AN: Holy crap. It's been a long time, hasn't it? Well, I had no school the day I started typing this up so I kicked myself in the proverbial butt for procrastinating and getting distracted by NaNo and the novel that followed. And then I tried to write it again and got stuck. And so it went for a few months. This chapter isn't very good, and it has a lot of "he said, she said" in it. But it'll get better. This was a big hitch chapter. I plan on finishing this out, since we're over halfway done here. Wish me luck, you guys. I'm gonna need it.

STILL don't own the Incredibles, but if Alpha Omega goes really big and I buy the rights to it then I will and Synlet will become canon and the world will cringe in terror. MWAHAHAHAHAHA!

...ahem.

Birds were chirping along to their own personal melody. There were no mosquitoes to be found, and everything seemed to be in proper order on this day, except for the fact that everything had gone horribly wrong in the life of Violet Parr. As it was, our hero was sitting on a beach with her pant legs up and letting the waves lap around her ankles, looking back on how she had gotten to where she was and why she was there.

Her torture had been somewhat expected and almost contrived, stereotypical. It was a new concept while being around Cara, but in its own way, in being expected it was unexpected. Typical was different, and yet Violet was not surprised.

After about an hour of unfathomable pain, which she had seen coming and had braced herself for, she induced a little torture onto herself for who knows what reason in asking why Syndrome had held her for Cara, why he had apologized. Cara had, of course, given a logical yet infuriating and depressing response.

"He's working for me," she'd said nonchalantly, as though betrayal was no big deal. "He always has been. He's been toying with you this whole time, and let me tell you, it's been hilarious. He's starting to feel a little guilty about it since you're so young, but hey, he knew what he was getting into, and you ARE the daughter of his greatest enemy after all, so he's still going through with all our plans." Cara had grinned, but her happiness faltered when Violet's expression turned into one of pure rage. While Cara was not an easily scared woman, she was still fully aware of the fact that Violet's adrenaline would overpower anything she tried to do, which wouldn't end well at all for her. Cara's panic forced Violet's power suppressors to deactivate, and before you could say "Incredigirl" Cara had been hit with what felt like a sack of bricks before losing consciousness.

Now, the Incredible had escaped the base (since Charlie had been the only guard and was obviously not present in the area, or he'd decided not to go after her for whatever reason) and after a long bout of crying and a longer one of kicking everything in sight, she was finally relaxing and thinking things through. She dug her toes into the sand, leaned back, and stared at the sky, the ever-puffy clouds drifting through her field of vision.

"Okay," she muttered to herself. "Cara could be right, because Syndrome's a backstabbing jerk. But she could've lied. Why didn't I think of that? It's so simple." She paused, picking up a seashell with her toes and tossing it out into the water. "And yet it's not. He wouldn't think twice about betraying me because I'm an Incredible. Maybe he wanted a dramatic culmination and Cara ruined it. I can see that happening. But I can also see her saying that to turn me against him... ugh." She let herself fall in the sand. "I can't keep doing this. I need to make a decision one way or the other."

But the eldest Parr didn't decide. She stared upward, watching the clouds continue to roll across the sky. She could have sat there forever if her conscience hadn't been screaming at her the entire time.

After a while, she sat up and cautiously took off the dog tag hanging around her neck. There was no shock, which was just fine with her. As she held it, trying to decide whether to keep it or toss it into the ocean, she felt a slight tingle under her thumb.

"Match: Ultraviolet," a familiar computerized voice said in the island's sudden silence. "Commence audio streaming." Violet wasn't entirely sure what that meant until it started happening.

Everything was slightly digitized and static, but that was to be expected. The first sound that came from it was a shriek that Violet recognized instantly. Cara had been torturing Alina after all. There was also a loud background noise of a male breathing heavily, probably someone close to the audio recording device.

"So. Had enough yet, Psyche? I hope not. This is fun to watch. But I'd also like to move on to your friends, too." The person near the recorder coughed.

"So I'll ask you one more time. Where. Is. Ultraviolet?"

Apparently Alina shook her head, as the shock noise came before a voice did. There was another cough, then silence once the screams died out. Cara, of course, broke it quickly.

