The Spiralling
Chapter 20: Face Off
"Where's Mindy?" I was straight to the point- I'm just not one of those supporters of the sort of clichéd last chat that every protagonist and villain would always seem to share. I couldn't wait any longer anyway- Mindy could be bleeding half to death. Over the months, I had grown so close to her, and for her to be taken away just like that on an average night of crime-fighting was quite a shock to my system.
"Somewhere close." A maniacal grin was forming on Demoness' face again. It was something I can never get used to- to think that months ago, I thought the Joker was the most demented and disturbing person I had ever seen. The truth's much stranger than fiction, "Doesn't matter, you will die, and I will kill her after that, slow... Steady... And fucking surely."
"Nevaeh! Stop this madness right now! We could always talk, please!" My elderly companion was almost pleading, half parenting a wayward child, half wanting to just end the killing spree and reign of terror as an enforcer of the law.
"Shut the fuck up, Whitey! I know who my father was!" The half-albino snapped back, barely leaving space for Aldan to breathe after he spoke, "Now which one of you here wants to die first?"
"Nevaeh-" Aldan, as always, wanted to continue on with his diplomacy, but from the looks of his face, he was out of luck and his card game was totalled. I could see it in his face- a mix of panic over the total lack of logic and compassion in his daughter, anxiety, loss of words, and utter, merciless sadness.
I was surprised at the sudden other mutation in me- the increased EQ. Before this whole mess with Demoness and the death of Red Mist started, I had no idea at all how people work- A contribution factor towards my need for the Kick-Ass uniform to gain a chance with Katie Deauxma. I guess it came with the experience of jousting with foes and teaming up with friends.
"Eeny-" Back to reality, the little imp was ignoring her father, and as she was choosing between us who to start scrambling around with first, she was getting ready. Throwing her left Katana up and catching it, holding it underhanded, she continued the fatal Russian Roulette, using her eyes as the spinning revolver, "Meeny-"
"Miny," Her red eyes shifted between the two of us. They weren't just throwing daggers, they were shooting sniper bullets. Her glance had just left me and it fell on the Grandmaster, "Moe!" But it returned to me with a vengeance. Nevaeh was obviously aiming at me, seeing that I was the 'last soul to take'. With that, she made the charge at us, and after looking at eath other, we did the same.
She had guillotines for arms and pile drivers for legs- I had felt them before. I was brave at first and I'd bet many of you would say stupid or foolhardy, but I was the complete opposite when I got close enough to her. A five meter radius was too close for comfort.
Grandmaster went ahead with it, and immediately he was getting parried non-stop and he had to keep blocking with his buckler and ornate long sword. He was on the defensive. He would have been proud of Demoness if she wasn't for real. I knew I had to help, the way Demoness was delivering one slash after another, rearing and spinning to deal blows one more devious and powerful than the previous one, "Get out of my way, fuck!"
"I knew I couldn't be more selfish, so I jumped right in. As skilled as Aldan was, he would never allow himself to harm his own daughter. Conversely, Demoness loves to inflict pain on anyone, and they can be crooks, strangers or me.
As soon as I stepped into the ring, a Katana was coming my way- it was Demoness spinning in mid-air, swinging her sword to decapitate me. I barely dodged it, and I was instantly afraid again. I was paralysed from doing anything but to watch out for the next blow- even with my vest and helmet, I feel practically naked.
An unexpected straight kick was directed at me, but I was able to block it with my batons- being a coward has its rewards. Thankfully, Aldan was there to distract her from giving me a killing combo or something. He tried shield-bashing her, but with a slight twist of her body it missed totally, then with a counterattack she delivered a full slash in his stomach. Somehow, despite the breastplate Aldan was wearing, Nevaeh's Katana was able to slash through the steel as if it was aluminium foil. I could see a flash of red from where I was pushed back by Demoness's kick.
"Felt that?" Demoness taunted as Grandmaster was stumbling backwards, his left hand clutching his bleeding stomach. This drove me forwards to defend my new friend, and somehow beat her into submission to save an old friend, Mindy. I aimed an overhead blow to her head but caught her in the left shoulders instead. It was better than nothing, considering that I failed to even touch her in our previous duel on the rooftop. There was a girlish yelp, and Demoness retreated slightly, quite stunned, "You'll die for that!"
