Comics Cookies and Revenge
By Lejindarybunny
A/N: Hey guys. There's some new art up at greer-the-raven, and a new Syndrome website with CCR extras, like character bios and a reference reference. Haha, I almost forgot to give you the link. www. freewebs. com/ syndromefan
Disclaimer: The Incredibles, Syndrome, and all affiliated characters and ideas belong to Disney/Pixar.
Chapter 18: Insubstantial
Vex let Syndrome scoop her up and set her on her feet. He had been furious a moment ago, was he really so calm now? She wanted to deny, but he had really frightened her with his outburst, so much so that she had feared for her life. Would he really have killed her? She didn't think so. He'd apologized, too.
And now he was back to the way he normally was, and he was really concerned about her. Hell, she was really concerned about herself. Coughing up blood, she admitted, was bad. But Syndrome seemed to think it was more than that. The way he was reacting, it was as if he already knew what was wrong with her, and it was bad.
He kept his arm around her as they walked to the elevator. Vex wiped her face with her hand, trying to wipe away the tears, and make her face stop being red. If she had only gone straight to Syndrome, she thought, the whole mess of yelling and mistrust could have been avoided, because he'd have known she had no idea what was going on. She let out a small, shuddering sigh. 'You just had to let your curiosity get the better of you'.
Syndrome pulled her closer, as they stood in the rising elevator.
She looked up at him, and his troubled visage. "Do you know what's wrong with me?"
He looked at her, and ran his fingers through her hair. "I... might."
She leaned up against him. "Would you tell me?"
"I'm probably wrong, it's just a hunch."
Syndrome was saying he was wrong about something? That was way below his usual confidence level. Which meant that he was hoping he was wrong. Which scared Vex. Was she looking death in the face, so soon after things were finally starting to look up?
The elevator opened into the lab, and he led her into it.
"There's a test I want to do," he said, "Before jumping to any conclusions."
"Okay," she nodded, wondering what kind of tests he could do in Rasputin's labs. Syndrome walked across the room to a large device that looked like a cross between a dentist's chair and some high tech virtual reality headgear, Vex lingered behind him.
He gestured to the thing. "I need you to sit down in this," he told her.
Vex regarded it dubiously. She had never been much for doctor's visits or the like. "What is it?"
"It'll measure your brainwave activity. It's completely harmless."
Brainwave activity? Why on earth would he want to do that? Unless, she remembered suddenly, the research she had stumbled onto in Rasputin's files several days ago. "You think I have Piotr's disease," she gasped.
Syndrome gave her a pained look, as though wishing she hadn't guessed so easily. "It's possible. It's just something that I want to check. To make sure you don't, ya know."
Why hadn't she thought of it before? Of course it seemed like she had it. Every time she bled, or had one of the coughing fits, it was when her powers were stirred up. She had been close to linking the two occurrences; she just hadn't had the time.
"Okay," she said, giving in, and sitting in the chair.
"Just relax," he said, and patted her on the hand as he slipped the strange device over her head, and the world went dark. Vex suppressed a thrill of unreasoning fear, squeezing her eyes shut, despite the fact that it made no difference from when they were open. She heard Syndrome walk away, and sit down, and suddenly there was a whirring noise in her ears. Obviously the machine was starting up. Vex tried to do as Syndrome had bidden, but she felt herself trembling.
An eerie blue light came on inside the enclosed space of the helmet. Vex expected to feel some kind of weird sensation or something, but she didn't feel anything.
She tried to think of comforting things, things that weren't related to maybe dieing, or Syndrome being enraged by her suddenly having super powers. Vex's heart tightened in her chest. Super powers, something she had wanted since she was a tiny little girl, something she felt she needed, and now, when she finally didn't need them, suddenly she had them, and they were a bad thing.
'Life's not fair, is it?' she thought ruefully, 'you see, I, well I shall never be king...'
She snorted to herself. What a stupid defense mechanism to have, quoting things whenever she was upset. But they made her feel better, none the less, the familiarity, and the feeling of comprehension.
Super powers, she had super powers. And what could she do? She could phase through things. 'Oh goody, look at me, I'm Kitty Pryde,' she thought, disgustedly. 'If I suddenly have the urge to start wearing pink and saying 'like' all the time, I swear I'll kill myself.'
Not that it wasn't a kinda cool power, but it wasn't very offensive, was it? It'd be great for getting into places though. She imagined what she'd being doing with it, if she was still at home. Probably doing something really stupid like robbing people's lockers at school or something equally immature and Brotherhood-y.
