~:~:~:~
Kick-Ass.
~:~:~:~
The motorcycle is concealed behind a few empty machinery shells in the alley behind the Bank tower. No Hit-Girl. No signs of her anywhere. No screams or sirens, and no gunshots. It's a silence that I don't welcome. It means I could be too late.
The first sign of her passing is a dead guy laying in the doorway of the back entrance. Knocked out, rather. He appears to be stirring, and I give him a blast with the hand tazer I've started carrying on my belt since I lost one of my batons.
Suddenly, glass shatters far above my head and a rifle case falls out the window, tipping end over end. It lands hard in the west lot. It's made of titanium, that ultra-light and ultra-strong metal that can be acquired for pennies if you buy it from the surplus stock in the former Soviet Union out of the back of a hunting magazine.
I run out to the lot and look back at the building. A quick look at the broken pane and I count the floors. Is it a signal for help, or just too heavy to carry for her? She's never been subtle.
The elevator seems to be held up by someone, so I have to run up the stairs. It's a long run and I've put my heart into my make-up quarter of PE this year. I've also been slacking. Eating too many late night meals from Taco Bell and McDonald's when I couldn't stomach dinner with Dad, worrying about his own weary routine around home was bad enough, but it has been piled on top of everything that I've been dealing with.
Katie Deauxma's pregnant.
Flight 14 and I begin to walk as fast as I can, unable to sprint any longer, the pain in my chest has seared through my heart now. I've cleared 13 floors of steps in record speed, though. If I ever give up the mask, I can go for track.
Level 20 and I'm completely winded. I can't enter the fray with no wind in me, or I'll be useless. I try to calm down. The adrenaline is flowing through my body now. My right leg shakes, and I can't help it.
It shakes too damn much, even for a situation like this.
Katie Deauxma's pregnant.
You're probably wondering by now why I still gave a shit about Katie Deauxma.
Bear in mind, I know every one of this girl's dirty little secrets. I had been her gay best friend. I thought I was in love with her. Maybe in some primal way, I still can be. She's beautiful, but shallow at the core. I didn't notice when I was allowing her to think I was gay that she was shallow at all. I thought she was absolutely sweet. Perfect. Gentle. Kind and caring and all the things that nobody really is.
We never find someone we really love.
We find the next best thing and lie to ourselves.
She used to be the cause of a lot of deviant thoughts. I remember the selfishly chauvinistic boners I had whenever she sat on my lap while watching a movie to be friendly, or when we had sleepover and shared the bed.
One day I'll be 40 and it'll be too late. I'll turn 18 and Marty will want me to buy cigarettes for him. I'll turn 21 and not even drink, but I'll still forget it.
The world forgets about us. Maybe that's why some of us put on these masks. We all want attention.
I hear gunshots from above and my second wind comes back.
I consider kicking the door for a grand, thunderous cinematic entrance, but I just open it the old fashioned way.
~:~:~:~
Hit-Girl.
~:~:~:~
I'm firing the guns again. It was a lost feeling, but it comes back as naturally as riding a bike. My dad always said that guns were a fun thing, as long as you treated them with respect and understood their power.
They have the power to do a lot of things, but the first thing I do with them is a raw, violent, bloody shooting. 36 rounds of 9mm ammo fly through the door. Blood splatters every inch of the foyer, two of the cows led to slaughter. One of them fires his gun as my bullets tear into his chest. He falls back, one leg kicking him in the air, finger clenching the trigger in a death grip. Bullets tear up the wall by the door into the next room. The third one takes a round in the shoulder and dives into the open elevator car, prying the doors open with his bloody hand and clutching against the wall until I run dry.
I step out of the room. He comes out of the elevator car and fires at me. The bullet bounces off the wall behind my head. I turn to the side and yank the fibreglass ring knife from my belt buckle. One, two, three turns. to the left. I toss it into his chest. He fires again, hitting me in the shoulder.
