Mako's Message: This chapter is chapter 57 on purpose. It's totally not a coincidence. Nu uh, not at all. No accidental awesomeness here.
Anyway, if this style of story lent itself to action better I'd tell you to get some ass-kicking music to play as you read... but it doesn't, so don't. Something sad or triumphant, or both, might be appropriate though. More after the chapter.
Well. Dave is cleaned up, mostly, and in bed. He should be asleep any second now if he's not already.
I came through without a scratch, which was a near thing, and I haven't spotted any bruises. I'm sure they'll show up by morning though.
So, I just left you hanging last time because the news report was about two gangs lining up for a fight in times square. And this wasn't just any two gangs. These two gangs were done up in COSTUMES.
Figure it out yet?
I spotted Dave on one side, along with the other members of Justice Forever, and a couple dozen other guys from the registry as well as some new people. Guess who was leading the other side? You'll never believe this.
Chris. D'Amico.
Fucking Red Mist, I'm sorry, "The Motherfucker" had managed to gather a bunch of cunts together under his banner to wreck shit. First thing on his list of things to ruin was the cities super hero population. If I hadn't been in such a funk I might have heard something about this (a couple of those fuckers went to school with Dave for christ's sake!), and that he issued an ultimatum to show up for a fight today to everyone who called themselves a hero or he and his gang were just going to start tearing the place up and start in on any bystanders they could get their hands on.
The camera even zoomed in on him standing on top of a car in his new suit waving a katana around like he was some sort of general.
His gang was at least equal to the group of heroes, which is just fucking depressing, but they weren't nearly as nicely dressed. They were all in costumes too, but they seemed to be wearing whatever they could grab the fastest at a costume store, if they even bothered to go to one. Clowns seemed to be pretty popular among them (Thank you Heath Ledger.) but there were plenty of skull and demon masks as well. Though, a slot of them seemed to think their own goth/emo/punk/fucktard selves counted as being in costume. Fucking lames.
I saw this on TV and I was just in this state of shock, starring at the screen, as Chris gave order to attack and both groups clashed. What finally snapped me out of it was when I could see Dave get punched in the face and crash to the ground.
I leapt up and ran to my room. It wasn't until I dug my costume out of the "hidden" pocket in my backpack (Yeah. I had my suit with my at school every day.) and it wasn't until I had the suit on and was tying my hair up to fit under my wig that Marcus realized I'd left.
I heard him yell, "Mindy!" as I climbed up into the crawl space above my closet. I don't think Marcus even knows it's there because it was empty when I found it. I opened up the case and pulled out the two emergency pistols Daddy kept there. While I was up there Marcus came to my room looking for me and he was obviously confused about where I went and went back downstairs. I came down in full costume and headed for the kitchen. Marcus finally caught up with me while I was picking out knives from the kitchen set.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Where do you think!"
"NO! No way in hell. You are not going out there. You'll get yourself killed!"
"THEY are getting killed!" I said while pointing towards the TV with a knife, "They need me!"
"No. You're not going."
I said, "The fuck I'm not," and moved for the garage door.
Marcus got between me and the door and said, "No."
I set myself and I told him, "Marcus... I. Will go. THROUGH you."
We stared each other down for a second. In the brief pause we could both hear gunshots from the live report. Then he suddenly snatched the cars keys off the wall and opened the door, "C'mon get in the car."
I froze for a second, "What?"
"Get in the car! I'm driving."
"Fuckin' aye!"
Miracle of miracles, there was hardly any traffic and Marcus drove like he was in The Fast and Furious. We got there in only a few minutes, and as we were going down the last stretch I told him, "Don't stop. Just spin the car and keep going. Don't give anyone a chance to see you or your plate."
"You sure about this?"
"Yes," I said, and popped my door open.
He drove in, spun the car, and I rolled out.
As I came to my feet I pulled out the pistols, shouted, "Playtime's over motherfuckers!" and opened fire.
I hit every one of my targets, but I think only half of them where kill shots, since I was trying to not hit the few heroes still fighting. Less then half of the ones who showed up where still fighting, and I could see a number of bodies all over the ground. The bad guys were doing a lot better. At least half their group was still fighting.
That of course ended when I showed up and shot a dozen of their guys. I holstered the guns and dove in knives first.
It was like coming home.
They were all uncoordinated and slow. Every one of my strikes was careful and fatal. There were a couple guys that had some idea of how to fight, but they weren't at my level. Anyone that tried to attack got a rude awakening. I spun around, ducked under, and flipped over every obstacle in my path, leaving blood, pain, and death behind me.
I needed to find Dave. That was my primary concern, but I couldn't find him. I called out for him, not really expecting an answer, I figured he'd be one of people laying beaten and broken on the ground, but hopefully not one of the dead.
