A/N: Well, I know people are reading this story… they just refuse to review. :angry face: Come on, people. I post this here so that you can tell me what you think. I'd like an opinion besides Gabby's, if you wouldn't mind so much. But, since Gabby is the only reviewer thus far, and she's refusing to read fanfiction right now (buffer zones, Gabby, buffer zones), I guess I'll just respond to her…
Gabbifer Queen of Darkness Whose Soul is more Black and Riddled with Evil than Any Creature In Heaven, Hell, or Earth: Now check out THAT nickname, Gabby. I think I'm going to have to abbreviate that one. (GQoDWSimBaRwEtACiHHoE. Hmmm. At the end it looks like I'm calling you a ho. HA! Ho.) Anyway, thank you for reviewing my story, apparently you're the only one who loves me on the entire face of the earth. J/K, of course. But anyway… I'm glad you like this fic despite its God-awful title. The characters are definitely more complex here than they are in "Define Hero"… this story just lends itself to complexity, I think. And not to follow the bouncing ball of conversation, but guess what I'm listening to, in case you were curious? Your WEST SIDE STORY soundtrack! Isn't that exciting!
Okay, I'm done. READ AND REVIEW PEOPLE! NOT JUST READ! Pretty please? Pretty please with a cherry on top? Pretty please with a cherry, whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and sprinkles?
- - - - - - - - - -
Goodbye to you… goodbye to everything that I knew
You were the one I loved
The one thing that I tried to hold on to…
- "Goodbye To You" by Michelle Branch
"I don't get it," Bob Parr said later as his family and Kauri Bexer, now in civilian wear, sat in the Parr's living room watching the five o' clock news.
"…The supervillain Syndrome, who was previously thought dead, apparently reappeared to announce that he has switched targets. Syndrome, while battling with Super newcomer Static, told her that he was no longer seeking vengeance on the Incredibles, and that he had selected her as his next project…"
"Why would he go after you?" Violet asked. Quickly, she added, "I didn't mean that the way it sounded…"
Kauri just shrugged. "I have no idea, Vi," she said. "He told me he liked my hair color, but that can't be the only reason."
"That'd be a stupid reason, if that was it," Dash muttered. "Can we eat dinner now?"
"In a minute, honey," Helen said with a sigh. "I just want to see if maybe - "
"… and now we go to Bob Jacobs for our weather report… Bob?"
"Looks like they're done covering that story," Kauri said, getting up. "I think I'm gonna head home, guys."
"Be careful," Bob warned, getting up to see her to the door. "Syndrome has a bad habit of popping up when you least expect him…"
"I'll remember that," Kauri said, pulling her keys out of her purse. "I'll see you later, Bob."
"Bye, Kauri," Bob said, frowning worriedly. "Watch your back, okay?"
"I always do."
- - - - - - - - -
Kauri lived in a shady neighborhood in a very dilapidated apartment building. She shared an apartment with her boyfriend Eric, who was currently an unemployed alcoholic when he was not attempting to save the world. Kauri worked at the local university's library after having received a Master's Degree in Linguistics. She got paid a decent wage, but not enough to support both herself and Eric's drinking habit.
Her car matched the decrepit state of almost everything else in her life - a rusted, busted Geo Prism hatchback that government agencies had managed to make into a cool transformer. The inside of the car was much more high-tech, with various screens, maps, locators, buttons, etc., which made it the appropriate vehicle for a super. Kauri parked it in parking spot 78, one of the farthest from her apartment building's door. She was never comfortable with the parking garage - her mother, when Kauri had seen her as a child, always warned her about rapists and thieves hiding away.
Knowing that she was the newest target of a fairly dangerous supervillain made her especially nervous that night. She was hesitant to actually get out of her car, which was sad, considering her superpowers. Cautiously, she looked around the garage through her car windows. It was utterly deserted. She was safe.
Or so she thought.
She put her hand on the car door's handle, only to suddenly find herself completely frozen. "You know," a voice from the back seat said casually, "I really thought your car looked like it should have been shot and sent to the junkyard in the sky a long time ago, but, man, the inside makes up for the outside! I mean, you've got leather seats, and all of those nifty gadgets - I'm impressed. Really."
The beam of zero-point energy disappeared, except for a small beam that wrapped tightly around her wrists and her ankles. "What the hell is this?" she demanded, making an attempt to absorb it.
"It's not electricity, so I wouldn't suggest trying to take any of it in," Syndrome said from the back. The beams around her wrists, she noticed, had longer beams that disappeared into the back of the car. Abruptly, they shortened and dragged her into the backseat, beside her brand new nemesis.
"Didn't you ever read those emails that reminded you to check the backseat of your car for rapists before going anywhere?" Syndrome asked, raising his eyebrows.
"I delete forwards," Kauri snapped, disgruntled. She struggled to bring herself into some sort of dignified sitting position, and when she thought she had reached that point, she turned to look at Syndrome. "Besides, I figure any rapist has got himself a nasty little shock waiting if he tries to attack me."
Syndrome laughed. "I forgot how much you liked cheesy puns," he said.
It was Kauri's turn to raise her eyebrows. "We've met before now?" she asked.
"Aw, Bex, I'm hurt that you don't remember me," Syndrome said with a pout. Suddenly, his eyes narrowed, and he added in a low growl, "And I'm more than a little pissed that you never told me you were a super."
Kauri, for the life of her, could not think who he could be. "I never told anybody I was a super," she said, bewildered.
"I gathered that," he said darkly.
Kauri just gaped at him.
Syndrome turned away from her to stare out the window. "So tell me about your man friend," he said, sounding almost jealous. "When I dropped by the apartment, he seemed like something of a slob."
"You've been in my apartment?" Kauri gasped.
"Yeah, and it's pretty much a pit," he said, looking back at her again. "I always assumed you'd live in some nice apartment in downtown Metroville - but no, you picked this dive."
"It's not my dive," Kauri mumbled. "It's Eric's."
"Yeah, about him," Syndrome said, leaning against the car door and crossing his arms over his chest. "He was so drunk he could be barely stand when I turned up. I didn't expect you to marry an alcoholic."
"We're not married," Kauri said, a lot more fiercely than she'd meant to. "We're just dating."
"I'd leave him, if I were you," he said, randomly zero-pointing a fly that was buzzing inside the car. "You deserve better."
"Thanks, but since when have you been the judge of what's good enough for me?" Kauri demanded.
He shot her a dirty look. "I really am hurt that it's taking you this long to figure this out," he said.
"Well, you could drop a few more hints," Kauri muttered.
"You shouldn't need hints," Syndrome informed her, tossing the zero-pointed fly against the windshield. It fell, dead, to the dashboard. He turned back to her and studied her closely. After a moment, he lifted her wrists and studied her hands, murmuring, "I missed you."
Kauri could only stare at him in confusion.
There was a look in his eyes that told her he truly was deeply wounded by the fact that she couldn't remember who he was. He set her hands back into her lap, but continued to stare at her. She frowned slightly in concentration. She tilted her head to the side and ran her eyes over his face - the chin, the mask, the flaming hair, the piercing aqua blue eyes, the few freckles that the mask couldn't hide crossing his nose and cheeks -
Her heart stopped.
"You know, Bex, I really had no idea how lit - " Syndrome started to say, but Kauri's stunned exclamation cut him off.
"Buddy!" she breathed.
He looked surprised, now that she actually remembered him. He recovered himself and smirked. "Bingo!" he said.
It was too bad that Kauri kissed with her eyes closed, because the startled expression on Buddy Pine's face when she fell against him and pressed her lips to his was one she would have relished. He was so stunned he released her zero-point energy binds. If he had simply been Syndrome, and not also a childhood friend, this would have been a very bad idea. As it was, Kauri just threw her arms around his neck and pulled him down on top of her.
It was lucky they'd been friends before.
