Alright, just a few notes before rehearsals start:

I've tried to time code this fic pretty firmly in the 1970s-1975 to be exact. The Incredibles movie is a highly stylized version of the 60s, despite its shown tech, but most of those gadgets were really regulated to both secret lairs and secret hero work, so I have tried following in the same vein. That being said, I have fudged a few things by a few years, so if you see a song out of place or car model mentioned that isn't in existence yet, that's why.

Most importantly while I am a health care professional, I can absolutely guarantee you that no scientific basis was used anywhere, I'm just trying to be as accurate as I can with my terminology. I took some interesting medical concepts and went hog wild, like a Star Trek writer with the word "quantum". Would any of this work in real life? Hell naw, so don't worry I don't actually think a lot of this could be possible. Basically, you'd have better luck gleaning valid medical information from a textbook through a cloudy glass window after it was dragged through the mud, scribbled out with red marker, and had pages missing. And was in Aramaic. And you had cataracts.

Umm...other than that, I really hope you enjoy! This was an amazing project I didn't know I'd be writing at the tail end of quarantine and I had an absolute blast writing it. Thank you!

Book I
The Rape of Persephone

Chapter I
Ultra

For all her years as a wallflower with secrets, Violet never really did learn to keep an eye on the edge of a crowd.

When she emerged into the sunlight and cheering adulations, squinting through her mask to find her footing down the bank's steps, Violet caught only a flash from the corner of her eye. There was a man standing by his motorbike at the edge of a crowd, and she dismissed him. After all, he was one among hundreds crowded around the steps of the bank. Just another come to gather and wait with bated breath behind the police officers staked outside the building.

Truly it was a shame that she couldn't do something as simple as making a withdrawal from her account without something like a three-man stick-up happening right in front of her. It was only her luck that she wore her super suit under her clothes, having just run from a TV interview of the first 'all super family'. Why didn't her brother or parents ever run into trouble like this? They were official heroes under the National Super Agency, and all she had was a rather active file.

For all the government knew, she was a registered super just about to begin her residency at Metroville General. Not a certified agent to be sent out for specialized assignments. Just an asset that could be called once in a while-a government contractor.

Dashel was the official start to the 'next generation', even though he was younger than the supers their parents had begun to mentor in The Prevention Initiative and only a probationary agent at best. But he took to his role with aplomb. Speedo, as he was known, was the perfect poster boy for the silver age of heroes. Tall for his age and blond with a grin that could charm even the most doubtful of hearts, they had him on every interview about the NSA, every paper and magazine, backed up by his veteran parents.

Violet, however? She was still content to disappear, to be like her unofficial official name: Shadow. Oh, she no longer had the shame of her youth over her blood, but the spotlight was never for her. She didn't like its heat, and she'd been burned enough…

Yet somehow she was always caught up to her neck in robberies and muggings. Dash seemed to be the extremes, either to save a cat out of a tree once in a blue moon or hunting down such creatures as Bomb Voyage and his son Petite Voyage across the globe.

It wasn't that she didn't like being a superhero. It certainly felt nice now, watching the gunmen being dragged from the bank lobby in cuffs, and the hostages spilling out with grateful delight, all grabbing for her hands to unload their heartfelt gratitude. She smiled and assured them she was just glad they were alright. A shield to stop the bullets was nothing, as was disappearing to knock the villains out from behind. But every time, normal people acted like she was some goddess descended from the heavens.

And that wasn't true at all. She was just human-a gifted human but it didn't make her touched or more enlightened than the next woman.

"Thank you, Shadow," the officer in charge breathed, shuffling his way through the crowd with careful pushes. "If you hadn't been there-"

"You would have handled the situation," Violet demurred. The police had handled crime before the reinstatement of super rights. She didn't bear the opinion that they were incompetent as many supers did. After all, Violet was violently aware she was wearing a bulletproof suit-they were not. Added onto that, when they were scraped or bumped, she and her brothers apparently healed at an accelerated rate-a latent power developed well into their teen years. Violet had come face to face with how lucky she was in that department many a night in the ER. "I simply...expedited things."

