Comics, Cookies, and Revenge

By Lejindarybunny

A/N: This chapter is longer, and much more in detail than the last chapter, which I think kind of sucked. My apologies, it was rushed. This one is better.

Disclaimer: The Incredibles, Syndrome, and all related characters and ideas are property of Pixar and/or Disney. Sharon belongs to me

Chapter 3: Internet Safety goes Out the Window

'There,' he thought, after sending the email. Let her come to him. And she would, because fangirls were such praise hounds. Gotta love that.

It was the middle of the day on a Friday, four days after the humiliating end of project Kronos. Sunlight was streaming through an open wedge in the heavy curtains, promising and 'absolutely beautiful' day that Syndrome wasn't sure he was equipped to deal with at this point. Birds singing, children playing. Blech. So why would he even be thinking of going outside? Easy, he hadn't eaten since sometime yesterday, and that hadn't been much. Large amounts of fanfiction had put him in the mood for twinkies and pixie stix. All very well and good, but...

His stomach grumbled.

He did a bit of mental calculation, and figured, what with being in the same time zone as the girl, that she would be in school for a few hours yet, and as such, wouldn't be IMing him any time soon, so he could run out for some lunch.

Well, that settled it. He pushed away from the computer, the swiveling chair rolling a few inches back from the desk, stood up, and stretched languidly. He was still in the same sleeveless shirt, which it being November, was completely inappropriate to be going out of his apartment in, and in all honesty, it was getting a bit iffy as well. He strode into the bedroom, the fizzy maroon carpeting squishing under his bare toes.

He walked over to the dresser, and pulled off the swiftly-growing-funky shirt, and tossed it onto the bed. Or rather at the bed. In actuality in landed in a heap on the floor. Whatever.He riffled around in the drawers, until he came up with a soft, dark blue sweater, which he pulled on. He kicked off the sweatpants too, and pulled on a pair of black jeans.

In the bathroom he scrubbed his teeth brutally, and leered into the mirror. His hair was still bushy from having been up for so long, and didn't look at all impressive, like when he had it up, or even presentable. He opened the mirror cabinet and fished around until he found a hair tie, and then pulled his hair back. Except he pulled to hard, and the band broke, stining his fingers.

"Ow!" he complained, grimacing, and triend again, more gently this time with a second tie. And all was well with his hair. Or as well as it could be if he didn't want to attract attention to himself. The fiery 'up-look' was Syndrome's trademark, or at least it was in his mind, and he didn't want anyone to know who he was today. He just wanted lunch.

As he walked back out through his room he picked up his keys, and a pair of flashy black sunglasses, which he perched rakishly on his nose (the glasses, not the keys, obviously) and sitting on his bed, pulled on a pair of socks, and expensive black boots.

Then he headed out the door, but not before grabbing a floor length, black Armani jacket from the closet, and putting it on. It billowed almost as dramatically as his cape as he headed down the hallway to the elevator. He had it to himself, it seemed, which was nice. Close quarters with strangers didn't make Syndrome happy.

Riding down to the first floor he set his mind further into the future. His lieutenant, so he believed, was already in the bag, and therefore it was time to start thinking about what he would do afterwards. It was always best to keep plans a few steps ahead.

He could do as he had promised, and steal Jack-Jack. This idea was wonderfully evil, and Syndrome savored the thought of the delicious irony of raising Incredible's own son to be his enemy. Oh yes, wouldn't that be sweet revenge, to have the super her who had rejected him, looking into the eyes of his own son as that son did away with him?

Unfortunately this plan had several drawbacks, the largest one being that it would require Syndrome to actually keep and raise a child, which was not something he wanted to be doing. He was a patient man, or so he thought himself, but he didn't think it would extend to keeping a screaming brat at his side.

So cross that off the list. Maybe if he ever had a clear path to the infant, he'd take it, but he wasn't going to expend the energy it took to get him, lovely as the end result would be.

What could he do? He tapped his foot on the floor, and brushed a index finger against his nose. Hmmmmm....

