The Spiralling

Chapter 12: Connections

It didn't take very long for Aldan to find ways in searching for his displaced family. For one, he did try visiting his neighbours to see if they know anything on the whereabouts of the Bonitus family- this yielded no results as none of the figures of his young life was around anymore. His friends and elders were either dead or had moved away, abandoning their life in this suburban village.

Alas, after going from door to door within a radius of three houses deep, inviting only ridicule, curious stares and at best no results from his questions, Aldan returns to his old home to rest from his fruitless inquiries, having acquired nothing but frustration. Without a more straightforward source of information he decided upon searching his old home for any clues to where his wife and unseen child had gone.

The letters he had accumulated over the years from his limited contact with his wife and child provided nothing- only meagre information on how they got through their days, how she never remarried, how they were close to poverty time and again, how she became pregnant on that one night of grave mistake he decided to return home to her twelve years ago when times had gotten difficult in the academy, and how his daughter was born half an albino, with red eyes but just enough pigment in the skin to prevent cancer from the sun. His only picture of her was twelve years outdated, depicting her and his baby girl. They lend no secrets to him.

"Michael, search the kitchen, I shall start with the main chamber." Pointing his apprentice absently the kitchen, Aldan started opening drawers, looking under tables while his apprentice skitters off to help him with the other room. The living room had numerous furniture so it was filled with hope to the Grandmaster.

After searching through half the room there was still nothing to be had, and the old man's patience was beginning to run short as his most desired was again so close and yet so far. Still, he kept to his gentle ways, as anything, even trash, found in his home of old was a relic to his eyes, a relic that would connect him to his family. It was only at the very last counter that he found a few objects that could benefit him in his quest. There was a family photo in the last drawer of the last counter, its frame splintered and glass smashed- it was a picture of his wife with his daughter who had grown up to about ten. The dates at the corner of the photo confirmed it. By then, she was in her forties, and his near-albino daughter, a shapely young girl with red eyes and flowing white hair. She was apparently following in his footsteps and tradition as she was posing with a long sword in her hands.

Underneath the picture, which he kept for his own under his cloak, was an old phone book, the prize of his search. Opening its mouth, he found numbers that could be used to phone his in-laws, who may know more than his 'new neighbours'.

It was then that a delayed thought entered his mind- considering the looks between his opponent in the battle of the nearby alleyway and his unmet daughter, he was shocked at the similarity- the white hair, the red eyes, the pale skin. Few individuals had Albinism and even fewer would know how to handle a pair of far eastern swords so well. Moreover, the age of the girl he fought earlier was about twelve, and the Grandmaster's daughter was born twelve years ago. The Demoness was his daughter!

The force of his conclusion was quite shocking, for it would have meant that he had already met his daughter, just not in the fashion that he desired. Feeling a sudden lethargy in his legs from his epiphany, he sat himself down on a ruined couch, his mind stuck on the image of the Demoness, or his daughter. He was in emotional disarray, and his heart was split into two camps. He was appalled that his daughter had become a murderer at such a shockingly young age, yet at the same time he could feel pride at how she had handled her twin blades and even defeated him in a sense, no matter how dishonourable a tactic she used.

Now that he had, in a sense, found his young daughter, he was left with a missing wife, and the phonebook he found was a key to solving this. Standing up briskly with an energized sense of purpose, he called, "Michael! It's time we go!" His apprentice, heeding his call, came walking out of the kitchen with something in his hand that looks like a piece of paper.

"Sir, I found this." Michael said as he handed over the piece of paper to his master. It was completely a shade of pale yellow, that is, until Aldan turned it over. It was an old photograph of the Grandmaster with his wife. They were both young then, full of life and hope- now, he was despairing over the state of his family, how his wife was then missing and how his daughter had turned to a life of crime and sin. He was full of pain and frustration, something only his life in the world of swordsmanship had been able to anesthetize until now.

"I thank you, but I have found much that may lead me to my wife, hurry!" Flapping his cloak as he turned to run out, the Grandmaster took his leave with his apprentice following- His wife may well be a phone call away.

Meanwhile...

I've had my suspicions all along, if you think I'm that sort of good-hearts but naive kind of superhero. Up until before Marcus was gunned down, I had kind of suspected Mindy Macready of being the Demoness, considering that she was probably the only young girl with skills that would make even Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris back away. Sure, there were some characteristics of Demoness that may not quite match, but tell me, where else would you find a gun-toting, knives-wielding, foul-mouthed little girl who revel in killing thugs?

I was an idiot that I suspected my God-sister of turning to the dark side of the force, and I'm glad I was an idiot this time around. I was glad that she was there in that ward crying rather than on another rooftop having a fight to the death with me, because if it was Mortal Kombat between us, I'd be the one eating the fatality for sure.

After paying Sergeant Marcus a visit, I accompanied Mindy on her way back home. I was in a taxi with her, on her way back to the suburbs. I felt uneasy being with her at this stage, as if the tension inside her was infectious- though at least she was more passive than when she was in a bullying mood. After her crying episode at the ward, she was still pale and downcast. Ever since leaving the hospital, she hadn't made a single noise, or cuss about something that pisses her off, which was quite unusual for a girl like her.

