Comics Cookies and Revenge
BY Lejindarybunny
A/N: Again, apologies for the time in which it now takes me to post. I hope you believe the chapter to be of sufficient quality to be worth the wait.
Disclaimer: The Incredibles, Syndrome, and all affiliated characters belong to Disney/Pixar. If they belonged to me, well, first of all Syndrome would have been the star, but second of all, I'd have bought myself an island named Nomanisan, with all that money.
Chapter 20: Evil's Necessities
Violet couldn't believe they hadn't found anything. She sat distractedly in the plane on their return trip, her arms crossed, staring down at her knees. There was nothing there. No Syndrome, no Sharon, not a trace that they had ever even been there. Who had called Mirage? Had Mirage known that it was a wild goose chase? Vi suspected some sort of set up. But they hadn't been attacked, so it wasn't a trap. What was the point?
She needed to go back and find out, but just sitting there waiting for Mirage to make a move wouldn't work. Violet knew she had gotten very lucky with her timing on the previous trip, either that, or she hadn't been as unnoticed as she had thought. But she couldn't approach Mirage directly either, because Mirage knew exactly who she was, and would tell Vi's dad.
'What's the point of having two identities if everybody important knows who you are?' she demanded silently.
What she needed was another identity, one that nobody knew was connected to her, not even her parents. Correction, especially not her parents. With the freedom of being unknown she could act as necessary, and confront Mirage.
Her parents' friend Edna Mode had a non-disclosure agreement with all the supers she worked with. If Violet went to her for a costume, and asked her not to tell anyone, that was a secret the excitable little woman would keep.
So what did this mean? Had she decided to take up hero work? At least for this instance, yes, because her friend was in trouble. And afterward, she did want to keep the option open.
Vi sat back in her seat, trying to relax, and get rid of the vague feeling that there was something she was forgetting.
000
Vex sat in the control room, watching as two mercs reviewed the tape of he Incredibles' little 'visit'. She kept her eye on the figure of the young female super, whom she was certain that she had seen somewhere before. If only the mask wasn't obscuring her face…
But what could she do about it? After all, that was what the mask was for, obscuring someone's identity. But it was ridiculous, all it did was cover the eyebrows and a bit of the cheekbones. If you saw a super side by side with his secret identity it would be obvious who he was, but you never saw them with the proper frame of reference. But Vex certainly couldn't go comparing the girl to pictures of everyone she had ever met. But…
She was struck suddenly by inspiration. What if she fed a picture of the super girl into photoshop and digitally erased the mask? Even if she didn't immediately recognize her, it ought to give her at least a slightly better chance of doing so.
She sat down at one of the unused terminals, and brought up the security files, pulling out the recent footage, and selecting a shot with a good view of the mysterious super's face. She saved the shot, and imported it into photoshop. Selecting the same basic color as the girl's skin-tone, she carefully covered the black of the mask, until it was 'erased'.
When she was done, she certainly didn't have a perfect photo, but she had enough of an idea, to become… concerned. She stared at the screen in disbelief.
'That looks like…' she blinked, 'that looks like…Violet.'
It couldn't be. The quiet, troubled-seeming eighth grader could not be a super. Vex liked Violet, even despite her recent distance. Vex wasn't sure if she was angry, or not. And if she was, was she angry at Violet, or at herself for never seeing that Vi was a super?
Vi was a super. Vi was a super. What kind of fair was that?
Vex stood up from the terminal, and walked away, dazed. Violet was her enemy. She suddenly felt very alone.
It wasn't as if they had been close, but she had still felt like they were friends; that was why she had been so hurt to find that Vi didn't seem to regard her the same way.
Vex felt strangely disconnected from the world, she wandered aimlessly through the base, walking through the barracks level. She found herself standing outside Mikhail's room. She laid her hand on the door. Mikhail's room was comfortable, lived in, it had a normal computer. It reminded her of her room at home.
But she had promised herself that she wouldn't go in there again. Because Mikhail was dead, she had killed him. She had no right to go in there. She imagined herself sitting down at his computer, or laying in his bed, pretending she was at home, in her own room. That she wasn't super, that she wasn't dieing, that her life wasn't completely turned upside down.
She looked away from the door disgustedly.
'What are you doing?' she demanded. 'You want things to be normal? Isn't that what you ran away from? That is a door you closed Vex.'
'I know.'
'It sounds like you're starting to regret that.'
'No way!'
'It sounds like you want to go home.'
'No I don't! …I just…'
'Just what?'
'I don't know,' she turned away from the door, and walked back down the hall.
