I'm gonna stop promising to update faster and actually DO it next time

Well, we'll see how it goes.

Epic thanks again to TonyLoaf for reminding me of this..

(This is also for you, TL, by the way, in the hope that you'll feel a whole lot better very soon)

Thanks also to the reviewers, the real Violet Parr, DElf4242, dyu123, megarabelle, charmed4eva1990, Nny11, percyismine, Arthur Hansen and Review1234

It's nearing the end now and, in this chapter, you'll finally find out who's behind all this

Although, I'm sure many of you already have guessed correctly/ lost interest

Enjoy! Love LJ xXx

Throw Me. Chapter Eighteen. Beat This

- o -

Bob kneels on the sidewalk where she lies and scoops her gently up into his arms.

"Helen? Helen – please say something..." he begs frantically, his words tightening and choking in desperation. Helen is unresponsive and Mr. Incredible – a far cry from the muscle man throwing street furniture about him just minutes earlier – swallows down a lump forming in his throat.

"...anything?" And his voice cracks and trembles.

He fears the worst. If today has been anything to go by, the worst is all he can expect. He lowers his head, shoulders hunched, and clings onto her tightly. The city may lie in ruins around him and there may be a swarm of paparazzi inching around the far corners of the block, hoping to capture some of this drama, but he doesn't realise it. There might as well be nothing else as he visibly crumples. And he furiously blinks back tears, thinking if he'd only been stronger, faster, better – if only, if only.

"I knew you could beat it."

Bob looks up, hardly daring to believe. Helen smiles faintly at him, despite everything, and rubs the back of her head with a wince.

"That was some throw there, Bob; talk about not knowing your own strength," she mutters.

"It wasn't me," he tries to explain, getting flustered all of a sudden.

"It's okay, Bob – I know." she assures him.

"Because I would never do that to you, you know that, right?" he babbles on. "I don't who it was but it wasn't –"

Helen, still knowing no better way of shutting up her husband after so many years, leans her bruised and dazed head up, pressing a kiss to his lips. As she does so, she reaches around behind her ear where she remembers seeing something that she didn't get the chance to remove, and pulls out the long pin-like object.

"I know." she repeats, pulling back and holding the pin out for him to see.

He stares, confused for a moment at the instrument in her fingertips and then raises a hand to lightly touch where it had once been.

"Mirage can explain," Helen says. "Or Dash, for that matter."

And then Bob sits up suddenly. "Mirage – the kids, where are they?" he demands, dread sinking into his stomach at what he may have done. But Helen smiles and squeezes his arm reassuringly.

"Relax – you didn't touch them," she tells him before adding with a grin, "You wouldn't be alive now if you had."

Bob chances a smile and looks about him. "Where are they?"

Just then, two familiar silhouettes appear at the end of the street. They walk up together, backlit by the late afternoon sun which only serves to remind them just how long this day has been. Both stop suddenly in the middle of the street.

"Dad!" a familiar voice squeaks out excitedly and, moments later, Dashiel Parr has thrown himself against his father, hugging Bob's arm with his own comparably shorter ones and not letting go. "You're okay!"

Bob grins broadly as, first his young son and then his daughter, fling themselves into his arms.

"That is an identical replica of the prototype Syndrome made," Mirage cuts in, handing Jack-Jack back to Helen and taking the pin-like device from her. Bob looks at her cluelessly but Dash nods vigorously with a smile.

"The mind-control device!" he jumps in eagerly. "I remember! What did it feel like, Dad? Who was doing it?"

With a frown, Bob attempts to recall the brief snaps of memory that had managed to sneak their way through his consciousness like flashes of lightening, illuminating the skies for the smallest fraction of a second. Then he suddenly remembers something that makes him leap to his feet, eyes wide.

"Lucius." he says. "They've still got Lucius."

-

The abductor pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

"No, no, no." he mutters frustratedly to himself. "That's not how it was meant to happen. This is not right at all..."

Frozone leans his head tiredly back against the wall and stares up at the white ceiling. A voice at the back of his head is trying to convince him that there must be something he can do but he's shutting it out for the moment. He's just far too tired...

"Right." the kidnapper says, decidedly. "Right – okay. Never mind."

And then he turns around to face Frozone with a smile on his face.

"Take two," he grins, moving towards Frozone. Lucius Best remembers those words, remembers the grin, but after that everything blurs, swirls and darkens.

-

Helen, Bob and Mirage instantly spring into action and all talk at once, hitting ideas and plans from back to front with urgency and importance.

"Bob – where did they take you?"

"I don't...I don't remember."

"Who's behind this?"

"I don't know."

"I know!" yells Violet as loudly as she can but nobody hears her and she rolls her eyes exasperatedly. That was the problem with being so forever-quiet; when she wanted to be loud, she couldn't do.

"Try to remember – try. They've still got Lucius."

"I am trying!"

"Mom! I know who it is!" she tries again and, this time, the only person who hears her is Dash.

"Well, try to narrow it down – east or west side of town?"

"I really don't know. I think they drugged me, or something. I can't remember anything..."

"Nothing at all?"

A piercing whistle cuts through their talking. "Hey!" Dash shouts above them all and their heads turn. He smirks at them and then points at his sister. "Vi knows."

"I know where he is," she informs them eagerly, with a hint of pride. "And I know who's behind it."

-

In an evacuated downtown apartment block in the residential area of Metroville city, someone sits down in a chair facing the corner of the room and shuts his eyes in concentration. This was taking much more effort than he had anticipated. The room is dim and most of the furniture upturned following struggle. One picture still dangles precariously in its cheap frame from the wall it hangs on – a photograph of a man and his young son, both of whom were smiling and both of whom were happy.

A dark-haired young girl he'd once liked, loved, from a distance stops outside his door.

"I recognised his voice," she says simply with a shrug to the man she's with. Bob looks at her and at Mirage for a moment, thinking first of all of his wife who he'd left back in the street outside with Jack-Jack and Dash before wiping his mind of that and thinking only of his friend and the situation at hand.

He gives a brief nod to Mirage and his daughter before easily shouldering the door open. Dust settles in a darkened room. There is a pause – just one breath – as their eyes widen to the gloom. When they can look around them clearly, Mr. Incredible blinks, stunned.

"You're just a kid," he observes, not hiding his surprise.

Francis opens his eyes and he leaps up from the chair as the string snaps on the framed photograph from the impact of the door bursting open and it smashes against the floor.

Okay – the secret's out! Who else knew!

- o -