The man who invented the Nobel Peace Prize invented Dynamite.
I wonder if he invented Kevlar too. They're both wonderful inventions.
Kick-Ass barrels through the door just as elevator goon's punctured lung fills with blood and he drowns with a sickening gurgle.
"Anticlimactic." I say, trying my best to sound tough. My shoulder is hurting badly. I remember being shot... shot by Big Daddy. Shot by Genovese and now shot in the shoulder during this action sequence. It hurts too bad for that. I can feel wet blood running down my arm inside of the outfit. My entire arm goes numb. I pick up the empty 9mms and put in fresh clips. My fingers are numbing next, every move is a sharp dozen pins into the nerves. I put them back in the holsters and retrieve the ring knife from elevator goon's throat, picking up his gun instead.
"You okay?" He says, looking at me. The penetration in the shoulder is clean. I can't quite feel the throbbing agony that will come after the shock, but I already know that the bullet sailed clean through all layers of spandex, kevlar, flesh, bone and muscle before exiting the other side the same.
I open elevator goon's gun slide and tip out the bullet into my good hand.
Teflon-coated bullets. Cop killers. Armor-piercing rounds.
Vests are optional.
"Fine."
"You're pale."
"Adrenaline. Let's get out of here. Red Mist is gone. There could be more on the way."
~:~:~:~
Kick-Ass.
~:~:~:~
So, now that I've missed the entire fight, I can tell you that Katie Deauxma is not a good girl. Everything I thought about her was just physical, but I convinced myself that it was deeper than that because the only other person who I knew in the flesh that I jerked off to as much was Mrs. Zane.
But I still care.
I guess.
It's not even my kid. I'm a virgin. If Chris has anything planned right, I may die a virgin.
Hit-Girl doesn't look so good. It's just her first time back in the game, I tell myself. I should have gotten here sooner. I haven't fucked up too bad, at least.
She takes point and we run down the stairs. She stops at the tenth floor down and listens. One of the cleaners from floor 19 has called the police. There are sirens outside of the building now. They're coming to haul us away and unmask us for everyone.
Commissioner Gordan is not going to help us.
~:~:~:~
Hit-Girl.
~:~:~:~
The pain in my shoulder has spread into my chest. I'm bleeding too much. Too damn much for a shoulder wound. It makes me woozy. I try to keep pressure on it while I run, but it's still agonizing even when it's numb. I feel lightheaded, and when we get down to the bottom, I don't know if I can move fast enough to get out of here with him.
Those sirens are close. I don't want to do a melodramatic 'go on without me' here. I'm not going to do that, because it won't help anyone. I ignore the pain in my shoulder and grab onto his arm, getting his attention.
"You're going to have to drive. They got me a bit. I've only got one good arm."
"But- How..."
"I'm fine. Just keep it over 80 so if we crash, we die like a couple of badasses." I hand him the keys. He helps me onto the bike and I straighten myself up against his back. I take the belt off my outfit and tie it around us. I carefully lean my bad arm down to support myself and take off the glove with my teeth, clutching onto the frame of the seat.
Right on cue, two red and blues pull into the lot. A black car circles the building and passes right by us. The driver points at us, but the passenger shakes his head and the car stops. They won't interfere now. They'll let us go down with the pigs.
"Get us the fuck out of here." I say. He guns the ignition too hard on his first turn and I almost collapse. It's not the best time to learn, but only one of the cop cars follows us.
"Get off the road. Through the alley!" I yell.
~:~:~:~
Kick-Ass.
~:~:~:~
I've never been at the handles of a bike before, unless my green Mongoose racing bike counts. I hope that Hit-Girl riding double will keep the bike weighed down enough not to tumble from the torque.
The rifle case is laying on the asphalt. I lay it lengthwise on the rack on the back of the bike, hooking the handle to a strap on the back of the seat.
She ties herself to me and she still has a gun in her hand.
