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Part 5 of 5 of Silhouette,an Incredibles series. First four parts can be found on Keo Siph's stats page.
Bob Parr stared down at Dash as the boy sat on the wet grass in the middle of one of the largest thunder storms in the last few years.
"Dash?" The pale face that met his eyes was tired and aged beyond reconning. This was his boy?
"Violet killed her husband. She's gone."
If Dash was fast, Bob Parr was faster. He sprinted through the trees, and if one was too large to easily go around, he simply uprooted it and tossed it over one shoulder. He cried her name in that breathless way one does when pounding the ground with one's feet. But the words screamed themselves in his own head even louder. "Violet, Gone."
Helen Parr watched as Dash scrambled through the door. "Dad went after her!" She was instantly on her feet, and ran into the rain outside, drowning in the sudden wetness of the air as a deep blue car drove up, and Lucius stepped out. Bob's car was gone. Helen took a moment to let that sink in even as Lucius came to her.
"Oh, God! Helen, I am so sorry. I shouldn't have come in the first place. But if you're going to tell him I have to take responsibility and—"
"Dad went after her!" Dash cried in outrage. "Not now, Uncle Lucius!" The two adults stared at her little boy.
"You always did sound like your father…" Her eyes washed over him and she nodded.
"Come. We go."
"Helen?"
"After my husband. He's in the forest where we lost her."
Jack Jack stood in the door as what was left of his family crammed into a car with Uncle Best and Mirage. He sighed, shook his head, and went back in for an umbrella. It was going to be a long trek after his unconventional family.
Mirage stared through the side mirror into Dash's eyes. Dash shrunk from it and looked towards his mom, who was staring holes in the back of Lucius' head, who's eyes flitted across the increasingly dangerous road. To all, it seemed like an eternity, and even that was too short a time to spend together to explain all that had happened.
"You're sure, about the report?" Mirage asked suddenly, not taking her eyes off Dash.
"It was very thorough."
"What report?" Dash swung his head between Uncle and Mirage, neither who would answer him.
"The report about Glenn's death."
"Well, I know what happened! Violet came home, found him dead, and ran off! What else?"
"When the investigators arrived… that's not what they found." Helen spoke slowly, wishing beyond words that she wouldn't have to say this. Lucius spoke instead.
"No one else had entered the house. The only person who could have killed your sister's husband, and who most probably did, was your sister herself."
Bob's shoulder connected with the trunk of the largest tree yet, and even as it's roots snapped from the ground and it toppled over his back to be behind him, he felt the ripping of his shoulder's muscles and the pop of blood vessels as his whole right side gave out. He fell into the dirt, and the tip of his nose brushed against something rubber.
"You ran a long way, considering you wouldn't even see me if you found me." Bob could smell the sneaker before him long before he comprehended those words weren't from inside his own head. Instead of standing, he flopped on his back, effectively tilting his head in the direction of the water-made silhouette.
Helen shrugged deeper into her soaked sweater, searching for warmth. Best stood still, his back to her, taking on any water that would come at him. Mirage seemed dry still, hair wet, but clothes still in perfect condition, eyes glazed, but still centered on Dash, who was shaking in his boots. A final shudder, and he stepped forward, to the edge of his sister's forest.
"We're going to get them back." And no one could argue with it.
Jack Jack sighed as he caught himself in the mirror. With a yellow raincoat, yellow boots, and yellow umbrella, not even including his feather-down-soft blonde yellow hair, he looked like a duck. Not even a real duck, but a rubber duckie of a duck. He shook his head, and decided to ruin the image. After a moment's pause, an almost shrill ripping sound, and a slight smirk, he nodded. The red, healthily muscled demon wings definitely ruined the image.
Helen swung from the trees and over the upturned ones with ease, keeping up with Dash as Lucius froze his way over it all, only slightly falling behind as he was carrying a surprised Mirage in his arms. They neared what seemed a clearing as Dash cried in shock.
"Dad!"
Mr. Incredible could only stare at his blood-stained daughter, who rippled of water that ran past his already soaked and prone form. Yet, he couldn't see her.
All he could see was rain.
Then, all he could see was a bright red blob, way too close to his face.
"Dad?"
"Bob!"
"Well, at least we found him alive."
"Yes, it's good to see you, Bob."
"Quit being so calm!"
"Amazingly energetic, for all this rain." Violet's smooth tones seared through the converse, and everyone turned to her, except Bob, who was still on the ground. "Let's see who's gotten better."
Then the explosions started.
