"Bye mom, bye dad," Jack-Jack said as he got into his car to drive onward to his life at a college across the country.
"Remember to call if you need us and Dash is only ten minutes away if you have an emergency," Helen waved an emotional goodbye, her youngest child, her baby boy was now a grown man and heading out into the world. "I'm gonna miss him Bob." Leaning her head on her husband.
"I'm not," Bob smirked. "The house is empty, the kids are all gone. That means we can..." as he grabbed his wife by the hips and pulled her close to him.
"Bob, you are incorrigible, we just got rid of the last one and you want to make another." Helen chuckled even while leaning into the embrace, she was just as eager to have a home for just the two of them for a while.
"I at least want to do the part before that."
Jack-Jack was finally ready to move out from his parents house, his brother and sister had gone off to start their own hero teams. However for him the call of duty never came ringing, it just never enticed him to get involved with stopping bad guys and saving the day. He'd try every now and then over the years to see if it just clicked, but it never did. At first he wondered if it was because he had so many powers, that being a hero was too easy, but that wasn't it. Sure in a one on one fight, no one could beat him. Even if he wasn't as strong as his father, or fast as his brother, that he could do both, and a dozen other things, meant he had a solution to every problem he faced. But the job of a hero was more than fighting bad guys and it was a job that just having power wouldn't make it a cakewalk.
So he resigned himself to the idea that he just needed to expand his horizons and find what he loved. To do that he did well in classes and got a scholarship to a college across the country, which he was glad for, since now he couldn't just come teleporting home to mommy if things got hard. Well he could, as it's not that hard when you can phase out of reality whenever you want to and appear at another location.
But it was the mentality of it. Jack-Jack was certain he'd find what made him special if he left the city of Metroville. You know, besides having over a dozen powers that might have made him one of, if not the most powerful super on the planet.
"Hey Little Bro," Dash said into Jack-Jack's open window, quickly appearing running alongside his brother's car. "Are you really gonna leave without saying goodbye?" The speeder asked, faking hurt in his voice.
"Pfft," Jack-Jack rolled his eyes. "I didn't think I'd get to the end of the block before you stopped by."
"Well duh," Dash chuckled. "I am the fastest man alive."
"I've met your girlfriends, that's not something to brag about Big Bro." Jack-Jack smirked as he brother socked in him the shoulder for the joke. "Still surprised to see you and not Violet?"
"Surprise," Violet shouted suddenly while she turned herself visible in the passenger seat. Jack-Jack would probably have been surprised had he not seen the indent on the seat, but he didn't think it would hurt to play along. "Like, I'd miss my baby brother leaving for college," Violet ruffled his hair.
"Don't you two have things you have to do?" Jack-Jack pulled over so his sister could get out of the car without using the 'Hamster Ball Maneuver'. And this way he could talk to them without worrying about hitting something with his car.
"Nah, I have the day off." Violet answered.
"I did all my paperwork," Dash said proudly before pausing and running off, returning a few seconds later dusting his hands. "Now, I did all my paperwork."
"Guys, it's not like I'm leaving forever, I'll call and be back on holidays. You'll hardly know I'm gone, I promise." Jack-Jack hugged his sister and brother before they waved him off.
In a way he was glad to be so far from home, away from a major city, there was just less of everything to deal with in the small college town he arrived at. Less people meant by design less crime, which meant less villains and as a result less heroes. Every villain dreamed of having a major city to call their stomping grounds, but thankfully his family made that even harder for the bad guys to accomplish.
The old ways of heroing just weren't working, or at least not working as well, everyone saw how effective The Incredibles were. A family of heroes all bringing different strengths to the table, each of them covering their teammates weaknesses, working together to take down foes that would be too much for any one person. Other wannabe heroes realized how beneficial it was, especially when they weren't all that powerful to begin with. Working as a team meant they had a far easier time and it was much safer since they had back up at all times.
But this created another issue, the big cities tended to get a bit overcrowded and a lot of heroes wanted that fame for themselves, so there were territory disputes almost all the time. And unless you were with an established hero, which for a lot of people, just wasn't possible without teaming up with one of the Legacies, like Frozone or Voyd, then the different hero teams sometimes spent more time arguing over who gets to save people in what city than actually stopping the bad guys.
Small towns didn't have that much of an issue since there were probably only a handful of heroes and villains anyway, so Jack-Jack was happy since if there were any supers at this school, they wouldn't likely cause too many problems.
Jack-Jack was enjoying college, the small town was just what he needed to help him focus on himself. Not having to see his family go out almost nightly to fight crime, it wasn't distracting him to think about what they were doing, who they were fighting, and who was being saved.
