Comics, Cookies and Revenge
By Lejindarybunny
A/N: Um, just a little note. This is the first chapter with some violence in it. Not too, too bad, but still, you were warned. Oh, and slightly morbid... Hey, trust me, it is necessary!
Oh, and good news, folks, I can finally type 'lieutenant' without the spell check having to correct me!
Disclaimer: The Incredibles, Syndrome, and all affiliated characters and ideas are the property of Disney/Pixar. Sharon/Vex is mine, and so are all other original characters in this fanfic.
Chapter 7: To Russia, With Love
"So, how long is this flight going to take?" Vex asked. "Besides 'a while'."
"Oh, fourteen or fifteen hours," Syndrome shrugged. They had taken off a few minutes ago, and were now at a steady altitude. Vex had seemed a little nervous during the takeoff, maybe she'd never flown before? Didn't matter, since she wasn't freaking out or anything, but she had gotten a bit quiet for the first time in the evening.
"Wow, I didn't realize it would be that long."
"Siberia is pretty far from New York you know," he reminded her, throwing his feet up over the arm of the chair to his left and stretching out.
"It's not that I mind or anything," she assured quickly, "I'm just surprised. I've never actually flown before."
Ah so he was right, he thought smugly. "I suspected that might be the case."
"It's okay though, kinda neat I guess."
Silence. Uncomfortable silence.
"Do you want a crossword puzzle or something?" he asked.
She seemed a bit distant, and distracted at the moment. Was she perhaps having second thoughts? He could afford for her to be having second thoughts. Not at this stage. Maybe he should threaten to throw her out of the plane if she didn't cheer back up.
"Are you alright?" he asked instead.
"Huh? Oh, I'm fine," she smiled. "I'm just a little dizzy, actually..." she frowned again.
"Dizzy?" Well, at least she wasn't airsick.
She nodded. "Its fine, I'm sure I'll get over it. Actually," she added, "While it is your prerogative as evil genius to keep me at a disadvantage, I really would like to know any more about you that you're willing to tell."
Syndrome considered this. She seemed almost distressed at the fact that he knew so much about her, while she knew almost nothing about him. He supposed it made sense, as that role was always reversed in her stories (in which the girl was generally pseudo-stalking the villain of her choice) and decided that maybe he should tell her a little more, if it would keep her from wavering.
Besides, what harm was there in regaling her with a story or two of his awesome powers?
"You got it," he said with a grin. "How about I tell you about the first super I wasted?"
"I'd love to hear it," she said, with real enthusiasm.
"Alright, let's set the stage then..."
It was a week or so after New Years, that moment in time when the curbs are littered dying Christmas trees; everybody is taking down their decorations, and those people who aren't look like sad, sad individuals holding out against the graying lumps of snow.
Almost needless to say, I was the only person in the park that day.
What? Oh right, right. I was like fifteen at the time. Yep.
So there I was in the empty, snow-filled town park testing my latest invention, the Omnidroid mark one.
How did I hide that? Well, the mark one was a lot smaller than later models, I had to build it in a basement you understand, yes. Yes, it was my parents' basement, okay? Anyway, can I continue? This Omnidroid was about the size of a large dog, and fully remote controlled, since I hadn't invented AI yet.
I had finished work on it a few days prior, and all its basic motor functions were in working order, but I still hadn't tested the weapons systems, since, ya know, I couldn't very well do that inside. I mean come on.
I was in the very deepest section of the park, where the leafless trees were so well bunched together I thought I had enough cover to get my work down in peace. I would have been able to, too... except....
"Let's see," I said, punching some of the buttons on the remote. It looked a lot like a TV remote. Okay it was a reprogrammed TV remote. Look, I didn't have a lot of tech to work with in those days, and anyway, mom and dad would just think they'd lost it in the couch.
The Omnidroid responded perfectly. I was thrilled. I could crush rocks in it's vice arms, small ones, granted, had wonderful control over the saw mechanism, oh, and she handled like a dream.
"Time to test the best part," I grinned, adjusted the weapons setting, and punched the big red button.
A bright red laser shot from the Omnidroid's 'eye', and burned clear through the trunk of one tree, and through a second, before dissipating.
"Haha! Dude!" I was thrilled. "Fire all phasers!"
