One week later
Saturday, May 3rd, 2014
The Safehouse
Mindy was standing behind Marty.
In front of him was an enormous, wall-mounted, fifty-inch flat screen, showing a map of Chicago and two red dots, which were pulsing near to the I-55 and north of Archer Heights. Kick-Ass was out on patrol with Shadow, and they had both had a fun evening, to that point.
But that was all about to change.
..._...
The radio speaker jumped to life.
"Battle . . . Battle Guy, this . . . this is Shadow. Kick-Ass is gone. Kick-Ass is in trouble."
Mindy immediately grabbed a spare headset.
"Shadow, Hit Girl. What's happening?" she said, calmly; although she did not feel calm, at all.
"He's gone; I'm so scared," Shadow whimpered.
"Where has he gone?" Mindy asked.
"I . . . I . . . I . . . he was taken . . . I'm alone," Shadow was starting to panic.
"Marty, I'm gonna go get ready," Mindy said, running to the armoury.
"Shadow?" Battle Guy called.
There was no response.
"Shadow . . . Shadow!"
Marty brought up a new console window, over on his smaller computer screen. He selected Shadow's radio and remotely enabled the VOX feature. He would then be able to hear Shadow, without her having to press the PTT (push-to-talk) button. Almost immediately, Shadow could be heard over the speaker; she was sobbing. There were also disjointed words coming over the speaker.
"Shadow! Pull yourself together; Kick-Ass needs you!" Battle Guy ordered.
Sometimes, you just had to be cruel to be kind, he thought. Within a minute, Shadow had sorted herself out enough to reply.
"Sorry, Battle Guy. Kick-Ass was herded into a warehouse; he was fighting eight to ten men. Sorry. That's all I have," Shadow answered.
"Are you safe, Shadow?" Battle Guy asked, with some concern.
"Yes, Kick-Ass hid me. Before he moved down the alley and was ambushed," Shadow replied slowly.
"Stay hidden, stay out of sight. Let us know of anything you see, okay?" Battle Guy directed.
"Will do," Shadow replied.
"Well done, Marty," Mindy said. "Hit Girl is ready to go!"
"Good luck; I'll guide you," Battle Guy replied, pressing buttons and a third pulsing red dot, appeared on the map.
..._...
Hit Girl accelerated out of the Safehouse compound and turned left, before turning immediately right, and right again onto South Western Avenue, heading north. Traffic was light, so she made reasonable time. Five minutes and one and a half miles later, she made another left turn.
She was following Battle Guy's directions, as he followed her via the GPS in her radio.
A warehouse
Kick-Ass was surrounded by several men.
There was very little light, so he could not see much detail. After they had herded him into the warehouse, they had stopped fighting and spread out, covering the exit. A tall, grumpy bastard, stepped out of the shadows.
"It's time to look at your face," Grumpy Bastard sneered. "Take off your mask."
That was the point where Hit Girl usually came up with one of her witty lines, planned well in advance, for every eventuality. Kick-Ass, well, he was not so good at witty retorts.
"No," he snarled. Straight and to the point, he thought.
He could hear Battle Guy talking to Shadow, in his ear, but he could not reach his PTT to communicate with Battle Guy or Shadow. Shadow sounded like she was panicking, which was not good. Grumpy Bastard waved two of his men towards Kick-Ass. He braced up and as he sensed the men get close, he reached out with his fists, cracking each man in the face with his armoured gauntlets. Then, he reached behind his back for his Ko-Wakizashi blades, drew them and he severed the men's carotid arteries. Blood spread, quickly, around the two fallen bodies. All the men raised their pistols into a ready position, all aimed at Kick-Ass. Grumpy Bastard stood with four men, on either side of him.
"Defiant to the end, huh?" Grumpy Bastard asked.
Something twigged in Kick-Ass' mind. The idiot had given him an idea; he was using lines from a movie, not an especially good movie, but a cool movie nonetheless. Only, Kick-Ass had seen the movie, too.
"You are about to die, asshole!" Kick-Ass snarled.
"How do you imagine that's gonna happen?" Grumpy Bastard asked, waving his arms to either side, indicating his eight men.
"With my hands around your neck!" Kick-Ass snarled back.
Grumpy Bastard looked a little unnerved; he'd obviously worked out that I knew the movie, too.
"Bullshit!" Grumpy Bastard said, snapping his fingers and eight more men appeared.
The men spread themselves out evenly behind the existing eight men just as Kick-Ass' earpiece crackled into life again. He had heard Battle Guy calming Shadow down.
"Kick-Ass, Battle Guy, you are on VOX. Hit Girl is forty seconds out," Battle Guy reported.
"What ya gonna do, huh? You're on your own. Nothing but you, and your fucking batons and blades," Grumpy Bastard sneered. "We have guns."
Kick-Ass just had to keep the charade going, a minute longer.
..._...
"Kick-Ass, Hit Girl! Ready to move on your mark," Kick-Ass heard Hit Girl call over the comms.
Now, for the endgame, he thought.
"No, what you have are bullets and the hope that when your guns are empty, I'm no longer standing. Because if I am; you'll all be dead before you've reloaded!" Kick-Ass snarled.
