That evening
Friday

I had decided that I wanted to spend more time with Josh, or more precisely with Jackal.

Right now, we were riding side by side, towards the south east of Chicago. Dave would be following our progress from the safehouse and he said that he would be ready if we needed his help... As if!

"You doing okay?" I asked. I had ensured that our conversation this evening was not being recorded, for Josh's privacy.

"Yeah, it felt good to finally talk to somebody," Jackal replied and he definitely sounded happier. "Thank you."

"Why me and not Shadow... Or even Kick-Ass?"

"I knew I might cry and I didn't want to do that in front of Dave and well, you're a girl and I knew that you could relate, Shadow can't and I'm very glad that she can't!"

"That's fair. Just be warned that I'm not very good with people crying on my shoulder, I usually do that on Kick-Ass!"

"You! I can't believe Hit Girl has those kinds of emotions!"

"Believe me... She does! Until I met Kick-Ass, I had never cried in front of anyone, not even Daddy. Three weeks ago, Kick-Ass held me while I cried over my Dad's death and it's been five years. I'd love to tell you that it gets easier, but I won't lie to you, Jackal, not about something like that."

"Thanks for trusting me; I won't tell anybody," Jackal said.

"I know. It's trusting that makes us a team... Trust Shadow! I wouldn't recommend starting off on a relationship without letting her know all about you, including your, er, problems! Kick-Ass and I have no secrets, I know all about him and he knows nearly everything about me; the only things he doesn't know about, are the things he doesn't want to know about! In fact Kick-Ass knows far too much about me and a lot of what he knows is really embarrassing; Kick-Ass met me at a very difficult time in my life!"

"Such as?" Jackal asked.

"Never you mind! Lets just say that the twelve year-old Hit Girl tended to be a little hot headed and one hell of a bitch!" I explained.

This touchy-feely stuff was not easy and it was starting to get a little too close to home!

South East Chicago

I was enjoying being out with Mindy, or rather Hit Girl.

It felt good having been able to talk to Mindy earlier today and I'm really glad I went over to the house this morning. I really liked Mindy and trusted her one hundred percent. Currently, Hit Girl was down an alley; she had told me to wait here. There was something making a racket down the alley and she wanted to investigate. After a few minutes, Hit Girl reappeared and she was struggling with something. That something, was trying to bite Hit Girl's gauntlet, without much success, of course.

"Look, brat, you're only gonna break your goddamn teeth!" Hit Girl growled.

The 'brat' turned out to be a small girl!

"Let me go, bitch!"

"Aren't foul-mouthed little brats supposed to be in bed at this time of night?" Hit Girl growled and dropped the girl onto the sidewalk.

"You're not!" The girl retorted brazenly.

I could have sworn Hit Girl almost grinned at that!

"Come on, help me out here! I'm just thinking of your safety and your Mom will be worried!" Hit Girl tried.

"What's your name?" I asked and the girl turned to see me, for the first time.

"Who the fuck are you supposed to be?" The girl blurted out, looking a little scared.

"I'm Jackal! Who are you?" I asked again.

"Well my name ain't 'brat', HG!" The girl said as she glared at Hit Girl.

Hit Girl put her face in her hands and shook her head in mock despair.

"My name is Megan, okay!"

"Can we take you home?" I asked.

"I'm not a lost puppy 'Jack'!"

I had an idea, so I tried again.

"It's dark and it's cold, I can't leave you out here on your own. I'm a vigilante and we can't do that, it's against the code," I explained.

Megan cocked her head and looked up at me; I could almost see the cogs whirring in her head. Hit Girl also looked at me strangely, but I could see an approving smirk start to appear.

"Okay, just this once!" Megan acceded.

..._...

We escorted Megan across half a mile of the City and back to her apartment block. All the way, Megan was asking Hit Girl questions, very few of which Hit Girl actually answered, often due to the fact that Megan rarely left a gap for a reply in between the questions!

"How old were you, when you started as a vigilante?"

"Why are you a vigilante?"

"Why do you wear purple?"

"How many people have you killed?"

"Is that suit bullet proof?"

"Can I see your swords?"

Finally, just as we got her home, Megan asked the question that I had expected:

"How do I become a vigilante?"

This time Megan actually paused for a reply and I looked at Hit Girl, who seemed genuinely at a loss!

"Firstly, you wait until you're at least eighteen, then you give it a lot more thought!" Hit Girl finally replied, after a long pause.

"That's bull..."

"That's all you're getting!" I interrupted strongly.

Reluctantly Megan agreed.

"Night guys!" Megan called, as she went into the building.

..._...

"How did you manage that?" Hit Girl asked. "Getting her to go home, I mean."

"You're really asking me that question?" I asked, incredulously.

"Yeah!"

"Jeez, I always thought you were intelligent! She wants to be a vigilante, she wants to be you! Was it that hard to work out? You have a fan Hit Girl, whether you like it or not!" I explained.

"You're starting to sound like Kick-Ass!" Hit Girl growled. "And not in a good way, either!"

Safehouse A

"You guys have fun?" Dave asked.

"It was a good evening and Mindy got herself bitten!" I laughed.

"Oh!" Dave asked, with a worried expression and looked at Mindy, as she appeared from under her mask.

"That little bitch!" Mindy growled.

Dave suddenly grinned.

"You mean Mini-Mindy!" Dave said and laughed.

"Yeah! At one stage it was difficult telling who was who!" I teased.

"You fucking little..." Mindy started.

"Was Mindy like that, when you first met her?" I asked Dave, who ignored Mindy's warning glares.

"Kinda. Mindy was eleven when I first met her. Fucking show off, too! Almost got herself knifed in the back, when she got carried away showing me how good she thought she was!"

"'Thought she was'!" Mindy exclaimed angrily.

"I know all the right buttons to push!" Dave explained happily. "Unfortunately I haven't found the 'mute' or 'off' buttons yet!"

"Oh, two people are gonna die tonight; it's gonna be a fucking blood-bath!" Mindy growled ominously.

"I do know where the 'de-fuse' button is, though!" Dave said and promptly kissed Mindy, full on the lips for almost a minute.

I think I had blushed almost as much as Mindy, by the time Dave let her go! Mindy was still glaring and breathing heavily, but I could tell that she was no longer dangerous!

"Asshole!" Mindy groaned and she obviously wanted more.

"Well, I won't be pressing that button on Mindy, but I might try it out on Chloe!" I said.

"I'm very pleased to hear it, or I might have to break your legs!" Dave laughed.

I wasn't sure if he was joking, though!