000
By the time Violet and her family got home it was past midnight. She dragged herself inside, and sat down on the couch. Her mom came inside, and checked the answering machine. Vi's ears pricked up when she heard Tony's voice.
"Uh, hi Violet, it's uh, Tony. I was just wondering where you were, cuz you know, you were kinda supposed to meet me at the movie theatre tonight…"
Vi's eyes grew wide for a moment, and she slapped herself on the forehead. "Oh no, my date! I can't believe it was tonight."
"Well," her mom said. "It's a little late, why don't you call him tomorrow and apologize."
"Okay," she agreed. But inside she was doubly upset. How was she going to explain missing Tony? What was she going to say, 'Uh, sorry Tony, I was in Siberia?' Yeah, that would really fly. Especially because she certainly didn't need to keep her identity a secret. Of course not. Vi collapsed heavily, lying sideways on the couch, her arm thrown over the back. She would just have to tell Tony she'd forgotten, or that she'd had to baby-sit Dash, or something.
She didn't like the thought of lying to Tony. But it was a necessary evil this time. At least he hadn't sounded upset on the phone. A little confused, but not upset. It wasn't like she had meant to not be there, she hadn't even been in the country. Although, she hadn't even remembered about it, all day. He hadn't been an important thing on her mind.
Vi sat up, and pulled herself off the couch. It was time to go to bed. After all, she had to get to school in the morning...and...damn it! She hadn't done her homework either.
'Ugh!' she though. 'This is why being super sucks. You can't get anything normal done at the same time.'
She resolved to try to get the work done on the bus in the morning. There couldn't be that much of it, and even if she didn't get it all done, it was just that once. She certainly wasn't going to be making a habit of it.
She dragged herself up to her room, and collapsed on her bed, pulling off her hair band, and then switching from her super suit into her pajamas. She laid back, on top of the covers, and stared at the ceiling, a bit of her black hair falling in her face.
Life was so simple for normal people. They didn't have to try to balance two separate lives in the same person. When they said they were going to be somewhere, it didn't end in some sitcom-esque situation, with lies, and running back and forth trying to be in two places at once.
'If only I were a normal person,' Violet thought as she pulled the blankets up, 'everything would be perfect.'
000
Syndrome was brooding in his lab, just sitting there, staring at the terminal. The Incredibles had found him. How had the Incredibles found him? It was impossible! Nobody knew he was alive, well almost nobody. There was Vex, Maurice, and the Agency, from whom he had hired the mercs. Had someone at the Agency sold him out?
Syndrome narrowed his eyes. The Agency would sell anything, provided it was for the right price. Syndrome didn't know of any interested party, however, who had enough money to override the expenses he paid. Unless...
Mirage, he suddenly recalled, still had access to the account he had given her.
'Wouldn't it be ironic,' he though with rising irritation, 'if I funded my own being sold out?'
Well, he'd have to cancel those accounts, wouldn't he? It would confirm to Mirage that he was definitely alive, but since she obviously already knew, it wasn't like that mattered, and taking away her precious credit cards would cripple her. The bitch. Imagine, if you really had died she'd be living it up on your money for the rest of her worthless life.
Syndrome picked up his cell phone, and was about to call the bank, when a merc, Jordans, Syn thought his name was, appeared on the com-monitor.
"Sir, the garbage from the brig has been disposed of as per your orders."
'Ah, Mikhail,' Syndrome thought, 'good riddance to bad rubbish.'
Although that brought up another possibility as to how the Incredibles might have learned his whereabouts. The Russian could theoretically have contacted them before his attack, and subsequent demise. But how? Syndrome had run across no evidence that Doctor Rasputin had known the identities of any supers outside the reach of the Russian mob.
"Very good, Jorndans," Syndrome thanked him. "Dismissed."
The screen turned off.
Maybe the Russian, and not the Agency, had been the one to contact Mirage. After all, he had indicated that he had been watching the case on television, and it would be easy for the mob to get him the contact information. Mirage in turn, would have alerted the Incredibles.
Great. Mirage was certainly building up a case against herself for him to track her down and exact his vengeance. He had been willing to leave her on the back burner, as long as she stayed out of his business, but if she was going to be a nuisance, that was an entirely different matter.
He picked up the phone again. The first thing to do was still to rid her of funds.
Syndrome heard the swish of the door opening, and turned to see who was there. It was Vex, and Syndrome could tell immediately that something was wrong; she looked shaken, and unhappy.
"Hi," she said quietly, stepping into the room, the door closing behind her.