Jack Jack grumbled a viscous curse under his breath. There were miles of forest! Where could they…
After a moment's contemplation, Mr. Parr's son decided to follow the ominous cloud of burning forest rather than search aimlessly throughout the rest and hope against hope that wasn't his sister's doing. No, the son of Mr. Parr was above hoping. He knew the work of Violet when he saw it.
The trees no more than a few feet behind Lucius and Mirage, who made up the back of the group, exploded and fell as an effective barrier across Mr. Parr's newly made path. Dash stared, used to the water-found form, but Mirage, Lucius and Helen glanced around wildly.
"Violet?"
"Explosions, barriers, levitations and invisibility. What more could I have asked for?" Dash could feel the daggers of her eyes, just as Helen found Violet and made a pleading gesture, which was ignored. Helen, too, was shocked, but still she had found her daughter. Violet's sweeping gaze left Dash bleeding internally, forgoing all the normallicy of ripped flesh for severing the spine, crumpling the stomach and tightening the throat. Dash fell to his knees, hands useless at his side as his own imagination tore at his flesh under his sister's gaze, his eyes locked on hers.
Helen seemed trapped in each water dropplet that fell from her daughter's face, each moment where it would outline her eyes that she so searched for.
It suddenly didn't matter. Lucius' report, Bob's prone form or Dash's sudden escape from the corner of her view. All that mattered was her daughter was back. Everything else could be taken care of. Her hand stretched and her bare fingers brushed her daughter's face.
"Come home."
Mirage shuddered at the power of the moment, and watched Lucius' reaction to the family power. He looked pale, voice stricken from his throat. Mirage decided, suddenly, that this wasn't any less disturbing than the family reunion. She let her gaze drift to Dash again, who was on his knees under his sister's gaze.
Helen's voice hung in the air, but reverberated in Lucius' ears. As though the world had pinned him to a tree and strung bells around his head. He could not move, knowing only that the last moment of his life, he would remember this as the ultimate lifeline. What would Helen do if Violet didn't answer?
Bob felt the world settle on his chest, but not even the rushing blood could have drowned out this moment from him.
Violet stared. Helen let her hand settle on her daughter's shoulder, before it suddenly fell through and the water of her form shifted away from them all. A sound wished to burst from Helen's throat, but was held for a moment.
She then cried out with no reply.
Jack Jack snapped his wings shut as he flew over the clearing, plummeting almost to the ground before catching air enough in them again to break his fall into a settling upon his bright yellow boots. He looked up directly at his sister, and even from his fifteen year old form, he could meet eyes with her as she hunched.
"Hey, sis."
Mirage watched as Violet stared around at her family before backing up and letting her hands fall to her side. A snarl, and the air before her exploded and she disappeared even deeper into the forest, her form the wafting of the smoke around her more than the water down her sides. It brushed her hair like waves of the gray morning ocean and sparkled around her squinting eyes. Helen gasped and made towards her, even as Jack Jack blinked in surprise. Mirage leaped over Bob and dashed past Helen ripping her encumbering heels off as she went, she blundered blindly after Parr's daughter. Jack Jack stared as well, but caught his mom as she rushed past him.
When she glared at him, he shook his head and watched her go.
"Trust the unseen."
Mirage watched as the still water-spoken form of Violet crouched of the half-form of her husband, who had always been a polite young, if large and loud, man. Neither said anything for the longest time.
Violet finally turned her head and stared at the intruder.
Mirage had told no one. None knew of the shards that flow in her blood with every beat of her heart. She opened her mouth to speak, but instead knelt next to the body and lifted his arm and touched the broken watch face.
"I lost him to my powers, too." Two shards slipped from the flesh of her fingers, leaving behind already healing scars, and slid in place in the face of the watch, melting and repairing until it was not broken at all, and the second hand started up again.
Violet watched with all-seeing eyes, even as she faded back into a form that blocked the trees behind her from view.
"I can still feel him, you know? By my side."
"And I as well."
It still rained. Somehow, though, it was a nice chill that kept the family hugs comfortable and warm rather than overbearing, especially when Jack Jack burst into flame as Mirage told him he had helped a great deal, to cheer him up. The steam from this stirred Violet's hair, rippling it against the wind. Dash caught her eye, and smiled.
"You know what I want to say." When she gave him a surprised, curious and confused look, he laughed. "Good to see ya again." She blinked once, and then started shaking. Dash jumped, and was instantly at her side. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to--!" And her head shot back and she shook as she laughed aloud, ringing like a choir on the rain-rushed air.