"That's impossible! This isn't some fucking movie!" Grumpy Bastard shouted back. "Kill him!"
Grumpy Bastard brought up a pistol, then he and his men opened fire. Kick-Ass turned his back, dipped his head, and braced his legs. Seconds later, there was silence.
"Ready, gorgeous?" Kick-Ass hissed, over the comms as the last brass dropped to the concrete floor of the warehouse.
"Always!" he heard in reply.
Kick-Ass stood up straight and he turned towards the astonished Grumpy Bastard, feeling a lot of bruises. The pain was intense, but he was otherwise uninjured. He saw a movement behind the furthest eight men and he recognised the purple flashes on the combat suit. Kick-Ass smirked behind my mask.
"Our turn," He snarled, launching himself forward as ejected magazines started to hit the floor.
Three of the men on the rear most rank fell to Hit Girl's throwing knives. They were quickly followed by a pair of heads that rolled forward, severed by a single Katana blade. The remaining three men twisted around in panic and desperately tried to reload their pistols; two fell instantly, with Katana blades protruding from their backs. The third fell from a Tanto blade in the chest.
Hit Girl retrieved her blades, wiped them clean, and raced toward the next rank.
..._...
Kick-Ass had reached the group of men over to the left of Grumpy Bastard and sliced open the stomachs of two men, before driving my armoured elbow into the face of a third man. The fourth man turned to run, directly onto Hit Girl's extended Katana.
"You do love your entrances, Hit Girl."
The remaining four men, and Grumpy Bastard, turned towards us both. Two men had reloaded their pistols and raised them towards Hit Girl. Four shots rang out and the men dropped, their heads exploding. Kick-Ass turned to see Shadow, holding her pistol in the classic Weaver stance, two handed in front of her. He nodded his thanks at Shadow, before he and Hit Girl killed one man each with their blades. Then Kick-Ass turned back towards Grumpy Bastard, who had retreated further into the warehouse.
"Die! Die! Why won't you die!?" Grumpy Bastard shouted, firing his pistol at Kick-Ass, who shrugged off each and every round as he continued his advance.
"Why won't you die?" Grumpy Bastard whimpered, staring at the slide of his pistol, locked back on an empty magazine.
Kick-Ass caught up with Grumpy Bastard and pinned him to the wall.
"Beneath this mask, there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea and ideas are bullet proof," he snarled, before coldly snapping the man's neck.
He turned back to Hit Girl and he felt little to no emotion; that would come later, he knew. They both stowed their blades and he smiled, but I knew Hit Girl could not see the smile.
"Kick-Ass is clear!"
"Hit Girl is clear!"
"Sha . . . Shadow is clear!"
"Battle Guy copies, Fusion is clear!"
..._...
"Why won't you just fucking die, you selfish fucking asshole!" A voice shouted, from the gantry above us. "You too, you fucking purple whore!"
The voice was very familiar. Hit Girl looked directly at Kick-Ass, raging anger in her eyes.
"Well, if it isn't our old pal . . . Chris D'Amico!" Kick-Ass bellowed.
Hit Girl had both of her pistols out and raised, towards the voice. Kick-Ass could see that she was seething with anger.
Shadow also had her pistol raised and aimed in the same direction.
"You gonna come down and see us?" Kick-Ass requested, angrily.
"I would, but some greasy little fucker dropped me into a fucking shark tank! The fucking shark bit my fucking dick off! I have artificial fucking arms and legs, but they don't do working dicks!" Chris ranted. "I fucking owe you Kick-Ass!"
Hit Girl actually started to chuckle, then she laughed, loudly. Kick-Ass had to admit, it sounded very funny and he started laughing too. Shadow joined in the laughter, although Kick-Ass was not sure she knew what she was laughing at as they had never told her about Chris D'Amico, Red Mist, or the Mother Fucker. Maybe they should, he mused.
"Stop fucking laughing at me, you fucking wankers!" Chris yelled.
Hit Girl stopped laughing and she emptied both of her pistols in the general direction of Chris's voice; Kick-Ass did the same with his Glock and Shadow followed suit. Once silence returned, they each reloaded their pistols. The sound of a helicopter's engines and blades, could be readily heard above them.
Chris was gone.
"You guys okay?" Battle Guy asked over the comms. "I heard that fucking creepy bastard."
"We're fine Battle Guy; Fusion is coming home!" Hit Girl replied.
Author's Note: Okay, many will recognise the scene played out in this chapter and chunks of the dialogue. I think many will also identify the movie in question. Hit Girl has plenty of 'how the hell did she get out of that one, so damn easily' type scenes, such as the hallway shoot-out at the end of the first Kick-Ass movie. Now, I wanted Kick-Ass to have one of these scenes. It is time for him to show that he is a bad-ass and no longer that wimpy green asshole cringing in Rasul's apartment. It also shows that Kick-Ass does not always need Hit Girl to bail him out. Yes, Hit Girl helped in this chapter, but I hope I showed that Kick-Ass could have escaped alone, without help.
Updated: January 2018