The Descent

Chapter 26: The Whole Package

The pillow puffed with a hollow sound as I punched it square in the stomach. It sounded like it was taunting me, just like everyone else. I still couldn't believe what had happened yesterday. I was shot. Three times in the chest. I could still feel them behind my shirt, behind the bandages Dave wrapped around my chest. But that wasn't even the worse part. I thought I was dying, and I was crying like a baby in front of Dave. The worse, worse part? I kept it up all the way to the hospital. Even after Dave told me I was fine. It was extremely painful. I remembered getting shot before. Dave told me so, when Daddy was captured. I couldn't take the pain like last time. There was more to think about, that last time when I was shot, but I didn't want to – Daddy was there, before… it happened.

Dave saw that side of me. I was scared, so scared that I would die. I needed him. Weakness. Something a superhero should never, ever reveal. It would be harder to keep him in line from now on. After Dave returned from talking to his team, he had to take me back to Safehouse F first, to change us back to our civilian cover. I remembered the trip back, and I was crying and whimpering and whining all the way; I couldn't control myself. I punched the pillow harder. He'd found and thrown my trenchcoat over me, so I was disguised again. It didn't help with it. The shame.

"Daddy, I'm scared." I remembered saying. Butterflies in my stomach. We were in a canal after it was clear. We stood at a distance, as if in a Mexican standoff, only I had no gun with me.

"C'mon, Mindy, honey, be a big girl now." Daddy's voice was so soothing. But I couldn't even remember how he sounded like anymore. Gaps in my head. "There's nothing to be afraid of."

"Is it going to hurt bad?" I looked at the Beretta in his hand. It was terrifying in his hand, but I trusted him to tame it.

"Oh Child…" His smile was soothing. I remembered the face I mistook for God. I hung onto it. "Only for a second, sugar." He said. "A handgun bullet travels at..? More than?" And began lecturing me.

"Seven hundred miles…" I remembered saying. One of the million things Daddy taught me throughout the years. One of the million things I sucked up like juice. One of the millions things I forgot.

"Seven hundred miles per hour." 'Good job' was written all over his face. "So at close range like this, the force is going to take you off your feet for sure, but it's really no more painful than a punch in the chest." He was so gentle, so caring, even when he was teaching me to kill, and to avoid getting killed.

"I hate getting punched in the chest…" … Getting punched in the chest?

"You're going to be fine, Babydoll!" He raised his Beretta and fired. I gasped, and didn't have time to finish it when the bullet hit me. I flew backwards as the bullet knocked me down, off my feet, just like yesterday. Unzipping my pink jacket, I plucked a bullet off my vest. It was painful that day, but I didn't cry like I did yesterday. Daddy came up to me. "How's that? Not so bad? Kind of fun, huh? Now you know how it feels. You won't be scared when some junkie asshole pulls a Glock."

"I wouldn't have been scared anyways!" I remembered being tough and fearless because of Daddy. Getting shot at for the first time made me nervous, but that was it. It was nothing more than a test. It was something I could laugh about after that.

"That's my girl." His smile. I hung onto it. I needed it. It was all I could remember of him. "Alright, up you get, c'mon." He pulled me up. "Two more rounds, and then home." …

"Again!?" … Three bullets, just like yesterday…

"Uh-huh." He said, business as usual.

"Look, only if we can go to the bowling alley on the way back." …

"The bowling alley?" …

"Yeah. And ice cream after!" …

"Huh." He considered. He stroked his moustache. "Okay. Two more rounds." … "No wincing, no whining… and you got yourself a deal, young lady." His smile. I needed it.

"Yeah! I'm going to get a hot fudge sundae!" …

"Good call, Babydoll!" He raised his pistol again, and fired. Daddy, please don't go please don't stop smiling-

My fist landed on the wall, rather than the pillow I'd hung on a hook. It had fallen off. Pain flared up in my fist, reminding me of getting a charley horse. I couldn't help but to cringe at the pain. It was too much. I hugged my hand as if it was cut clean off. The shame. Daddy would have been disappointed in you, girlie. Frustrating. A scream escaped me. I couldn't help it. It was all too much. The pain, the shame, the frustration, and Daddy's gone. And Dave saw me crying in uniform, when I wasn't even supposed to wince and whine. Turning around, I kicked the pillow lying limply on the floor. It didn't help with anything. Well, not much.