She pulled back her glove and glanced at her watch, hissing. The officer frowned and his hand hovered over her arm. "Are you hurt?"

"No, worse. I'm late." Her shift started in five minutes. Unless she suddenly gained her brother's speed, she was going to be killed by her supervising physician. Wonderful, survive the wrong end of a revolver, be killed by a pediatric surgeon.

"Take a cruiser. You 'expedited' our day, I can do the same." He whistled and waved to one of the officers trying to keep the press behind police lines.

"I...well, honestly, I'd love that." She hurried back into the crime scene and gathered her camel hair coat and discarded clothing and rushed back out, carefully picking her way between the EMTs and people being wrapped in orange shock blankets. Violet wasn't one for special treatment, but it wasn't such a big favor, a lift to the hospital.

With a last wave to the cheering crowd, Shadow folded herself into the back of a police cruiser, tossing an interesting from this side of the glass joke to her driver before they sped off with a flash of red and blue, west towards downtown.

A low hum and a jet black motorcycle started after them at a more sedate pace, threading between the cars on the highway with easy swaying, like a needle through silk. From her seat behind glass in the cruiser, Violet glanced out the window and caught sight of the rider again, dressed as darkly as his bike, his helmet a solid shiny ebony. The rider turned his head towards them for a moment, before bending low over the handles and bypassing them without a signal. "Boy, if we weren't in a rush," the officer turned chauffeur mumbled.

"I'm sorry, officer…?"

"Gaad. Officer Gaad, Miss Shadow."

"I'm sorry Officer Gaad. You know if you want-"

"Oh no, no. With the way he was going, I'll no doubt see him again." He grinned at her in the rearview mirror. "Besides, I can't wait to tell my daughter I helped the real Shadow! She's your biggest fan!"

Violet grinned, but there was pain in it. The words held no meaning for her, but she had seen the way the phrase still affected her father. She loathed it by sympathetic osmosis, seeing how his eyes lost a little of their light every time someone threw the phrase at him. They pulled up in front of the hospital, and Violet asked the officer for a pen and paper. She signed her super name and instructed, "Well, you tell….?"

"Mia."

"-Mia, that Shadow said thank you, and to do her homework and eat all her vegetables and go to bed on time."

Officer Gaad laughed, and thanked her for the autograph, shaking her hand as she exited. Hurrying to the phone booth, Violet began tugging her scrubs on again. While she wasn't big on superhero perks, the national order to tint phonebooth glass was a boon she was grateful for every day. Ripping off her mask, she tucked it into her suit's collar and used her foot to open the booth's door before running towards the hospital's entrance, now simply one of the rest.

Normal, if only for a few hours. With normal worries and tasks, with concerns that were easy to handle and easily soothed. It was such a gift to have their lives limited to their own sphere, she thought as she finally caught up with her group for the morning meeting. Their concerns were more metaphysical: happiness, success. Doing well in their careers, finding loved ones, starting families. Their next car payment, or mortgage payment, or groceries.

They did not have to handle the ripple effects of taking down corrupt politicians who hired supervillains to handle their competition, but actually helped the communities they were elected to serve. They did not have to factor in the choice between letting a criminal go to kill more or try to evacuate a building coming down. It did not balance their lives with the knowledge that every person helped was a choice between that one human and a hundred others who were just as worthy of help elsewhere.

How could any person make that choice? What constituted worthy? Proximity, societal placement, or lack thereof? Money, family, simple dumb luck? How was that right?

A person couldn't choose on their own. Violet supposed that was what made supers...super. But we aren't gods, we're not smarter just because we're made of different stuff.

That was what prevented her, Violet Parr, from making the cut. Because she couldn't choose. She couldn't live with herself and the continual degradation of the world. One good deed against all the never-ending cascade of evil.

