18:06
Chapter 2: R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Theme Song: Christina Grimmie: Not Fragile
When Cinderblock, Plasmus, and Overload got back to Slade's hideout, I tossed the disk up into the air and caught it in my hand. "So, Slade, what's this thing for anyway?" I tossed it up again and he snatched it from mid-air. "It's the key to all of Jump City's lethal information." I hopped onto a high chair in the kitchen of his hidden abode. "Lethal information? What, did the mayor cheat on his wife or something? Are too many people too happy for their own good?" I joked. Slade looked at me with a bland look. "It has all the information of all the citizens and city, including financial and slightly personal intel." Cocking my eyebrow, I laid my head on my hand, "Seriously? Why kind of idiot would give that to a bunch of pre-teen idiots playing hero?"
"A fearful one," he answered and pulled a bottle of wine from a locked cabinet over the counter. "Fearful? Might I ask of what?" I inquired and gratefully accepted the chute glass filled with intoxicating red wine. "Would you feel confident the secrets of the city were kept in the hands of a police force who more than half the time are knocked out cold by the thief or in the hands of an 'elite and experienced' group of "pre-teen idiots playing hero"?" I chuckled into my glass and take a small sip. "You make a good point. Jump City should really step up their game if the smallest thing to make them give over the heart of the city is a little green brat I threatened to 'kill'. It's obvious they can't call a bluff. I mean, seriously, anyone with true experience could have seen from my posture that the most I'd probably give the boy was a nick on the neck."
"You don't kill?" Slade asked me and poured himself another glass. "I don't," I said in a strict voice and looked at him over my glass. "So, don't you even think about sending me out on a kill mission. Those days are over for me." Slade looked at me with a steady look. "I won't," he promised quietly. Nodding, I checked my watch and hopped down from the chair. "I'd best be going to sleep. I've got tracking to do tomorrow. Goodnight, Slade." I put my glass in the sink and slapped him on the butt as I walked out. I howled with laughter as he looked after me flabbergasted.
THE NEXT DAY
A morning of meditation had calmed me for the day, or for at least a slight portion. All day I'd visited shops, showing a picture of my brother to people and made phone calls to local villains in hopes of tracking my bastard brother down, but it was to no avail at all. "Dammit!" I yelled and threw my phone on the ground. "Ash, where could you be?" I laid my head on the table in the kitchen and whined. "Slade should be helping me with this; he said he'd help me if I joined him." "I never said I'd help you; only that I could," a voice from the shadows of the room said. "Slade?" He emerged from the darkness, the slithering shadows slithering off him. "Having difficulties I see?" I sat up and glared at him. "Hell yeah I'm having difficulties. What's this about you not helping me?" He stood next to me now, looking down through his dual colored mask. "I never said I wouldn't help you and I never said that I would. I merely stated that I could help you."
"Well, how about you do help me and stop being a cryptic jackass?" With a growl, he took me by my shirt and hoisted me up. "Now listen, I could have you killed or worse if you disrespect me as such again. I don't care if you are a fragile, little girl bent on revenge because of something your stupid brother did. You will mind your elders. Do you hear me?" I glared into the eyes of his mask. Swinging my leg back and then propelling it forward, I swiftly kicked him in the groin. He fell to the ground in pain, holding his beloved jewels. I bent down to his eyelevel and snatched him by the collar. "Now, you listen to me. Unless you want much more than a kick to your sack, I suggest you not do that anymore. Now let me get something straight with you. You are not my elder. Unless you suddenly start to shrivel up into some old geezer, I'll damn right treat you as I please if you treat me how you just did. You will respect me or I'm out the door. And you will help me find my brother. Got that?" When I didn't hear an answer I punched him again in the groin. "I said, got that?"
With a painful grunt, he nodded. "Good," I said and threw him back on the floor. Before walking away I stepped on his chest, pressing my foot down slightly. "Oh, and the next time you call me a 'fragile, little girl', expect to wake up with a vagina and a pencil shoved up your ass."