I really should have had more faith in him.
He called back from the other side of the fight, still standing, still going, still kicking ass.
He was beat the fuck up though.
God bless those fucked up nerves of his.
That's when I heard a gun shot, and felt a bullet whip through my hair. I reacted on instinct and threw one of the kitchen knives in the direction the shot came from. I hit Chris in the shoulder, which was actually really impressive even for me since I practically threw it blind and he had to be at least thirty feet away from me on a car.
Ya know, I'm gonna have to replace those knives...
Anyway, I didn't notice then, but that was the only gunshot I heard the entire time I was there. I guess everybody else had run out of ammo by then.
Chris pulled the knife out of his shoulder and tried to shoot me again, but his gun was empty and he just threw it at the nearest hero. He jumped down and started trying carve a path to me like I'd been doing to Dave, but he wasn't having nearly as much luck.
I finally caught up to Dave and said, "Congrat's on living this long."
"Trained by the best remember?"
Man he was a site. His face was cut up and swollen, his suit was covered in blood spatter, but by that point pretty much everybody still standing was in the same condition.
I was too busy checking him over that I didn't notice some cunt coming up behind me(your sense of hearing is pretty much worth shit in a situation like that) Dave did though, and he pushed me aside and kicked the guy in the gut. Dave winced after that cause his leg was twisted (I didn't know that till later though.) so he couldn't do a follow up. I was happy to finish the guy off for him though.
With each of us watching the other's back, we made short work of the few guys who hadn't run after they saw what I was doing to their side.
Chris was shouting after one of them to, and I quote, "Get back here you fucking pussy!"
When he turned around and saw that he was how outnumbered he was, he said, "Aw, fuck this shit." and ran too. Dave and I chased after him, but he had a car waiting for him. He jumped in and the car peeled out as I yelled, "Get back here motherfucker!"
He stood up through the sun roof and yelled, back as they drove by us, "I'm not just some motherfucker! I'm THE MOTHERFUCKER! Cause After I kill you I'm gonna come back and fuck your mother, and his mother, and ALL THEIR MOTHERS!"
I REALLY wished I'd saved a bullet for him It would have been an easy shot.
So, after that, for a brief moment, I got a look around to see who was still standing. Biker Knight was there, still looking bad ass as fuck, he even had blades of some sort on his arms that were red with blood, The Guardian was still up, the gentleman was as well, but his fake mustache was barely hanging on and his top hat was nowhere to be seen, holding a cane sword that was also red with blood and he'd abandoned his act of the dapper gentleman and was swearing up a storm. There was a another guy who was done up in enough armor to make my Daddy envious and he had this big circular shield, and another person who... well, I don't know, he had some sort of insect on his shirt, I think it might have been a wasp or something and he didn't seem to have a weapon, there was a woman in a white cloak with red trim treating wounded, and some guy in an apron with a broom.
Yeah, I don't know what that was about.
But it was only about five seconds before the mob was on us. Cops, paramedics, media, but mostly spectators swarmed in once "The Motherfucker" fled. The media seemed REALLY interested in me, but can you blame them? I pretty much ended the fight singlehandedly.
That doesn't mean I liked the barrage of camera flashes going off in my eyes or all the microphones being jammed in my face. Dave wasn't getting away from it either though. I don't think I said a single word that wasn't followed by some variation on the word "fuck" but that didn't deter them at all. I kept trying to shield my face from the cameras but there were just so many of them I know at least one got a clear shot of me. At one point I even took a swipe at them with one of my knives, but they all dodged back as a group like a school of fish or something. Dave pushed my hand down to stop me from trying it again, and I heard the only question I can actually remember being asked and it wasn't even directed at me. It was asked to Dave.
"What is your relationship to Hit Girl?"
Dave just yelled back, "I don't know her!"
Part of me hopes they believed that, but another, smaller, part was kind hurt that he denied having anything to do with me, not that I don't know why he did it and I'm glad he did.
They were only hounding us for maybe thirty seconds before we both said, "Run" and bolted through the crowd. Despite being so fucked up I'm surprised he was standing Dave manged to shoulder tackle a couple reporters and clear a path for us to get the fuck out of there. I only saw two other groups of reporters, one was around The Guardian who was calmly answering questions, the other was the woman in the white cloak who was answering questions but not being nearly as nice about it. The Gentleman was climbing into an ambulance. The other three seemed to made a clean getaway.
We weren't so lucky. Call it the price of fame, but we had to spend the next hour just trying to lose the reporters and the fanboys who wanted autographs. We ended up hiding in an abandoned building while the pursuit cooled off. I was really worried about Dave at the point, since he looked like death on a cold platter.
