A/N: Yes, I am a horrible person for not updating sooner. Hey, at least you don't have to wait like my LOTR and POTO readers do! I haven't updated those fanfics since July:smacks self: Ah, well. When inspiration hits, inspiration hits, right? Anyway here's chapter 4 - I will be attempting to update more often from now on.
While Jason is still gaping dumbly at the screen, Mirage is already running down the halls of Nomanisan's great fortress. How could you have been so stupid? she demands of herself in fury, running as fast as she can. She is little more than a blur of platinum blonde hair and caramel skin, rushing as fast as her tiny, delicate body will take her. She has to find them. She hast to fix this error, and then everything - everything - will be perfect.
She enters the landing bay where she found them previously and stops, panting, her brilliant green eyes frantically seeking the Super family. At last, she spots them running, searching, their bright red uniforms glittering like splashes of blood against the flat gray background of Nomanisan's mechanical walls. They are seeking an escape, a way to freedom. Perhaps Mirage will find one for them. Perhaps she will not.
She forces herself to run again, although her muscles are burning and her lungs are still recovering. Mr. Incredible hears her footsteps and turns, smiling that open, happy grin that she has now become so familiar with. "Mirage!" he exclaims as he starts to jog in her direction. "We have to get out of here, fast! Syndrome's going to Metroville and - "
Mirage stops and holds a hand to her pounding heart, trying to regain her breath. "You're too late," she manages to gasp out. "He's already gone and shut down the Omnidroid."
Mr. Incredible looks crestfallen and slightly incredulous. "And you didn't - didn't try to stop him?"
Mirage shrugs. "There was nothing I could do, unless I wanted to kill him," she says. "And that is the last thing I want."
Mr. Incredible looks even more dubious at this, but he continues along his same line of thought. "Well, there's still time to reveal him for the evil villain he is," he says firmly. "If you'll just help us. We need a jet of some kind to get us to - "
"No," Mirage says flatly.
Mr. Incredible stops dead. "What?" he repeats, eyes narrowing.
"No," Mirage repeats stubbornly. Her fierce response obviously surprises him, and perhaps his family as well - but they are irrelevant at the moment. All that matters is Mr. Incredible - is forcing him to understand what is at stake for her.
He tries again. "But - " he stammers. "But… I thought you were on our side."
Something explodes inside Mirage's brain, and she stands up tall and straight and begins to shout. "Your side?" she repeats. "Is that all the world is to you stupid heroes? Sides? Is it really just that black and white to you? How can you live seeing things that way? Yours is not the only right side, Mr. Incredible! There are other ways one can be right. There are shades of gray. That's why Syndrome and I hated you, you know - you never understood that there are people who are neither good nor evil, that there is a place in between. You never cared enough to see beyond your perfect little world! And that's why we've spent all these years destroying you! I thought you might be different, but you aren't, not at all! You're just like all the others - the perfect immortal heroes, and we, the lowly, worthless mortals for you to rescue and to command at your will! It's no wonder he hates you all so much!"
The words come gushing from her mouth in a furious tide, before she can bite them back. She has hidden them behind a cold and aloof exterior, swallowed them even as they rose to the tip of her tongue, fought them back along with the tears that burned her eyes when she saw them standing before her, so fierce and proud in their uniforms. Oh, how she'd grown to hate them! Oh, how she'd grown to understand exactly what Syndrome sought to fight against - these pompous idiots who claimed to seek the betterment of public good, but were there only for their own fame and glory!
She'd hidden everything for so long, kept it locked tight inside her, and now, in this moment when everything threatens to fall apart, she's spilled it all before four of the people she hates most in the world. Mirage stares at them, eyes filling with tears, and almost collapses to the floor, her body shaking weakly with the effort expended by saying those words.
Her eyes meet Mr. Incredible's. She is not sure what she expects to see hidden in his gaze, but, whatever it is, it is not what she finds. His blue eyes stare back at her with a torrent of raging, passionate fury that she has not planned on. "You," he hisses, "You believe in what Syndrome's done? You believe in the killing of all these Supers?"
"Not in killing them," she denies, shaking her head frantically. "But I believe in the feeling behind it. You don't understand. You've never lived a life like mine." She pauses. "You crushed everything he was," she tells him icily. "I cannot let you destroy him now, not again, not when he has just achieved everything he has sought."
"WHAT!"
And with that one furious exclamation, Mr. Incredible's fingers close once again around Mirage's throat, gripping her neck so tightly that she cannot breathe. He lifts her tiny frame easily from the floor, and her legs dangle in midair as she kicks frantically, wildly, trying to fight and bring oxygen once more into her lungs.
"BOB!" Elastigirl exclaims in horror. "Bob, for God's sake, put her down!"
He ignores the frantic pleas of his wife. "You lied," he snarls. "You rescued me - you said you wanted to help me - and now you're going to let me die!"
Mirage tries to shake her head, tries to spit out a word, a phrase, anything, but to no avail. Nothing will pass her throat - not a sound, other than a painful wheezing as her breath slowly disappears from her body.
"DAD!" his children are screaming hysterically, hands over their mouths. They cannot believe they are seeing their father do something like this.
But he continues to ignore them, eyes locked on Mirage. "He killed people. And you - you never even tried to stop him! How can you claim to be on the right side of anything?"
Mirage weakly tries to say something, but words will not come. Her world is going black as she desperately attempts to breathe, to find some slight trickle of air in her throat, but oxygen won't go to her lungs. She is on the verge of unconsciousness… and the she is falling, falling into the abyss…