With that, she charged forward, leapt forward still in a blur, and delivered a spinning horizontal slash at me with her twin blades. Ducking to avoid the fatal blow, I swung my right baton on my knees, but I was out of luck. She was too fast, and before I knew it, she gave me another spinning blow on the ground, aimed at my head. The helmet protected me, but I was knocked over to my side, the force rocking my mind and for a long time, I could see nothing but whiteness.
If it weren't for Aldan, I would have been dead. My vision recovered just enough to witness him lunging at his daughter when she least expected it, knocked her down with her father pinning her down on top. I could barely sit up- my brain was just too scrambled. It isn't everyday that you barely survived a decapitation by taking a sword to the temple.
"Get up! Kick-Ass!" Aldan cried as I was still recovering from what would have been a fatal blow had it not been for my father, "I've held her down!" Beneath him was a struggling Demoness, who had lost her swords, as did her father who had to throw aside his sword for this.
Before I could do anything however, Demoness was somehow able to slip loose her right hand and she started punching Grandmaster in his medieval helmet-covered face. It didn't help that she had built-in knuckle dusters. She was able to deliver a few punches and jam her steel-tipped shoe into his deep slash wound. She was able to free herself as she forced Aldan aside by the pain from his stomach.
Unsheathing a combat knife, she rolled over to crouch above Grandmaster and savagely stabbed my friend in the chest. Surprisingly, it went quite deep- it sank down to the hilt into Aldan. I never knew my senior and adept superhero teammate was capable of screaming until then. It shocked me fully awake to hear him scream like never before. Grabbing both of my batons which weren't very far away, I got up and clumsily brought my right baton sideways at the unsuspecting Demoness, but apparently, she had eyes on the back of her head. Rolling away further to the left of my friend, she picked up one of her Katanas, before assuming a stylish kneeling position with her sword overhead, pointing at me Samurai style, "No more big daddy to save you now..." Another one of those impish grins- it never failed to deliver a cold wave at me.
It was me and her again, another duel, except this time, chances were she'd execute me and it would be game over after that. So here I am, my butt poking backwards and my sticks pointing forward, with my nemesis getting up into a fighting stance with her sword held low with both hands, ready to cut me in half from the waist. I was surprised how it all led up to this point, with me still surprisingly alive and well enough, even when the more capable people, namely everyone, was either dead below or wounded with me. So here I am on the rooftop, with a dying friend and many dead killer suits piled everywhere, a kid only half-ready to die for the denizens of New York. None of it mattered anyway, when the imp before me surged forward.
With another spin of her body, she delivered another horizontal slash, this time aimed at my waist. I was able to escape it this time by taking a few huge steps back. She continued swinging her sword at me in many various techniques that I couldn't care about except to avoid, and all the while, all I could do to live was to keep retreating, that was, until I was backed up against the ledge of the roof, "Still running, asshole?" She taunted as she lifted her samurai sword up while I panicked left, right, centre.
As she brought the deadliest type of sword in the world down upon me, I jumped sideways, barely avoiding the cut that would have split my face into two- it was then that I started feeling the effects of carrying too much gear. No wonder Bruce Wayne decided on a lighter suit in the second movie, "You won't be running for long!" In a flash of a second, it got me thinking, why the hell am I chickening out? With my friend needing the ambulance soon and another somewhere tied up, probably half-dead at the tender age of 11, I was still running like a common page filler in a comic book. All I stood for an entire year, all came back to me in one shot, like a free movie download just completed.
"Hell I will!" I cried as I got up again and pointed my baton forward in a ready position.
"I am so going to enjoy this!" Demoness paused for a second to say, before flashing another one of her twisted smiles. I found myself unfazed this time by it, as if I had just mastered the energies of the universe or something. Even then, I was still smart enough not to go aggressive on her; it would just backfire. Like all the time, she started it first. Running forward, she gave a diagonal slash from the left down. Living up to my promise, I decided to stop running, so I twisted my body to avoid it. She aimed for my head next, but being much shorter than me, she had to throw an upwards slash at my head, so I ducked.
My confidence was soon broken however, when she did her matrix trick again- she was too blindingly fast that it was impossible to believe. Within the same second, she landed a cut on my stomach, but thankfully, modern technology and traditional parenting had protected my muscle bag from being chopped up. Instead, the cloth of my Kevlar vest was torn, and the trauma blade exposed. With another slice, she did the same to my chest before I could react and when I did by blocking with both my batons again in a cross-block, she broke one of them, cleanly cutting it in two.