He would be lying if he said he didn't miss his family, but he called on the weekends to update whoever would answer about what he was up to, his classes, what the town was like. He was tempted to find out if he could punch someone through the phone when Dash started asking if he's been sleeping with any girls yet. That Jack-Jack had avoided dating throughout high school because of seeing how insane Violet's dating life had been with dating someone who wasn't a super, he didn't want to get involved in that mess and potentially expose his family by bringing someone home, didn't mean he didn't want to date. And if he was being truthful there was a girl in class he was kind of crushing on.
He'd tried to not make it obvious but there was this girl in his history class, she wore cute little turtleneck sweaters, she had an even cute giggle and she was super energetic. It was hard not to notice her and Jack-Jack thought that now might be a good time to put himself out there, after all he was a superhero, all he had to do was walk up to her, say something cool, ask her out and...
Jack-Jack stood defeated in the snack aisle of a nearby convenience store, he could not do it. For some reason, the thought of talking to a girl made him freeze up. He's stared down giant monsters, alien invaders, super villains bent on taking over the world, but going up to a cute girl was so different.
He sadly resigned himself to a life of loneliness when he heard the bell jingle signifying someone had opened the door and years of training meant Jack-Jack took a quick look to assess the situation, who came in, who left, how many people were in there with him, how far away were they, did they have weapons, WHY DOES THAT GIRL HAVE A MASK ON?!
"Alright punk," this robber said with an almost comically evil voice while she stood triumphantly in front of the register. "I am the terrifying err, Destructor, yeah," Introducing herself by stating her villain name. "Now give me all the money you have or I'll have to destroy you."
Jack-Jack sighed as he figured this was some kid with a power that's trying to show off for some friends. Not his problem, the "villainess" didn't even have a weapon or seem to be projecting some sort of energy, it would be better to let the cops deal with this rather than jump in and knock around some wannabe who probably made everything in their dorm.
That might have sounded a little elitist considering he had a custom tailored super suit by Aunt Edna that worked with all of his powers and was a technical marvel how she was able to work the fibers into accommodating his various powers and abilities. But that gave him an appreciation for the quality of costumes that heroes and villains brought to the table. And he could tell quite a bit about this young woman's costume, if you could call it that,it was basically a leotard and yoga pants with a rubber mask held by a string wrapped around her head.
He was also able to appreciate that yoga pants did this lady incredible favors because she was very well proportioned. That was an odd conversation with his father one day when puberty, intense activity and women in very, very, VERY tight clothing all mixed together to make him love that there was an entire profession based around spandex and also hate that his body would betray him in public.
But he shouldn't objectify heroines or villainesses because he saw how the news, the magazine and the message boards were full of perverts talking about the latest wardrobe malfunction. He couldn't fault the clothing tearing, it was something that happened and that was the first hurdle all new heroes and villains had to accept, your clothing will tear in the most embarrassing way and at the worst times. And after seeing a "news" segment where they were discussing the latest capture of a villain by The Incredibles and every. single. shot seemed to be focused on his own mother and sister's butts. It made him reconsider why he saved the world a couple of times.
Anyway Jack-Jack decided that this was something he should stay out of, even if they robbed the place they'd only make off with at best a couple hundred dollars that they'd probably blow on booze and snacks. That was until he saw a flash of silver out of the corner of his eye and he was moving, his body twisting, growing and with his skin darkening as he barreled through the small aisle and tightly grabbed the woman with enough time to spin her around as the buckshot from the clerks gun splashed across his red, monster like skin.
Jack-Jack probably would have used his metal form to take the attack but that would have left him too slow to get there in time to save the villain from being shredded by the gun. So his clothes were torn apart as the pellets left little holes in his body which stung quite a bit. It wasn't enough to put him down since his monster form was fairly durable in it's own right but the sudden pain caused him to let out a loud howl of pain.
The clerk dropped the gun in fright as seemingly a monster appeared out of nowhere in his store. The clerk had been so tired of wannabe villains coming in to rob him that he decided that putting down one would tell the rest of those super idiots that his place is off limits. Instead it seemed to have only backfired and now he was going to die. So he did what anyone else would do when confronted by an eight foot tall red skinned demon looking creature, he screamed as loud as he could and ran out the back of the store.
Jack-Jack knew he couldn't stay any longer, the cops would be there soon to find out what was going on and he really didn't want to have to explain to the local PD who he was and why he had done what he did. So he ran, completely forgetting that he had the young woman tightly held in his grip. Finally once he was a good enough distance away that the adrenaline from taking a 12 gauge point blank in his back had worn off he realized his mistake.
