Disclaimer (which should be at the top of the first chapter but isn't because I forgot): If I ever claim to own The Incredibles, may my body be split into a thousand pieces and scattered around the globe. The five main characters are my creations and are completely fictional; any resemblance that they may bear to real people is purely coincidental.
NOTE – "Aisling" is pronounced "ash-ling" and "Joaquin" is pronounced "wa-keen"
After they left the grocery store, the Little Pack all wanted to go home, except for Aisling, who reminded them that they had to wash their plates. They walked in the direction of their home, but stopped on the way at a gas station that had a public restroom. The restroom had a filthy floor and smelled much too strongly of disinfectant, but it did have a relatively clean sink, a soap dispenser, and a roll of paper towels. In their customary order, the Pack went into the restroom, where they washed their plates and cutlery, as well as their hands for good measure. After Aisling came out, the sinking sun had reduced to a purplish glow, and the Pack headed home for the night. They said very little to one another, perhaps because their main concern was walking quickly in order to get out of the wind sooner. They trotted down many streets, all of them with varying types of buildings, but all of the equally shabby. Most of the storefronts boasted signs that were barely legible due to long sun exposure, and the there was hardly a foot of sidewalk that didn't have a crack in it, and there was hardly a crack that didn't have a dry, brown weed poking up from it.
Bella-Jane, the smallest of the girls, always looked at the ground when she walked. She also had the habit of adjusting her gait constantly so as to not step on any lines or cracks. She couldn't say why she did this, aside from the fact that a few scant years prior she had made the discovery that it was possible to walk without every stepping of the impurities of the pavement.
Aisling, who was behind Janie at the end of the line, slowly turned her head from side to side, always alert for any sources of danger that might threaten her charges. She never looked at the ground when she walked.
Patrick, who was in the middle of the procession and directly in front of Bell-Bell, never seemed to walk without his hands in his pockets. He neither looked at the ground nor at what lay straight in front of him, but somewhere in between.
Vasilisa, in her place ahead of Patrick, had a distinctive skip in her gait, which she accompanied with random tosses of her head that served to shake her long, coarse hair out of her eyes. As she tossed her head, she glanced all around, not looking for anything in particular, aside from things that might be unusual, which she rarely spotted.
Joaquin, who always headed the Pack's processions, would normally have cast his gaze straight ahead and walked with long, easy strides. Today, however, his experiences with Joey had put him on edge, and he held himself extremely stiffly and he walked with abrupt, clipped steps. He glanced back at Aisling. She also seemed to be on the alert, and Joaquin quickened his steps even more.
They continued in this manner until they were about three-quarters of their way home, when Joaquin turned into an alley only to find himself facing a very fat boy with a sickening grin on his pudgy face. Joaquin felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.
"What do you want, Joey?" he asked, baring his teeth subconsciously. Joey opened his mouth to answer, but was interrupted by a squeal from Aisling. Joaquin, Vasilisa, Patrick, and Bella-Jane all simultaneously whirled around to see Aisling locked in the grasp of a brawny teenage boy, older than Joey, and much more sinister-looking.
"Let go!" Bell-Bell shrieked, furious to see her caretaker being forcibly restrained. She sprang forward, intending to attack the boy who was three times her age, but was stopped by Patrick, who became even paler as he watched Aisling thrash helplessly. Joey laughed.
"Squeeze her, Boss, squeeze her!" he called, slapping his massive thighs.
Aisling curled her lips and let out an animalistic scream. "Let go of me, you barbarian!" This seemed to amuse her captor, and he grinned maliciously and released her. Aisling jumped back instantly and grabbed Janie from Patrick. She backed up very slowly, until she stood next to Vasilisa. She caught the younger girl's eye and nodded. Vasilisa understood the unspoken command, but Aisling didn't see if she had carried it out, because Kevin, the burly eighteen-year-old, chose that moment to attack the pale, trembling Patrick. Following his boss's example, Joey threw himself forward and tackled Joaquin. Joey had a royal bulk, but to Joaquin, he seemed to get heavier by the second. He struggled, quite in vain, to get free.