I was training on my own – I was back in headquarters. Dave was right about one thing. I needed to pace myself. I knew I couldn't fire a gun very well anymore, so I tried self-defence and martial arts instead. I couldn't remember much from before I lost everything. I was still shaking when I thought about hitting someone. The pillow made things easier. I didn't shake as much when I look at it, not as much as when I thought about hitting a person. I thought I couldn't miss, but I'd proven myself wrong again.

The shaking came down hard on me after I kicked the pillow while it was on the floor, so I had to sit down and drink my milkshake. Everything was out of order. My training wasn't going well – it was hard to do it alone. The headquarters wasn't good for training either. I remembered that there were other safehouses, but I couldn't remember where they were. When I crossed my arms – it was cold as Christmas – and to stop myself from trembling, I felt the bandage around my chest again.

The look on the nurses and doctors' face told me everything. I was just a kid to them. They took pity on me. The shame came back when they did. Fits you so well, girlie. They talked to me as if I was a child who needs comforting. The worse thing was that they weren't wrong. By the end of the day, after all those check-ups and x-rays, there was nothing but three ugly bruises. I remembered getting bruises when Daddy shot me to get me used to it – yet I laughed them off. I was still holding back tears when the doctor in charge of me gave me a lollipop. And I took it. And I ate it. Shame.

Taking a sip of my protein milkshake, I swallowed it along with the medicine prescribed to me by the doctor. It felt wrong to depend on the doctor's medicine, but I had to get better. I couldn't stop. I remembered a few more things. Things that were called routines. Daddy invented a few for me, and I'd learnt many of them from the masters Daddy brought me to.

A right and a left, a low kick, high kick – I couldn't kick very high. My hip began hurting when I tried that, and the bruises! The bruises were holding me back. Couldn't even keep my balance. I nearly fell on my butt, and I could almost hear the laughter, people laughing at me. I continued, but the next one was even harder, a high kick, but I had to swing around. I gave up. I couldn't remember much after that anyway. It was different back then. Daddy was there to take my blows. Dummies were another way. I needed help, and I thought about Dave. But I wasn't sure if I could scare him anymore.

The Next Day…

"Dave! Dave, wait, can we chat? Please." I called out to him. He was at the sidewalk just out of school. He didn't reply, and he didn't even look at me. "Dave, we need to talk." I repeated as I caught up to him. He was stopping a cab, showing off the freedom he's had since Tuesday. He opened the door to the back, almost as if he was ignoring me. For a scary moment, I thought he would leave me behind, but he turned to me.

"Get in the cab. Metre's running." He wouldn't even say my name, like it was cursed or something. When he looked at me, it was with those indifferent eyes, not like before, when I was hurt. He was mad, or upset, or disappointed. It felt like all three of them. He was giving me something I couldn't get rid of with my grenade. I had time to think about how I controlled him, and it didn't feel good. I couldn't get anything out of him that way. I couldn't get what I used to have back from before.

I did as he said, getting into the cab before him. We didn't talk in the cab. I didn't want the driver to know we were superheroes. Then there's Dave, who was mad, upset and disappointed. I didn't even ask where we were going. It was like last time after the fair, except he was the angry one. I remembered how I acted that time. Another thing to be ashamed of. I couldn't believe how I was like. Was this how growing up was like? Being afraid of your old self?

For half an hour, we sat in silence that way, until we got to some other place in the city with houses like ours. After paying the driver and getting out, he leaned back against a nearby lamp post, just standing there. I was just beside him, doing nothing. Hoping that he would talk to me. "Dave? What are we doing here?"

"What do you want?" Dave asked as he was just staring at a house. I had no idea who lives there. It looks old, like a place where old people lived in.

"I need your help, Dave." I said, looking at where he was staring at. My brother pulled a newspaper out from his bag, and started reading it, or at least I think he was reading it.

"Yeah? With what?" He said absent-mindedly. He was hiding behind the newspaper, but I could see his eyes shifting towards the house once in a while. Then it came to me; he was staking out, just like what I did to him before.