I was actually able to fire it like three or four more times before that stupid accident happened. You see, one of the screws had worked itself loose on the base where the laser was mounted, and by the fifth time I fired it, the aiming system was all messed up, and the laser fire straight up into the sky.
"Aw man," I glared at the thing, and shut it off. It was just a minor setback, but I was still kinda ticked. I pulled my tools out of my bag to start repairs.
That was when I was so rudely accosted.
The guy flew out of the sky like a bullet, and poked his finger roughly into my chest. "You!"
The guy wasn't really in standard super hero gear, his main wardrobe piece was a very heavy long, grey coat, which I attributed to the weather (he musta been one of the types that wasn't cold resistant) but beneath that he did have a bright yellow and red spandex outfit, and he was wearing a mask. I'd never seen the guy before, actually.
"Me?" I demanded, taking a step backwards.
"Yes, you!" he said, harshly, gritting his teeth. "It vas you that fired that laser at me, vas it not?"
"Hey, chill out, it's not like I-"
I noticed two things at that point, one, he had some kinda funny accent, and two, that he had what at first seemed to be a minor head wound, a scrape between his left eye and temple. The only thing was, it wasn't bleeding or anything, no it was sparking.
"Hey! You're a robot!"
The hero reached up and touched the wound. "You, are mistaken. Now, vhy did you fire that weapon on me?"
I did some quick thinking at that point and came to the conclusion that he had to be some kind of advanced war robot, and that if I could take him out I could do amazing things with reverse engineering.
"Well, gee, I'm really sorry, I certainly didn't mean to..." as I said this, I reached into my pocket and switched the Omnidroid back on. The lasers might not be operational, but the rest of it was.
I jumped back out of the way as the Omnidroid pounced on him, bowling him over into a tree. He struck out at my machine, and grabbed two of its arms as I tried to impale him with them. Determined, I forced its strength setting to stay at its highest value as it wrestled with the guy, and brought out the saw. It was getting closer to his chest, and it didn't look like he had any chance when, suddenly, he let go of one of the arms, blasted the Omnidroid with a laser from his palm, tossing it backward a few feet and lunged at me.
I was lucky, I'll admit it. The guy slipped on a patch of ice that sent him careening head first into a tree. I took my opening. The 'droid jumped onto his back, and before he could respond, drove its arm like a spike, tearing right through the guy's chest.
He choked, seized up, and stopped moving. I grinned with triumph. Now I just had to take the thing apart and...
But what I had mistaken for a robot was bleeding, profusely, from the giant wound in his chest cavity, staining the snow below him a deep crimson. Much as I would like to say otherwise, I have to admit, I was...disturbed.
I went home, quickly, taking the Omnidroid with me, and snuck inside. Down in the basement I cleaned the droid, repaired and recalibrated the laser, and thought.
I couldn't just leave a body there in the park. And besides, I was burningly curious to find out exactly what it was I had... killed.
I waited for cover of darkness, and snuck back to the park, desperately hoping that body had not been discovered. I was lucky again; it was there, exactly as I had left it. I threw a sheet over the thing, and used the Omnidroid to carry it.
I couldn't take it back to the basement; that was obvious. I didn't have the proper tools, and I didn't want to get the room, well, messy. I found myself wandering towards the morgue. The man who worked there at night was in his late thirties, and had an obscene number of piercings. I hid the droid and it's burden in the shadows of the side of the building, and entered the morgue.
Just as I expected, the guy was sitting with his feet up on the desk, reading a magazine. He didn't even look up at me.
"Hey," I said. "You the only one here?"
He nodded.
"You look hungry."
He raised a heavily pierced eyebrow at me, didn't even say a thing.
"Why don't I give you say, a hundred dollars, and you go get something to eat for an hour or two."
The morgue guy smirked, nodded and held out his hand. I pulled two hundred dollar bills out of my pocket.
Where did I get the money? I mentioned the laser on the droid, right? Well, I sold the same laser weapon schematics to a small African nation a few months prior.
Anyway, he took the money, saluted me mockingly, and dutifully left the building. A few minutes later, I called the Omnidroid in and got to work.
