Mako's Message: Ah. Here we are. The end.

Of Act One. ;)

Almost all of the key points in this story have been planned out already, but as you've all witnessed this story has a tendency to take on a life of it's own. So sometimes things fall into place, sometimes they don't. This is one of those times where it did. Two more acts to go, and if I had to give them names, I think this one would be called, "Reemergence", or maybe "Mindy Rising" XP

Anyway, I'm sure you wont mind if it does take me another 60 chapters to get through Act Two, but I'm going to try to avoid that.

Oh, and I'm going to start writing some other stories for Kick-Ass. Most of them will be the "Series of one shots" type, and I'm going to try and get, but no more than, one up for each of the ideas I have before diving into Act Two. I think you'll enjoy them. I put up descriptions of them in the forum if your interested. I'll tell of you right now that one of them, is, in fact, directly related to this story.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings. On with the chapter.


The entire school is talking about either "The Times Square Brawl" or "The Easter Massacre" (depends on who you're talking to, I guess time will decide). Anytime I hear someone talking about it, especially when it's about Hit Girl (and after my grand entrance onto the scene people usually end up talking about me.) I have to fight off this stupid, "Yea, I'm awesome." grin.

Daddy probably wouldn't be too happy about that though. He always said we needed to stay undercover. Secretive. Like Biker Knight and "The Samaritan" did. (There've been some people wondering why he didn't show up by the way. If they only knew.) It couldn't really be helped though, unless I wanted to let all those people die. Of course, Daddy would never have let the last D'Amico win anyway.

Oh and there's been a three-way debate going on about who is the most bad-ass hero. Biker Knight/Shred Ranger(It's still a pretty even split on which name people use. Even the poll was nearly dead even.), The Guardian, or Hit Girl.

The Guardian gets points for going through the whole fight unarmed.

Biker Knight gets points pretty much for pure bad-assery.

I actually LOSE points for "sucker shooting" people and showing up late, but I'm so awesome it's still not enough to put me out of the running for "most bad-ass superhero."

Erika is a wreck. Todd told us he visited Marty not long after we got there and Erika was there, and was still there when he left. She spends a lot of time crying on Katie. I guess they really had something.

Speaking of Katie. Katie... has not said anything to me. Which, is weird. I know she knows Dave is Kick-Ass, so I was kinda worried that she'd figure me out after this, but she isn't acting much different towards me than usual. Maybe a little more distant, but it's not like we were ever close.

Angela and Jessi were surprised that I ate lunch with Dave the first day back. They asked me later why I sat and talked with him all of a sudden after I'd been avoiding him and shooting glares at his back for the last few weeks. I never told them about the restraining order, of course, so I just said he did something that pissed me off and he finally nutted up and apologized for it.

They just nodded their heads as if that's what they expected all along.

So, other than that, school hasn't been much different from usual. Well I had some fun going into the office and telling them "The restraining order has been removed." and walking right back out. I loved the look of confusion on their faces. Should they believe me? Shouldn't they? Who do they call? Marcus? The Police? What'll happen if I'm telling the truth and they try to keep us separated ?

But all that's just the obligatory catch up.

Tonight was my first night out on patrol with Dave. As partners.

It's bad that saying Dave and I are partners makes me giggle, isn't it? Well, I don't care. We're partners. Dave is my partner. I'm his partner.

He seemed to think it was really important too. I would have been happy with just a fist pound before heading out, but he had something so much better planed. He picked me up at the house, out of costume of course. He asked where Marcus was, since he was expecting some sort of speech about keeping me out of trouble or something. I told him that Marcus left the house awhile ago and didn't want to know anything about what we were doing. Plausible deniability and all that.

Dave seemed to think that was hilarious for some reason.

We pulled into a dark parking lot to change into our costumes. Well, "change into" isn't exactly right. We were both wearing our suits under our clothes, so it was just of matter of pulling off our jeans and jackets and switching our shoes.

Dave finished before I did since I have to tie my hair back and everything, and when I started to put my mask on he suddenly stopped me and asked if he could put it on for me. Right now it sounds like an odd thing for him to ask, but at the time I was too busy feeling glowy to say anything but "sure."

And the bastard put my mask on wrong. Intentionally.

When he stopped me from unblindfolding myself I said, "I didn't know you were into that."

He spluttered for about five seconds before he decided I was joking and said, "I just have something I want to be a surprise for you."

Kind of a shame. What I was thinking of might have been more fun.

So we got out of the car and he lead me down this alley. At least, I hope it was an alley. If I find out he lead me down a main street like that I will kick him in the balls so hard he'll have to go through puberty again.

Anyway, he sent me up a fire escape and when we got to the top he finally said I could take off the blindfold.

I don't know what I was expecting, but it sure as hell wasn't an empty roof. When Dave gave up on me figuring it out on my own, he said, "It might help if you turn around."

So I turned around and I was looking at an old billboard advertising some perfume, and I'm looking at this and then it finally hit's me.

We were on Rasul's building. Where we first met.

He looked at me and then across to the billboard and said, "I figured if we were going to do this, we should do it right. Ya know, go back to the beginning."

I was grinning like the fucking joker and I asked, "You're not going to pussy out on me this time are you?"

He laughed and said, "I think my day's of pussying out are far behind me."

I said, "c'mon then." and ran for the edge. Dave was a step behind me all the way to the edge, and when I leapt, he was right there with me.

We landed, rolled and came to our feet, Dave looked a little pale, but I could tell he felt just as exhilarated as I did. He held out his hand and said, "Partners?"

I clasps hands with him and said, "Partners!" and we set off in search of crime to stop.

We didn't find any, but I'm okay with that. Tonight was awesome enough as it was.