"I need help with training." I said. He wasn't even looking at me. I wanted him to look at me so bad. At the house, someone came out of the door, an Asian guy with moustache and beard on his chin. He wasn't someone I knew. He put a finger over his lips, telling me to shut up. The Asian man walked down the path of his house to the sidewalk, casted a glance at me. I waved at him, and he smiled at me before walking away. It was as if Dave knew how far away he was before trashing his newspaper and following the Asian man. "I'm having trouble training alone. I need your help."

He didn't reply immediately, making me nervous. We walked a distance across the neighbourhood, following Dave's man, and he wasn't talking. An idea came to me, something that could speed things up, "And we could team up, Dave. Like Batman and Robin." I couldn't even figure what I just said after saying it – who's Batman and Robin? Superheroes? But at least it got Dave to look at me, even if it was for a second. I caught his attention.

Dave chuckled before replying. He sounded bitter, like he couldn't trust me and take me seriously because I was a kid. "Nobody wants to be Robin."

"Really? Because I am. I'm saying we should be partners, Dave. Like- like the dynamic duo." He took another glance at me. It was working. "I know you want it, Dave, the way you look at me sometimes..." I teased him a little further. I was never much into negotiating, but spending a month being a normal little girl was its own training, even if it wasn't much. He took another glance at me again. He was melting.

"I'm in the NFL, Mindy, and I have a team now, you know that, right?" He said, tightening up again.

"But it's not enough, is it, Dave? I know the way you've been looking at me, Dave." I tried again, but he wasn't looking at me anymore. I was losing him again, and it wasn't the first time. I hated the feeling. I didn't want to lose him. "Don't you want to go back to the good old times again, Dave? You'll never be alone again. I'll always be there for you." I slipped my hand into his. He seemed surprised, because he looked at me again, with those eyes of his. I tightened my grip, but his was still limp, "I'll always watch your back."

He stopped. This time, he wasn't just taking peeks at me anymore. The way he was looking at me was priceless, with those needy eyes that reminded me of a puppy's I saw downtown, the way he couldn't resist smiling before looking away. "And you'll do anything I say?"

"Anything." I replied. I had him. I couldn't believe it, but I had him. He stuck out a hand. I knew what it meant. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled my grenade out and handed it to him. He tightened his grip and smiled. We continued following the Asian man, but this time holding hands, together. For the first time in a long time, I felt happy, really happy. I'd been doing this all wrong, all along. I smiled, and it felt good.

…

Mindy wanted me to train her. She wanted to be partners. I could have sworn it should be the other way around. But in the end, it didn't matter. We were together again, and it wasn't a one-sided relationship. It was almost just like before, but with her old self creeping back slowly. I wanted to blow her off, but that wouldn't do any good. I couldn't call Dr. Paul and get her back to Jameson Psychiatry Institute – she'd just blow herself up, heck I know I would if I knew I'd spend a year in a funny farm. I couldn't leave her alone either – she'd just get herself hurt, or even killed.

If anything, it was a chance for me to supervise her, the way I was supposed to. It was a chance for me to be her brother again, just with a small twist. Maybe things might even work out this way, I wouldn't know. Dr. Paul could have done a really thorough job, wiping away every single trace of The Demoness out of her. For once, I allowed myself to hope that Mindy could be herself again without relapsing. But should I let her take the risk? It wouldn't be very responsible for me now, would it? On the other hand, it wouldn't be right to take it all away from her, what she had been training for all her life, what her father did for her, died for her so she could continue in that direction. I didn't know what to do. The question hung in my head the way my costume did when I ordered it.

Ronin took a bus. We followed him. I'd long ago figured out where he lived by stalking him. His story was a fishy one – trying to get his brother out of the Chinese triad, and he decided to do it by joining us. It sounded far too convenient, and movie-like. I knew I had to do this, following him around for a bit. I couldn't do it every day – and he wasn't the only suspect I had (and everyone's a suspect) – but it was better than sitting around and cooking in paranoia. Action – what superheroes do, and it also happens to be the genre of most superhero movies and comics.