With a fifth slice after a spin, I had to lean back to avoid having my head split into two horizontally. It was then that I decided to go on the offensive without knowing what gave me that idea. Lunging forward as she was recovering from her latest strike, I swung my baton but it was blocked she blocked it with her sword. Aiming a whack at her ghostly-white hair covered head, I missed again as she deftly dodged me. Swinging in the opposite direction did not help, and as I was adjusting myself after spending all my efforts on the offensive, the Demoness started again, taking advantage of the fact that I had opened myself up for another counterstrike.
The albino exploited it fully, and I knew full well what I had done to myself. I was prepared to die when a full swing was aimed at by chest, tearing away at the fabric and loosening the plate protecting my front so much that it fell off. I could feel a cut where my diaphragm was- the only thing I could be glad about was that my diaphragm was still there. It was only skin deep.
The only thing I could do was to salvage the situation, do some damage control. As the Katana was swung in an opposite direction at me, I backed away, my left arm shielding my head from the guillotine. I could feel the cold metal invading my upper arm. Before I could look up or fight back, I was given a hard kick in the knee which numbed my legs and another that knocked me off-balance and I crumbled back down to the floor- I was always well acquainted with the floors of my battlefield that I'm used to it. As soon as I hit the ground, exhausted to the max, totally wasted and bleeding, the Demoness laughed- there's no prize for guessing why.
"So bloody weak. So full of shit." The Demoness started insulting me. I was all beat up, so much that I could barely understand her at all, but with every word her meaning gets clearer, and more penetrative, "No surprise you were stabbed and knocked down by a car."
"Fuck you!" I was about as articulate as a grade school dropout as I was on the floor, utterly beaten. It was all I could say, and it wasn't what I cared about. I was more worried about how she knew about the incident.
"No surprise your 'friends' suffered from your fuck-ups." My wormtongue nemesis continued with her psychological warfare. As much as I want to brag about being resolute and hard emotionally as steel, the reality was way off. My blood boiled, but most of all she had me- there was guilt and pain curried in me. What she said was the truth and that was the depressing part. There was so much pain at one go that I was choking in it- coupled with my physical torment I was sitting ducks, like the Green Lantern without his ring.
How did she know? The magic question kept flashing in my head. At first, it was a puzzle as impossible as the Rubrik's Cube, but then it became obvious- she could have interrogated Mindy, used some kind of truth serum or cruel torture. How did she know? That question was just a flicker compared to the mountain of regret I had for the past, and I was squashed under that mountain.
Mindy had never gained anything ever since I came into her life. We met in the same apartment, fighting the same drug dealers. She saved my life and tried to hook up with me. She saw the potential in me, and told me so in my room. It was all a sad mistake. In the end, I brought Red Mist into their safehouse, got Big Daddy captured and nearly had Mindy killed.
I destroyed Mindy's life. Her father was killed, and in a way, so was Mindy. She was never the same after that. As if it wasn't enough, I dragged her into this superhero bullshit with the Demoness and she was the one who ended up paying the price- worse still, I had no idea what the price was. It could be death, it could be anything to do with a sadistic monster who came in the form of a twelve year old. Had I known any less, Demoness may well be Satan in disguise.
"Once a loser, always a loser." As she realised I wasn't talking, she went on to flesh out my innermost demons. The next thing I noticed, she was tightening her grip on the handle of her sword. I was immobilised not just because of my slash wounds, but also because of the old wounds inside she had torn open, "Just an idiot in a giant, blue condom."
"Let me end your suffering..." Raising her sword overhead, she was prepared to execute me. I was stricken with grief and pain, I wasn't able to do anything but watch. In a way, deep down, I didn't want to move, "Don't worry, I'll make sure your friends join you too..." With the widest, most twisted Cheshire cat smile I had ever seen, she swung her sword down- I could feel the air beneath the blade cutting into my skin.
How does it feel like to die? How does it feel like to lose a head? There was only one way to find out- going under the blade, Demoness' blade. I've heard stories of Near Death Experiences. Some say they saw bright, white light. Others saw only darkness. Some saw tunnels. Mine had a loud bang, and there was no light nor darkness. Except, I didn't die. There were gunshots, a bang coming in the direction of the Grandmaster. Instinctively, I turned my head to look.