I'll spare you the grisly details. Suffice it to say, Morgue man kept his end of the bargain, and I had plenty of time to find out what was going on. The guy was human, had been a super in fact, as I could find no mechanism to fire the beam that had come from his hand. The only mechanical parts on him were a strange sort of body suit around his chest which functioned as respirator, and a chip I found in his left temple, with a tiny camera.
I was peering into the camera, when I realized that it was still transmitting a signal. I immediately dropped it, and crushed it under my shoe, afraid that someone was going to come after me. But no one ever did. I put the chip in a plastic bag and that in my pocket. The body I burned in the morgue's crematorium, and left.
Later, I learned the chip was some sort of personality augmentation device, and it helped me get started of my artificial intelligence work.
And the death of the unknown super? That showed me that with the right technology I could be the match for any super around.
"And that's how the ball really got rolling on my plans," Syndrome finished.
Vex, having been listening in rapt attention, took a moment to reflect on what she had just heard. Another person might probably have been horrified by the story, what with the murder, which was only semi-accidental seeing as he thought it was a sentient robot. And then there was the bribery, and the impromptu autopsy, Syndrome's complete lack of remorse, and his plans to do more, completely intentional, murder. Any normal person might have thrown up the next time they looked at him.
This was however, not the way Vex saw it. The first 'murder' of course, was in the name of science. If she thought somebody was a robot, she'd want to know what made it tick, too. The bribery, in her opinion, was hardly even worth mentioning. The autopsy was pretty damned cool, and she was impressed that he'd been able to effectively conduct it without any formal medical training. Of course he didn't show any regret, what was done was done, and he used it to his best advantage. The later killings of other super heroes were both revenge, and necessary to his larger plan.
Yes, to her the story proved that he just might be daring, resourceful, and ruthless enough to do what many had tried, but none had succeeded at; take over the world.
"That's pretty cool," she told him with a grin. "But weren't you afraid that the guy at the morgue would say something to someone?"
"That did occur to me...later," he admitted, "But then he went to jail for selling organs on the black market, and I stopped worrying." He grinned at her. "Turns out I am an excellent judge of character."
Most of the time, anyway, she thought to herself, recalling his former lieutenant.
She asked another question that had been bothering her. "What about the respirator thingy, did you ever figure out why he had that?"
"Oh yeah. Didn't I mention it? The guy had no lungs."
Vex squinched an eye shut. "That's weird."
"Yeah, kinda, huh? I never did figure out who the guy was, either."
"Maybe he was a foreign super? You said he had a funny accent," she giggled. "Was that how he really talked, or do you just suck at doing accents?"
Syndrome pursed his lips at her, pouting. "Hey, I do not suck at accents, that's how he sounded! He was all 'Vhats' and 'Vhys'. I was surprised he wasn't like 'Ahll be bhach', ya know?"
She almost choked on her laughter, and was happy to find that when she caught her breath, Syndrome had been chuckling as well.
Vex brushed her hair out of her face. "That was pretty cool how you took the guy out without even using the lasers, too."
"Well, I couldn't really, the stupid things were busted," he grimaced slightly, as though still annoyed that the lasers hadn't been perfect the first time around. "So, do you feel like you know a little more about me now?"
She nodded. "Yes, lots."
"And?"
"I like what I hear. I can see now that you're cunning, imaginative, audacious, decisive," she ticked them off on her fingers, "as well as brilliant, and a bit ruthless. In short, a great man, with the makings of a great leader. I think you actually have a good shot at the whole world conquering thing."
"Why, thank you," he said, grinning broadly at her, "It's a nice change to have someone around who can appreciate my obvious talents."
Ah wonderful, Vex thought gaily. Here was a man with whom flattery would get her everywhere. But best not to overdo it.
"Just calling 'em how I see 'em," she said nonchalantly. "Sooooooo....hey, did you say there were crosswords around here somewhere?"
Despite a valiant effort to get through the entire book of crosswords Syndrome had handed her, Vex had soon fallen asleep. Without her cheerful banter to keep him at least half-occupied Syndrome had soon grown restless, and began searching the cabin for something to do. None of the magazines really held any interest for him, and he'd had enough crosswords for the evening, helping Vex out.
"The thing about crosswords," she had said while she was still awake, "Is they take such a wide variety of knowledge to finish them. I mean, you need to have pop-trivia as much as you need to know synonyms for things, and occasionally they'll throw a real curveball at you. Yeah, you can use the ones you've already figured out to help, but it's still impossible if you don't actually know the answer somewhere inside your head."