It was a soul-rending half hour ride, but Mindy was already fulfilling her promise, making sure I was never alone. We couldn't talk about our training or plans in front of everyone, but we had each other, and her grenade was in my pocket, never to be used. When Ronin alighted, we did the same. Followed him to a supermarket, pretending to be shopping like him. We spied on him, noting that he was getting a sewing kit, instant noodles and toilet paper. I couldn't think of any evil use for those. The supermarket was his only pit stop before taking the same bus in the reverse direction.

We didn't follow him. Instead, I was taking Mindy elsewhere. With the time I had following Ronin around, I'd already decided what I must do for Mindy, and it was for the best. Taking a cab, I took her down to Safehouse D, the perfect place for training. It was located in a slightly more luxurious and spacious apartment, a premium safehouse specialising in making superheroes. It was outfitted with a huge carpeted area in the middle for sparring and martial arts practice, pull-up bars, gym equipment, punchbags and a huge store of training equipment that could train an army in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Mindy was in her old jogging attire before I knew it – she'd found them in her room here, dusty but useable. We met in the centre of what was essentially a training hall. I was ready when I shrugged off my jacket. I'd learnt a lot of things with Colonel Stars and Stripes, and one of them was to be prepared in any circumstances, and all it took was attitude.

"Hit me." I ordered Mindy. Immediately, her face changed. Nervousness. Confusion. I could read her easily. She looked like a kid in heaps of trouble.

"But you're my bro-" She tried to explain herself, but I didn't let her. Before she could finish her sentence, I slapped her, hard. It was all part of the plan. I had to do what was good for Mindy. Now, she was looking at me wide-eyed, in disbelief. Better than expected – at least she wasn't crying a bucket.

"Dave, what are you-" She did it again, and I repeated myself, gave her an even harder slap, a harder lesson, just to drive home the point. She was clutching her cheek by this time, close to tears. Only a little girl.

"Act like a little girl, get slapped like a little girl." I tried to be a little rough. I figured that it would keep her on her toes, let her know that she wasn't her old self, not by a long shot. My adopted sister sort of froze there, hands on her cheek, looking like she was going to break into tears. I almost didn't expect her to lunge at me, flinging her fists at me.

She was fast, but not like how she used to be. I'd seen her in action a few times; back when her father was burning, and then through cameras after that. I'd fought her a few times. She was blindingly quick, the next best thing to Flash, and the only thing was, Flash was just a comic book character. She could throw a flurry of moves in the time I took to swing my baton once. She could catch the electrodes of my taser mid-air with her iron fan. It took a few broken bones and internal injuries to slow her down.

Now, I was dodging the first few punches she threw at me easily. She tried to kick me in the knee or the shin, and she caught me, but it didn't even hurt much at all. When I threw an open palm right in her face, she didn't even notice until it hits. My next move, a charge up and knee in the guts, did her in. It took her off her feet, and the next thing I knew, she was hugging her chest in a foetal position. Her bruises from Tuesday.

We went a few more rounds after her first defeat. It became a cycle of failure for her. Step one: Dodge or block Mindy's predictable moves. Step two: Give her a hard one and watch her fall. Step three: Leave her alone on the floor to writhe and cry in pain. Thank you, Colonel Stars and Stripes! His training paid off pretty well! Other than her feeble kick in my shin, she did clock in a punch in my kidney when she finally tried something new. It hurts like hell, and I discovered a rather sizeable bruise later, but I couldn't let her know that. Instead, I decided to kick her when she's down, for her own good: "Amazing work! I think I should call you Miss-Girl instead."

Her reaction? Confusing, to say the least. She ran off the mat and locked herself in the toilet, and when I approached the door, I could hear sniffles. When I called out to her, there was no reply. I tried a second time, and she screamed for me to leave her alone. It took about ten minutes for her to stop sulking and leave the toilet, still sniffling and rubbing her eyes. "I'm sorry." She came up to me and apologised, though I wasn't sure what for. I stood up from her desk, where I was sitting behind, expecting her to want a hug for comfort.

And there it was. She came to me for a hug, and I gave it to her. She needed it. Things were going according to plan, "You know, it's not wrong if you want out of this for good…"

"No, Dave." She said, removing herself from me. Her eyes searched mine as we stood there, looking at each other. It was like playing a game of telepathic chess, "It's fine. I know you're testing me. I'm sorry I sulked." She wiped a straggling tear from her cheek, "I'm ready for another round." It wasn't exactly what I expected or plan to happen. She was throwing my plans into disarray again.