He'd seen in the news that the government ban on Heroism was being lifted, and while on the surface that didn't mean much, since he'd killed off all but a tiny handful of the old supers, seeing Incredible's kids had made him realize something. It had been fifteen years since people had been able to display their powers in public, and now, with Presidential permission, every lucky kiddie who could light a match with his pinky was going to be racing to put on a mask and save the world. The bastards.

Theoretically he could recruit them into an army to do his bidding, if they were impressionable enough, and some undoubtedly would be, but Syndrome wouldn't be able to stomach having supers around, even if they were serving him. And what would keep them loyal? No, they'd get all self superior, all 'Oh, we have powers, we ought to be running the show, we're better than you'. It was inevitable.

So he would have to deal with the pre-teen power-punks in a more traditional manner.

The elevator finally reached the bottom, it had to go down 50 floors, so it wasn't unreasonable to take so long, and he stepped out into the lobby.

The guard nodded to the man he saw as a nothing more a rich young man, but Syndrome studiously ignored him as he left through the building's great glass doors and strolled down the metropolitan street. He was glad he's worn the sunglasses, as it was extremely bright outside. He headed to a small bistro he liked not two blocks away.

The apartment he was staying at had been rented several years ago when he'd first started making money from selling his weapons. It was, in all honesty, the first place he'd lived out of his parents' house. He kept the rent up after he'd gotten his island partly for brief city stays, and partly for sentimental reasons. Now he was glad he did.

His poor island. His baby. The government was probably picking his lair apart and dismantling it at that very moment. He had loved that island, it had been perfect, and its loss made him very, very angry.

So angry in fact, that he didn't notice he was about to walk straight into some woman until it was too late.

"Ex-cuse me!" the woman bitched irately. "Why don't you look where you're going?!"

"Yeah, sorry," Syndrome muttered sullenly, stepping out of her way. As she walked away, he turned to watch her go, and lifted a hand, making the gunfire gesture with his fingers.

"Bang," he grumped, and continued on his way.

It was a shame she hadn't figured a way to use AIM at school, or else Sharon would have tried to AIM the emailer immediately. Loved her fics huh? As in more than one of them? Most people, even those who really liked her writing, only read one or two, the ones that applied to the fandoms that they were into. So that meant one of two things, either this DarknessSyndrome was into all the same fandoms as she, or they were an editor who wanted to offer her a job.

Or, thirdly, that she was just getting her hopes up.

Forgive her, she was an excitable person. It probably had to do, she thought, as she sat alone at the far end of the lunchroom, with the sheer amount of caffeine and sugar she consumed. She'd probably be a completely different person. But who would want that? She was a great person! Okay, not by many people's standards, or she'd have friends to sit with at lunch, and people wouldn't slam her into lockers quite so often, but that was their problem, not hers.

People, she had learned when she was young, were very cruel. Especially if they thought you were beneath them. And almost everyone in school either thought Sharon Mitchell was beneath them, or was jealous of her talents. Maybe it was because she hated sports, or was good in math, science and English, if not so much at history or Theology. Maybe it was because they sucked.

There was one person who wasn't so bad. The girl who usually sat with her at lunch, an eighth grader (Serenity school was a combined middle and high school) who didn't have a lot of friends herself. And she was not usually late to lunch.

But that girl had been different lately. More talkative, and more distant from Sharon. In fact, if what Sharon saw in the hallways was any indication, the girl was actually getting, eyuch, popular.

Well, whatever. Sharon shouldn't care, wouldn't care, if Violet didn't even show up at lunch.

So there.

If Sharon had looked up from her sullen thoughts at that moment, she would have seen exactly where her former companion was, heading toward one of the popular tables, hitting it off with some kid who looked like an Abercrombie model. Luckily for everyone involved, she didn't. She was much too busy examining the printed specs of the tazer she had gotten during her free.

If she was going to modify it into a glove form, the first thing to do was mount everything on a rubber base glove, so that it wouldn't shock her when she used it. Put the power source around the wrist, and the contact point at the knuckles. Simple. All she would need was a few parts from Radio Shack.

