A/N- Wow, it's been a really long time since I've updated this one. In all honesty I probably never would have, but I was amused by the constant interest I was and am still receiving in this story, even through the time lapse between my last post and now. So I though hey, why not, I'll update. Believe it or not, it only took me two nights to whip this up, even after what I can only see as a 2 year elapsed time period since my last post. Please review, I really enjoy reading them and taking them into account, if you didn't review this story would NOT have come this far. Thank you so much to my faithful readers, who have added me to your favourites, and continued to review despite this story seeming well and truly dead. I hope I don't disappoint you! –xShocked.

Chapter 4 – Scatter the Ashes

"- 16 people were killed in the Metroville Express derailment today, while over 54 innocent commuters and bystanders were injured when the monorail left the track and crashed at a speed of over 80 miles per hour. No Supers were to be found at the scene, despite numerous distress calls made by Metroville Express drivers and officials. Many still speculate that the protest strike announced by Super Frozone over the infamous Miss Incredible trial, is-" Helen Parr, her brows furrowed with disgust, flicked the television news report off with a forceful pressing of her thumb, flinging the remote aside. Standing with an air of indignation and her mouth agape, she turned and furiously pummeled at the askew throw-pillows in a mock attempt at straightening them.

Dash, laying belly-down on the floor mere inches from the now blank screen, tutted with an unenthused exasperation. Rolling to his back to face his mother, a poison glare affixed itself to his boyish features.

"Hey!" he cried, pouting outlandishly as his mother turned to face him. "First Violet makes it so we can't use our powers anymore, now we can't even watch the television 'cos of her?!"

A stony look of disdain filled his mothers' features as she glared back at him, her mouth pulled taut to a thin white line and her arms folded furiously across her chest.

"It's a protest, Dash. It's not Violet's fault. The world is treating Supers unfairly and we need to let them know that we're not going to stand for it." She replied indignantly, eyeing the TV guide that rested beside Dash's blonde head. The pages were folded inward and a clear, glossy photograph of her daughter grinned back. It seemed that her image was something infamous in media of all shape and form these days. She was everywhere.

"Yeah but we used our powers all the time before Violet became a normal. Now we can't even help people when they're really in trouble..." His voice murmured disdainfully. His mother, upon hearing his insensitive remark, shot the boy a toxic glance, one she had used extensively to the boy's unimpressed remarks for the days since Violet's homecoming from her operation. Deciding not to further instigate his mother as she fumed, Dash merely sighed in the dramatics only a child could muster before lifting himself heavily from the floor and proceeding to skulk away.

Helen watched as her aggravated son removed himself from the room, shooting her one last poison glare as he slid heavily around the doorframe before disappearing into the hall. Her ears pricked to the slam of his bedroom door mere seconds later. Surveying that she was finally alone in the room she sighed heavily, her deeply furrowed brow softening to nothing more than a visible morose. She had tried so hard to be angry; angry at the world, angry at the Supers, angry at the scientists, angry at herself. But after long, hard bouts of hatred and disbelief, she simply could not feel it anymore. She could feel nothing but hopelessness in the knowledge that her wish of this horrible situation never happening would by no means be granted. Her daughter had been an experiment. She had been cut open and poked and prodded and ultimately stripped of her dignity and pride. She would never be the same girl she was. She would never be the same beautiful daughter that she had raised. Sure, she had encountered her problems before, her self esteem poorly equipped and her confidence ill-adapted. But this was different. Now, Violet was gutted completely. And the world was seemingly happy about that.

Helen's maternal ears honed to the faint fussy cries of Jack-Jack as he awoke from his late afternoon nap, crying out for his mother in short, shrill bursts through a thin veil of sleep. She supposed she had better collect him from his room before he destroyed the third crib they had purchased in a manner of weeks. She sighed despondently a second time, unfurling her snugly folded arms before absently reaching for the dishevelled TV guide her son had left behind. It was slightly beyond her reach and instinctually she found her arm extend naturally toward it, thinning like stretched gum as it pulled away from her body.

'Wait a second!' her mind piped indignantly within the cavities of her head. 'Violet will never be able to use her powers again, and you're using yours so frivolously? To pick up a magazine that's three feet away! You're perfectly capable of picking it up without them!' The words resounded harshly in Helen's ear and, biting her lip hard, her arm snapped reluctantly like an elastic band, returning to its natural curve. She bent over, groaning, and scooped up the magazine manually, placing it onto the coffee table with care. Perhaps she would do that more often now. If only to understand in some miniscule way how Violet must have felt every day without the one thing that rendered her completely unique. To lose something she had become so accustomed to. Helen imagined it would be akin to losing the hand you wrote with; simply irreplaceable.

