Disclaimer:
Myself does not claim 'The Incredibles' characters or title for meself. Me never will, so thee can dispense with thy lawyers.
DarkSoar presents
An 'The Incredibles' fanfiction
The Secret Origins of Mr. Incredible
"Freshman Year"
Chapter 1: First Week Blues
When the clock rang, George was already heading towards the timeout puncher. The day was over, and man, was he starving! Maybe he'd stop at Burger Joint, pick up something for him and Bob.
While walking down the hallway to the main lobby, Dan Burton, a long time friend and coworker for several years now, caught up to him. "Hey George, what's the rush?"
"I'm hungry. I think I'm gonna go and get some takeout for me and my boy before heading home."
"I hear ya. Hey, how 'bout it? Poker at my place, seven sharp, you, me, Pete, and Tom?"
George pursed his lips, considering it. It was tempting, and it'd been a while since the four of them had a game. After he punched out, and waited for Danny to do the same, he came to a decision. "All right, Dan, you got yourself a player."
Dan's brown eyes widened in delight, and he grinned. "Great! I've already informed Pete and Tom; you want to bring some beer or should I?" The two men walked out of ACME Engineering's front doors and headed towards the employee parking lot.
With a slight smile touching his lips at his friend's enthusiasm, Bob's father reached out and clapped him on the shoulder. "How about we share the burden?" he suggested. "I'll bring two and you bring two."
Throwing a mock salute at George, the younger man nodded and said, "Sounds good, sounds good. See you in two, all right? Don't forget now!" He gave a short laugh and veered off to the left towards his car. When he reached it and before he got in, he waved at George.
While still walking, George twisted his upper body around and returned the wave. After buckling in and starting the pickup, he reversed out of his parking spot and headed towards the entrance/exit gate.
After merging with the rest of the traffic on the freeway, the burly man took a moment to reflect. It'd been a week since his son had started school. George had initially feared that Bob, who'd been going to a small private school in his elementary years, would have some difficulty in adjusting. But so far, it seemed that Bob had encountered no real problems, and in fact was enjoying himself in his new environment.
At any rate, George wasn't too worried. Before deciding to enroll Bob there, he'd given the school an intense check, going over recently published school newspapers, talking to the principle and to some of the staff. He'd even asked the opinions of friends whose kids were attending the same high school. After tabulating all the research he'd done, Bob's father had come to the conclusion that Bernard High was a decent and respectable enough middle class public school.
Exiting the freeway on Bakerfield, he shrugged his broad shoulders; whatever else, George had few doubts of his son's ability to handle himself. Should something come up that required Bob to defend himself, George knew that his son's boxing would be up to the task. After all, both of them had sparred daily for almost four years now. Bob's boxing was something not to be taken lightly, and the boy himself was smart as a whip.
Yup, he had absolutely nothing to worry about.
"Son, I'm home! You hungry? I got some good grub for dinner!"
With one hand holding the bags of takeout food, George unlocked and pushed open the door of his home and walked in. Then he stopped right there in the doorway, and stared in surprise at his son.
Bob was sitting down in the living room. That wasn't anything new. But the fact that his son had a black eye, and bruises on his chin, cheeks, and he was holding an ice pack to his mouth.
"Bob, what in the world happened to you?" he exclaimed loudly.
Wincing a bit, his son grinned sheepishly at him. "Well," he began somewhat uncertainly, "I sort of got into a fight."
"Sort of? Looks to me like you were on the receiving end." George shook his head in resignment and stepped into the house, closing the door behind him. Walking past his son towards the dining room, he placed the bags on the table and pulled a chair for himself. Sitting down, he gestured for Bob to do the same. As his son did so, George sighed aloud. He hoped when he was done here, he'd have enough time to shower and head on over to Dan's.
He doubted it. Pushing away the regret and disappointment he felt, George focused on the task at hand. It was his job as a responsible father to get to the bottom of this.
"Okay, son, what happened? I want to hear all of it, from the beginning," the older man emphasized with a serious expression.
Hunching over, nervously twiddling his thumbs, Bob cleared his throat twice. His father waited expectantly, yet patiently. After several false starts, the teenager finally managed to get going.
"Well, it started after lunch period. I was at my locker getting my books when…"
Four hours earlier, Bernard High School (hallway):
It was one o'clock, and the hallway was crammed with students hurriedly grabbing books from their lockers and heading to their respective first afternoon periods. With so many people hurrying from one end of the hallway to the other, it was a miracle that no one got trampled.
