My thanks to all who reviewed, and mucho apologies for taking so long to post these last two chapters. I hope they were worth the wait.

The next day, Violet slept in. She came out of her room just in time to see her little brother finishing breakfast. Helen was taking the car keys from the hook on the kitchen wall next to the doorway when she saw Violet. "Oh, Vi, good. Can you watch Jack-jack while I take Dash to school?"

"Not a problem." Violet grinned evilly at Dash. "Have fun at school, little brother. I'll be thinking of you."

"Wipe that smile off your face, young lady. I'm told that you're studying the Great Depression in history class. Well, you're going to hit the books and tell me all about it tonight. We'll discuss the specifics when I get back."

A smiling Dash hefted his backpack and, when he was sure his mother wasn't looking, stuck his tongue out at Vi. An unsmiling Vi stuck her tongue out right back at him. As Helen and Dash went to the car, Violet started making breakfast for herself.

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After breakfast, Vi started going through her history book. The Parrs had a couple of books on American history as part of the family library, and she looked through those as well. She found it interesting that the sources differed in their opinions of the causes of the Depression. She was taking a break with her favorite magazine when a phone call came.

Violet took the phone from her mother and put it to her ear. "Hello?"

"Vi? Are you all right?"

"Tony? Hi! I'm fine! How are you doing?" Violet looked around to see her Mom going out the back door. Helen remembered her own teenage years well, and decided that now would be a good time to check the garden.

"I'm OK." Tony's voice brought her back.

"Good. Good." An uncomfortable silence followed. Violet tried to think of something to say, but nothing seemed right.

Tony spoke after a few moments. "So, listen. Some of us are going to be at the mall later on. You can come if you want."

"Oh, of course, I'll be there. That sounds like fun."

"Good. Well, I'll see you there." Tony hung up.

"Right," Violet said to a dial tone. She was a little puzzled. Normally Tony wasn't awkward like that.

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Violet got to the mall around 2 o'clock. She walked in and started looking around. She saw Tony, Kari and some of their friends hanging out in the central courtyard by the fountain, and happily walked over. Tony greeted her with a hug, and Violet joined the conversation. A couple of them had bought sticky buns, which they were sharing with the group. The conversation began to split, with the girls talking with the girls and the boys talking with the boys, so Violet was conversing with Kari and was caught unprepared by Tony's statement.

"At least the bastard shot himself and saved us the trouble."

Violet turned around, not believing her ears. It was obvious Tony was the one who had said it, and it was equally obvious from the nodding heads and looks of agreement that most of the other boys were of the same opinion. She looked at Tony. "How can you say that?"

"Look, Vi, you weren't there. I was. He held a bunch of us at gunpoint, terrorized us, and would have killed us all. He got what he deserved."

Another boy chimed in. "Yeah. Old enough to kill, old enough to die, right?" He looked around at the others, many of whom were nodding.

"But he was one of us, our friend."

Tony snorted. "I don't know about your friends, Vi, but my friends don't point a 9 millimeter at my face and pull the trigger. That kind of behavior tells me that they don't want to be my friend."

"But you can't just dismiss him like that." Violet started backing away from the group. "It's not right!" She turned and ran away through the crowd.

Kari called after her. "Violet!" Tony was about to run after her, but Kari stopped him. "Tony, maybe I had better talk to her. Violet!" Kari left the group and disappeared into the crowd.

She found Violet standing outside the mall. Kari put her hand on her friend's shoulder, and Vi turned around. Violet smiled.

Kari spoke slowly. "Don't you think that was a little harsh?"

Violet's smile vanished. "Don't tell me you agree with them? Calvin was our friend!"

"Vi, maybe they said some things they shouldn't have, but you're not being fair to them."

Violet's voice raised as she pointed at the mall. "They think he should be dead!"

Kari's voice raised as well. "Well, so do I!"

Violet was shocked into silence.

Kari sighed, and continued in a calmer voice. "Violet, you didn't see him. I did." She held up her left hand. "You didn't notice this, did you?"

Violet looked, and saw the bandage wrapped around Kari's hand. "When did you get that?"

"Yesterday."

Violet looked at Kari's face again. "He shot you?"

Kari nodded, unconsciously putting her hand back in her pocket. "I saw him when he first came in. We had just left you, and were passing by the school entrance. I noticed Calvin coming in, and raised my hand to wave hello. He raised his hand, too. With a gun in it. The next thing I know, I feel this hot pain in my hand and I can't move my fingers. After he shot me, he started through the halls, shooting. Violet, I got a good look at Calvin when he shot me, and it was like nothing to him. He didn't care. Remember how sweet Calvin was, how eager to please? Well, that Calvin was gone, replaced by an I-don't-know-what." Kari put her hand on Violet's shoulder. "Violet, I feel bad for him too, but that was not our friend. He had become someone else, someone without a soul."