"No cops." I say to her. I feel the bastard throbbing between my legs and I think of how uncool we look right now. Blood-splattered kids in costumes, tied together on a bike without even hating the cops enough to shoot them.
"If it's necessary..." She begins, and I shake my head. I go on ignored. The motorcycle yanks us around the corner. I turn into the alley at her command and straighten my elbows, picking up speed. I wiggle to the left, trying to maintain my balance. I feel like I'm slipping.
One police car follows us. The black car I saw, reinforcements that will go unneeded, slipped away before they could be noticed too clearly. Some delta cop with a big news story and publicity in his grin guns after us through the alley, and the alley's wide enough for the car with room to spare. Shit.
"LEFT!" She screams when I get to the end of the alley. I turn left and go too wide, the back end of the motorcycle crashes into a parked cab, denting the entire left side. She yells something I can't reprint here, and I try to tilt the motorcycle back to the right and gun it again.
The black and white car sailed right past us with that GTA4 turn, but the cop jumps out of the car when it stops past the turn and runs quickly around the tenement that blocks us from his view. He jumps onto the curb and fires three shots at the motorcycle, aiming for the tires. Hit-Girl fires at him, and he suddenly stops. His partner is a worse shot. He hits a passing car. The driver swerves and hits a fence.
Before the partner can commandeer the police car and I can ask if the one she shot is alive or dead, I realize that I've been standing on the emergency brake the entire time. I kick my shoe off it and pop the clutch. The motorcycle lunges forward, almost throwing us both off.
"ALIVE OR DEAD!" I scream back at her. I leave the road again and enter another alley. We've got fifteen blocks between here and 6th and Dodd.
She doesn't answer me. Things have gotten worse back there. The black car has returned.
~:~:~:~
Red Mist.
~:~:~:~
"Chris. You heard from the guys inside?"
"No. Not a word. Get over there."
I told them to call for help if they needed it. They haven't called, and they haven't called to gloat either.
So they're dead.
The phone rings again. I have to take off my gloves to answer the iPhone. The material they're made out of isn't felt by the touch screen. I put it on speaker.
"Yeah."
"The cops are there. They're running away. On a motorcycle. No sign of the guys upstairs. Cops are swarming the place now."
"Follow along if you can. If the cops catch them, slip away. I want them neutralized tonight." The last line flows from me with the appropriate vilainous charm. I've been working on my villain voice, I can admit. It's hard to do seriously in the mirror. Ironically, I was better at the gruff and confident hero voice.
We get to the next friendly place and I call Great Uncle Carl. He's already heard from one of the local guys.
I'm fine
Yes, I understand.
I'm sorry.
Okay.
Okay.
Yes.
Okay.
Yes.
I said I was sorry.
I'm fine.
Fine.
Goodbye.
I can't risk everything now chasing after them and exposing myself to the cops. Things are about to get much more interesting for Kick-Ass.
I contacted a friend in the comic business. Well, sort of. He works as a mail clerk in the offices for Icon. By day. By night, the guy is downloading torrents, streaming leaked copies of new albums from the RIAA archives and logging IP addresses to swarm with junk mail when he gets bored. Before all of this petty crime, he was a comic geek like me and one of the few I could convince that my dad was only a businessman.
I sent him every bit of electronic information I could find on Kick-Ass. Small radical groups with access to Freewebs and Geocities have been forming cases to try and unmask vigilantes in America. They call it Dox. Information on celebrities that is confidential, unlisted or just stalker fodder. The file on me has dick. I found an IP address for Kick-Ass. He was smart enough to use a tunnel-proxy connection whenever he formed the web page, but he doesn't have protection on the IP address that created his Myspace page.
After the relinquishment of a rare Captain America from the silver case, he's got some information for me. An address linked to an ISP's billing information. It's enough.
I know where the cave is, Batman.
I have to make an appearance to reassure the Elders that I'm safe. Then I'll make use of this new information.
~:~:~:~
Hit-Girl.