Although he hailed from a small school with a student population of three hundred, it had surprisingly taken Bob only two days to learn how to successfully navigate through such a crowd. He was at his locker, stuffing all the books he needed into his backpack. After he closed his locker's door and zipped up his bag, he turned around to go. As Bob began walking to his next class, which was Algebra 1, he thought that he was pretty darned lucky that so far he'd avoided accidental collisions with other people.
"Watch where you're going, you clumsy idiot!"
Until now, that is.
The person who bumped into him exclaimed in disgust and shot him an angry look as she quickly bent down to retrieve her books. Immediately, the taller boy saw that she must've collided with his back as he stepped away from his locker. Therefore, the impact of his body against hers must have caused her to unintentionally drop them.
'Nice going, Sherlock!' he mentally berated himself.
Chagrined and embarrassed, Bob immediately bent down to help her get her books. "I'm really sorry about that. It's my fault-"
"You bet it's your fault! Don't you ever look where you're going?" The brunette interrupted scathingly.
"I was, uh, looking the other way. Look," Bob said, gingerly placing her books back in her arms, "here you go. Um, it was an accident; I didn't mean to bump into you like that." Adopting his most apologetic expression, he forced himself to meet her wrathful stare. He winced as he noticed that she had blue eyes, which blazed angrily like a laser beam from a comic book. He also noticed that she was quite good looking.
In fact, she was VERY good looking. His interest aroused (in more ways than one), he took a longer look at her. In fact, Bob decided that her anger somehow served to emphasize her attractiveness. A thought made itself known to him, 'I wonder if she has a boyfriend?'
"How long are you going to stand there like some brain dead jock? And quit staring at me, you retard!"
His father's eyes sparkled with merriment. With an amused smile, he asked, "Robert, were you really staring at her?"
Rolling his eyes, Bob told him, "Yes, dad, didn't I just mention the fact? I must've been staring at her for almost twenty seconds or so." Now, as he looked back upon it, Bob couldn't help but feel embarrassed for doing such an idiotic thing. 'Never again,' he promised himself solemnly.
George laughed, drawing his son's attention, "She was that pretty, huh?"
Bob's face colored and he dropped his eyes to the ground, suddenly finding it incredibly interesting to study. He still couldn't believe that he acted like such an idiot in front of a girl, and an attractive one at that!
A couple of seconds passed before Bob could find his story telling mood again. It helped that he conspicuously avoided looking at his dad, whom he suspected was still grinning at his son's faux pas at being caught off guard like that.
"Ahem, well anyway, someone else showed up and he–"
"The boyfriend?" George interrupted with a question that wasn't really a question.
Nodding in confirmation, Bob said, "And boy, was he pissed."
Immediately catching on to the fact that he was, indeed, staring quite intently at her, Bob blushed and averted his gaze. He was about to offer yet another apology when a new voice broke into the encounter.
"Hey, you! What the hell are you doing so close to my girl?!"
Hearing the potential for hostility in the new arrival's tone, Bob stiffened up and he took a step backwards.
The new arrival came up to the girl whom had bumped into Bob. With his face turning red, he faced the slightly shorter freshman and said, "Hey, I'm talking to you, chump! I asked you a question; what the hell were you doing so close to my girl?"
Feeling nettled at the other boy's presumptuous arrogance, Bob narrowed his eyes and was about to reply when the girl beat him to it.
Which turned out to be a very bad thing.
"Joe!!" she wailed, startling Bob, "This idiot deliberately bumped into me! I was just walking, minding my own business, and he just came up and hit my arm with his elbow. My books went flying all over the place, and my arm hurts!" As if seeking some comfort, she grasped his muscled arm and huddled close to him.
Mouth going slack in amazement, Bob was speechless. What the heck was she thinking? That wasn't the way it happened! Stunned by this sudden turn of events, he was completely taken off guard as a fierce blow impacted against his chest and sent him staggering backwards. Somehow overcoming his surprise, Bob managed to regain his balance and tried to get a handle on what was happening.
Rubbing at the lingering ache, he scowled in growing anger at the one responsible for the punch. "Hey," he called out, making no effort to hide his ire, "that was uncalled for! What's your problem," Bob paused slightly, recalling the name by which the girlfriend had called him, "Joe? Look I don't want to fight. How about we talk it over?"
Unfortunately, his entreaties went unheeded.