The blue light suddenly went off, and she felt Syndrome standing in front of her. He lifted the helmet off of her head, and put his arms around her shoulders tightly.
"Syndrome?" she asked, concernedly.
"Don't worry," he whispered softly to her. "I'll fix it. I promise."
Vex's heart sank into her stomach.
000
Violet's parents spent a good amount of the day getting things ready for their little recon mission. The first thing her mom had done was call a proper sitter for Jack-Jack. Much as Vi's father kept trying to act like this was some kind of false alarm, nobody wanted any of the elements of last week's fiasco to be in place.
Actually, the sitter Mrs. Parr got was Lucius' wife Honey, who would certainly be able to take Jack-Jack, even at his most rambunctious.
Violet had sat in her room most of the morning, while preparations were made. As far as she could tell, mom would be piloting again, and had borrowed a plane from the same person as last time.
Not for the first time, Violet wished she knew more about her parents' lives as super heroes. Before the laws were repealed, mom had gotten upset whenever dad had tried to talk about it at all, and now that it was relevant, everyone seemed to busy.
Violet didn't know what she was supposed to be doing with her powers. She was too young to be fighting crime properly; and anyway, mom and dad had decided it would be hard to keep their identities a secret for long if they all went out was a family. Also, they were still really protective, despite the fact that they had supposedly proven themselves on Nomanisan.
Dash didn't care, he was just happy to be able to do sports now. Mom and dad were back to their hero duties, switching off of course, so that there was usually somebody at home at least. Violet seemed to be the only one left without direction.
She didn't even know what she wanted to do with her powers. It wasn't as if she could really be an effective hero on her own, not unless she really did take karate lessons. But was that what she wanted to do with her life? To always be fighting? Sure it was cool in theory, but was it her? Violet didn't know. She sighed heavily, and stood up. She heard 'getting ready to leave' activity in the living room, and knew it was just about time to go. Mom was giving last minute instructions to Honey, who would almost certainly completely disregard them in favor of her own brand of caretaking.
Violet had jeans and a purple turtleneck on over her costume already, so she didn't need to get anything.
"Dash, Violet we need to get-" her mom called as Vi stepped into the hallway.
"I'm ready," she said, nodding, as Dash motored up beside them.
"Alright," their father said as he led them all out to the car, "I want to remind both you kids that this is serious business, okay? We probably won't find anything, but you need to be ready to defend yourselves if things go wrong."
Violet nodded, and sat down, staring out the window, as they rolled out of the driveway. The car ride was boring, and long, and the plane ride promised to be equally so, however, Violet was interested to note that it wasn't exactly a conventional plane they were taking.
"Whoa cool," Dash exclaimed, looking at it.
"What is that?" Violet asked, taken aback by the small, sleek silver aircraft.
"It's a government secret, that's what it is," her mother said, winking at her. "It can get us to where we're going in just over five hours."
"How long does it normally take?" she wondered.
"Closer to fifteen."
Violet was definitely glad it wasn't going to take that long. After all, she had school tomorrow. School with Tony, she thought with a smile, recalling their first date the weekend prior. He was so cute, and he had so many friends. Being around him made Violet feel very much appreciated and in the spotlight...except when it made her feel awkward, which also was prone to happing. She'd laugh at the wrong thing, or say something a little off, and suddenly everyone would be staring at her, and it would be up to Tony to end the silence.
Filling silence was something that Tony did really well, Violet thought as they boarded the plane, her mother taking over the pilot seat. Violet collapsed into one of the seats, and let her mind wander until they reached their destination.
000
Syndrome had sent Vex up to her room, to listen to her music, or draw, or whatever. Something relaxing, with orders to call him on the PA if she felt so much as the slightest bit sick. Meanwhile he busied himself trying to figure out how Rasputin had cured his son. The files were generally brief, and some of them even seemed contradictory. For instance to in the prototype power suppresser Rasputin used a sort of short range energy field to interfere with the production of Para-Waves, but to stabilize Piotr's condition, he'd implanted something in his head.
Syndrome didn't want to do anything invasive like that. Besides, Rasputin made numerous mentions of the chip altering Piotr's personality, and changing Vex was something that he did not want to do. He'd toyed with the idea of simply trying to suppress Vex's powers altogether, to avoid the surgery, but it hadn't worked for the Doctor. Besides, Vex might think he was doing it vindictively.
Okay, maybe it had occurred to him a little vindictively. He wasn't proud of the fact that he was jealous of her, he knew he shouldn't be, after all, if he didn't work fast, the same power he was envying would kill her.
But he couldn't help envying her just a little. She had what he'd always wanted.