Before she had the chance to walk even a few steps to collect the now squealing Jack-Jack from his bedroom, however, she heeded the loud obnoxious chime of their doorbell, the heady tone resounding profoundly through the house. Wondering who could possibly be making a house call so late in the day she altered her path toward the front hall, taking one last lingering gaze at the blank screen of the accursed television before disappearing from the room, her curiosity ablaze.

Violet relished at the feeling of the cool floorboards beneath her bare feet. They were steady, hard, and did not attempt to instil warmth within her. She was tired of everyone attempting without victory to achieve that. They were something very real for her to cling to when it seemed the rest of her life had spiralled into nothing more than a bizarre dream. So she sunk her feet into them, anchoring herself securely as she sat deftly at the lip of her bed.

Wordlessly, she raised her left hand several inches from her face. She drunk in the sight of her slender fingers shaking delicately as she spread them as far apart as her ailing strength would allow her. This would be her last attempt, she assured herself. Her eyes fluttered closed. Searching deep within every cavity and crevice of her mind that she could map, Violet summoned every conceivable strength within her that she could harness.

"Please..." she whispered, her throat dry from neglect. This was her last opportunity; she didn't think that her body could withstand another disappointment. Swallowing heavily in trepidation, she gently herded the last remnants of strength she'd located within her mind and, without pause, forced them into her physical form, allowing them to fill her completely; curve along her waist and miniscule hips, snake down to her bare feet, fill her up to her neck in the strength. Her brow furrowed from the fortitude it required of her exhausted frame, her head hurt immensely, enough to cause a sharp intake of breath to her lungs. She could remember a time where she only needed to siphon a minimal amount of her strength to fill her body with this much power. It was a second nature, something she could achieve without scarce thought. But now she could feel it dissipating sparsely; it was not nearly enough to fill her with the power required for the task.

She blinked furiously, adjusting her sensitive pupils to the ailing light. For a second she could have imagined that she was finally awakening from a horrible dream, that everything that had happened was nothing more than the project of her morbid, masochistic imagination. However, the hand that she had placed before her eyes served as a stark reminder that the world was still very real, much to her severe discontent. Sure enough, the hand before her was all visible, her pallid skin glowing softly in a shaft of the late afternoon sun. There was the exception of her middle finger, however, which had not disappeared completely, but shimmered like a fading mirage where its solid form should have been. Once she had been able to disappear completely without a second thought; now every part of her body was throbbing in pain and exhaustion at the task of simply un-solidifying her middle finger? Utterly defeated, she lowered her hand, allowing the other to search beneath the thickness of her hair, finally resting upon a large and ugly stitched wound at the base of her head. The remainder of her hair fell like a curtain at either side of her slender face, shielding the now uncontrollable tears from the stillness of her quiet bedroom.

The sanctity of her own misery was short lived, however, as she took in a meek knocking at her door. Sighing deeply and swiping the reluctant tears loose from the corners of her eyes, she did not bother to reply to the half hearted notion; she knew that it could be no one but her mother on the other side, and she knew that she would enter regardless of a reply or not. Sure enough, the door opened. Just a crack at first, and then a soft "Violet, honey, can I come in?" followed. Again, Violet did not reply, fearing that if she opened her tightly sealed lips a wave of emotion would be unwittingly released. She did not want that, not today. The door opened a little more, ajar just wide enough for the frame of her mother's face to become clearly visible between the solid oak.

"Honey, the postman brought something for you." Helen murmured maternally, carefully swinging the door open enough to allow what she was holding- a small, brown and messily taped box- to come into view. Violet sniffed, swiping at the remainder of her tears as she eyed the box wearily. Something for her? She'd never received any real mail, with the slight exception of packages from her grandmother and the statements of her bank account. Never anything of substantial importance.

"Who is it from?" she managed to squeeze from her dusty throat, adjusting herself on the lip of the bed and holding out her hand in anticipation for the package. Helen noted the slight waver in her daughter's movements. Her motor skills had not quite been the same after the operation, and Helen had often caught her shaking or simply losing her balance without cause or prompt. It pained her to see her daughter suffer in such a cruel way. She obliged however, dispensing the box in her daughter's wavering arms and shifting her weight heavily to one foot.

"I don't know, it doesn't have a return address," Helen replied, watching curiously as Violet turned the package over cautiously in her hands, "It just says it's from a friend."

Violet, her curiosity piqued, turned the box a second time in her slightly trembling hands. Sure enough, in the space where a return address should have been written, someone had simply written 'A Friend' in a neat, signature scrawl that she did not readily recognise. Despite the writing being so orderly, however, the box was in terrible condition. It was scuffed and scrunched, with tape encircling the entire dimensions, at times ruffled and ripped where it should have sat flat and methodical.