"Well, based on my calculations, this is about the amount of pain you can take before breaking down, so I'll move on to Syndie here." The breathing hitched.

Cara's footsteps echoed as Violet bit her lip. The one close to the speaker couldn't be...

"Where's your girlfriend, Buddy?"

"That's not my name," he spat, his voice coming in louder and clearer than any of the other voices. This, of course, was not the answer Cara wanted, and he received what sounded like a shock for it.

"Don't avoid the question. Where's your girlfriend?"

There was another shock sound, as apparently he hadn't answered.

"Where's your GIRLFRIEND?" Cara screeched.

"She's not my girlfriend."

Violet bit her lip. That shouldn't have hurt.

"Oh, yeah. Remind us all why she's not your girlfriend, why don't you?"

"Because of you," he spat with a contempt Violet thought he had reserved for her father.

"Oh, so now it's MY fault. Well, guess what, Syndie? I wasn't the one who decided to betray her."

"If I hadn't, you would've killed me."

"Maybe, but wasn't her life worth more than yours?"

There was a short pause. Violet could practically hear the gears turning in his head.

"Yes, but we had to wait for the opportune moment. I had to become a scapegoat so you'd be distracted, and that takes time."

"What?" Cara sounded perplexed.

"We planned all this. You had no idea what we were plotting. Your precious cameras can't record everything!" He laughed hoarsely.

"LIAR!" Cara screamed, turning on the electricity. "If you planned all this, you wouldn't have cried for her. You wouldn't!"

"I'm good at acting, Cara. You know that." His voice was getting weaker.

"Then why are you telling me all of this now? It'll ruin your precious plans-"

"No, it won't. She's coming here, right now as I speak. And no matter where you go or what you do to us, she's still going to find you, Cara. You can't run from an Incredible."

"The tag. She's still got the tag."

"She's not stupid enough to leave it on, Cara. You can't control her anymore. Now we're just sitting around waiting for her to come save me. Us."

"RRRAGH!" Cara screamed, her rage obvious. "You're going to pay for this. You're ALL going to pay, right now. Psyche, Sonicwave, Enigma, Draconia, Syndrome, and even YOU, you stupid little robot thing!" Violet assumed she was pointing at Aceso. "YOU'RE ALL GONNA PAY!" The electricity went on and the audio died, leaving Violet with a quick decision to make. On one hand, it could've been a pre-recorded message with acting designed to lure her back, but on the other hand- aw, forget it, even if she didn't want to she was going to go back to save him, wasn't she?

Her legs, which had started moving toward the base several seconds prior, answered that question for her.

With no defenses for the island, getting back to where she'd escaped from was abnormally easy. She'd only needed a light sprint and a little bit of gliding (aided by her forcefields) to get to the nearest entrance at the base of the volcano. After that, it was only a hop, skip, and a jog until she heard Cara's voice.

"You just don't know when to give up, do you? Well, face the facts, Buddy. You're gonna die, and she's never coming back to save you. She practically hates you now. And with good reason! You're just asking for death."

Syndrome's response was too quiet for Violet to hear, but apparently Cara thought it was funny, as she let out a barking laugh. "Oh, that's rich. Richer than... a double chocolate cake donut, or whatever she always says-"

That was the final straw. With that last statement, Violet rushed into the room and smacked Cara in the back of the head with a forcefield, knocking her to the ground.

"The donut similes are MY thing," she announced over Cara's fallen body, then walked over to the control panel and released all of the captives from their holds, dropping them to the floor. Alina laughed from her position on the ground.

"Never thought a stupid donut comparison would save my life," she said, her voice cracking. Violet smiled and walked over to her nemesis. "You okay?" she asked.

"Do I look okay?" he groaned, attempting to stand. Violet held out her hand, but he shook his head.

"No. I don't deserve it."

"Just take it."

"No!" he growled, falling to the ground.

"Pride is a deadly sin, you know."

"Oh, I'm fully aware of that. That doesn't make me less likely to be proud. After all, hubris is my middle name."