~:~:~:~
The black car is back. I'm almost out of ammo. No clips.
"SLOW DOWN!" I scream. He stops suddenly, throwing my head against his. The black car guns forward, prepared to drive directly into us. I shoot the front tires, blowing one out and forcing the car to swerve to the right.
The car reverses and tears after us on it's rim. The underlings don't want to report failure. They're persistent.
So this motorcycle has some cool gadget that is going to get us out of this, right?
It has some rocket boosters, or some little tire shredder dispenser in it's exhaust pipe, right?
It doesn't. We are fucked.
Kick-Ass suddenly turns to the right. With a busted tire, the black car can't make the turn. Kick-Ass screams and swerves, barely avoiding the wrath of an oncoming truck. The yellow line is crossed, throwing us back into the right lane. The black car is hit by the truck, slamming ass-backwards into the exterior wall of another building.
He stops suddenly, and this time I do fall off the bike. The belt around my stomach goes up, digging into my chest. The motorcycle tips and he throws a leg down to the ground, keeping himself standing. I undo the belt and stand up.
"Get back on. We have to get moving." He looks back at the wreckage. There are more sirens in earshot.
~:~:~:~
Kick-Ass.
~:~:~:~
Uneventful is boring until you've experienced a night like this.
The rush of adrenaline has exhausted me. I can't even imagine how she feels. The apartment is empty when we get back. It's going to be another late work night for dad.
She carries one case under her injured arm and one in her good hand. The rifle case, scratched but intact. In the other is a satchel from the storage compartment under the motorcycle seat.
She goes into the kitchen. I follow behind her, taking off my mask and turning on the light.
"Boiling water. Something for a bandage..." She holds up a box of Band-Aids from the drawer. "These aren't big enough." She opens the case from storage and takes out the military-grade First Aid kit. It's designed for live combat trauma in the worst conditions, when a medic or a base are miles away.
It'll do for a pre-teen that can't go to the emergency room. I've survived worse things than this myself. I change and take the water off the stove. She takes the shower curtain out of the bathroom and lays it down on top of the kitchen table.
She lays down on top of it, taking the knife from her boot and cutting a large circle in the material around the holes in either sides of her shoulder.
There are several small ampules in the case. I take one out, and at her insistence, I load one with a plastic capsule marked only by color and inject it into the top of her shoulder. It must be something strong, because she goes slack after that, speaking with her eyes hooded, shoulder finally relaxed after the initial shock.
I drop the tools in the boiling water and put on a clean pair of gloves.
She directs me on what to do. The light above the table is sharp and hot. More than once I draw fresh blood when I cut into the skin to properly anchor the makeshift stitches. It's not sickening in the worst kind of way. If you've ever watched a zombie movie or dissected a frog, it's a combination.
"Big Daddy taught you a lot of things, Hit-Girl."
"He had to. He lived a dangerous life."
"Of his own choice..."
"Now you're going to say that it only makes what you told me before right, aren't you?"
"I don't have to now, I guess."
Something bothering me. I finish bandaging her shoulder and look at her.
"The cops are alive. Right?"
"I aimed for their knees. You should be more concerned with the bullets in this gun."
She's shot a cop, regardless. They'll be looking for us now. No more playing around. The deck has stacked itself higher.
She turns her newly acquired firearm over with her good hand and locks the slide back, tipping out the oddly shaped round. It's got a red round on a common casing. The color of bronze, professionally designed.
I considered getting kevlar for my costume after my initial stabbing, but it wasn't affordable. Now, it's even less necessary. If all of Genovese's remnants are equipped with those, we are fucked.
When you spend the better part of a year without the ability to walk comfortably, you begin to appreciate life.
"So, that wasn't so bad, was it? I hope next time you'll show up sooner." She says. "So, what are you thinking, Kick-Ass?"
"I think you'll live to kill again, Hit-Girl."
"Splendid."
"Every hero becomes a bore at last."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson~