Mako's Message: Welp. This is another of those times where whatever it was I was going to say here completely left my brain, so I'll keep this quick. This was inspired by a news report I saw a month or two ago. And it had to happen sooner or later.
2
Angela can't reach a pitch that'll shatter glass, but she can come damn close.
And this is all because of
Well, it actually
Ya know, I don't know when all this bullshit started. Might even go back before my birthday.
Whenever it started, last night didn't help at all. It actually kinda hit critical mass.
We'd just finished our finals, which was a huge fucking relief. If things hadn't been so crazy out on the streets lately, I might have considered taking the week off. But it WAS that crazy. Hell, Marcus and I have barely seen each other the last two weeks. Normally I'll see him either before school, after school, or when I come home from patrol. I think the only reason either of us came home was to sleep. Not that I've been able sleep much. I don't even like thinking about some of the dreams I've been having.
I'm pretty sure I did well on them though. Not as well as last year, but well.
Anyway, we decided we were going to "reward" ourselves for making it through finals by taking some easy requests instead of looking into drug dens or deals, prostitution, possible robberies, or even patroling.
So, we went to go help a woman try and help her sister get out of an abusive relationship, since the boyfriend had started not letting her leave the house.
Normally that's the sort of request Alice or Insect Guy would take, but like I said, we wanted to try and have a chill night without slacking.
Boy did that not fucking happen. Holy shit. It's a good thing we ended up going to help. I don't think Insect Guy or White Mage would have been equipped to handle that sort of shit. Sure, it might have happened a little sooner because it was us, but the guy was a complete nutty nut bar and he would have flipped his shit sooner or later.
So we meet up with this woman outside the apartment building, and she's like, "Oh my god I never expected it'd be you two." And it felt pretty good, honestly, because suddenly she just looked like, "I can DO this. This IS going to happen".
So she lead us up to this guy's apartment, where her sister had been living with him voluntarily until he turned psycho-paranoid and stopped letting her leave. We were just there as back up though, ya know, to put some muscle where her mouth was to make sure he didn't hurt anyone. Yeah, that's what happened.
We get to the apartment and she starts banging on the door, yelling at him to open it and let her sister out. We're just hanging back, cause this is something she and her sister need to handle, but then he finally opens the door, with the chain still on, sees us, and flips his shit.
He slammed the door shut and started yelling about how he knew we were coming for him and we'd never take him alive or something. It was hard to hear him through the door. Then we hear the sister start screaming, so Dave and I kick in the door.
Inside he's got a bullet proof vest on and he's got an AR-15 with a scope and knife attached in one hand, and he's trying to drag the sister somewhere. Then he lets her go and starts shooting at us before we can get close enough to do anything.
The sisters are understandably freaking out, the guy is yelling shit that, that between the screaming and gun fire, neither of us can understand as he backs down the apartment hallway and trying to drag the girlfriend with him between shots, and we're trying to figure out how to take this guy out ASAP, but the girlfriend being between us and him is making things really tricky.
Suddenly the shooting stops, and we go running down the hall after him, only to find the girl crying next to an open window, and we can hear screaming from the next apartment. We look out the window and see the next one over is broken in and just within reach.
We run back out into the hallway, where this woman is standing in the next apartment's doorway watching as the door to the emergency exit slams shut.
So we chase after him, and when we get through the door, we see he headed for the roof. Dave's looking up the steps after and says, "Shit" and I knew he was thinking the same thing I was. What if the paranoid freak starts shooting at people from the roof?
We chased him up the stairs and as soon as we open the roof access door the brick next to us explodes and we duck back into the stairwell as he starts firing again.
At this point I have completely lost all patience with this guy and yell, "If you fire one more shot I'm going to blow your fucking head off!"
The sisters had followed us and caught up right about then, and the bastard shot at us again, so I pulled my gun and was about to lean around the corner and shoot the son-of-a-bitch, but the girlfriend grabbed my arm and begged me not to kill him, saying he'd just gone off his meds.
So Dave yells out, "Your girlfriend is begging for your life! Drop the gun so we don't have to hurt you!"
And the shooting stopped, and it stayed stopped, so Dave said, "Alright, I'm coming out and I want your hands in the air."
And as soon as Dave stepped out, he was shot right in the chest.
I almost screamed his name, but caught myself, so it sounded like, "DA-AAAAAARRGH!" and I stepped around the corner already shooting. I was shooting before I even had a target so of course the first couple of shots missed, but then he leapt off the roof and I ended up just hitting the wall.
Dave was okay though, between the kevlar and the plating he just got the wind knocked out of him.
I ran over to the edge of the roof, and the building was right up against another building, so he'd only dropped about twelve feet and he was walking backwards aiming up at us. Fortunately, after a couple more shots he ran out, and when he was switching to a handgun I was able to shoot him in the shoulder.
He tried to shoot at us again, but every time he tried to raise his gun I plugged him right in the vest. By the time we got to him he could barely move. Probably broke a few ribs. Would have loved to do more.
So we got him cuffed, dragged him down to the street and tied him to a light pole for the police to pick up, which thankfully wouldn't be long because even if nobody else called in the gunfire, the sister, the one who asked us for help, had the sense to call the police during all that.
But after the adrenaline crash I just felt completely wiped out, so Dave drove us home.
And while I was sitting there, looking out the window I realized we'd have to go by my neighborhood to get back to the safe house, so I asked Dave to just drop me off at home.
He was worried about someone seeing me, but I said it was late and dark and we had a hoodie I could throw on over my costume and I'd take the wig and mask off and nobody would notice. Then he said, "Okay, fine, so no one sees Hit Girl go into your house, but what about people seeing Mindy getting out of the Hit Mobile? It's kind of distinctive."
So I said, "Just cut the engine and coast down the block, you wont have to stop and nobody will notice."
He still didn't like it, but I gave him puppy dog eyes and he gave up arguing with me and agreed.
He muttered something with the words "cute" and "unfair", which was nice to hear. Progress is being made. I think.
Anyway, the plan went off without a hitch. The street was mostly dark, no one was walking down that block, and timed it almost perfectly so the car was only doing about five as it coasted by the house so hopping out was cake. Marcus wasn't home yet, so I tossed the hoodie over the banister and went up to my room. I sat down on my bed, which was probably a mistake, and only managed to get my boots off before I passed out.
Which, wouldn't normally have been a problem, except that today is Saturday, and I'd agreed to go to the mall with Angela to celebrate the unofficial end of school.
So, Angela came over, and asked Marcus where I was, and he said he thought I was still sleeping and that she could go ahead upstairs cause it was about time I got up anyway.
So she went upstairs, saw me sleeping, and I woke up to Angela squealing and bouncing around my room like Pinkie Pie on a sugar high.
I didn't even realize what she was freaking out about at first. I looked up at her like, "What the fuck Angela. Calm your tits." and then I went to rub at my eyes, felt my glove, and suddenly it all made sense.
That was about when Marcus came running in to see what was the matter, saw me in my costume, and facepalmed saying, "Goddammit Mindy."
And I said, "Angela! Seriously! Turn it down! It's too early for this shit."
And Marcus said, "It's actually after noon. If you hadn't slept in so late this wouldn't have happened."
So I said, "Hey, I got in before midnight, I was just exhausted."
"Yeah, I heard about what you were up to last night."
Meanwhile, Angela's still squeeing at a painful level in between going, "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod, you're Hit Girl! And you know! My best friend is Hit Girl! Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!"
Then at one point she froze and gasped and said, "So Dave must be Kick-Ass! That explains SO much! OhmygodohmygodohmyGOD!"
And I just groaned and sank my face into both hands. I mean, is everybody who finds out about one of us going to immediately realize who the other is? First Marty, then Jessi, now Angela. Is it that obvious?
When she eventually started to calm down, a little, she started asking to be a superhero. I shot that down real fucking quick. She asked why not and I told her, "It's not like it was two years ago. Hell, it's not like it was LAST year. If you go out on those streets in a costume there's a fucking bullseye on your head." and to emphasize my point I held up to fingers like a gun and jammed them into the side of her head."
And she brushed my hand away and said, "But you and Dave go out."
I said, "I've been training for this since I was five. And Dave is-" I still can't find the right words to describe Dave, so I settled for, "Special."
That was the first and only time Angela was still or quiet, and then gasped again and covered her mouth and said, "Oh my god. That was your Dad."
And I couldn't say anything to her. Not at first. It took me a few seconds, but I finally said, "Yeah. It was."
She said "I am so sorry" and hugged me. And this was a completely different kind of hug from the usual quick, excited and/or friendly squeezes she usually gives me. It was a full hug, and she held on real tight, and...it felt kind of like the hugs Dave will give me.
And for that first second, I liked it.
Then I tried to shrug her off and her to let go of me and pushed her away. Not in a mean way, just...
So then Angela said "I still don't see why I can't be a hero with you too. You're practically already training me."
I just laughed and said, "The exercises I gave you aren't even half of what Dave and I do everyday."
And she said, "So train me harder!"
I told her, "No. I am not going to be responsible for you going out there and getting hurt or killed."
She got all mopey after that, but seemed to accept it. And then she started getting all giggly again about being best friends with Hit Girl.
If she doesn't cut this out soon I'm not going to the mall with her.