"Mindy..." I whispered to her, trying to be as respectful to her losses as much as possible, for both my sake and her mental well-being. Putting a hand on her shoulder for comfort, I tried calming her down as she was still distressed from the looks of it- she was just out of tears to weep out's the way I see it, "Mindy, he'll be fine..." Still, she was as silent and motionless as rock.

"Mindy, we need to come up with a plan to stop her before she hurts anyone else..." I said carefully without revealing any details to the driver. I've come quite a long way since my humble and shamelessly naive beginnings. I was trying to distract her from Marcus and well, it was our job as the defenders of our society anyway, "Mindy..?" I squeezed her shoulder gently, but she shrugged it off and knocked it away violently.

"Fuck you! Don't you think I'm thinking!" The ten-year-old screamed at me- it shocked me a little, how she made the transition from soft, vulnerable girl to Hit-Girl again, but I was glad. You know what they say, a little anger's good for a heroine, better than despair as long as it doesn't break any of my bones. The Terminator would agree with me if no one else would.

"Alright, alright! I'm just trying to help..." I was in verbal retreat before there was another period of silence. Thankfully we reached home before there was another unnerving fifteen minutes of it. Mindy got out of the taxi almost before it stopped completely, furious, and stomped to her door steps before she could hear the taxi driver mutter 'crazy kid' at her under his breath. I followed behind her after paying the taxi fare, doing my best to avoid the 'lousy elder brother' look the same driver was giving me.

"I'm thinking we should go to the library and go on patrol more often at night..." I tried to be the decision maker, but all I knew were second grade amateur rubbish. Despite having dropped out of practice for six months, I doubted then that she had forgotten everything she had learnt for half her decade-long life- she certainly hadn't forgotten her real dad and the trail of pain following his death, so...

"Oh, and what will that do? Fuck, I got it all planned out." Mindy said vaguely as she opened the door to her home. It was then that I remembered- I had given the old dude who calls himself Grandmaster Aldan ways of contacting me- through my e-mail, Facebook and Friendster accounts, though sometimes I worry from the looks of things that he may not know what they were.

"If we're lucky the Grandmaster'd help us." If we are very lucky, I was thinking. Mindy froze at the base of the staircase as she heard the name of New York city's newest addition to her pool of superheroes, as though she recognised the sword-wielding professor-like fellow.

"Grand... Master?" She repeated Aldan's title. From what I could tell by looking at her back, she seemed deep in thought, as though there was a Godzilla versus King Kong struggle going on in her head, "Grand... Master..."

"Oh, you've probably never seen him before, I've never heard of him until-" Before I could end the struggle in Mindy's head, she was able to do it herself. Good old Mindy was always independent.

"Saw him on the net yesterday night." She said abruptly, at this point I was like 'what the fuck', considering the way she was acting- she had never been so slow in remembering stuff before, not to mention the way she stood stock-still. After that, she began rubbing her temple, and she seem faint, "God-damn headache..."

But then again, I was guessing it was just her grief getting to her, "Anyway, after hearing about Demoness, I made plans against her, you know, just to screw around and have fun..." Like a mad scientist eager to show off his newest Frankenstein 2000 to the world, Mindy darted upstairs and I followed her, as always, unable to keep up. By the time I had reached the door to her pink-and-yellow shaded room, she was unpacking something from her luggage. Peering over her rounded shoulder as I came in, I noticed what appears to be a large folded map.

"I thought you were on vacation? With your friend's family?" I had to ask, as there was some suspicion going on inside of me, telling me that some weird shit was going down, except that there probably wasn't any- maybe it was just my care for Mindy. Needless to say, she was a bad God-sister.

"Cut the crap, I did it in my free time!" She was screaming again, banging her fist against the floor. I had clearly invaded her ego, or something else. I was never really a people person. Her anger was raging again- probably something to hide the girl side of her. On second thought, I wasn't thinking, which was why I decided to hang back, and let the heat simmer off a bit.

The whole morning was spent on discussing our plan to weed out the Demoness tonight. On the map were areas where Hit-Girl thinks she might reside in- and there were so many circles and crosses, and I knew then that it was going to be a long night, and our operation might stretch till morning even with an extra pair of hands.

"How do you know she'd be in one of those places?" I asked her after our early lunch, which consisted of hand-made sandwiches and hot chocolate. By then, Mindy was calmer, but then again, she was still the same irritable girl.

"My sources, deal with it." Was all she gave me before we dived back into preparing for our search in the night. I spent the entire afternoon and evening becoming Mindy's assistant in her warm-up training. At the very least, between her profanity-laden orders and high-pitched grunts, I was uplifted by her superhero display of powers. It reminded me of the old days, of when we first met amongst drug-peddling gangsters, and how we conspired against our first supervillain. It was like a warm pat on the back Mindy-style, when I was knocked back against the wall after sustaining one of her flying kicks through a thick pillow which I improvised as a training aid.

I could only imagine what I would have to go through to defeat Demoness in an epic battle of wits, strength and every other aspect discussable in an RPG or D&D game, but all I ever needed to know was that we would run her down eventually, what with the three of us in the loop.