"Erm… Mindy, I'm serious. I'm not testing you, I mean, if you want out…" I tried to be as sincere as it was humanly possible to express, because I was. It was part of the plan.

"Really, Dave, stop testing me! I'm good, I won't quit, ever! We're partners for life!" Mindy began to smile, probably under the impression that I was playing a game with her. Well, in a way, I was but… Even that part of my plan was thrown out of the belt. She was stubborn as hell – if only she'd forgotten how to be stubborn… "Another round?"

"Nah, we've been at it for an hour." I overstated and took the backdoor instead, only there was no backdoor, just a hole I punched in the wall – I'd expected my plan to work, but in the end it was a Goldberg contraption, stopped by Mindy's persistence. It was destined to fail like a supervillain. I would have to try harder to get her to stop being Hit-Girl. For good. "We're just warming up today, Mindy." I was lucky as it was that we made up in the end, after all that Stephen King level madness with the grenade – but I wanted more. I wanted things to go further back to how it was. It was tempting to work with Hit-Girl again, but I couldn't risk it, no, it would be irresponsible…

Meanwhile…

If Ralphie calls, it could only mean one thing: Something was up. Not that things were ever down these days. These were tough times for me and my brother-in-arms. Sometimes, I would catch myself day-dreaming about the past, about being on Frank's payroll. Sure, it wasn't pretty then; the business had always been messy – no questions asked, just get it done and mop the floor – but at least I got to make some dough without too much trouble. Then Frank went up like a fireworks show, the biggest firecracker of them all, well, after half a hundred went up first.

It wasn't over even after that. The rest of Frank's family didn't last very long. Angie, Frank's broad, ruled for a few months. The guys hated it, but at least there was someone up there calling the shots, even if Angie herself hated the business. Well, the good news was she ruled only for a few months. The bad news was everyone else died with her. Whoever survived longer than Frank died that day – those who happened to be in the right place at the right time, such as the guys who were making runs, helping with business, called in sick or… there was even one guy who happened to be in the can with a bad case of chilli poisoning. He came up to the penthouse too late only to find everyone but Chris dead.

Chris himself died long before his mother. He did a few of his own gigs before becoming one of Demoness' first victim. I was twice as lucky as the rest. Well, me and a few others. About nine of us. That was everyone when Hit-Girl, Kick-Ass and Demoness were done exterminating us. I was away in Europe taking care of a few loose ends when it happened.

And when it was over, we were left to do our own thing. Ralphie didn't take over immediately. Sal and Sofia Bertollini, along with about three other muscles, gave up on the business, leaving me and three others to run whatever was left when the dust settled. Even when he took over the D'Amico business, only two words came from him since: 'lie low'. So we restarted his business quiet-like, hired just enough muscles and did a few odd jobs here and there. I found it funny that the new boss didn't want things to pick up again, but then again there were those other four families who were still in business, paying tribute to him.

CITY OF NEW YORK. CORRECTION DEPARTMENT. RIKERS ISLAND. HOME OF NEW YORK'S BOLDEST. The words flashed by as I was being driven towards the big house. Home of New York's Boldest was right. Ralphie was in there. Been there for half his life. He ran the family's business when he was very young, and got busted in the late 80s for twenty counts of murder, drug possession and a whole lot of drug possession. He had a life sentence, or a few, on him, but that didn't stop him from poking his nose into Frank's business ever since he started running his cell.

Leaving the SUV driven by a hired hand I brought on board, I approached the maximum security big house. The place was huge. I'd lost count of how many gates and security checkpoints I had to go through before meeting Ralphie – and the looks did not disappoint. Before this, the last time I saw him was a year ago, when I was escorting Angie D'Amico to meet him. This was the third time. He'd hardly changed, unlike the rest of the inmates – hard time was supposed to change people. It was the favours he'd been pulling in to turn it into his palace. He was a natural, and he knew lots of people to make things easy.

