~:~:~:~
Kick-Ass.
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During the Civil War, soldiers found a use for their spare rounds.

They were melted down and made into what we know today as brass knuckles.

If you use brass knuckles wrong, you can break your fingers.

If you use them properly, you can break every bone in someone's body.

The room is really hot now. It's been almost an hour and Hit-Girl is still finding the strength to punch the bastard. His face is a pastiche of blood, swollen flesh and bone which glints white where the skin is torn and hangs around his eyes. His pupils are two bloodshot orbs, one still looking at her, the other off-center and strangely opaque now.

"Tell me where he is." She repeats.

He shakes his head and spits blood, and she gets the pliers back out.

It was her idea, after all.

She said that she had gone to the next spot while I was at school, and it was deserted. They'd moved house.

She wanted to get a head start, and move past torching drug dens to get attention. Let those ones in the car follow us somewhere. Set a little trap. Take one of them alive, and get information. I agreed to it. I helped plan it. I forgot how much of a grudge she bears against these 'guineas'.

My grudge, if you could call it that, is only fixated on one person. For now.

She closes the vice of the pliers around one of his two undamaged fingers. Six are broken and two are laying in the puddle of blood and sweat coagulating on the floor. The pliers are the only tool not soaked in blood, the others on the floor nearby, from the knuckledusters to the buck knife, have all done their job and are covered with varying amounts of tomato soup, italian.

The bone snaps, and he groans, apparently passing out. She slaps him with an open palm, bringing him back into harsh reality.

"Wake up, fucker. We're not done yet."

I feel sorry for the poor bastard. I really do.

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Hit-Girl.
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Kick-Ass and I came up with a plan, and we took the bike out tonight.

We went to the second place on the list. It wasn't occupied any longer, like I had seen in the morning. These drug dens are portable enough to be moved in a matter of hours. It's how business is done. The only thing left behind is moldy furniture and strange smells in the air.

They showed up a little bit after we did. Kick-Ass pushed the bike down the alley, and predictably, they chased him. I was on the roof above.

The first one got it before he stood up. The driver's side window was shattered and the round sparked against the road, the hole through his skull spat a ring of smoke. The second one I shot in the knee. The third one never made it out of the car. I roped down quickly and took care of him.

Kick-Ass knocked out the wounded one with his taser, and I took the car while he took the bike. The windows were shattered and it was covered in blood, but we couldn't triple up on the bike with an unconcious mobster, could we?

He woke up when we were dragging him out of the car at the hideout. Kick-Ass gave him another jolt, just for safety's sake. We took him upstairs between us and I sharpened the tools while Kick-Ass duct taped the thug down to an old chair.

When he woke up again, everything was ready. Problem was, he's a stubborn bastard.

~:~:~:~
Kick-Ass.
~:~:~:~

Hit-Girl has lost her patience, it seems. She sinks the buck knife into the top of his shoulder just a centimeter. She slices downward, cutting through his shirt and digging under his collarbone. He screams and twists against the knife. She turns it against his own movements, rupturing the wound further. He leans forward and slams his head against hers.

She steps back, and puts a hand to her head. She shakes it off.

"Amateur." She takes out one of her handguns and shoots him in the gut now. He screams bloody murder and spasms hard enough to tip the chair. She tips it back up and slides her left hand back into the brass rings. Wham. Wham. Wham. An ear that's been hanging by a single piece of skin for some time finally comes off and lands on the floor, leaving a bloody hole in the side of his head. She digs a gloved finger into the hole and turns her hand around.

This could go on all night.

I step forward, stepping around to look at her.

"You're running out of things to come up with." I hate whiners, but I'm guilty of the same crime myself. "He's not going to say anything."

The bastard looks at me. My stomach tightens. I thought I would enjoy watching this. It's making me sick. Sick enough to puke, but I hold it back. The room smells bad enough already.

Hit-Girl shoves the gun barrel into the hole in his belly and pulls it up, fresh blood dripping through his ruined shirt. Then she puts it against his head. He doesn't move. Against his lap. He starts to struggle again.

"Tell me."

I've never heard this tone in her voice.

It's the tone of someone desperate, even.

He looks away and mutters something I can't make out. She listens, and nods.

"Thank you." She says, then she puts the gun away and picks up the knife.

"What are you going to do now?" I ask.

"Bring him down to my level." She raises the knife over his lap. Without thinking, I grab her arm. She's strong, but I'm bigger. She turns on me.

"Just finish him off and get it over with. You got what you needed."

I can't tell if he's in shock or passed out at this point, but the debate is left to us.

"Fuck you, Kick-Ass. I'm not finished yet." She wrenches her arm from my hand and prepares to go Lorena Bobbit.

"Damn you." I say to nobody in particular, then grab the gun from her holster and before she can protest, I fire three rounds into her plaything's head.

"It was my turn." She says, with the same tone that younger siblings who are wrestled away from the video game controller use.

What a night.

~:~:~:~
Red Mist.
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Matt Murdock's father taught him about nonviolence, and he was a fighter.

Bruce Wayne's father taught him about the greater good, and he was a bureaucrat.

Kal-El's father taught him about being a savior, and he could not even save his own world.

My father taught me a lot of things, and he was never a hypocrite.

I don't know what Kick-Ass' father taught him, but subtlety was never one of them.

"We found the car. In a back lot by the canal, Chris. It's been burned out completely. Two, maybe three bodies. We're still looking. The cops are going to find it in the morning."

Sick enough of bad news. I turn my phone off after that.

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Hit-Girl.
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Kick-Ass helps me put the body in two trash bags. One over the top half, one over the bottom. We carry it down to the car and do the same with the other two. They've started to rigor at this point.

Three wrapped bodies in the back, he follows me on the motorcycle. He's still looking at me every few seconds, trying to see if I'm mad about losing out on my chance to castrate the man who gave me the information we need.

I know where Chris Genovese is now. Maybe the worst is behind us. Maybe we haven't even started.

We torch the car. It burns out quickly. All the interior is just plastic and vinyl. We double up and go back to the hideout.

When we get there, he dumps a container of bleach all over the room I set aside for the interrogation, and then he shuts the door and locks it.

"Bleach won't cover the smell long. We'll have to get something stronger."

"Lime." He says. Too many mobster movies he's watched.

"Maybe. We have bigger things to worry about now."

~:~:~:~
Kick-Ass.
~:~:~:~

"So, where is Red Mist?" I ask Mindy. I go into the bathroom again and take off my mask. She stands behind me in the doorway, takes a lollipop from a pouch on her belt and sticks it in her mouth. Orange.

"If I tell you, you'll run off and get yourself killed without me." She says, biting down into the candy. Crunch.

"You should know." I say.

"We can talk about it on the way." She waves her hand and spits the little white stick out.

The last time we rushed into something like this, we didn't have the element of surprise. Hit-Girl got on the intercom and told John Genovese to make peace with his God. A little kid in a Halloween costume was coming for him.

We don't have that element now, either.

This has all been planned. Maybe not directly to the step, but it's been planned.

One of those things to sleep on. If I could sleep.

"No."

It's almost 9pm. The witness-to-death sickness that slides through my gut even now, aftershocks rolling on top of the standard wave of guilt that comes with shooting someone, I'm not ready to do any more death right now.

Katie's dad picks up the extension when I call. It's too late to go out, she says, but I can come over. To talk.

Hit-Girl says that she's going at midnight. With or without me.

I've got plenty of time. She's not going to do this one alone.

Midnight, she says, or I'll come and find you. We can't pussy out now.

"Nothing fails like success."
~Gerald Nachman~