We didn't have a change of clothes or a way to call Marcus for a pick up even if he hadn't been completely swamped with work thanks to all this, so we had to be really careful and sneak our way to the safehouse, which was the closest shelter we had.
When we got inside, Dave stumbled into the shower and turned the water on hot and climbed in without even taking his mask off. He didn't stand either. He just sort of sank to the floor.
Luckily it occurred to me that we should keep some spare clothes here before I got grounded, so I had something to change into. I hadn't noticed it until the adrenalin had stopped flowing, but that suit was really tight. Despite everything I almost resorted to asking Dave to help pull it off me. It's a good thing Daddy had some spare costumes for me in larger sizes stashed away.
When I went back to check on him, he had his suit half off and the water was still running red with blood.
I asked him if he needed any help, not really expecting him to say yes. But he did.
He had me help him to his feet and then while he was holding the wall, he asked me to check his body for any serious wounds. He said his whole body was just a dull throbbing pain and for all he know he could have been stabbed in the back and not know.
So, I got to run my hands across a half naked Dave. Unfortunately, the fact that I was checking him for serious injuries didn't allow me to enjoy it.
I found a few scratches, a couple small cuts, and some nasty bruises but nothing serious.
When I was finished Dave thanked me and asked for a towel. I also grabbed him a pair of his sweat pants and let him change into them. When he came out he turned on the little TV we had and checked the news. They were still reporting the injured and dead while they replayed images of the fight. In one of the aerial shots, I could spot a blue suited body laying still on the ground. I couldn't tell if he was dead, or just unconscious, but I recognized him as Battle Guy. As Marty. I could see a guy in a green camo jacket with a huge dog, Colonel Stars, who suddenly seemed to collapse. I don't know why, he seemed to be doing fine, but down he went. His dog turned all it's attention to it's master and got it's head bashed in for it.
There was another guy in all black crawling away from the fight towards the ambulances waiting behind police barricades. I couldn't see if he made it or not. There was one shot of the woman in the white cloak breaking away from the fight to run over and yell at the paramedics before running back into the fray herself. Dave said, "She was incredible. She spent the entire fight treating anyone who was injured. But when someone tried to grab her, she pulled this fucking big, Thor's hammer looking thing off her belt and smashed the guy's head in."
He went silent again as the report continued on.
As it ended he said, "Almost half our side turned and ran when the first gun went off. We had some seriously bad ass motherfuckers on our side. Shred Ranger started with those short swords that don't have any real edge to them, but once people started dieing, he put them away and slid these blade on his gauntlets forward and started tearing people up. There was another guy in all this armor with a shield. He spent most of the fight getting between anyone with a gun and everyone else. The Guardian is a serious badass. He did the whole fight unarmed. He's the only person I can think of that I think could beat you. The Gentleman was a pretty good fighter. I'm actually more surprised by how long he kept his schtick up. And towards the end, some guy came running out of one of the stores with a broom and just started laying into people. He was a big help." He looked at me and said, "Not as big a help as you though. If you hadn't shown up I don't know what would have happened."
He went quiet again and turned back to the television as they started showing footage of the wounded being carried away and the dead zipped up in bags.
Marty was put into an ambulance, so was Colonel Stars. They didn't say anything about the condition of any of them.
Dave started talking again, and his voice was nearly breaking, "I should have done more. I should have fought harder, or taken more risks. I spent most of the fight keeping other people between me and Chris because I knew he was standing up there waiting to get a shot off at me. I FUCKING KNEW IT. But I stayed out of his site so well that he'd get bored and take pot shots at other people. I knew he was after me, and because I wasn't man enough to try and take him out, other people got shot, got KILLED! I should have killed Chris back at the penthouse... I should have killed him and then none of this would have happened."
I didn't know what else to say, so I said, "If you'd taken any longer to get to me... D'Amico would have killed me."
"Then I should have killed him afterward. And now... Marty's dead. Marty is fucking DEAD and it's my fault. I started all this shit, and I got him into this, and I couldn't even train him properly, and some huge fuck came up and hit him in the head with hammer and now he's dead. My oldest friend is DEAD Mindy, and it's my fault!"
He just completely broke at that point and I ended up holding him as he cried for awhile before I helped him into the bed.
Now I've got myself cleaned up and checked out, and I'm going to go climb into bed with him and see if we can sleep this off, because, as much as I hate having to find out like this, I think he needs me as much as I need him.
Son of Mako's Message:The fact that I'm able to update this again so soon was a complete fluke. I'm still looking for a house and childcare for my son. Hopefully, this'll tide you over for a bit.
If it doesn't, the video located at vimeo dot com forward slash 26528218 should.
And, failing that, write you own fanfic. I'd love to read it. ^_^