In Aldan's shaking hand was a pistol- something I thought Aldan was entirely incapable of touching. It was taken from the corpse of a dead mob bodyguard. Its barrel was smoking from having been used. Realising that my head was still stuck on my shoulders, I turned my head back to look at Demoness- she was on the floor, her hands clutching her chest, her drastically shortened sword by her side, discarded. I was still on the ground, still immobile despite the better prospects, but I was shocked that Aldan would shoot his own daughter even when he threatened to kill me should I ever come close to murder his little girl.
"Dave! You're far better than that!" Grandmaster tried to repair what damage his daughter had done, not that he's doing any wonders- I was still as suicidal as ever. Realising that I wasn't responding at all like a stone wall, he went on, as hard as it was, each word harder to release than the next, "Give... Give up now, Mindy will surely... perish... Wha-what of your... f-friends... and... family..?" Within the last second, he had hit the right chord- what he said was the truth. Should I give in now, I would die, and then Mindy would follow. Everyone whom we left behind won't be far behind. Before I could thank him, the real-life Gondor swordsman became still. He was dead, another soul taken away by a vigilante gone nuts.
Demoness flipped herself back on her feet. She was apparently unheard- seeing how professional an assassin she was, it wasn't surprising that she was protected from head to toe. The albino had another weapon under her sleeves- some kind of sickle and dagger tied together with ropes; one of those cool eastern ninja tools of death, except it won't be cool if I was connected to it.
Just when all hope was lost, I became inspired. Aldan may had died, but it wasn't for nothing- he had inspired me, in life and even in death. Before she could do anything I was on my knees, my only stick left in hand. The killer went for a swipe, but it went over my head as I ducked. Like a reflex, I swung my baton against her just above the waist. I was even able to surprise myself when she stumbled in that direction.
'That's it' I thought, 'this is my ticket out. This is everyone's ticket out.' I was encouraged, and I swung my baton against her again. This time it landed just below her left armpit. I could hear a crack- it was either my weapon or her rib, "That was for Michael!" There was only one way to find out.
Like some fighter in a weird martial arts video game, I was doing a combo- I went for another swipe in the opposite direction, winding myself up fully, "And that was for Aldan!"
Demoness could not react at all before the stick connected with the side of her head and, as if we were in some Chinese movie, she spun in mid-air from the force I exerted on her before landing on the hard ground, finally floored, "That- that was for Mindy!"
The worry I had for Mindy, the same that overcame me when I found her half-dead under Frank D'Amico, was overpowering me- I knew I had to act fast, force her to tell me where my Godsister was. Close by was one of those beretta-type pistols one of the goons had. Picking it up, I hurriedly knelt down over the sadistic little albino and, being a little more savage than I could ever expect myself to be against a girl, I grabbed her by the uniform and brought her bloody face close to mine, with the barrel of the pistol I took pressed against the bottom of her lower jaw, "Where the fuck is Mindy! Tell me!"
My only reply was a pained gurgle of a laughter as blood was spewing out from my little nemesis' mouth. Somehow, despite all the harm she had done, I felt guilty for what I had done. Reasoning with myself, I told myself that it was for the best. Other than that, the Demoness was still playing with me, "She's dying..." Another bout of pained cackle. It was more than what I could take, so I pistol whipped her. Admittedly, by this point, there was more than one monster on the roof that night. I had to strike her twice, as she was still smiling crookedly after the first whack with the gun.
"Where is she! Fucking tell me right now!" I screamed as I pressed the barrel of the pistol into her left temple hard. I was out of control, I just needed my dearest friend back safe. Saving the city, along with those who could have been this supervillain's victim... It didn't matter anymore- all that seemed important became only Mindy. Everyone else was either dead or out of my mind.
"She's dying..." The Demoness repeated weakly, remaining defiant even when she was coughing so much blood out due to my beating. Her reply drove me insane. I threw the gun away and started strangling her with both my hands. Her own gloved hands wrapped around my wrists in a vain attempt to wrestle me away, but it was useless. My grip grew harder and harder, tighter and tighter. Her blood was rolling down her white cheeks and chin, and onto my hand- it was quite a metaphor for the sin I must commit to save the world (or at least New York) and Mindy.
My conscience was nagging at me to stop, yet I went on strangling her- I was just too furious, furious and frustrated at how I was so close to saving Mindy, yet it was far away. Needless to say, it wasn't the most admirable thing I've ever done, and it wasn't the wisest either.