She pulled her slightly wilted ham sandwich out of a brown paper bag, and munched on it, held in her left hand, while she doodled the schematics of the gloves with her left.

Of course, there was no real point in what she was doing. As a weapon it would work no better than in its former shape and it wasn't as if she could get away with going around zapping people. She might as well be making an ampped-up joy buzzer, for what it was worth.

It was just an entertainment really, for her own benefit. So she could look herself in the mirror and go, "Oo, look, I have teh shox-power, ph34r me!", and then laugh at herself and her incredible stupidity.

Because it was stupid. All of it was stupid, the fanfiction, the gloves, the toys, the whole thing. What point was there to desire something you couldn't possibly ever have? That, my friend, was the reason for the international statute of magical secrecy. She was a muggle who wanted to be a wizard.

No, she thought with a grimace, she was a foolish little girl making bad Harry Potter references to make herself feel better. What a sad little geek she was.

Sharon tore the page out of her notebook, crumpled it up angrily, and tossed it in the garbage can.

It wasn't fair!

The bus dropped Sharon off an the end of her street, and she hefted her backpack up on to one shoulder as she trudged down to her house.

She opened the door, and tried to sneak up to her room without her mother noticing. She failed.

From the kitchen, her mom called, "Sharon, honey? Did you have a good day at school?"

She winced. "Yeah, mom. It was fine."

"Come in here for a moment, I want to talk to you for a second."

She sighed and rolled her eyes, dropping her bag with a thump on the floor, and stomped into the checkerboard-schemed kitchen. Her mother, a short woman, with graying blonde hair, was washing the dishes.

"I got a note in the mail today," her mom said looking at her sternly, "It was a grade report from your theology teacher, Sister Joan. She says you're doing poorly on tests, and that you don't turn in your homework."

Sharon pursed her lips. It was true. She wasn't doing her homework. Mostly because it involved examining and writing about bible passages, which, she suspected, wouldn't have been fun even if she was a strict catholic. And the teacher bugged her. And the class was stupid. She didn't think it was at all a useful class when compared to Literature, or Science.

"Well?"

She shrugged. "I'm sorry mom, I'll try harder." Fat chance.

Her mother sighed, and put a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "You're such a bright girl Sharon; I hate to see you shoot yourself in the foot like this. I know homework doesn't seem like an important thing to you right now, and you're so smart that a lot of the classes don't challenge you. But just think, in two years you'll be in college, and then who knows?"

"Yeah, who knows," she said, sullenly. Do your homework, go to college, get a high paying job. Be middle class. That was what her parents had done, that was what her parents wanted for her. But that wasn't what Sharon wanted. She wanted to be known, admired maybe, she wanted people to thrill at the mention of her name.

That was why she wrote, not only because in her stories she was a figure to be feared instead of ridiculed, but because maybe if she practiced she could be a famous author. And then people would love her stories, and write fanfiction about them.

But that was just a dream.

"Can I go now? I promise I'll do all my homework."

Her mom nodded. "Go ahead sweetie. Dinner is at six thirty."

Sharon scooped her backpack up as she left the kitchen and headed up the stairs to her room, in which she immediately tossed the bag back on the floor, and collapsed in the chair in front of her computer.

As she booted it up, she looked around the room, at all the posters, and pictures of her dashing villain favorites, and the toys, and books, and thought to herself. You stupid, stupid little girl. You're never going to be anything more than what you are, an angry, disrespected, picked-on, little fan. Give up.

AIM booted itself up to her screen name, and she sat there for a moment. thinking. 'Do you even want to talk to this person? They're not an editor, you know that in your heart. They're just some geek like you who wants to gush.'

Finally she decided that she might as well. At the very least she could use the ego boost. They probably weren't even on.

'Hi' she typed.

And they were on, too. A moment later the reply came.

'Hello there.' Syndrome typed. 'I see you got my message.'

'I did'

'Thank you for replying so quickly.'

'No prob, anybody who likes my fic, ya know?' Yeah, she thought, get to complimenting me already.