Gently pushing his girlfriend to the side, Joe clenched his hands into fists and answered in a spiteful tone, "Hah! Your side doesn't matter worth spit! There's no way Jenny would lie to me about getting hurt, so what she said must be true! The name's Joe Miller, captain of the Wolverines, and I'm gonna clean your clock!"
"Oh, such flawless reasoning," Bob commented dryly before everyone within earshot who'd heard Joe's last words began whooping in excitement and cleared the way between the two. Eager shouts of "Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight!" rang throughout the hallway.
He tensed up and a cold rush of worry swept through him. Things were quickly getting out of hand. The last thing he wanted was to get into trouble so early in the semester but he didn't think he could convince Joe of the truth. As a matter of fact, Jenny's boyfriend looked pretty mad, and was probably ready to tear Bob into pieces.
Personally, he wasn't afraid of Joe one bit and was confident he could take the hotheaded jock. But he didn't like the thought of being expelled from school after only a week. Not only that, he was apprehensive about having to face his father on
about the same issue. Bob would've liked to sort the mess out peacefully and sensibly, but now it seemed impossible. The overzealous older boy seemed bound and determined to pick a fight with him.
The crowd's raucous yelling wasn't helping things much in that regard. The loud volume seemed to pump up Joe's eagerness and also would drown out any apology Bob would try to make. "Not that he'd be interested in hearing them," Bob muttered bitterly to himself as he kept a steady eye on the other boy, though he didn't make a move to put up any defense.
Bob wanted to do something to put the whole thing on a positive spin, but with all the noise, he couldn't even hear himself think.
The group of students continued shouting and from Bob's perspective, it was kind of disturbing to see how, well, reckless enthusiastic people could get in a situation like this. They only wanted to see some action, something to distract them, if only temporarily, from the dreariness of everyday school life.
George's son was confused when suddenly the volume of the yelling started diminishing. Even more, he saw that the crowd around him and Joe was quickly breaking up; everyone briskly walking to their classes. He looked around and immediately saw why they had done so.
A teacher was slowly making his way towards them. Bob quickly identified him as middle aged, incredibly stern, prematurely gray haired Mr. Stentson, the science teacher. At the moment, he was occupied in telling everybody else to break it up and go to class; he hadn't noticed either of the boys.
Feeling uncomfortable and not knowing what to say, Bob turned his attention back to Jenny's boyfriend. Joe was frowning, as if unhappy that he would be delayed in teaching Bob a lesson in manners. Scowling in anger, he deliberately lifted up his right hand and pointed at the freshman. "Today, after school, at 4:30. Be at the football field. Miss it, and you'll be labeled a chicken until you graduate from this dump! See you there, chump!!"
Having thrown the gauntlet, Joe threw one last angry glare at his future opponent and reached out to grab his girlfriend's hand. As the two of them walked down the hall, Jenny looked back at Bob and smirked in smug self-satisfaction. George's son narrowed his eyes as he pondered her motives for provoking this fight between him and her boyfriend. Then the bell rang, shaking Bob free of his thoughts and enabling him to try and catch his class on time.
Bob had three classes in the afternoon. In each one of them that followed, he didn't pay a single bit of attention to the teacher or any lecture. His mind was otherwise occupied on thinking about his upcoming predicament.
When Joe named the time and place, he had freed Bob from worrying over if he would get caught fighting during school hours. Being intimidated of the other boy wasn't even an issue. Neither was the thought of having to fight with him.
The real question here, Bob decided, was if fighting Joe was worth the trouble it seemed to be or not. That was what needed to be answered.
He thought about it carefully.
"Well at least you gave it some consideration."
"Well, aren't you happy that all those years of lecturing didn't go to waste? Quiet, I'm coming to the part I like the most. Anyway, later that afternoon…"
When Joe Miller and two of his teammates, Mike Stillers and Ray Tonan, from Bernard High's football team, the Wolverines, showed up on the appointed field at exactly 4:45, Bob was there waiting.
"You're fifteen minutes late," he called out the minute they were within earshot.
"Sue me," shot back Joe as he shrugged his backpack off and handed it to Mike. In a gentler manner, he took off his Wolverine jacket and gave it to Ray to hold. He stepped away from his two friends and briefly threw a few punches to warm up.
Watching in boredom, Bob patiently waited until his opponent was ready. Joe soon finished what he was doing; cracking his knuckles, he walked to a point fifteen feet away from Bob and put up his fists.
"C'mon chump! I'm dying to teach you a lesson in manners!"
Knowing that it was futile, Bob responded anyway, "I'm telling you, your girlfriend is lying about the whole thing!" Seeing that it didn't lessen Joe's aggression any, he quickly changed tactics.
"Well, I guess that's why she picked you for her boyfriend. You're too dull witted to even begin to catch a glimpse of what she's doing to you, namely, manipulating you right in front of your eyes! Why don't you dump Jenny for a retard? At least that way, you'll be able to keep up, in terms of intelligence, that is!"
His insults did their job. Joe's face turned red with renewed anger, and with a wrathful roar he dashed towards Parr and started pounding away relentlessly. Bob was being hit as each punch connected, without a chance to try and block.
At least, that's what Miller wanted to do. What really happened was quite a different story.
Jenny's six feet, 185 lb. boyfriend had been the captain of the Wolverines for all three years he'd been at Bernard High. His body build had been assisted in great deal by routine weight lifting. He was also stronger, tougher, and meaner than anyone else in school. Miller was no stranger to fighting; he'd done more than his share during his grade school years. He'd held it as a personal accomplishment that he'd never been beaten in a fist fight.
Now as he looked at this Parr jerk, who wouldn't even apologize to his girl, HIS GIRL, properly, his anger blossomed rapidly. Although the freshman was almost a match for him in size, Miller was confident that he could take him down without any problems.
So it was with such confidence that he brought his fists up to chin level and came in fast and hard. Feinting with his left twice, Joe suddenly drove his right towards Parr's face, intent on striking the freshman's jaw.
He didn't remember much after that.
Bob's father laughed in amusement as he slapped his knee. "Only three punches and he went down?"
Thinking back on the incident, his son allowed himself a proud smile and a feeling of satisfaction. He got up and demonstrated his actions. "What can I say? I blocked his punch, hit his stomach with my right, treated the left side of his jaw with a left roundhouse and smashed the right side with a one of my stronger right hooks. The guy had a glass jaw, and besides, he was no match for me," he bragged proudly.
"Then how do you explain the bruises?"
His face fell and some of his boastful attitude instantly collapsed. Wincing a little as he gingerly fingered said swellings, Bob replied, "Well, his friends weren't too happy about what I did, so…"
"Get him!!"
After spending nearly five seconds of gazing in stupefied amazement at their unconscious captain, Joe's two friends decided to take it upon themselves to enact vengeance upon this Robert Parr. Stiller, a short, but stocky guy, started forward hurriedly, while Tonan, a taller, thinner yet clearly well muscled, did a slower, relaxed pace.
Bob shifted to a favored boxing stance; his left fist held out, his right arm tucked close in to his chest with the fist near his chin. He waited calmly, his eyes catching every movement made by the duo before him. Stiller arrived first, alternating right and left jabs, trying to land a successful blow. Seeing this, Bob sidestepped to the left, which meant half of the shorter boy's punches fell short. The other half were deflected with little effort by Bob's outstretched fist.
Knowing that he had to quickly do some damage before Tonan caught up, Bob stepped in closer twice. The first was with his left foot, while simultaneously blocking a jab. The second part, consisting of the right foot moving in a split second later, caught Stiller off guard. A right straight flashed out and caught him square on the chin. The force of the impact knocked his head back and the strength behind the punch stunned him temporarily. With his left leg coming up level with it's right counterpart, Bob immediately followed up with a hard, low left hook to the kidneys, a blow to the stomach next, and then a uppercut that sent his shorter opponent tumbling to the ground, barely conscious.
Suddenly, a fierce blow struck Bob at the back of his head. Groaning and stunned, he instantly suspected that Tonan had somehow gotten behind him while he was occupied with Stiller. A sudden surge of anger ignited within him; it wasn't enough being unjustly setup by Jenny; it wasn't enough that he had to fight an enraged Joe; it wasn't enough he outnumbered; now it turns out this skinny, cowardly weasel attacks him from behind? Enough was enough!
Somehow shoving the pain away in a place where he couldn't feel it, Bob wheeled around with his guard up. He was a fraction of a second too slow. A roundhouse punch appeared out of nowhere and smashed his left cheek. His head flew sideways due to the impact; out of the corner of his eye, Bob caught sight of Tonan's fist heading for his stomach. Reacting quickly, he hardened his abdominal muscles an instant before the blow struck. His eyes watered a bit as he registered the pain, but he preferred pain rather than having the air knocked out of him.