Violet didn't speak. She shrugged off Kari's hand and ran away.

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The phone rang at the Parr house. Helen came inside from the yard and picked it up at the fifth ring. "Hello?"

"Hi, Mom, it's me."

"Oh, hi, Vi. Are you having a good time?"

"Uh, yeah. We're all fine here. Mom, Kari asked me over for dinner. Is it all right?"

"Of course it is, sweetheart. Did you get some studying done this morning?"

"Yes, I read ten pages and outlined them."

"Good. We'll go through the outline tomorrow. You and Kari have fun. Be back by ten, OK?"

"OK." Violet hung up.

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Helen dished out her casserole to her men that evening. Dash dug in right away, and so did Bob.

"So Violet's over at Kari's?" asked Bob between bites.

"Yep," said Helen as she put some casserole on her own plate. "It's good for her to connect with her friends after something like this."

"She does seem to have bounced back quickly. I guess our little talk last night did the trick."

Helen was about to respond to Bob's boast when the phone rang. She went to answer it to hear Kari's voice on the other end of the line.

"No, Kari, Violet's not here. Isn't she having dinner at your house?"

"Well, no, Mrs. Parr. In fact, we sort of had a fight this afternoon, and I was hoping we could patch things up."

"But if she's not with you, where is she?"

"I don't know, Mrs. Parr. She was pretty upset when I last saw her."

"Thanks, Kari. I'm sure Violet's OK. See you later." Helen hung up the phone and looked at Bob and Dash. Both had stopped eating and were getting up from the table. Helen put her hand to her forehead, as if she had a sudden headache. "I can't believe this."

"Honey, it's OK. We'll find her."

A blur went to Dash's room and came back a second later, materializing into Junior Flash, the speed demon superhero. "Darned right, we will!"

Helen looked at her son. "Oh, no. You're staying right here, young man."

"But Mom!"

"I said no! Your father and I will find her."

"Honey," Bob spoke up, "you should stay here if she calls or comes home. And Dash can cover a lot more ground than we could."

"Mom, she's my sister. And you said you had faith in me."

Hearing her own words said back to her, Helen relented. "You call in the minute you find her. And you check in every five minutes and keep us updated. And you are back here, in person, every half hour."

"Let's go, champ," said Bob before his son could protest. He turned back to his wife. "Call Violet's friends and anyone else you can think of who might know something. We'll find her."

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The wrecking yard was dark and quiet. Old abandoned cars sat in rows, awaiting disposal. The two guard dogs, a German Shepard and a Rottweiller, heard a noise from the back gate. As they came closer, they picked up an odor from the intruder. Human. Female. And unfamiliar, which made the new arrival an enemy. They still hadn't caught sight of the invader, but they could zero in on her scent easily enough. The Rottweiller, being the more aggressive of the two, charged in, snarling. He was just about to pounce when he hit something he couldn't see, knocking him out cold. The German Shepard was more cautious, and seeing his partner taken down by something that wasn't there made him even more so. He could still smell the intruder, but it didn't seem human exactly. It was partly human smell, partly something else. He also heard a slight crackle in the air that he had never heard before. But he still couldn't see it, even though it was definitely close. Then came a terrible ruckus, like someone was smashing the cars with incredible force. This was too much. The dog retreated under the office trailer to wait out . . . whatever this was.

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Dash was speeding along through town. He whipped past the railroad tracks on the north side, moving into an industrial area. He slowed down to get a better look at things. No one was around, and the area was quiet. Dark and creepy, he thought, just the way Violet likes it. After some looking around and finding nothing, he changed his mind. He was just about to head to another part of town when he heard a loud crash. He ran over to investigate. It seemed to be coming from a junkyard. He was across the street from the junkyard when he saw a junked car flip over on to its roof. Then a pile of stacked cars toppled over with a tremendous crash. Dash ducked behind a parked car and rubbed his eyes. Something was smashing the car from the top of the pile, which had settled on its side. Dents were appearing, and the roof was caving in, like it was being hit with a sledge hammer. But whatever was doing the damage was nowhere to be seen.

Dash ducked behind the car again and tapped his suit communicator. "Junior Flash to Mr. Incredible. Dad, I think I found her."

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Ten minutes later, a car pulled up. Mr. Incredible got out, and Dash waved from the entrance to the junkyard. When Mr. Incredible ran over, Dash pointed to the gate's lock. It had been popped open, even it though it still held the gate closed. Mr. Incredible turned to Dash, holding his finger over his lips in the universal sign for silence. Dash nodded and Mr. Incredible lifted the lock and quietly opened the gate. When they entered the yard, Dash pointed to where he had seen Violet's work, but Mr. Incredible could hear it now for himself. He crept up to see the cars being smashed by a still unseen force, and tip-toed back to Dash.

