Comics Cookies and Revenge
By Lejindarybunny
A/N: I'll mention now that this is another bridge chapter; so don't expect a lot of action, so much as reflection. Next chapter is when the 'fun' really begins. Oh, and go check out my deviantart account, greer-the-raven .deviantart. com for some new Syndrome art!! More coming this evening, so check back later!
Disclaimer: Disney/Pixar owns the Incredibles. Not me, sadly.
Chapter 15: Making Plans
It had taken Mikhail the better part of the day to come to a proper town. Upon doing so, he dumped the still unconscious form of the driver by the side of the road, and drove off. He was sure someone would be along to assist him in a few minutes or so. Mikhail, however, had urgent business elsewhere.
He spent the better part of the night finding another town, and, upon doing so, checked into a seedy motel. This was made more awkward than it should have been, as Mikhail's skin had not lost the blue sheen that it had gained in the icy wasteland. Mikhail glared at the attendant, and he handed over the room keys.
Mikhail had collapsed into the tattered chair in the corner of the room, and picked up the phone. He dialed a number that would have been very familiar to his father. "Hello? This is Mikhail Rasputin. Yes... Yes. I have a favor to beg of you..."
000
Before they had started the flight back to Siberia, they'd had to load all the various and sundry things that had been bought in Paris. Vex, who was back in the outfit that Syndrome had bought for her that morning, sat rather wearily in her accustomed chair.
It had been a long day. A good day, yes. But still tiring. If the plane ride were any longer she'd have let herself fall asleep, but as it was, she would rather stay up the next two hours.
"So, what's the plan for tomorrow?" she asked.
"Oh, tomorrow's when things really get started," Syndrome replied with a grin. "That's when the hired help will be arriving."
"Neat," Vex nodded. So tomorrow things really started getting up and running. "I always wondered how one actually ran a secret evil base."
"Easy. Make sure everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing, and delegate responsibility for all tasks that don't vitally require your attention."
"That makes sense," she nodded.
"Well good, because some of that is obviously going to be delegated on to you."
"Obviously," she was, after all, his lieutenant, and that couldn't all consist of trips to Paris. Where would the fun in that be, anyway? "What sort of things?"
"Oh, overseeing that the minions are doing their job, mostly. Like anybody else, if they don't know they're being watched, they won't get anything done."
She got minions to command? Now that was just awesome. How many people could say they had honest to god minions? "Sounds fine to me. What time are they supposed to be coming?"
"Mid to late afternoon."
"Okay," she nodded. Then she thought of something. "Hey Syndrome, can I use one of the computers tomorrow morning?"
"Any time you like, just, don't mess with the security without telling me."
"Of course not! I just have a few fics and things I want to check up on." Not only that, but her account at deviantart was probably full to brimming with deviations her friends had posted. She hated going for days without checking it, because then she could never give the messages the attention they warranted.
"Then that's fine," he smirked.
"Yeah, yeah, I know," she grinned sheepishly. "Practically living out a Mary-Sue fic of my own and I still want to read the stuff. What can I say? I'm a fangirl."
"I wouldn't change it," he assured her.
"Oh good."
Vex yawned. She was more tired than she had thought. 'Oh well,' she thought to herself. 'I might as well get comfortable at the very least.
She shifted herself in the chair, and laid her head on Syndrome's shoulder.
"Vex?" Syndrome asked a moment later.
"Yeah?"
"I've been meaning to tell you something."
"What's that?" she snuggled her head up against his warm, soft body.
"I wanted to... apologize"
She looked up at him, wondering what he could possibly think he had done to offend her. "What for?"
Syndrome sighed heavily. "For the way I tested you yesterday. I should have trusted you from the beginning."
Vex shook her head slowly. "It's okay. I understand. Someone you thought loved you just betrayed you, and so you didn't quite trust anybody. I'd probably be the same way."
He ran his fingers through her hair. "So, you aren't mad?"
"No, I'm not mad at you at all," she murmured. She wasn't upset with him. And now that he had apologized, she was almost angry with herself, for having been a bit upset before. But it didn't really matter right now. What mattered was that Syndrome liked her, and wanted her around, and had duties for her, and didn't mind that she was a silly fangirl. Lying up against Syndrome made her feel even sleepier than before and soon she was drowsing.
000
Vex's breathing became slower and steadier, and Syndrome knew that she had fallen asleep. He smiled slightly, and petted her cheek, glad that she wasn't angry, or hurt.
He was glad also, that he'd managed to ask her about her feelings. He had been right all along, she did like him.
And boy did that suit look good on her...
Tomorrow operations would finally begin. And after that, he could get some more research done on Rasputin's findings. There was something important there, Syndrome knew it. If he located the source of Super powers, well, Rasputin may not have cracked the secret of bestowing them, but it seemed he had the art of taking them away.