And it was never-ending. They would take down a new supervillain, and the villain would swear revenge and attack again. Heroes would lose him and swear to never rest until they were arrested or stopped. And it would swing back and forth like a bladed pendulum, cutting everything in its path as it continued on and on forever, hurt creating hurt until the whole world bled. Violet couldn't be a part of that cycle, she couldn't watch her own actions circle the drain like rinsing an OR floor free of blood.

Too empathetic, Dicker had warned. The agent had explained she felt for everyone far too much-even the villains. As she rode the elevator to her first patient evaluation, she leaned against the mirrored wall and remembered the day she'd given up the mask in any official capacity.

It was her first year as Shadow, Incredigirl's identity and costume outgrown. Edna had been ecstatic when she had come and gone wild making a suit of charcoal and plum that matched her eyes. Violet had hugged it all the way to California, where she was visiting Lucius and Honey for the summer in their new home. They'd planned on going to the beach, where Su Nami had attacked. Violet had been all by herself, Lucius taken out early by one of Su's mechanical sharks, and with nothing but her shields found out that she wasn't the only Par to run on water.

Shadow had taken down the aquatic villain, saving the entire coast from a devastating manufactured flood. Pride had infected her, and Violet had grinned so wide her mask almost dislodged in all the flashing of cameras and shouted questions. For days, she rode the high-she'd taken down a villain alone and not even out of high school yet!

Standing in court, she had regaled the jury of the tale, of her daring deeds and fight with the woman who thought to drown innocent families on the sands of San Francisco, sat behind the prosecutor sharing confident smiles that did not go unrewarded. The verdict was quick, absolutely guilty and Violet had stood with her chin lifted. Justice was served, and things were put to right. Su Nami had turned on her as she was lead toward the doors leading to the jail, and Violet had given her the best Incredible grin she could muster.

But the villainess wasn't looking at her. Like a bolt of lightning to the spine, a shriek had ripped through the courtroom and a chubby little body shoved past her legs. A boy, barely into his toddling years was screaming, little round face cherry red, already soaked with tears, screaming Mama! Mama! Mama! A woman with grey hair had come to sweep him up, but the screaming continued right before her. Su Nami had twisted in the arms of her captors, reaching for her child, begging just to hold him, just to soothe his tears, just one more time while the jury shook their heads and the judge shouted for her to be taken out.

Violet had stumbled away from the scene, running straight into the bathroom. She had known what it was like, to think she was separated from her beloved parents forever. But all she had to do was go home. Where would Su Nami's child go now?

She had ripped off her suit, almost ripping the zipper right off in her effort to change, running out of the courthouse. She ended up breaking her heel and collapsing on the stairs, weeping as piteously as the child still screaming within.

That was where Dicker had found her. Had sat with her, groaning when his knees protested. He didn't try to distract her sadness with platitudes about her victory bringing them to this point in court, about how she had saved millions of people, single-handedly brought down a nemesis on her summer vacation. Instead, he patted her back and let her cry her fill.

She had saved hundreds-but had obliterated one child's life. How did that equate?

"You'd make a good lawyer kid, seeing the issue from both sides. But it makes for a rough life as a super. You're too empathetic. I bet you even see Nami's point in all this."

She didn't want to prove him right (after all, killing innocent whales was wrong!), and instead looked up at him, sniffling. "You want me to stop?"

"Want? No. You've got the most unique powers I've seen in a while. And they keep growing...but I know when I see a student that's not cut out for the work. You'll kill yourself if you keep going on this way."

"So I should stop."

"I think you'll do more harm than good if you don't take care of yourself first. I think you can do more good as Violet Parr than as Shadow."

Violet blinked, staring at her reflection in the elevator wall, older than the girl that had looked into that bathroom mirror those years ago. Now that she was grown, she often wondered if Dicker thought she could turn and decided to nip it in the bud. The thought chilled her-she could never betray all she loved, all her family stood for. She still sometimes had nightmares of Nomanisan, of hiding in the leaves of the jungle, hearing men in grey storm closer and closer, always seeing her-always chasing, never growing tired.