"Can I open it alone, mom?" she finally managed to mumble after studying the intriguing package for several minutes, pushing a strand of hair from her cheek as she turned to her mother. Helen studied her daughter's face closely. Her eyes where reddened and tender, it was clear that she had been crying. A severe guilt welled heavily in the pit of her stomach. Her daughter had been crying alone in her room while she had been wallowing in her own self pity. She inwardly sighed. The least she could do was allow Violet the privacy she requested, for now at least.

"Okay honey, but you really need to come out of your room soon. Your father will be home in a little while and you know how he feels about you being holed up in your room..." Violet nodded, managing to muster a watery and ultimately forced smile to her mother, something she had rarely been able to achieve even in deception in recent days. Helen managed her own weak smile in return, bending to kiss her daughter tenderly on the forehead before stepping from the room, hesitating only momentarily before closing the door gently behind her.

Violet listened intently for the sound of footsteps from the hall. There were a few seconds of silence, as if her mother had stopped to gather her thoughts just beyond the door, before she indeed heard the light padding of her feet on the floorboards of the hall. Listening intently as they shuffled further and further from her, she looked down once more to the package sitting neatly on her thighs. Gently pushing a long lock of her dark hair behind her ear, she cautiously lifted the box, holding it with tepid pressure in each hand. The sticky smoothness of masking tape meshed quite pleasantly with the woody grain of the cardboard beneath her fingers. She had come to appreciate feeling and touch significantly more since the operation, and at times she found herself transfixed by textures and the way they felt beneath her waiting fingers. She supposed it was quite odd, but she could not help it. Closing her eyes, she savoured the moment for several seconds and finding that for the first moment in a long time, the small upturn at the corners of her lips formed a genuine smile. Someone was thinking of her, enough to send her something anyway. That was enough for her.

Ultimately deciding to allow her curiosity some consolation, she turned the box in her grip, finally locating a small tab that would allow her access to the contents. She pulled at it gently, taking in the ripping of the cardboard as it parted in all corners, the top of the box becoming akin to a lid. Her heart leapt as her hand curled tightly over the top of the box, her fingers sliding instinctually to the crevice of the newly created lid. She hoped dearly that nothing would jump out; she didn't believe her heart could take anymore exertion or strain.

Pulling the lid from the box (and giving silent thanks that nothing did pop out unexpectedly) she peered inside. A small flame red envelope greeted her gaze from within the otherwise seemingly empty box. She reached for it, utterly perplexed that such a relatively large vessel would hold such a small item to be delivered. As she brought it closer to her line of vision, she saw that it displayed her full name, Violet Parr, written in that same immaculate scribe, printed neatly on the front. Intrigued by the envelope, she allowed the box to tip from her lap and it fell with a heavy thud to the floor.

"This just keeps getting weirder and weirder.." Violet murmured gently to herself, turning the envelope slowly in her grip. It was not sealed, and the flap jutted widely open, as if tantalisingly enticing her to check what was inside.

"Violet! Dash! Out here now, please. Your father wants to entice us with another scintillating account of his day," Her mother's slightly bemused sarcasm carried heavily from the top of the hall. Violet lifted her head momentarily to the sound, also taking in the creak of her brother's bedroom door and the steady drone of his complaining as he passed her bedroom on his shuffling way to the lounge several moments later. She briefly considered the option of returning to the letter after the miserable pushing around of food that her parents called her dinner. However the option did not sit well in her mind and she hastily turned her head back to the envelope, pulling the flap wide open as she drove her hand inside.

She had expected to find a card in her waiting grip; however as her hand pulled the contents from within, all that she was left with was a dirty scrap of paper. She expected that it has been ripped directly from a notepad with little or no regard for presentation, as it was jutted and wrinkled defiantly. She lifted an eyebrow, utterly perplexed, as she took in the same faultless handwriting that now seemed so familiar, and yet so very alien in duality. She sighed, allowing herself to drink in the simple sentences written on the soiled paper.

I know what you did, Violet. I know more than what you do. And you deserve to pay. You and every other lying, selfish Super I can get my hands on. And you all will. No one will ever find me, not even after it's too late for you, Miss Incredible.

The dirty scrap of paper fell quickly to the floor as Violet, horrified and disbelieving, let out a choked, terrified cry.

A/N – Well, it's definitely heading in the direction I want. Please R/R, I really do love to hear them! I promise there won't be a 2 year gap between this chapter and the next. But please review and keep in inspired.