- - - - - - - - -
Kauri Rosemarie Bexer's life had never been an easy one, and her neighbor and childhood best friend Buddy Pine had been there almost every step of the way, as she had been for him.
Kauri's parents lived basically normal lives. Alyssa Thomas and Jordan Bexer had met at a party in college, had fallen madly in love with each other, and gotten married. Alyssa was a gossip columnist in a local Metroville magazine; Jordan Bexer was an executive at Caterpillar.
Jordan was also Dragonflame.
Dragonflame was a very well known super, whose powers reflected the mythical dragons of medieval legends. He could breathe flames in long streams, and frequently grew claws and fangs when he fought. He was a force to be reckoned with - one of the most famous and one of the favorite Supers.
Alyssa Thomas Bexer had no idea her husband was a Super. She disapproved strongly of the men and women in spandex, and had told Jordan so every time they appeared on the news. Jordan was afraid to reveal the truth to her. It would have continued to be his secret…
Except that Kauri was born.
Until the age of three, Kauri appeared to be a perfectly normal little girl. She was an adorable child, with bright red curls like her mother's and stunningly green eyes that did not come from either parent. She was well behaved and friendly with all the neighboring children, particular the orange-red haired neighbor boy, Buddy Pine - the only child on the block who was considered more adorable than Kauri. With his wide, bright blue eyes and freckle face, all Buddy had to do was smile to get anything he wanted. The pair of them made a cute, cuddly duo, and everyone on the block loved seeing them play together.
One day, Alyssa and Jordan had been visiting Alex and Mary Pine, and Kauri and Buddy had been busily playing on the floor in the living room. Alex and Mary had left the room to look for a picture album of their latest vacation, and while they were gone, Kauri and Buddy had been curiously studying the electrical socket. That was when Kauri decided to stick her finger in the little holes.
The resounding electrical shock made her mother scream out loud. But Kauri pulled her finger back out of the socket without any apparent damage and looked back at her parents with a giggle. "That was bright!" she announced, to her parents' utter amazement.
"Oh my God," Alyssa had gasped. "Jordan… is she… is Kauri… she can't be… a Super? Can she? Jordan?"
The Bexers had left abruptly, so that when Mary and Alex returned, they found only their son playing on the floor.
Jordan had confessed that he was Dragonflame, and that his genes must have transferred to their small daughter. He told Alyssa that he was sorry he hadn't told her before, but that they still loved each other, and surely they could work it out?
It turned out they couldn't. Alyssa left the house a week later and filed for divorce. She allowed Jordan to have custody of their "strange" daughter, and only allowed visits from Kauri when she had to. Whenever Kauri was at her mother's house, she'd always felt like a monster - reviled for her special abilities. Fearing the same sort of rejection from her friends, she kept her powers a secret - even from Buddy.
Of course, Buddy was a great lover of supers, Mr. Incredible in particular. They would run around their backyards together, playing sidekicks to their favorite heroes, Dragonflame and Mr. Incredible. Kauri called herself Static; Buddy called himself Incrediboy. Buddy was so obsessed with becoming Incrediboy that he actually made the costume, and his own rocket boots. He even dyed his hair blonde, like Mr. Incredible's. This obsession continued until they were about ten years old. In that year fell the unfortunate rejection of Incrediboy, and the subsequent suing and removal of the Supers from the public eye. Buddy threw away all of his Mr. Incredible memorabilia and told Kauri that supers were worthless, and that he hoped they all disappeared forever and ever.
Kauri never quite got over that.
Buddy's hatred for supers increased throughout middle school, and in high school he began making elaborate plans for their defeat. Kauri had no other friends at the time, and she was also finding herself increasingly attracted to Buddy as high school wore on, and so she stayed with him, despite the difficulty of keeping her secret.