Violet had witnessed evil before. She may be empathetic, but she could never intentionally inflict that kind of pain onto another person. It was probably something else that made her an awful super. She had no prepared speeches, no one-liners, No pride to puff when she took down evil-doers; just pity. Pity at what they could have been, and what they were all reduced to because of their choices.

No, it was better this way. Boring, perhaps, especially since her tardiness was rewarded with the unfavorable duty of being in the med-surg wing. But the fallout was at least better than super work: irate people and aching feet sat more easily with her than mass graves and broken lives.

Outside the hospital, on the far side of the parking lot, in one of the spaces shadowed by the highway overpass above, the black rider pulled back his sleeve and spoke into the white metal of his armband. "It's her." A beat, the buzz of a voice speaking eking out from the metal wrist band, mostly lost to the whistle of cars on the overpass. "It'll take time. I don't believe them when they say they won't question her absence. It's a matter of getting her before-"

Another pause, thick with tension. "I still have five hours left. I'm coming back now." The rider's fists bunch and he nearly slaps the band again, breaking the connection. A high-pitched whine, followed by a hum and the bike glided from its spot onto the road, merging back onto the interstate.

Dinner at the Parr's residence was always an affair. They were still in the house 'loaned' by Winston, which was a boon with how much noise they were often liable to make. Between Dash and their father crowing loudly about whatever feat they or another member had accomplished that day, the TV was also always going. Jack's fascination with action movies and the constant rotation of news channels elevated the level of noise to a startling height.

Violet was grateful for her room high, high on the very top level. She was sure it was meant to be an observatory of some type before she converted it into her own living space, and she didn't mind the all-glass ceiling and its clear view of the stars.

She supposed she ought to have moved out and gotten her own place. Perhaps not the studio in LA that Kari boasted was only two grand a month, but Violet severely doubted she'd find another house or apartment with a helipad. And though she wasn't a full-time agent, it was surprising how often she bummed a ride off Winston or her mother's helicopter to get to the hospital. Besides, between the grueling physical tax of being a sometimes superhero, and the even worst grind of medical school, coming home to a place that she had to clean and food she had to cook all by herself was a little more than she could handle.

And if she was honest...Violet liked staying with her family. Despite the noise and the bustle and the constant talking, she loved it here. She loved her family, her proud father and understanding mother, her mischievous brothers, and their chaotic energy.

Besides, Dash wasn't in a rush either. His senior year was almost upon them, and there was still the question of him going to college. He wanted to be a full-time hero like their father was before. However, their mother, while encouraging, had been fully pushing the education line: just in case. Elastagirl was still burned by the post-law panic they had suffered in the fifties when they were suddenly stripped of the freedom to use their powers and were left without money, opportunity, or skills to find employment.

Tonight, however, all the noise and focus was on her. Violet sat through her father's praise and critique of her handling the bank robbery with a resigned sort of muted pride. Bob had taped a news program and was running the bank footage they had aired back and forth ad nauseam. He was bursting with pride but was a little worried about how much she relied on her shields rather than disarming the criminals first and foremost. If Violet put more pride into her super work, it might have been stung. But separated from it as she was, she could hear a father's worry in his words. He, too, understood they weren't indestructible.

"If you're done with the play by play," Helen called from the oversized kitchen, "I could use the victorious Shadow's help in the kitchen!"

"Aw, honey, heroes don't cook after a big fight! I'll help-"

Violet placed her hand on his arm. He was older now, the handsome blond more white than gold, but there was still strength under her fingers. "It's okay, Dad. I want to. You sit here and watch the news, let me know if they say anything interesting about me."

"They think you're dating Echo," Jack reported from his seat on the floor. He was already flipping through the channels, searching for any more reporting on her heroics. Echo was a super a little older than her with sonic powers, who went through heroines like bees went through tulips.

"Ech. Except that. Keep those to yourself and go back to channel eight, they're playing Forbidden Planet."