Obviously feeling that his punch failed to accomplish what he'd wanted it to, Tonan pushed his attack. Lashing out with a left hook, he connected on Bob's jawbone, then scored again with a hit over his right eye, breaking the skin and starting a flow of blood. Now feeling good about the outcome, Ray threw a roundhouse right, connecting on the jawbone.
Recovering from the effects of the assault far faster than Tonan expected, Bob's fury exploded. Quickly ducking a high left hook, his rage led into an underarm blow, smashing into the solar plexus. He straightened and sent a right, then left cross, marking both of Tonan's cheek, one after the other. "That's payback for mine," he growled. Far from being satisfied, he pounded Ray's body with a series of sharp, powerful jabs, starting from the abdomen and going up from there. Relentlessly sending a right-left straight combination thudding into his chest, Bob snapped an impromptu punch to catch Tonan squarely in the face.
He felt bones crunch and blood squirt onto his knuckles and knew he'd broken the Wolverine member's nose. Bob didn't care; Tonan knew what he was getting into when he joined the fight.
Now, Ray Tonan staggered backwards, his hands automatically going to his face. "You broke my nose, you idiot," he sputtered confused, angered, and pained all at the same time. "Too bad!" replied Bob, closing the distance between them, eager to finish him off.
And finish him off Bob did. With Ray momentarily disoriented by the agony from his nose, his opponent had a very good opportunity at hand. Deciding to use his favorite combination of blows to end it, Bob launched into action. By the time he was done, Tonan was tottering to and fro, ripe for picking. With one last, fierce roundhouse, Bob successfully laid him out on the field. Before he could double check and see whether the football player was unconscious or not, a voice suddenly cracked loudly from somewhere behind him.
"Yo blondie, watch your back! Pronto!"
Reacting instinctively, Bob whirled around and tightened his guard, ready to dish out more punishment. He caught a fleeting glimpse of an African American guy about his age in the bleachers, then his eyes snapped onto a revived Stillers.
Scowling because his ploy to ambush Bob from behind had been spoiled, the stocky Wolverine twisted his upper body around and pointed at the intruder threateningly. "You little creep! I'm gonna get you for this, you can be sure of that!"
The newcomer simply shrugged nonchalantly and said, "Whatever, fool. If I were you, I'd turn around right now!"
Realizing that he still had an adversary to contend with, Stillers did turn as the newcomer suggested.
The first thing he saw as he did so was a large fist filling his view. A couple of jabs, two crosses, three straights and a quartet of hearty roundhouses later, Stillers was in no condition to see anything else anymore.
Standing wearily and ultimately victorious above the unconscious Wolverine, Bob spat a stream of blood on the ground. "Pathetic," he muttered, "three against one and this is the best they could do? Hmmph, that'll teach them to mess with me!" Nursing his knuckles, he turned around and began walking away.
The person who'd warned him about Stillers was sauntering down the stairs, a look of amazement on his handsome lean face. As he reached field level and got closer, Bob got better look at him.
He was above average height, around 5"10 or so, and lean, but Bob sensed a decent musculature residing in that lanky frame. Wearing black slacks and a dark blue sweater, he had the popular afro hairstyle, though it's size was more moderate than most others Bob had seen.
"Hey bro, how da hell did ya do that? Three of those suckers against yo' lone ass; and ya still manage to come out as top dog! Incredible man, just plain incredible!"
Bob asked him the first thing that came to mind, "Who in the world are you?"
The newcomer smiled, showing his white sparkly teeth. Placing his left hand on his hip, and pointing to himself with his right thumb, he said, "The name's Lucius. Lucius Best, at yo' service."
End Chapter 1
Author's Notes:
Whew, finally done with Chapter 1! That was a tough one, I can tell you. I loved writing the fight scene, hehe, and consumed hours of editing, rewriting, and checking to get it where I deemed it satisfactory.
A couple of things that I'll make clear here. The supers do exist in this time period, but not all of them are highly regarded in society. A good portion of the population don't trust them and would like to see them blotted out of existence. Also, although the year is 1934, the technology and the general lifestyle in that world is equivalent to that existing during the late 1950's to early 1960's of our own, although I think I'll omit some of the darker aspects of the events that happened in that time period. Difference of alternate dimensions and all that.
Well, hopeyou enjoyed reading it more than I did writing it (smiley face here). Please review and criticize. I really love to read feedback and am willing to receive anything to improve my writing. Thanks, and see you in Chapter two!
