-1I want more pie. And we're all out. I humbly request that this 'holiday season,' you find it in your heart to donate unused pies to a local charity, preferably the KPK Funky Fanfics charity. Or Pop-tarts. They're good too. MRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! What am I gonna do this time! Oh, I'm so excited! Just two or three more chapters now! And, Action!
The group of supers stood inside the glass elevator as it slowly rose through a long, metal plated tunnel. Everyone of them was glad this was almost over, seeing as they'd hardly slept in the last, what, forty-eight hours? In fact, Dash and Violet hadn't slept since Thursday night, and it was now probably the wee hours of Sunday morning. Remind me to never be away from a bed that long.
But anyways, this elevator ride seemed peculiarly long, and the muzak was not helping it go by any faster.
"Do we have some sort of game plan?" Rapid Fire asked, just so that they wouldn't have to stand there doing nothing, being forced to listen to 'Happy Dan and the Cheery Choristers' sing 'How to build a sand castle.'
"No," his father answered. Well, so much for conversation.
"So how do we know if we're gonna live?" Shadow asked.
"We don't," Frozone answered bluntly.
How reassuring.
Finally, the cylinder elevator reached its destination, and the group walked into the room before the elevator went back down just far enough so that its roof formed the floor over the tubular shaft down to the white sewer. Looking around, the supers saw that the room was large and circular and that the low roof was some kind of dome. The elevator shaft was in the dead center of the completely metal-plated room, which grew dark where the floor met the walls due to large statues dressed as knights around the room. Ahead of the group was a single door.
"Welcome!" a booming voice from an intercom echoed through the room. Adrenaline rushed into the supers' systems. The Underminer.
"Please come in. I've been expecting you."
Mr. Incredible took the lead and opened the door, which led to a large boiler room with lots of empty space. And there he was, the Underminer, seated in a rather odd chair at the back of the room.
"About time you showed up," the man with large, large front teeth said smugly. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd gotten my calling card. Ah, and looky here," he continued, looking at Rapid Fire, "the tyke survived. What a shame."
"Call me 'tyke,' why I'll-" Rapid Fire started.
"Rapid Fire," Elastigirl warned, taking hold of his shoulder.
"Why not call him by his name, Helen? You'll save yourself some trouble."
"Shut up, ya giant guinea pig!" Rapid Fire shouted as his sister and mother held him back.
"Son, that isn't very heroic," Mr. Incredible suggested quietly to his son. Then he stepped forward, glaring at the Underminer. "What are you plotting? What do you want with my family?"
The Underminer started laughing. Like, really laughing. Like rolling on the floor. Not at all flattering (much less understandable).
"Is he having a seizure?" Shadow asked.
"I am not!" the Underminer growled, suddenly composing himself. If it wasn't such an odd place and odd situation, each and everyone of those supers would have laughed.
"Who ever said I wanted your family, Incredible?" the Underminer asked, pointing (well, sort of. He has claws for hands, after all) at the red-clad man. He moved his gaze instead to Frozone. "Your family was the link I needed for my true adversary!"
"What?" Rapid Fire is befuggled.
"What?" Frozone is befuggled, too. I imagine everyone in the room but Underminer is befuggled. (A/N I love that word)
"My life was ruined because of you! Look at me! Look at what I've been diminished to!" Considering he was about as tall as Dash, the guy was pretty diminished.
Just then, a sound of metal clanking around in the elevator room stole the supers' attention. Through the door marched the twenty knights, not statues but robots, while four Robot Rodents emerged from out of the boiler room with two Robo-Crocs appearing at the Underminer's sides. This was going to be, in all definitions of the term, difficult.
"Not that the blame isn't partially yours as well, Mr. And Mrs. Parr. If you had been there to help your friend, maybe your children wouldn't be here today. But oh no… you were too proud to just form a team…"
"Who are you?" Frozone finally shouted.
"Ha ha! But don't you remember?" he yelled as his forces began to surround the circle of supers. "But then, you were young then."
How rude.
"Had to have been twenty, twenty-five years ago. Remember the carnival? There was a fire? A car had run off the road, hit the Ferris Wheel and fell into the river."
Hold it, Shadow was thinking. Car in the river?
"You saved the whole town's kids from being crushed under flaming metal," the Underminer said coldly. Mr. Incredible noticed that all of the Robot Rats were near he and Frozone as the robot arsenal stepped in closer.
"But did you bother to save the three scared teenagers drowning in the river?"
Shadow flashbacked to what Tony had told her after she'd met his parents. His uncle had drowned in a river because …
Frozone seemed to be having trouble remembering a car. Sure, he could remember the carnival. It had been the event that shot off his career. But a car? There were some casualties in the fire, but it wasn't like one man could save everyone. And what was this guy talking about, Bob and Helen? Lucious hadn't even known Helen at the time, and had only just met Bob…
The knights were getting uncomfortably close to Rapid Fire and Elastigirl, who couldn't help wondering why they were all waiting when this was a perfect chance to stop the monologue and kill the rat. (A/N BECAUSE I SAY SO! BWA HA HA!)
"Ricky Rydinger and Lucy Estep had already died by the time the river had swept the car to the sewer, but I, though legs trapped in the car, had managed to get above for air. And the rest is history, Frozone."
"Zone, you're my buddy," Mr. Incredible said. "But if this loon's critters hurt my kids, you'll pay for it."
"I hear ya."
Shadow looked at the knights in front of her, searching for weak spots with renewed enthusiasm. This is why Tony had done it. It all made such perfect sense.
"Now!" the Underminer cried. "Attack, my minions! And let my foes know their betrayer, helped by one of their own in these very corridors!"
The knights unsheathed swords and ran with the Rats at the supers, into battle. Each of the supers met their enemy, except for Violet, who was suddenly distracted by what the Underminer had last said.
"What?"
"Come out, my Favored Minion! Come and watch your 'allies' fall!" the Underminer beckoned to the curtain that hung behind his chair as he reached for a drawstring.
No! No no no no no-no-no! Bad bad bad!
Too late. The Underminer pulled, and the Incredibles looked up in shock at who'd been standing behind the curtain…
And the battle begins!
Review…?