"That's my girl," Bob laughed. He may be a super-father but he was none too pleased about speculation on his daughter's love life, preferring to live in a reality where she didn't have one...which was true.

There was more collateral damage being a superhero than the everyday existential moral crisis. It meant little to no social life, something she had discovered on the steps of this very house, having to agree with her boyfriend Tony that he deserved a girl who could devote at least one day a month to him, let alone a phone call once in a while. He had been sweet about it, assured her of his affection, of his pride in her work (one of the few civilians who knew both her super and secret identity having found the proper way to break it to his junior year), but that he wanted more. And if she couldn't commit to that, then he didn't want to let their relationship dissolve into bitterness. He'd rather be infrequent friends.

It had been all rather mature for a high-school senior, Violet reflected. She had just stared at her shoelaces, trying not to cry. He was married now, a professor in North Carolina. He still sent her cards-one for Christmas which is how Violet knew he was expecting his first child, and one for her birthday. Tony was good people still.

Helen was shaking her head by the time Violet entered the kitchen, laughing at her boys' antics. "I thought you could use a break from coaching."

Violet fell gratefully into a stool at the island. "Thanks, Mom. It's not that I don't appreciate it-"

"But you're not an official hero," Helen finished.

For some reason, that left a bitter aftertaste. "I'm a hero…"

"Oh-o-of course honey. I just meant you're not an agent. You know, being sent out. You just catch what you happen to catch."

"Right. I supposed I should be listening to Dad's coaching more. I'm not doing it as often, which means I should always be keeping my prime up."

"Oh, your prime huh? You're barely into your twenties, Vi, you haven't even hit your prime yet." Helen sprinkled a pinch of salt over the diced potatoes before sliding them into the oven. After wiping her hands, she touched her daughter's cheek. "Besides, you're a hero in different ways. You're saving lives, Vi! And not just from bad guys and bullets. Not many supers would be useful against a heart attack or stroke or-"

"Nausea?" Most of her day had dragged after the bank, patching up small wounds, handing out meds, listening to complaints about her fellow doctors whilst the rest of her group of residents observed a pediatric surgery.

"You'll get there. Soon Doctor Violet Parr will be an even bigger name than Shadow. World-class surgeon! I mean C'mon!" Helen bumped her daughter's hip with her own, grinning. "You finished in four years what takes people eight."

Violet smiled at that the pride in Helen's voice. It was true, she had devoted herself utterly to her studies and sailed through college, taking extra classes until she ate, breathed, and slept medicine. Her doctorate was a title she earned through her hard work rather than the accident of her birth. It was something she excelled at, not her blood cells.

Maybe it was simply because she didn't have flashy powers-hers were only defensive, not speed or element control-that she was left to find pride in other things. But it still stood that Violet had always envied Tony's life more than Dash's. She was truly proud of her twerp of a brother but his track meets always flirted a little too close to cheating for her comfort.

Violet had felt this too, those few times she did visit her friends in their small houses, with their small televisions and shared record player. She lived on a hill in a house that was designed, in clothes that were also designed with tech that outpaced whatever could be won at the local bank lottery all because...what? The Parrs were accidentally born with different genes?

She was no longer ashamed of her powers, but once she realized how abnormal she was in every aspect, she was protective of her normality as just Vi, limited as it was.

Shadow was easy to figure out. She was strong and confident, lucky, and related to the amazing Speedo, daughter of Mr. Incredible and Elastagirl. Shadow knew her place, and she loved it. Fighting crime as one of the family, thought it so cool since she was a child. The harmony and togetherness. But it was based on nothing-just whatever was in her body that made her invisible.

Violet Parr, however...that girl needed work. That girl had somehow fallen out of sync with the very life and family she had been so happy to have. She'd like to feel as capable without her mask as she was wearing it, and graduating had done a lot for that. Violet had earned that, all on her own, and it harmed no one.

That line of thought was killed abruptly as Dash announced his arrival home and followed his nose to the kitchen. Behind him trailed Robbie, hesitant and shy as always despite practically living at their house.