They started dating directly after Junior Prom, after a snotty, preppy, stereotypical cheerleader named Miriam Aster, who had been Buddy's date, abandoned him for Kauri's buff football player date. They met each other walking in the park and both began to bitch about their rejection and how much they hated Miriam and her stupid football players. Somehow all that bitching ended up in a serious make-out session. Neither of them ever quite remembered how that came about. The thing you remember about a serious make-out session is that it actually happened, and not why.
They dated through the rest of high school, and even into college, when they both started at Metroville University in the department of Science and Engineering, along with none other than their hated cheerleader enemy Miriam Aster. It swiftly turned out that Miriam was not half as bad as she seemed, and the three became inseparable.
Buddy told both girls of his plans to start a science corporation, and how he wanted both of them to help him. At first, Kauri had been excited by the prospect of this venture, but it quickly became obvious that Buddy and Miriam's goal was to defeat and kill supers. Miriam held a grudge against the supers because one of them had failed to rescue her younger brother from a fire. She and Buddy spat venomous comments about Superheroes all the time, and eventually it became too much for Kauri. Directly after graduation she announced that she had no plans to help them with their business, and left.
She didn't hear from either of them much after that. They couldn't understand why she had left them, and she couldn't understand how anyone could hold so strong a grudge. Buddy emailed her about three times a year to see how she was and to tell her that he missed her. Occasionally she emailed back, but her responses had always been brief and to the point. She'd almost hoped that he'd be able to see through the clipped lines and realize that she really, really missed him too.
He couldn't, and eventually, he gave up on her.
Kauri had gone back to college and gotten her Master's in Linguistics, and had been working for Metroville University's library ever since. She'd met Eric at a restaurant, and, when he'd been drunk once, he'd told her he was a super. At first, this had drawn her to him, and she had agreed with all his sentiments about how the world hated them. But it became rapidly more clear that he wasn't really worth her time - he was always drunk, and always blaming his problems on everyone else but him - especially Kauri, since she was typically within range of his fist.
Kauri Bexer, even as Static, had never needed Buddy Pine in her life more than she needed him now.
And suddenly, there he was.
- - - - - - - - -
Of course, the form in which he'd appeared couldn't have been less ideal. Dear God, he'd announced himself as her nemesis!
But, lying in the backseat of her car, it really didn't seem to matter much to either of them.
Buddy was the first to break the kiss. He grinned from above her. "You know what this reminds me of?"
"What?" Kauri asked, raising her eyebrows.
"Junior prom night."
Kauri giggled. "Yeah, it does, doesn't it?" she said.
Buddy moved to kiss her neck. "I missed you so much, Bex," he breathed. "I could have used your help with the company at least a thousand times… plus it gets lonely out there, in the middle of the ocean…"
"Didn't Miriam stick around?"
"She goes by Mirage now," Buddy said. "And yes, she did, for a while. She just left a few months ago, actually."
"Mirage?" Kauri questioned. "Sounds like a stripper name."
Buddy chuckled. "It does, doesn't it?" he agreed. "It's actually her super name."
Kauri's body jolted at this announcement, and Buddy pulled back from her in surprise. "What?" he demanded.
"Miriam Aster is a super?" she repeated, stunned. "And you never told me?"
Syndrome's eyes narrowed. "Hey, look, sweetheart," he snapped. "You never told me you were a super, either."
"Do you blame me?" Kauri cried, attempting to sit up. Syndrome backed off and leaned against the car door again. "You two were always talking about killing supers! And to think… she's a super herself! How could she -?"
"You heard about what Frozone did to her little brother," Syndrome pointed out.
"That same fire killed my half-sister, Haylie!" Kauri retorted. "And I live with a Super who's probably the biggest jerk in the known universe and I haven't totally turned my back on Supers!"
Syndrome shrugged. "You were always a lot stronger than Miriam or me," he said.
Kauri laughed, a bitter, mirthless laugh. "Right," she said. "And look where that got me." Very much against her will, she started to cry.
Syndrome's expression softened considerably as Kauri tried to hide the fact that she was crying. "Bex… baby… come here…" He caught her around the waist and pulled her against him. Kauri started to sob into his shoulder.