It had been a long day, Syndrome decided, and he didn't want to stretch his brain, so much as he wanted to relax. He looked over at the girl's sleeping from, soft and tranquil bundled beneath a blanket. Syndrome was amazed, when he really thought about it, when he saw her delicate and at peace like that, that she was there at all. That she had been able to make the decision to leave her entire life behind.
He had suggested horrible things to her, in the coffee house, to get her to come with him, manipulated the feelings that he had found in her writings. She was alone, unloved, unappreciated and powerless. But they had to be true to some degree, at the very least, for her to believe it enough, even for that one moment, and agree to come with him.
It wasn't just pretend. She really wanted to embrace the dark side and serve the face of evil. And let's face it, he was evil. Syndrome had come to accept that.
That had been his motive behind telling her the particular story about him that he had. It was riddled with things that the general populace would find not just Machiavellian, but amoral and abhorrent. And, carefully watching her face as he had told the tale, he had not found evidence that she found his actions either. Quite to the contrary, she seemed amazed, captivated, and admiring. She'd confirmed that herself, when he asked her.
Here was a girl who was intelligent, and fairly pretty, who was obliging and flattering, who seemed, so far, to enjoy his company, and actually liked him for his personality and for who he was, not who she thought he was, or who she thought she could make him. This was actually a little twisted, when he thought about it, especially when reconciled with her cute form. And it was obvious that she had a thing for him.
He wondered if kidnap counted as a first date.
Vex found herself being shaken awake, but without any person doing the shaking. The whole plane was tremmbling violently, and suddenly in a great jolt she was tossed from her seat, and right onto the floor, just as Syndrome was thrown similarly. She found herself almost on top of him, in fact.
"What's happening?" she squealed.
"It's just some turbulence," he said, trying to sound reassuring as he grabbed her by her wrist, and dragged her up into the seat beside his. She could tell he was irritated though, and by the look of his hair, he had been rudely awakened as well.
"Belt yourself in," he instructed, doing so himself as he sat down.
She nodded, gripping the arm of the chair with one hand as she strapped herself in with the other. The shaking was still going on, not as much as that one large bump, but still quite jarring.
Syndrome stabbed the intercom with his finger, "Hey pilot! What the hell!"
"Sorry sir," Jared apologized. "A spot of turbulence. We'll be out of it in a moment."
"We better!" he let the button go angrily, then turned to Vex. "Are you okay, babe?"
She rubbed her right shoulder, which had been the part of her to hit the floor the hardest. "A little bruised, but fine..."
The shaking subsided, and they were flying normally again.
"Well that sucked," Syndrome said, rolling his shoulders back and forth to get the kinks out. "No, don't take your belt off; we'll be landing in a few minutes anyway. I was about to wake you when we hit that bad spot."
"Oh, okay, thanks," she smiled, releasing the clasps that she was about to undo. She looked out the window, and found it was still dark. "What time is it?"
"Here or in New York?"
"Um, both I guess."
"It's around eleven in the morning in New York, but in Siberia it's just past midnight."
"Well that's likely to throw off my sleep pattern," she laughed.
"Beginning descent," Jared announced over the PA.
"Oo," Vex winced, feeling dizzy again, and pressed a hand to her face.
"You're sure you're okay?" Syndrome asked again.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just...dizzy again. I got over it last time. Like I said; I'm not used to flying."
"Eh, you'll get used to it," he said, assuredly, but Vex was quite surprised when he put his arm around her, too.
She certainly wasn't going to complain however, and took the opportunity to scoot just a little closer to him. After all, she rationalized, it was fairly cool in the cabin, and her blanket was all the way on the other side of it. And Syndrome was nice and warm. If he wanted to put his arm around her, she wanted him to do so.
"I'm sure I will," she replied. "So, are we going to have to sneak through customs this time?"
"Nope, the place has its own airfield."
Vex looked out the window, "Funny, I don't see any- Syndrome?"
"Yeah?"
"You know we're about to fly straight into a cliff face, right?"
"Look again," he told her, sounding amused.