'It is pretty well written. Better than most of the stuff I waded through.'

Bingo. 'Oh?'

'Yes. You are very...emphatic. Like you believe in what you write.'

'Thank you'

'Do you?'

Huh? That threw Sharon a bit. 'Do I what?'

'Believe in what you write?'

'Er...in what way?' This conversation was not going the way that she had imagined it.

'Lemme explain. I noticed you write about the badguys a lot.'

'Always' she responded, with a bit of pride.

'More importantly, you write about yourself joining them'

She pursed her lips. 'You're accusing me of Mary-Sueism, aren't you?'

'Well...'

'lol, it's okay, I admit it. Yes, those characters are all me.'

'Well then, my question is, if you were given the opportunity, would you really do it? Would you really follow your "Dark Desires"?'

Sharon winced as he quoted the title of her Gríma Wormtongue fic. 'Are you with the FBI or something?' This was a legitimate concern, as, after the school shootings a few years back, some of the kids who didn't like her had tried to say she was going to do something similar, and she'd spent hours convincing her counselors that she was perfectly stable and didn't hate anybody that much.

'LMAO. Definitely not!'

'Then who are you?' This person was really starting to annoy, and intrigue her. What was he (or she?) playing at?

'I am an...interested party, let us say. Do you watch the news?'

'Not often. Is this some sort of game?'

''Do you want it to be a game?'

'You're not answering my questions!!'

'And you haven't answered mine yet. Please, answer truthfully, "or wonder, til it drives you mad, what would have followed, if you had".'

Sharon stared at the screen hardly believing what was being thrown back in her teeth. It was a quote, from C.S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew, one that she had used in another one of her fics. Well, that proved he had read at least some of them, what was he, stalking her?! Where was this conversation going? He had her thoroughly hooked.

'Alright, I'll tell you,' she responded, about to admit to someone she had never met, the blackest secret of her heart. 'Yes. I would. If I ever had the chance to become a super villain. I would grab it, and never let go.'

'Your livejournal says that you live in Upsateville New York, is this true?'

...'yes.'

'Can you get to Spotlight Coffee?'

...'yes.' It was a short walk from her house.

'Meet me there, tomorrow, five pm, alone, obviously. I'll be waiting.'

He signed off.

Sharon was left, staring blankly at the screen. Was this person implying, what she thought they were implying? And was she seriously considering actually meeting them?

She was completely and utterly insane, wasn't she?

Yes, yes she was. A short of manic grin, half terrified of herself, ripped across her face.

Of course, she wasn't a fool. She wanted to see what this was about, not get raped and dropped in a back alley. It looked like those gloves were going to mean something after all.

Quickly, she saved the conversation, and opened the door a crack. She called downstairs, hearing the tension in her own voice, "Mom, will you take me to radio shack after dinner?"

"Sure honey, have you finished your homework?"

"Eh, not yet! I'm just getting started."

Oh yes, she was just getting started.

To be continued..

and now, the review responses!

Megan The Vampire Slayer: Glad you like it!

Shadow Fox: Thank you. Heheheh. Secret cults are fun!

Xaviere Jade: I'm glad you like my characterization of Syndrome, as to idolizing evil men? Well, it all started when I realized as a child that the world wasn't fair, because I dodn't have any super powers...Hope my character doesn't disappoint you!

NoNameNeeded07: Happy to make you laugh! I always thought villains ought to put their fangirls to work.

dikiWi: Whoah, that's a lot of praise there! Well, I will admit, I am a genius...But, it didn't take a lot of thought to see that Syn didn't need to die, and robot duplicates are so in fashion this season, you know?

VegetaandAru: I shall strive to meet your demands!!!

Maya Beebop: Haha. Yeah, after I reread ch1, I decided a disclaimer was necessary, especially after my Who Wants to Be Mrs. Legolas fiasco (don't ask) If there weren't any light side fangirls. who would we pretend to be when we didn't want to scare people? I'm glad you like the buildup, don't worry, Syn may style himself after traditional villains, but he has the finesse necessary to carry his plot off with so flare!