A shy boy of six feet, Robbie Herring was closer to Violet in age than Dash and always seemed unsure what to do with his own height and presence. He hunched a little as if trying to blend in the background. Violet always tried to make him feel welcome-recognizing the same nervous habits she had relied on for so long.

He was a new super, the ink barely dry on his agency contract, and was their father's apprentice. He shared Mr. Incredible's strength and had been in desperate need of a mentor since he put a bully through a wall at his school seven years ago. The NSA had loads of reports like this, late bloomers discovering their powers all over the nation. Dicker had come up with the idea of matching them with seasoned heroes to hone their talents and fast-track them into participating in the agency. It pre-trained agents for them and kept older supers busy enough not to envy the next generation. The Prevention Initiative was an excellent idea for keeping young supers in line, on the grid, and well trained in keeping their powers under control-it only hit a snag when there were more youngsters than veterans. Syndrome had seen to that.

"Hello, Mrs. Parr. Hi Vi-can I speak to Mr. Parr?"

"He's in the living room, Robbie. Are you joining us for dinner?"

"I-well-I mean if-"

"There's enough," Violet assured, already pulling down another plate.

"Th-thank you."

Violet watched him leave with a sigh. How he was going to make it in the agency, she did not know. True her father's cockiness wasn't his best virtue, but it had pulled him from more than one sticky situation. Robbie on the other hand…

"So, the bank," Dash asked as the oven door rattled. He popped the stolen potato into his mouth and began the same old ritual of trying to breathe and chew on the hot food at the same time.

"So, you have no manners."

"Hey, I'm trying to pay you a compliment!"

"I'm trying to save your tongue." Violet tapped a glass to the ice handle on the front of the fridge, dispensing a few cubes and handing it to her brother. Dash swallowed and fished out a chunk of ice and began to chew. How one boy managed to hold so many bad habits all at once! "But yes. The bank. It was no big deal, really."

"It was clean work, Vi! You managed it in under, what? Ten minutes?"

She shrugged and gathered up the dishware, carrying it to the table, and began to set places. "It was a simple job, that's all. It's really not much to write home about."

"Yeah, but you don't save the day every day." Dash took their father's seat at one end of the table and leaned back in the chair.

"Why does everyone act like I never help," Violet laughed. "You'd think a simple heist foiled was the second coming."

"Well, it kinda is. When's the last time you were in front of the news camera?" When she opened her mouth to remind him what they had been doing the morning he intercepted with: "that wasn't a scheduled interview?"

"I don't know-I usually leave before then. I do plenty, you know."

"You leave it for the cops to handle. I mean granted, does add to your aura of the unseen hero, but that's usually petty crime. This was a real-"

Violet dropped the last plate a little heavier than she meant to. With a deep breath, she replied, "All crime is real crime, Dash."

Her brother snorted and righted his chair giving her the signature Incredible grin. "Please, Vi. That didn't work on me when Mom said everyone's special. You know it's not true."

Violet grit her teeth. Pride. Stupid super pride-it was what had gotten them banned before, left without a sympathetic shoulder to cry on. Dash continued:

"We could really use you, you know. They send me out all the time but I don't turn invisible. I'm fast but it leaves a trace."

"Oh, sick of a hero's life already?"

"No-o-o." It was a rare sight, but Violet was observing her brother actually thinking-trying to choose his words before they all came tumbling out. "I just mean that...you'd be more of a help, helping other supers instead of tying muggers to light posts and going to the hospital to prescribe Tylenol."

"I didn't go through four years of med school just to-That's not what I do all day!"

"Well, whatever it is, it's still not as important as this! You're wasting your talent Violet-c'mon. And look how happy you've made Dad."

"Dad's happy I have a degree." Bob kept her graduation picture in his wallet at all times, crowing to anyone who would listen about his little baby was valedictorian, and pointing to her chords for Science National Honor Society.

"Yeah, because he thought you'd be coming back and doing the real work."