If ever there was a way to truly rip apart someone's soul, it would have to be to take away his powers.
Syndrome spent the rest of the plane ride contemplating and planning. When they arrived back in the hangar of the base, Vex was still sound asleep and she looked so peaceful and happy that he couldn't bring himself to wake her. Instead he scooped her up in his arms, and carried her inside, and down to her personal apartments.
He laid her down on the bed, and removed the most uncomfortable looking articles she was wearing, the glasses, shoes and jewelry, and set them by the bed before covering her up with the soft, cream-colored coverlets.
"Good night," he told her softly, and left the room.
000
Vex was surprised to wake up in her bed, after all, when she'd fallen asleep, it had been on the plane. And instead of waking up cold and stiff, clambering down and inside, she was already warm and comfortable.
'Syndrome must have carried you,' she thought to herself, smiling happily and hugging the big pillow on which her head had been resting. She rolled over, looking for a clock, before remembering that she still didn't have one!
'Well, grr on that,' she pouted. 'I better filch one from the barracks before all the minions arrive tonight.'
She yawned, and stretched, feeling amazingly good and well rested. Sitting up she noticed that the boxes of clothing she had bought were stacked in a corner. She felt vaguely guilty about him lugging them all up the stairs, until she realized he'd have just zapped them with him gloves. Like telekinesis.
Vex swung herself out of bed, and decided, 'it's time for a shower'. The bathroom in her private quarters wasn't nearly as opulent as the one in the hallway, but that was more of a swimming pool, really, and that wasn't what she wanted.
She peeled her clothing off, and turned the tap so that water hissed and steamed down from the spigot. She stepped into the shower, pulling the curtain closed behind her.
The first spray of water on her cold shoulders was startling, and also rejuvenating. The room filled up with a hot, misty steam as she stood there, just luxuriating in the feeling of the heat against her skin.
It was the first familiar, comfortable, safe thing she had done in three days. It wasn't spending horrendously large amounts of money that she couldn't bear to think about on clothes that she hadn't known she wanted. But it wasn't worrying about whether or not she would have her homework done on time, either. It wasn't loyally snuffing out the life of a man she had known for an hour and a half at best. Nor was it wasn't sitting alone in the lunchroom with a notebook and a package of Twinkies. It wasn't falling into a mirror, or turning her back on the only friend she had or running away from home with what she could fit in a duffle bag, and leaving her mother to grieve.
There was good and bad in every possible life. Her life wasn't perfect, it never would be, but it was getting pretty damn close. She wouldn't take back any of it. 'We all are our choices; we are who we make ourselves. And I, narcissist that I am, happen to like myself quite a bit at the moment.'
But for the moment, she didn't have to make any choices. She could just forget who she was altogether, neither Sharon, nor Vex, and simply be. This was purely a hot, relaxing shower, making her forget all the doubts that played in her mind.
After she had scrubbed herself thoroughly, and the water was threatening to turn less than pleasantly warm, she turned off the tap, and grabbed a large, fluffy green towel, drying herself off. Her dark brown locks hung damply in her face, as she grabbed her glasses and rubbed the steam off with the corner of the cloth. She breathed in the moist, sauna-like air and felt happy.
After dressing in a fuzzy, tunic-style sweater, and corduroy pants, she grabbed the bag with her disks and CDs, and the CD player and headed out of the room. Doing as she had promised herself she grabbed one of the little digital clocks from the barracks and shoved it in her pocket before going down to the control room. It turned out that it was only eight in the morning. She wondered if Syndrome was up yet?
If he was, he was still in his private suite, because he wasn't in security, nor did any of the camera's display his whereabouts. That was fine with Vex. 'I'll have some time to get a little guilt free fan time in,' she thought as she switched on the computers.
Unfortunately this was harder than Vex had anticipated. Wither Deviantart, it seemed, was having issues, or Syndrome's computer was. She was almost ready to give up, when it finally allowed itself to display.
And then her account was gone.
Vex swore violently, and began to set up a new account. 'After days I finally got the stupid thing to accept devi-art' she exaggerated in her journal, and proceeded to wrathfully embellish her tribulations.
000
Violet had decided to wait and see what Mirage did, before doing anything herself. She wanted to see if the woman would do as she had said she would, and tell her father. If she didn't, Violet would...what?
Tell her father that she had lied about where she was going and stalked Mirage? Oh yeah, he would so love that.
'Can you say, 'grounded'?' Violet grumbled to herself. 'What am I supposed to do then, go find Sharon myself? I don't even know where these coordinates are for.'
Well, she could fix that easily enough she supposed. Just go look it up on the internet, unfortunately, she knew Dash was using it at the moment, playing some dumb game no doubt.