"Buddy Hubris Pine? That's a terrible name. Someone should punish your parents." Violet snickered as her nemesis finally managed to stand.

"Ha, ha. Very funny. Well, I-" Syndrome looked around. "Why are you all staring at us?"

"You're dating," Draconia reminded them. "She just saved your life. Show her a little love. Jeez, do I have to spell everything out for you?"

"Oh, yeah." The male villain coughed. "Well, this is awkward. I mean, we can't just randomly start eating face in front of all of these people." He pointed at Cara. "Especially while she's still... you know, alive."

"Hey, you're the one that killed people, not me," Violet protested, her hands going up in defense. "That's not my territory."

Syndrome's first response was to wiggle his hands in her general direction. "Well I can't do anything with these, either. My zero-point gauntlets are fried from the electricity. And I can't say as the mechanical limbs are doing too hot, either."

"Really? I couldn't tell. The jazz hands threw me off."

The villain rolled his eyes. "They're not jazz hands. I was just demonstrating-"

Violet rushed behind Syndrome, whacking Cara on the head again with a force field. "She was starting to get up. We really need to do something about her."

Draconia grinned. "We could always eat her."

"That's disgusting! Why- Eewwwwww!" Violet covered her mouth.

"Hey, if you didn't want a bad answer you shouldn't have asked a bad person."

"We could always lock her up in one of her own machines," Enigma commented. "A taste of her own medicine, so to speak."

"Or we could give her a literal taste of her own medicine." Syndrome grinned. "Besides, the machines are mine. She just stole them. She'd be able to control them, too, so it wouldn't do what we told it to. It'd probably turn on us."

"Would you guys quit it? This is just- augh!" Violet stormed over to Cara. "We're not torturing her and we're not eating her and if someone's going to kill her it won't be me. We can... tie her up or something."

Syndrome rolled his eyes. "And then she'll get a computer to cut the ropes. We'll have the exact same problem we do now, only with her being conscious. Which, as you may already know, is obviously worse."

"Yeah, I kind of figured that one out." She stared at the limp body on the floor. "What if I killed her or something?"

"Then we don't have to worry about what to do with her when she wakes up! That's one of the greatest conveniences about killing people. You don't have to freak out about what's going to happen when they finally do get up, because they won't."

"So much for a heroic rescue," Violet grumbled. "I save everybody and then we start bickering about how to take care of the villain. I thought these were supposed to be unanimous or something?"

"Since when has it ever been unanimous? Except maybe with your family, since you all seem to share a brain," Syndrome retorted. "Nobody-" He never finished his sentence, however, as Violet had punched him in the jaw.

"Wow. I thought you two were dating! I never knew this was such an abusive relationship." Draconia laughed for a very short time before Violet glared at her. "Shut up."

Syndrome did not seem pleased at having been hit. "I was kidding, Incredigirl. Can't you take a joke?"

"Not when it's a thinly veiled attack on my family, whom you hate and make many thinly veiled attacks on... if you bother to pretend they're not attacks at all."

"True. But you didn't have to punch me."

"That tends to be the only way you'll shut up."

"Hey, lovebirds," Alina called out. "Cara's coming to. Maybe you should start paying attention-"

Before the hero could finish, however, Cara had sprung to her feet and bolted out of the room, the squeak of her high-top sneakers still echoing in the room.

"Great. That's just GREAT. Now we're going to have to find her." Alina rolled her eyes.

Syndrome looked up at the ceiling. "Actually, I don't think that's top priority right this second. I really think we should get out of this room. Immediately."

"What for? It's got all her chemicals in it. We could take some of her stuff-"

"Because we're all about to be unconscious!" he interrupted, his agitated mood rather apparent. "She's putting some sort of gas through the vents."

"There are vents in here?"

"Yes!" Syndrome exclaimed. "Obviously! Otherwise we would have nothing to worry about!"

"I think you're just being paranoid," Rita said, finally speaking up. "I don't smell or taste anything in the air."

"Neither do I, and I'm good at tasting." Draconia rolled her eyes. "He's overreacting. He does that a lot."

That was the last thing Violet heard before she hit the floor.