time I discovered my powers at ten, I had outgrown my fear of any monsters but not of the basement. I still don't know why that is. In fact, even today I really didn't like going down there.
As amazed as I was when I saw the secret door open, that was nowhere near how I felt when I stepped inside the room. All along the walls were all types of newspaper articles, magazine covers, and regular pictures of my mother. The main things, though, was the large computer terminal on the back wall and Mom's super suit that was hanging on the wall next to it. I also noticed two more suits that were set in some type of large picture frame, but I couldn't tell whose suits they were from that angle. I was shocked speechless. It took a while before I was finally able to say the first thing that came to my mind.
"Whoa."
Mom smiled a little at that and then went inside. I followed her in. How could I have never known about this? How was this room even built? It couldn't have always been here, could it? Mom and Dad moved in this house about two years before I was born so maybe the room was built during that time. I didn't think anymore of that as my eyes were drawn toward the newspaper articles on the wall. Immediately one of them caught my attention. It said in bold letters, 'NEW SUPER MAKES SHOCKING APPEARANCE'. I took a closer look and saw that it was dated March 24, 1976. In the black and white picture was my mother in her old Electricia suit with a small smile on her face and her arms crossed. She was standing in front of what looked like a jewelry store or something. Four huge men were being led away by police behind her. The one thing that stood out was how young my Mom looked back then. That shouldn't have been too much of a surprise since she was a teenager at that time. She only had a couple of pictures of herself as a teen so I never really saw how she really looked. For one thing, she had much longer hair back then. It was tied back in a ponytail but it was still obvious how long it was. Mom noticed me looking at the article and came over to me.
"That was my big debut as Electricia," she said. "Actually, that was the same day I came up with that name, too."
I was slightly surprised by that. "You didn't have a name yet?" I asked her.
"I was sorting through some ideas, but nothing really sounded good enough," she told me. "I started to call myself Electrogirl, but that sounded too close to Elastigirl. I also thought of Electroshock and Shocktra, but I really hated those names. Then, right when that picture was taken, the name Electricia hit me. I liked it and the name stuck."
"What happened that day?" I asked.
"Truthfully, I wasn't out there looking for a fight. I wasn't even expecting one. I was running to meet up with my friends at a movie theater downtown when I heard a lot of gunfire. People were running in all directions and screaming that Quincy's Jewelry Store was being robbed. It only took me a few seconds to decide to do something about it. I was wearing my suit under my clothes anyway, so I just went over to a nearby alley and took them off. Don't ask why I decided to wear my suit that day because I really don't know. I just did. Anyway, I took the direct approach and walked right in the front door. They didn't even notice me for a few seconds as they were too busy taking all the jewelry. When they finally saw me, they demanded to know who I was and what I was doing there. I just told them that I was there to put an end to their five-fingered discount. They just laughed and told me to get over with the rest of the hostages before they would shoot me. They also made the mistake of calling me a little girl. That's one thing that you should know, sometimes guys seriously underestimate female supers because they think that we're weaker than our male counterparts. It also pays off when you make your first appearance as a super because they don't know what you can actually do. It took about ten seconds for them to realize their mistake. That was how long it took me to shock them all unconscious. I was surprised that it was actually that simple to do. The police showed up about five minutes later."
"What happened then?" I asked her.
"Well, as you might expect, they were completely amazed by what they saw. Here were these huge muscle bound men that probably could've beaten them to a bloody pulp without breaking a sweat, and they were totally knocked out by a small and thin fifteen-year-old girl in ten seconds. I mean, it shouldn't have been that much of a surprise since they saw supers all the time. It was the fact that they've never seen me before. They asked a lot of questions, mainly who I was and what exactly did I do to them. After a few minutes the media arrived, and there's nothing like a new super appearing that makes a big splash in headlines. They wanted to make the front page picture look all dramatic, so they had me stand out in front of the jewelry store looking proud while the police led the men out of the store in handcuffs. I thought that it was a little too much, but they insisted so I just went ahead and did it. To tell you the truth, I hate that picture. You can still easily tell that I didn't like posing like that. I left quickly after they shot that so that they couldn't take any more."
"Did you like taking those men on?" I asked her.