Vex peered out the window, and watched in relief as the snow covered cliff opened up, and the beginning of a runway folded out, upon which Jared touched the plane down.
"Huh. I guess Jared really is a pretty good pilot."
"Yeah, wanna know the really big secret?"
"What?"
"The eye-patch is real."
"What?!" she squeaked, her eyes growing wide.
"Fooled ya," Syndrome laughed, hugging her tighter around the shoulders.
Vex flushed, and pouted at him. "You scared me."
"Just keepin' ya on your toes," he said as the plane rolled to a stop.
She gave a short giggle, and shook her head.
"The plane has landed, sir," Jared announced.
"Pffft, duh," Syndrome muttered.
Vex rolled her eyes sympathetically, and began to unbuckle but stayed sitting, loathe to remove herself from under his arm.
He had to move it anyway, to unstrap himself. "Don't forget your bag," he reminded her.
She nodded, standing up, stretching and grabbing it. She watched Syndrome stand, stretch, and try to smooth his hair out.
"Er, I think I have a comb," she offered, digging around in her backpack until she found the small item. Thinking clearly or not, at least she had put one or two useful things in it.
"Thanks," he grabbed the comb from her, pulled the band out of his hair, and began to rake through it.
Vex fluffed self-consciously at her own hair, but luckily it hadn't gotten particularly messy, though she did run the come through it once or twice when Syndrome handed it back to her.
She looked at him, thinking he looked pretty good, if rather disheveled. Hey, it had been a fifteen hour flight. Which reminded her to be hungry. Ah well.
Jared opened the door, and she followed Syndrome down into a large, fluorescently lit hangar bay. At first she thought they were alone, but then she saw a man running up to greet them. He was quite tall, and gangly, with a thick mane of curly, dark brown hair. He was wearing an extremely loose green sweater, and was smiling broadly. He skidded to a halt a foot or so in front of them.
"Ah, my friends," he said in thick Russian accent, "My apologies, Doctor Rasputin vas unable to be here to meet with you. I am Mikhail, the caretaker. Vel-" He paused for just a second, as he looked at them, and saw his smile falter, then it was back. "Velcome! You must be Syndrome, and this lovely lady is?"
"Vexxation," Syndrome answered for her.
"Uh, hi," she gave him a small wave.
The Russian caught her hand and kissed her on the back of it.
"A pleasure to meet you," he intoned.
"Er, same here."
Syndrome put a hand on her shoulder almost possessively. "Enough pleasantries. Are you going to show us the base?"
"Certainly, certainly," the caretaker chuckled. "Please, follow me."
The two of them followed behind him, deeper into the side of the Siberian mountain.
To be continued...
Esunamoon: A little dark? I didn't think it was particularly, before this chapter anyway, but I guess I see what you mean, what with the whole badguy thing. I'm glad you like it. Thank you for pointing out my little mistakes, I tend to get excited and not notice them, even when I read the chapter over. I will go back and fix them shortly. The Incredibles will make appearances in this fic, but they're not actually that huge a part of it, at least not in the beginning...Yes. That's right, this fic is going to be long. Like, intensely long. You think Sharon should rethink her decisions hmm? Interesting. All I can say as to where the fic is going is that it might not be going where you think, or end up in familiar territory! Hehehehe. I'll try to use Vexxation's full name a bit more for ya.
VegetandAru: I'm really glad you're reviewing my story! Your reviews really make my day! Aw, not all other fanfictions are shit...there are some really good ones. I haven't read any for the Incredibles yet, but that's because I never read in the fandom that I'm writing for, to avoid contamination. If you can't tell by now, I think Mirage should have stuck by Syn, too!
Shadow Fox Forever: Yes. Yes it is. hearts
RavensHaelo: Hmmm, thanks! I'm glad you think the name fits! Haha. I allow myself to write Mary-Sues for the simple reason that I have no shame. I am glad people like the fic though, and see past it's self-derivative character. I like to think I'm doing a service to the fan community by writing wish fulfillment like this.
In regards to the name Vex/Vexxation, I'm so glad to hear that people don't hate it. It took me a while to come up with, since she didn't have any powers that I could really base the name off, I wanted it to sound evil, but also kinda fangirly. And face it ladies, to the unitiated, we can be pretty Vexing.
Next chapter: Setting Up Shop.