"I can't even tell you," she choked out, "How awful everything's been. It doesn't even matter than I'm a super. It's like, you go out and save the world, woop-dee-doo, and then you take off the supersuit and the whole world crashes around you. It's like… I don't know… it's like I'm two different people, sometimes, and I hate it. I hate it, and I hate Eric, and I hate this stupid apartment, and I hate my life!"
Buddy lightly kissed her forehead. "Bex… why don't you just leave him?"
She gulped in air. "Because I can't," she said.
"Of course you can!" Buddy said indignantly. "Just tell him that you don't want to be with him anymore, and leave."
"You make it sound so easy," Kauri said harshly. "But it's not that simple. I've threatened to walk out before, and do you know what happens? He uses his powers on me, even when he's drunk. He made the floor swallow me once, like quicksand. I barely got out of that one. If I actually walk out the door, he'll kill me."
"Bex, he coul -"
"Buddy, he'll kill me."
She said this with such awful conviction and certainty that for a moment, Buddy was convinced she was right. Hesitantly, he said, "Go somewhere where he can't find you."
"Where's that?" Kauri sniffed. "He'll find me anywhere in Metroville."
"So leave Metroville."
"And go where?" Kauri demanded, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand. "Buddy, this is my home. I grew up here, and I don't want to leave. Besides, it would take money to move, and I don't have money."
"I'll lend you some," he offered.
She stared at him incredulously. "How much have you got?"
He waved a hand carelessly. "Oh, a couple hundred million, easily," he said.
She gaped at him. "What!"
He grinned. "The company's been very successful," he informed her with a smug smile. "We've got a lot of money left. We had some losses when the government locked my accounts, but I had my money in other places than American banks. I'm not stupid."
"I'm pretty sure you're a genius," Kauri said in an awed, adoring voice. "But I still wouldn't know where to go."
"You could come to my island," Buddy suggested hopefully.
She looked at him sharply. "And work for your company?"
"Yeah," he said, clearly warming to the subject. "I'll need somebody to take Mirage's place, and you'd be just the right person! It'd be just like old times -"
"Would we be killing supers?"
Buddy stopped and chewed his lower lip uncertainly. "Well, I think - I mean I guess -" He stopped, and then said firmly, "Yes."
Kauri pulled back from him, wiped the last of her tears away, and said, "Then I can't go. I'm sorry. Thanks for the offer, though."
Syndrome stared at her. "So you'd rather stay with this asshole then come and live on my island with me?" he said dubiously.
"If you're going to be killing Supers, yes," she said evenly. "I'm one of them."
"No, Bex, you're not," Syndrome snapped. "You're better than those pompous, worthless -"
"Buddy," she said coldly. "You don't have any idea what you're talking about. I understand why you're angry at Mr. Incredible, but he's a good person, and he made a mistake. It happens even to superheroes. You just refuse to understand that."
Kauri grabbed the handle of the car door and opened it. She leapt outside, even as Buddy reached out to grab her and pull her back in. He aimed a beam of zero-point energy at her, but she leapt nimbly out of the way and ran towards the apartment building's door. She heard him leap out of the car and heard the sound of his rocket boots igniting.
A few seconds later, he landed in front of her. She barely managed to keep from running into him. She tried to walk around him, but he caught her arm and jerked her back. "Bex, don't do this to me," he pleaded. "I want to help you get away from all of this."
"Then figure out a better way to do it," Kauri suggested frigidly, trying to pull her arm free of his grip.
He didn't let go. "Is this what you want?" he said, motioning to the decrepit parking garage and the building attached to it. "Do you want to keep living this miserable half-life?"
Kauri swallowed her tears. "No," she said softly. "But I won't be responsible for the death of people like me." She managed to jerk her arm free, and she ran towards the door.
She heard Syndrome call after her, "Bex! BEX!" but she ignored him, throwing open the door, running inside and slamming it shut.
She collapsed on the stairwell leading up to her apartment and wept.