"OK, son. Good work. Go home and tell your Mom. I'll handle it from here. I'll bring Violet back soon."

"What? How soon is "soon"?"

"When she's ready."

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Violet threw another force ball at the wrecked Pontiac. A part of her knew this behavior wasn't exactly ethical, and she felt a little ashamed of herself for acting this way, but the large majority of her didn't care. She was so angry she didn't even know she had started screaming.

"Damn you!"

She generated a force ball underneath the car and grew it until the car went over on its side. With an angry cry, Violet slammed the force ball against the car and it flipped completely. "Calvin, you bastard!"

She realized force balls weren't helping anymore. She turned her full attention to shouting. "Calvin, you tried to kill them! What happened to you? I wish you had survived, so I could strangle you! The hell with being the good guy, I'll kill you!"

The sound of her words hit her, and the fury of the last half hour started to catch up with her. Her shoulders slumped a little, and she shouted to the sky again. "I wanted to kill you!"

She sank to her knees. Tears of shame started coming down her face. She was suddenly very tired, and didn't hear her dad come up.

She was startled by the sight of his shadow, and turned quickly. "It's OK, honey, it's Daddy," Mr. Incredible said.

Violet didn't say anything. She stood for a moment, and launched herself into her father's arms. Mr. Incredible held her silently and let her cry it out. When she seemed to be done, he started walking her towards the car, closing the gate on the way out.

"Dad, what about the damage?"

"I'll come by in the morning, and explain things to the owner. It'll be fine."

"OK."

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She didn't speak all the way home. When they opened the door, her mother made the expected fuss. Once Dash saw his sister's safe return, he allowed himself to be hustled off to bed. Bob took charge of overseeing that while Helen called Kari to assure her that Violet was OK. Violet herself waited in the living room quietly. She knew a very stern talking to was coming, and she didn't have the energy to try to avoid it.

Finally, Bob and Helen came into the living room and sat down. They were silent for a moment, and then Helen began talking.

"Your father told me what happened."

Violet looked at her mother. "Mom, am I a bad person?"

Helen moved over to put an arm around her daughter. "No, honey, you're not."

Violet leaned on her mother, then buried her face on Helen's shoulder, crying. Between sobs, it all came out. How, when she saw Calvin threatening her friends, her boyfriend, for a moment she wished him dead. She wanted to just strangle him with a force field around his neck, and make him suffer. The feeling was only momentary, and once the other students were safe, she focused on trying to capture him alive, of course. But still…

"What if I was too slow on purpose? I mean, I tried, I know I tried to put the force field between the gun and his head, but what if, subconsciously, I wanted him to kill himself. Mom, what if I let him die?"

Bob spoke up. "Sweetie, listen to me. We've been practicing with your field control for months. You know better than anyone how fast you are. Now, when you were talking with Calvin, in the force bubble, he had his gun like this, right?" Bob held his hand, with the index finger and thumb pointed to mimic a pistol, at a 45 degree upward, close to his chest.

"Right. Maybe a little higher."

"Maybe a little higher. Well, watch." Bob quickly moved his hand so the index finger was pointed straight up at his chin. "How long was that? One second? Two?"

Violet shook her head. "One second. At most."

"One second, probably less. That's how long you had to see what he was doing, figure out what to do, and do it. Now, you tell me. Do you think you could have stopped him?"

Violet thought about it, trying to think of something, some way her dad might be wrong. She finally said, "Probably not."

"Certainly not," Bob corrected her. "No one could have stopped him. He probably planned suicide from the beginning."

"Violet, sweetie," Helen said, "when we go up against the bad guys, usually it's business. We like what we do, we're proud of what we do, but between us and criminals, it's not personal, so emotions like hate and anger don't enter into it. This time, it was personal. He threatened your friends, your teacher, your boyfriend. So, you reacted, and the thought crossed your mind: I want to kill this bastard. You couldn't help that thought, it just happened. It's happened to your father, and it's happened to me."

"When?", Violet asked.

Bob answered immediately. "When Syndrome shot your airplane down."

Violet remembered that. Her father had been captured and forced to listen to the whole incident on the radio. After they were all back safe at home, Violet had overheard her father and mother talking. When he thought his family was dead, he grabbed Syndrome's girlfriend, Mirage, and threatened to kill her. She also remembered that when Syndrome called his bluff, he couldn't do it.

"You see, honey," Bob continued, "It's not thoughts that make you good or bad, it's action. And in the end, your action was that you did the best you could. That's all you can ever do."

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I hope no one minds too much that Kari is OOC. In my defense, being shot can make anyone's personality change, and I preferred using an already known friend of Violet's to bringing in a new character.