"Actually, yes I did," she told me. "It was quite the rush, but I was also young and quite reckless. It almost cost me my life a couple of times. It made me learn that being a super was serious business. I want you to be serious about this, also. Still, I admit that there are times where I get a thrill out of taking down criminals. That's something you could never really get rid of. I'd like for you to remember that, okay?"
"I'll remember," I said.
I went around and looked at all the other articles and pictures on the wall. It was like looking back in time at all my mother's exploits. Most of them seemed to be robbery related, but I did notice a couple that seemed to say that she rescued people from burning buildings and crashed vehicles. I noticed a front cover of Hero Monthly, a magazine that is mainly about supers, in a picture frame. It was dated June 1982. It had a color picture of Mom in her old suit standing proud with her hands on her hips. Behind her was a background picture of storm clouds with a huge bolt of lightning coming out of them. The bold and highly stylized wording read, 'BEHIND THE SPARKS: THE FIRST REAL INTERVIEW WITH ELECTRICIA'. I smiled at that and continued on. I saw a letter that seemed to be written by a small child. I read it to myself.
Dear Electricia,
Thank you so very much for saving me and my family from our burning house. If you didn't rescue us we would be dead. You're very brave. You're my favorite superhero and when I grow up I want to be just like you. I hope you save lots more people and nothing bad happens to you. Goodbye and thank you again.
Julie Hudson
I felt extremely proud of my mother just then. I wondered how many lives she saved during her career. Probably more than she could count, I would presume. That was a lot more lives that wouldn't be alive today if she wasn't around. I also wondered how many times she was almost killed when helping others. I knew that it was a very selfish thought since supers almost always put the lives of others ahead of their own, but I couldn't help it. I couldn't imagine anything bad happening to my mother. I couldn't even begin to wonder what I would feel like if she was killed in action. I knew that I was going to have to live with that possibility for a long while.
My eyes came across an unopened video cassette tape sitting on a shelf just above me. I reached up and picked it up. Looking at the dust-covered case, I saw that it was an episode of Super Power Hour that had Mom as a guest star. I smiled a little and shook my head in slight amusement. Super Power Hour was a cartoon show about supers that aired on Saturdays from the late seventies to the mid eighties. It centered around a team of supers called the Thrilling Trio and took place in a city called Super City. Sounds stupid already, doesn't it? I actually remember watching some of the last episodes way back when I was in kindergarten and at a time when I enjoyed such stuff. While the Thrilling Trio and Super City were fictional, they had real supers as guest appearances. Interestingly enough, Mom never told me that she appeared in the show. I wondered why that was. I bet that the answer would be quite good. I turned around and held the tape up.
"Mom, what's this?" I asked her with a slight smirk on my face.
She groaned loudly and I swore I saw her turn slightly red. "Oh, um, that's something Steve bought me a while ago," she said. "Yes, I was in that show as guest super number fifteen, and I wish that I turned down their offer to appear in it. For one thing, I don't know what actress they hired to play my voice, but I don't talk or sound anything like that. Second, don't even get me started on the plot. This villain call the Delighter shuts off the power of the entire country, and in the end they have me use my powers to light it back up! Oh my God, that was so beyond ridiculous it's…ugh! They should've at least done their homework before asking me for my likeness! Did they really think that I can generate enough electricity to power up the entire United States? I can power up maybe a sixth of Metroville, maybe, but not an entire country! What did they think I was, a superhuman power plant or something?" She stopped when she saw my weird expression to her outburst. "Sorry about that," she told me with a slightly embarrassed smile. "I still get worked up about that. It's just that I felt so cheated that they use my likeness and then make me sound so stupid and corny and over exaggerate my powers by a factor of, I don't know, a billion. At least they gave me a check of a thousand dollars, but even that wasn't worth much."
"Why did you even agree to that in the first place?" I asked her.
"I felt that I needed a little extra publicity and exposure," she told me. "Well, I got exposure, alright. It made a lot of people believe that I really can power up all of America in an emergency. I tell them that I can't do that, and they don't believe it. I just gave up and let them believe what they want. It wasn't worth the trouble. I should've sued that company for every cent and then some."