"Hey, Vex," he greeted, "Are you okay?"
She shrugged, and walked up, pulling over a chair and sitting down beside him.
"I'm sorry I was so pushy earlier," she said, crossing her arms over the back of the chair, and resting her chin on them. "I shouldn't have tried to tell you what to do."
Oh, so that was what it was about, because he had snarked at her. "Hey, hey, it's okay baby. You weren't being pushy, you were just giving me your opinion. You gotta understand. Mr. Incredible? He really pisses me off, and so I snapped at you when I didn't have a reason."
"No," she said, her shoulders slumping, "I'm always telling people what to do. 'Don't shoot them', 'sit at my table or I won't talk to you'. Gods, I'm such a bitch. No wonder everyone hates me."
Syndrome was taken aback by the sudden bout of self-loathing. It wasn't, however, something he was a stranger to. He put his arms around her shoulders. "I don't hate you," he assured her.
"Sure, you don't now. Hell, you barely know me. Trust me, once I've hung around for long enough, you'll get pretty sick of my company. Just like everyone else." She hung her head, the strands of chocolaty hair falling in front of her mask.
The redhead scowled. Feeling bad about yourself was a part of life he knew well, and he also knew that it wasn't something that other people could snap you out of if you didn't want to be snapped. But damn if he was going to just let her talk like that with no contradiction. He grabbed her shoulders more tightly, and swung her sound in the swiveling chair to face him. He put his face close to hers and stared deeply into her wavering brown eyes.
"Listen to me," he growled. "You think I care what other people have to say about you? Screw that! So you're a bitch, so what? Are you going to tell me I'm not one of the biggest bastard's you've ever met?" He didn't give her a chance to answer. "Vex, baby doll, I love you, not despite your supposed flaws, because of them. Because you're a fangirl, and because you're a 'bitch'. Because you understand what it's like to be abused and ignored, and you haven't curled up into a little ball, no way! You want revenge; you want to show them that they shouldn't have messed with you. So one thing I'm not gonna tolerate is you being all down on yourself because of that. That's weak, that's giving in, and being what they want to make you. You have to be true to yourself, not who people want you to be."
Syndrome hadn't known he felt quite so strongly on the subject, but he felt the passion in his own voice as he half-consoled, half-consoled the confused young girl who stared up at him. Suddenly, as he finished his little monologue, the tears that were growing in Vex's eyes spilled over, and she began to cry. She pressed herself into his chest, and threw her arms around him, crying on his shoulder. He put one arm around her waist, and stroked her hair gently with the other.
"I hate people," she sobbed muffledly. "I hate them."
"Shhh," Syndrome said, holding her, and rocking her back and forth gently. "I know, I know."
"It's just so stupid, and pointless, and nobody's ever who they pretend they are, but they still hold you up to this fucking mirror of perfection, and if you don't fit it..."
"It'll be okay, Vex, I promise we'll make them pay."
She looked up at him, her face red and streaked with tears. "Syndrome...do you really love me?"
"Yes," he said firmly. "More than I can tell you."
"Even though I'm a super?" The look of insecurity was fixed firmly in her eyes.
Syndrome honestly thought about that. Yes, he was upset that she had these powers, but he would not, would not let that turn into bitterness against someone who understood him so well. "Even though you're a super."
"Syndrome?"
"Hmmm?"
"I don't want to die."
His eyes widened and he pursed his lips. "You think I'd let you?" he demanded.
He leaned down and kissed her gently, wanting to ease all the hurt that was inside of her.
Somewhere inside him, he had thought that once he had taken her away from her normal life, suddenly everything would be perfect for her. But that wasn't true. Also, he realized, that same part of him, hadn't even been rescuing her specifically. In a way he'd been trying to rescue himself, as he had been long ago.
But now he realized that nothing was ever perfect. Even if he had become Mr. Incredibles' sidekick, what good would it have done? After all, heroism had been banned just weeks after he had been so callously turned away. Maybe some things were simply not meant to be. Maybe Vex and he were destined to be bitter and unsatisfied, to have to sneak and steal every moment of happiness they could have.
Fine then.
Syndrome and Vexxation each held each other tightly, clinging to the comfort and support that neither had had before in their lives.
To be continued...
My apologies that there are no review replies this chapter, I am pressed for time, and figured the bulk of people would want to have the chapter sooner, rather than review relpies. Anyone is of course, free to IM me about CCR, either at my AIM, Saevitia Snape, or at my yahoo messenger, lejindarybunny. Replies will hopefully return next chapter.