Violet's fist clenched. "If you call what I do fake work one more time, I'm really going to clean your clock, Dash."

He held up his hands, surrendering for the moment. "Listen, you get a paycheck, it's a real job. But it's not what you're meant for. Besides, they've all been asking for you, you know. Wondering why you aren't there."

"My blood doesn't define me." It was something she told so many of the sick patients she came across. Their illness, their suffering, temporary or permanent, didn't define them. It didn't make them the person they were, it was how they handled it. Not that her powers were an illness….

"But it is you."

"That's not all I am."

"Who are you trying to prove that to?"

That caught her better than Violet expected. Introspection would have to wait as Bob came through, pulling his coat on, Robbie trailing behind. "Tell your mother I'll be back later."

"Where are you going?"

"Down to the Agency. Ultra's at it again."

Violet groaned. Ultra, Ultra, Ultra!

Ultra was an ultra pain in the behind, mostly because he was damned elusive. The figure had come on the scene some years ago, sometimes in a leather jacket, sometimes in all flak like a navy seal; but always in black, and always with his face covered. Balaklava, goggles, dime-store mask spray-painted, whatever. And that was if you got a picture of him.

It was yet to be determined what side he was on. He'd break into a business, a hospital, even once a dance club, and leave evidence behind; about the owners-never himself. Usually, it was something incriminating for a high-profile investor, politician, or CEO. That would plant him firmly on the good side.

The fact that when there was opposition, he left a pile of banged-up guards and officers-and when there were firearms involved he shot to kill-kicked him back towards the bad side. Supers didn't kill, and when there was a death involved it was usually incidental (like a car to a jet plane).

Violet had treated one of his victims, a man beaten so black and blue, there wasn't a part of his body that wasn't swollen. Something that had turned her stomach-until it was revealed by Ultra's bread crumbs that he had been trying to hide the money he made from pimping out the go-go dancers in his club. Then it was a little more difficult to make sure he got his anti-inflammatories on time. Too empathetic, you aren't the law, you can't make those choices… But secretly, very secretly, Violet thanked the vigilante, if just that one time.

Wherever he was. Rare as it was to capture a picture of him, it was harder to pinpoint his actions from any other kind of break-in. But one thing always defined them. Wherever he went, if there was a computer system he knocked it and cameras out with disturbing ease and implanted a virus after that ate through files and programs like a plague of locusts-The Ultra Virus, his namesake. There still wasn't a way to battle it, as it changed every time he hit.

"But you can have dinner first."

"We won't be long. Just overlooking some street camera footage, and game plans. Robbie had the idea of setting up a sting to lure him in. Looks like he was up to no good this time-stole supplies from a pharmacy. Wasn't far from your hospital, Vi."

"I'll go too." Dash sped to the hall to grab his coat.

"But you just got here," Helen bemoaned, her corkscrew already in the bottle of wine as she came out of the kitchen.

"If they got a picture of him we might need to act fast. They'll need me. Someone's gotta put Ultra down, Mom."

Violet flinched. "He's not a dog, dash."

"He's a vigilante." Dash shrugged. "And he kills."

"So were Mom and Dad and-" And Shadow now, technically.

"And now they're not, Violet. Now we all work together, and Ultra thinks he's above that." By his tone, Violet felt included in that. Instead of responding, she turned to her father.

"We really ought to know his motives at the least," Bob mediated. "I mean, if he's not a bad guy, no problem, right?"

Looking back years later, Violet would laugh at herself. She would meditate on all the horror she would soon come to see, the heartbreak and the insurmountable joy that was to be hers and recall this conversation with some black humor. If she had known in that hour what was to follow from that day, how her peaceful life so desperately attempting normality was about to be overturned, she might have viewed the disregarded rider from earlier and his midnight colors like a crow; an omen of doom.

But she did not remember. Instead, she kissed her father's cheek and told him to come home sooner rather than later, and watched him leave through one of the many exits of their house that they had never questioned.