There were two guards flanking me. I had no idea how Ralphie arranged for them in the first place. It was my turn to sit on the chair before him. The first time I saw him, it was Frank, and the second, it was Angie. He didn't speak immediately. Instead, he was sizing me up with his eyes, which reminded me of the snake in Eden's for some reason. "You must be the guy who's been patching things up for me. What was it they call you again?" He sounded content and relaxed, despite being in jail. He'd forgotten my name. He had more important ones to remember, I guess, and I could bet exactly which names were on his mind.

"The name's Javier, boss." I replied straight and clean. With Ralphie D'Amico, it was the only way. To talk any other way would be suicide, especially if it goes zig-zag or sideways.

"Right. I've been hearing lots about you, Javier. You're not going soft, are you?" His eyes shifted, inspected every muscle on my face. He was just a few steps short of being Houdini with my mind. With him, a poker face would be useless.

"I'm just doing things the way you want things done, boss." The only way was to be natural and honest, or at least as close to it as possible. It wasn't the first time I had to talk my way out of things, but it was my first with Ralphie, and he was a tough one, "Lying low and avoiding trouble."

"Right. But things are going to change." For now, he was buying it. From what the others said though, Ralphie doesn't buy anything. He tends to window shop. That was how some of them ended up swimming with the fishes with the new concrete slippers he bought them.

"Wait a second, boss, don't they record these things?" I whispered to Ralphie, suddenly aware that I was in the big house. It came to me a little late – the new family's head had that effect, making us forget that he was talking to us in a prison. It was his palace.

"It's fine, the warden's a pal." Ralphie replied, totally at ease, and soon, we were back to business. The jail was just a small inconvenience. I looked back, and saw the big house's chief there, small and pot-bellied, somehow looking smaller than all of us, "listen, I'm moving things up. I'm not going to let those costumed freaks suck up my dough, not when I have some powerful stuff coming in. They've already taken out two of my fronts. That's where you come in, Javier."

"What d'you want me to do, boss? Scare 'em off or something?" I said, and tried to throw in some spare initiative. I knew he'd like that, but the moment it came out of my mouth, I was beginning to regret it. You're not going soft, are you? The funny thing was, I never really changed. I was never really into the whole murder thing in the business. Just that when Ralphie starts noticing potential underbosses like me, he had a certain expectation for them.

"They deserve more than that, don't you think?" I could feel Ralphie tensing up. I eyed the guards flanking me. I didn't trust them. It felt as if one of them might pull a switchblade on me anytime. They belonged to Ralphie's personal guard – completely and utterly loyal, ready to take out the trash, good at it too. It felt like a switch I had no business flipping on, and now it was stuck, "They killed my family, Javier." I didn't feel like arguing. I didn't feel like ending up somewhere at the bottom of a lake, or in pieces down in the sewers. It helped that I understood what he meant. Everything I did was for my wife and children, so they won't have to starve the way I used to with my wife back then. For once, there was some kind of a connection between us.

"I want you to give those wannabes what they want." The Boss said with a smirk on his face. It was never good when he does that. The only thing was which direction he's sending the tidal wave in. "The whole superhero package. You understand what I'm saying?" I couldn't really get what he meant, so I shook my head and said no. There was less risk in saying no this time – it was me trying to do my job rather than being a smart aleck around him.

"I want you to put together a team of elite enforcers. Our own SWAT team to deal with those wannabes. Supervillains, Javier." Ralph said as he straightened his back and put his hands on the table.

"Supervillains?" I knew asking questions would mean asking for trouble, but I had it. I was just doing my job, nothing more, nothing less, and Ralph would know it. He'd always know, and even if he didn't, he'd make sure it didn't bother him no longer, permanent-like. I'd never known Ralph to be much of a comic reader, or someone who likes that kind of stuff, "like in costumes?"

"Yeah, you're getting it. A bit of irony would go a long way." The smirk on Ralph's face came on again. As it turns out, he wasn't much of a comic reader. "Now, for those special three, I'm going to put in a personal touch. I've got a few boys for that. They'll know the details. They'll call you within the day."

I don't know what's worse. That Ralphie wanted three kids dead or that I was helping him with this. Or that these three kids were killers themselves, and it looked like two of them weren't even 12. The business was getting a whole lot stranger these days. For once, I wasn't even sure if I could do it anymore, even if it was for my wife and three kids.