"Ho...ly... shit," the villain exclaimed in excitement as she looked at Jack-Jack still in his monster form. "I didn't... that's... oh my god!'' Her voice was fast and she was pacing in front of him while he was looking around to see if there was a way out of here without revealing who he was. He could teleport or simply shift into another dimension but he was already playing with fire by using a form of his that people knew about.
"Look I gotta..." Jack-Jack pointed behind him while taking a large step back having come up with a pretty lame excuse for him to get out of there as he could hear sirens in the quiet air. He wasn't quick enough with his exit and the girl had grabbed his arm.
"Wait, you can't leave." she said loudly and pulled on the red monster's arm. "This is too big, I need you. You're perfect."
"What?" Jack-Jack stopped and looked at the girl curiously.
"Come with me, hurry," she pulled again even if it didn't do anything to make him move.
Quickly coming to the decision that this couldn't possibly backfire worse he reluctantly followed along behind the girl. His suspicions about her being a college student were confirmed when she brought him back to the campus dormitories.
"We just have to be quiet," she whispered a bit too loudly for Jack-Jack's liking. Unlike himself who had training in stealth and was able to remain mostly hidden even when he was an eight foot tall red beast, she was terrible at it. She had left a trail of footprints that went all the way back to the college and it was only because Jack-Jack was behind her and sweeping away the trail with his tail that he was pretty sure the cops wouldn't come knocking on her door first thing in the morning after following it back to the college dorms.
It was the first time that Jack-Jack was in a girl's room that wasn't his sisters, the difference was startling and he wasn't sure if it was because this student seemed to be an aspiring villain, had completely different tastes or that his sister was simply weird. Clothes were strewn about the floor and he was pretty sure... yup those were bras and underwear just everywhere. What seemed to be half-baked weapons and gadgets were all over the desks.
"We don't have to worry about my roommate, let's just say she had a little accident at the start of the year," the girl laughed maniacally causing Jack-Jack's eyes to widen. "I didn't kill her jeez, she literally had an accident just before the year began and couldn't make it this semester so I got a room all to myself." The villain gave a chuckle seeing how this person reacted to her prank. "I totally got you though."
Jack-Jack was not amused and just shook his head. "So why did you bring me here?" wondering when he should leave or do something else to end this wild night.
"Duh, this is the origin of our team up," she said, placing her hands on her hips. "You the big strong guy and me, the evil genius mastermind. It's classic, we'll be unstoppable."
"You almost died tonight," Jack-Jack leveled a glare at the aspiring criminal.
"Minor setback, but with you there, I'll never lose."
"Why would I even want to join you, how do you know I'm even a villain?" He asked, curious what her reasoning was for the offer. It should at least prove to be amusing.
The villain gestured with her hand to all of him. "Are you going to try and say that you're a hero, come on. No civilian would feel safe with you around, so of course you turned to crime."
"I'm out of here," Jack-Jack said as he had heard enough, it was one thing to come up with dumb reasoning it was another to say he looked like a villain, that was just rude.
"Wait, I mean it," the woman said as she put herself between the red monster man and the door. "It was meant to be, we were both going to rob the store tonight."
"I was getting snacks," Jack-Jack protested, because he was most certainly not planning to rob the convenience store.
"Sick you eat people?!" she said looking at Jack-Jack's massive fangs.
"NO!" Jack-Jack shouted loudly while stomping his foot on the floor.
"Hey," a voice said loudly through the wall. "If the RA catches you with a boy in the dorm, you're going to be in so much trouble. So have quieter sex."
Jack-Jack lowered his voice to a more quiet whisper. "Look, this was clearly your first time doing any of this, just give up, no one got hurt and you should count that as a blessing.'
"If you try to leave I'll... I'll... I'll scream," she said firmly. "I'll tell the cops that it was you and and then you'll go to jail with me."
Jack-Jack could only roll his eyes at the absolute amateur blackmail attempt. "This is a waste of my time."
"No wait, please," she said as she hurled herself at Jack-Jack's torso. "I really really need your help."
"I'm not a villain, I just didn't want you to die tonight so can I go?"
"I want to be a villain."
"Why?"
"Because everyone thinks I can't be one." She reached up, took off her cheap mask and looked up at Jack-Jack with tears in her eyes.
"Oh fuck me," Jack-Jack muttered under his breath as he saw that the wannabe villain was the girl in his class that he had been crushing on for the past few months.