Syndrome sighed, putting away the file on power suppression for later use, and began to dig around in the notes for Piotr's chip, to see if there was a way he could combine the two ideas, stabilizing Vex, without doing anything to her brain.
The problem that the doctor had run across, stabilizing Piotr, as opposed to blocking the power out, was that the wave frequency needed to be attuned specifically for his brain waves, and needed to be able to adjust itself for the dips and spikes in his para-wave production. The chip was implanted to create a feedback mechanism, so that the device would know exactly how much to suppress or induce. Syndrome needed to figure out a way to create get feedback without having it directly tied to the source.
Vex...Syndrome didn't know what he'd do if she died, or became very ill. He didn't think he could deal with that. Not after everything he'd been through lately. Failure after miserable failure. He could feel Mirage laughing at him, Mirage, who he had thought had loved him, and seemed only to be playing games. If she were here now, he might end up doing something rash simply to ease the tension that was twisting inside of him.
000
Mirage sat in her hotel room stewing with guilt and irresolution. She had theoretically done all she had to. She had given Mr. Incredible the coordinates that the mystery man had given her. She should just be able to let it drop. It wasn't any of her business any more.
So why couldn't she just let it go? Why couldn't she let him go? On the one hand she knew that Syndrome had to be stopped, whatever he was doing, on the other hand, this other part inside her wanted to go to him, and beg his forgiveness, make him take her back. Tell him she was sorry for what she had done.
Mirage hated that part of her. Syndrome was a heartless bastard. Maybe he had always been one, maybe it was his enemy that brought out the worst in him, but Mirage knew that no matter what he had felt for her normally, in that instant when Mr. Incredible had had her, Syndrome really hadn't cared if she had lived or died. Oh, he cared about her, typically, in his own twisted way, but at that point it hadn't mattered. Hurting Mr. Incredible had meant more to him than her life did.
And Mirage just couldn't deal with that.
Could anyone? It was just inhuman; to want to punish someone so badly that nothing else mattered to you any more. How could Syndrome have so much anger and hate in his soul?
He preyed on her mind, now more than ever, when she had the possibility of confronting him. If she did see him again, what would she say? How could words express the deep wound that he had made in her?
She knew if she were to confront him, though, the words would come. She wanted to tell him just how badly he had hurt her, instead of beating around the bush like the last time they had spoken.
The last time...
Mirage hadn't expected it to be the last then, and she was sure that Syndrome hadn't either. And maybe, if they had crossed paths again afterwards, things would have happened differently. Maybe she would have succumbed to his charms and fallen back under the spell of his eyes- lies.
There was nothing in Syndrome except malice born of greed.
000
Mikhail regarded his icy visage in the cracked mirror of the hotel bathroom. "I look like a dead man," he muttered bitterly to himself. "How can I go out like this?"
But he had to. He was tired of eating from the ill-stocked vending machines outside the hotel room, and he needed fresh air to clear his head. He had been lucky that the man in the truck had had so much money in his wallet, even if the clothes he wore made Mikhail viciously itchy. He adjusted the collar of the sweater once again.
He sighed, and ran bony fingers through his unkempt brown hair. He left the hotel room, and locked the door behind himself. The hotel lobby, or rather, the shabby entrance way where a grubby clerk sat reading a magazine, smelled of cabbage, and Mikhail was glad to leave it behind for the crisp, cold air of the outside.
The brown overcoat he wore brushed just above the now as he trudged down the street, attracting stares from the few other people who were outside. He was a marked man.
Mikhail growled to himself, thinking of his imp-faced enemy. How he longed to have a hand in the felon's destruction. He wished that he had not passed responsibility over to that woman. Perhaps he should call her again, and ask if she would put him in contact with Mr. Incredible.
If he explained his case, surely she would not deny his thirst for vengeance.
It didn't take Mikhail long to reach his destination, as the motel was in the center of the very small city. He by the universal sign of comfort and civilization, and into the greasy restraint. After all, if you were in a McDonalds, things couldn't be all bad.
To be continued...
Shadow Fox Forever: My best yet? Oh dear, I'll have to work hard to top it then
RavensHaelo: I warned you crystal gazing could be tricky! Glad to surprise you.
CD Anders: hehehehehhe
WormmonABC: You like Toad too? You should read my fanfictic Darwinian Rhapsody!! It's finished, too. (I know, I know, shameless self-promotion)
Maya Beebop; Angry Syn was hard to write, I'm glad it pleased you.
Artymas: Yeah. Like Kitty. Cuz Kitty was so my like, favorite character. Not. :D