So what would she do, if Mirage didn't say anything? Maybe call her own father and anonymously tip him? How could she change her voice enough that it wouldn't be recognized?
Nobody had ever told Violet that being a super hero was going to be so difficult. Or was it just being a teenager? If she were older she could just run off and rescue Sharon, easy. That was how it was done after all. How could you be a super hero when you had to worry about homework and curfews?
'How can you be a super hero when your only powers are to make yourself invisible and cast force fields?' Violet couldn't fight, all she could do was defend herself, and run away.
'Maybe I should ask mom if I can enroll in a martial arts class,' she thought to herself.
000
Syndrome had gotten up rather later than he had expected to. He donned his costume, hair and everything, He'd be wearing it almost all the time again, now that things were finally moving forward. As he wandered downstairs to the kitchen, blue and black cape billowing out behind him, he noticed that Vex was obviously already awake. She had left her door open.
In the kitchen, he grabbed the last package of pop-tarts out of the box. Sugary, quick, filling, easy to eat, and oh-so bad for you, they had fed him throughout most of his life. As an added bonus, they weren't messy, so he could eat them no matter what he doing. The Omnidroid mark one had had a few toaster pastry crumbs alongside it's wiring.
Syndrome dusted his hands together, brushing the sugar-crumbs from his gloves, and decided it was time to get to work. It wouldn't be as early a start as he had hoped for, but he still had an hour or two before he'd have to orient the mercenaries who'd be arriving.
When he arrived at the control room, he found Vex sitting, her back to the door, at the computer, hanging around her deviantart page, with music playing loudly from the stereo.
Syndrome grinned and swaggered up behind her, he put his arms over her shoulders, and his face by here. "Boo."
"Eep!" Vex squeaked, jumping in her seat. "You startled me!"
"No, really?" he smirked and asked curiously, "So, what have you been up to?"
"Snarking at your stupid computer. Deviantart ate my page or something, and now somebody is bitching me out for exaggerating in my journal, and not knowing computers very well."
"Sounds fun," he replied sarcastically. "What do you mean it ate your page?"
"The whole thing's gone, all my art, journals, page views. The whole shebang. I had to start a new one."
"That sucks," he sympathized. "You need to get dressed soon, you know."
She looked up at him in confusion.
"You can't greet minions in that," he explained, tapping the edge of his mask for emphasis.
"Oh, oh right! Duh," she shook her head. "Sorry, lost in fangirl land. I'll go change now."
He nodded as she got up. "You mind if I close this? I need to get some work done."
"it's fine," she said, walking out of the room. "Could you log me out of my account before you do?"
"Yeah."
He looked at the page she had left it on, and contemplated reading her journal. After all, if she put it on the net it was fair game, right? He decided against it though, if he did, he might spend all day nosing around the site, and there were things he needed to do.
He logged Vex out, and pulled up Rasputin's files.
000
Hours later Mikhail was beginning to come to terms with the fact that his skin was, in all likelihood, going to be permanently blue. It was simply another injustice that Syndrome had served him. Well, Mikhail Rasputin was going to do his very best to pay the man back.
Reconnecting with his father's mob connections had been an easy thing, especially since the organization was in fact, in debt to the Rasputins for a few key services that had been provided. Mikhail had never quite known what his father had done for them, and he wasn't sure that he wanted to. He didn not relish working with criminals, but if that was what it took to get his justice, then so be it.
The favor he had asked was to locate for him the current location of a woman he knew might want Syndrome as dead as he did. It had been a simple task, and Mikhail had not hesitated to call her, and tell her where the man was. Now he simply had to see what would come of such an action. If his guess was right, she would pass responsibility off on to a much more elusive character, one who would be able to better help Mikhail further his goals.
That man was the hero Mr. Incredible, who had brought Syndrome low not two weeks prior. Mikhail wasn't a fool. He knew that his talents would not stand up to Syndrome's alone. But, so help him, it would be his own hands that snapped the villain's neck.
To be continued…
RavensHaelo: Yay!! Refrences rock. I'm glad you got them. Personally, I couldn't eat snails, it would just squick me out too much.
Maya Beebop: Even in real life, doesn't it always feel like every time you're starting to get into something, someone comes along and ruins your fun? I'm glad you like me having Violet in it, I told ya it wouldn't all be just Vex. Violet is an integral, integral part of the plot.
Shadow Fox Forever: Designing costumes is hard.
WormmonABC: No, I don't have a beta. Once CCR is completely finished, I will go back and edit it the way I did when I wrote Darwinian Rhapsody. Hehe. Ock-coat.
Megan The Vampire Slayer: Can do.
VegetandAru I was wondering where you'd disappeared to! Glad to know you're still liking the fic.
Megarabelle: Glad you like the idea. There should be more up there soon.