"So if you hated it so much, then why did you let Dad buy this for you?" I asked.
"I didn't let him buy it for me," she replied. "He just bought it one day. Believe me, I would've gotten rid of it immediately if I didn't appreciate the gesture very much. It's now basically there to remind me not to make stupid mistakes like that again. Besides, it might one day become a rare collector item."
Well, at least I could now see why she never told me about that. Man, if someone screwed me up like that, knowing my temper I would probably march right down to the studio and torch the place. I would definitely remember that in case I was ever approached with a cartoon deal in the future. I chuckled to myself as I set the tape back on the shelf.
My mood changed completely when I saw the two suits in the frame on the wall. One of them was red orange and black with an 'M' on the front, the other purple and turquoise, and they were both absolutely destroyed. They were both badly torn and had huge stains of blood on them. One of them was completely missing its left sleeve and the other part of its right sleeve and leg. I immediately knew what I was looking at. They were the suits of my grandparents, Magman and Starfury. Holy God, Mom told me that it was bad, but it wasn't even close to what I was seeing right then. If the suits looked like that, then I couldn't even begin to imagine how they were killed. The ruined suits were also a reminder of how many supers Syndrome killed with his Omnidroids twenty years earlier. I wondered if Mom would be among them if she started superhero work earlier than she had. How was she able to deal with something as brutal and tragic as this? There was no way in hell I'd be able to if something like that happened to her. She did tell me that she took their deaths pretty hard, but I still admired her for seemingly getting over it. Even though I never met my grandparents as they were killed before I was born, I still felt a great sense of loss. Almost unconsciously, I placed my right hand on the cold glass of the frame and slowly moved my fingers across it.
"Absolutely horrible, isn't it?" Mom said in a quiet voice from behind me. "I could've told you a million times just how mangled and bloody those suits were, and it still wouldn't mean anything until you've seen the suits for yourself. Now you know just how brutal their deaths really were."
"Why…why do you have them hanging here on the wall?" I asked in a voice barely louder than a whisper.
"To remind me who I am and how I got here," she said simply. "Also to honor their memory."
I was really shaken by seeing those mangled suits. I really needed to get out of the room right then. I had to clear my head and think. "I need to get some air," I told Mom.
"Of course," she said sympathetically. "Here, I'll go ahead and put your suit away. I'm really sorry that seeing that disturbed you so much."
I didn't say anything else as I left the secret room and went back upstairs. I wanted to go down to the park but at the same time I didn't feel like walking that far. I decided to go out into the backyard. Once out in the yard, I sat down in one of the lawn chairs on our patio. It was a perfect warm night so it should help me think. As I said, I was really shocked when I saw those suits. I was wondering how Mom could just hang them on the wall like that instead of bury them with her parents. I remembered that she did say that the NSA gave her the suits when she was staying with her aunt and uncle. Maybe she never even saw their bodies. I don't think that anyone would've wanted to if the suits were any example. I then began to ask myself if something like that happened to Mom and I received her destroyed suit, would I have it buried along with her or would I frame it and hang it on the wall. The truthful answer to that is that I wouldn't know. I could easily say that I would have buried it with her, but in reality I just didn't know. I could see the reason why Mom had the suits of her parents framed, and maybe that could be a reason I would do the same, to remember her by. I honestly hoped that I would never see that day though.
I got up out of the chair and went over to the tree in our yard. It was the same tree that I accidentally blasted with a fireball four years ago. The burn mark had long since been covered over with bark, but you could still see some traces of it if you look close enough. I don't know why I did it, but I placed my hand on the spot of the burn and then let my hand glow bright orange. I heard the wood begin to burn and then I could smell it. I then took my hand away and saw my burned handprint on the tree. I could also see small wisps of smoke coming off the burn. For some reason I actually felt better when I did that, and a small smile came to my lips.
I figured that I spent enough time outside so I should go in. I started to head to the sliding glass door but stopped after a few steps. I don't know what was going on, but for some reason I suddenly got a strange feeling. I didn't know exactly what it was. I actually looked around but didn't see anything. I thought that I was just being stupid and started moving again. Unfortunately, I didn't get two steps before I was suddenly grabbed from behind and a gloved hand came over my mouth.