Near the mouth of the alley, Kevin had Patrick's small neck clasped between his hands, but as Kevin leered, he suddenly found himself holding a dog instead of a boy, and abandoned his grip in surprise.
"What the—?" before he could trace its movements, the dog was gone. Angered, he turned again to Aisling, who had Bell-Bell clutched against her chest. He could see the little girl's face, and noticed even in the growing dark that it had obtained an eerie pinkish coloring. Aisling was well aware of this, too, and whispered in her charge's ear,
"Grab his nose, okay?" Bella-Jane bobbed her bead.
What happened next was so quick that Kevin, Joaquin, and Joey barely saw it. In a springing step that covered an extraordinary distance, Aisling hurled herself and her small charge at Kevin. Surprised, he toppled backward, leaving himself vulnerable, and it was then that Bella-Jane obligingly grabbed the bully's nose. There was a moment of pause, and an absolute silence, and then Kevin screamed, swiping desperately at the tiny girl whose face was growing more flushed every moment. After a few satisfying seconds of listening to Kevin scream, Aisling jerked her dear little Janie away from the screeching bully, and agonized wails came to a stop when a new voice penetrated the scene:
"HALT!"
The entire assembly froze. A policemen, hand on holster, was standing at the mouth of the narrow alley. Lights had flicked on in the apartments above the alley and light was filtering down, so they could all see each other fairly clearly.
"What's going on here!" the policeman demanded, with his hand still on the holster at his waist.
Aisling blinked, and slowly pulled Bella-Jane upright. No one spoke.
Rivulets of sweat coursed down Aisling's face. Her instincts told her to escape with Bella-Jane, but a second instinct told her that she shouldn't abandon Joaquin, while a third instinct told her that Joaquin could protect himself, whereas Janie couldn't, and at the same time a fourth instinct was telling her to use Bell-Bell to shock Joey into getting off of Joaquin so that all three of them might escape. None of the instincts won over the others, so Aisling just stood paralyzed, holding both of Janie's hands. Still, the assembly remained silent. The policemen grew impatient.
"I said, 'What's going on here'!" he barked. Just then, Aisling's luck seemed to come alive—Joey heaved himself up, letting his victim stagger to his feet and draw a series of huge breaths. Joaquin's face was nearly purple and all of the veins on his neck were standing out because of the incredible force that had been pressing him into the ground. Then, to make the situation better, Kevin hoisted himself up and turned to face the policeman. Aisling knew that this was her chance. As quickly as the blink of an eye, she gathered Bell-Bell into her arms, pivoted on her toes, bent her knees, and jumped.
Aisling's jump took her clear over the wall at the back of the dank alley, and she bounced lightly when she hit the ground. In a motion so fast she barely stopped to think, she let go of Bell-Bell, sprang over the wall again, grabbed Joaquin around the chest, and thrust herself over the wall with the inhuman power of her legs. She fell more heavily the second time, and her head began to spin. The three heard the policeman shout on the other side of the wall, and the shout was followed by the booming sound of Joey's clumsy run. He must have shoved past the policeman, because they heard a single gun shot. No scream followed the shot, though, so Joey must have escaped somehow, perhaps down another alley. They heard rapid footfalls, the policeman chasing after Joey, they assumed, and then silence fell once again. Aisling looked up, and, just as she had expected, Kevin was clinging to the wall of the building, many stories up. He scuttled up the wall as expertly as an insect, hauled himself onto the roof, and was gone. Aisling and Joaquin both puffed sighs of relief.
"Come on, let's go home," Joaquin said, scooping Janie into his arms. Aisling nodded mutely. They began to trudge toward their home, staying wary, and keeping to the shadows.
Meanwhile, a certain policeman was driving back to the station, having given up chasing the fat teenage boy. He drove rather quickly, with his brow knitted. When he reached the station, he strode into the lamp-lit office and addressed the receptionist.
"Call up Rick Dicker," he said, sifting through the papers on his desk until he found what he was looking for. It was a newspaper, several weeks old, with a picture of a large-nosed, gray-haired man on the front. The central headline read, "Young Supers in High Demand as Apprentices". The policeman grinned in a self-satisfied way.