One week later
Friday
Safehouse A
I geared up, along with the rest of the team.
The two kids and I would be out, together, ensuring that the last weekend before Christmas, was a peaceful one for the City of Chicago!
For the first time, Medic would be joining Kick-Ass, Battle Guy and Hawk for a patrol. They would be acting as backup for us, but would not be patrolling with us. This was also the first time that Josh, Chloe and myself had seen Medic ready for action. Chloe thought she looked kinda cool! I had obtained some new combat gear for her, very similar to that worn by Battle Guy. This new gear would protect her much better than the kit she had worn previously. Personally, I thought it was kinda weird seeing Cathy packing a Beretta!
Shadow, Jackal and I, took off on our motorcycles. Battle Guy, Hawk and Medic took Beast, while Kick-Ass was on his Fat Boy. The control centre was manned by Hal, Eisenhower and Trojan...
Now, you may ask: who the hell was Trojan?
Well the little shit needed a codename. Not a Super Hero name, mind you; not yet. Just a codename for use over the comms and when in we were in costume. Cathy didn't like leaving him all alone at home, so had to bring him with her! He would at least be able to keep Hal busy and if he misbehaved then Eisenhower could eat him; at least that's what I had told him! Chloe had, of course, suggested a few codenames of her own; none of which were even remotely suitable!
Hit Girl, Shadow and Jackal
I couldn't believe that I was out on patrol with my Mom!
That thought was kinda awesome and actually gave me a warm feeling inside. I also had to remember to think about what I said over the comms, as Medic would be listening. I had got into a little bit of trouble about some of the things that I had said on Halloween and had no desire to repeat that experience!
I thought that Mom wanting to come out with us, was a bit of a distraction from the shock of two weeks ago. Dad had gone back to his ship, last week and was now at sea, in the Atlantic somewhere on a six month deployment that included NATO exercises in the United Kingdom. I missed my Dad, a lot, especially as we were now a lot closer.
It also felt good having Jackal beside me too and we had two whole weeks, together, before we had to be back at school.
Kick-Ass, Battle Guy, Hawk and Medic
I followed Beast, as we cruised around Chicago, in a very high visibility manner.
We received a lot of happy waves, from both the public and Cops! We stopped for something to eat, after the first hour and listened to some of Battle Guy's dirty jokes, which ended up with Hawk, Medic and Shadow giggling, fit to burst! I was certain that I also caught a brief giggle from Hit Girl, too!
Chicago's criminal population seemed to be behaving, this evening. While this was good, it also made for a rather boring patrol!
This rapidly changed, when I received a rather disturbing call from Voight.
One of his informants had told him about the current Russian Mafia situation and that they were building themselves up again and most disturbingly, they wanted revenge! In this case Voight was convinced that it would be revenge against Fusion and more specifically, Hit Girl. I had thanked Voight and told him that we owed him one.
I checked my heads-up-display, which was constantly updated with Hit Girl's current position, by Hal. Hit Girl, Shadow and Jackal were currently stationary.
"Hit Girl, Kick-Ass!"
"Hi! What's up?"
"Voight called. The Russians are on the move and want revenge; most probably on a certain purple vigilante!"
"Crap!"
"We're heading towards you now. You'd better keep put of sight, till we get there."
"I'm on it!"
I explained the phone call in more detail to Battle Guy, Hawk and Medic. They were all rather shocked. Battle Guy immediately turned Beast towards Hit Girl's current position and put his foot down.
I followed, on the Fat Boy.
Hit Girl, Shadow and Jackal
I was very worried about what Kick-Ass had told me.
The Russians would be mad, very mad. Normally, when I pissed people off, I killed them, which stopped them coming after me! Things were gonna get very bad, very quickly. I had immediately told Jackal and Shadow to close up on me and be vigilant, as the Russians could attack any time and any where. I was just thankful that we had some advance warning.
If the Russians attacked tonight, we three would need to hold out until Kick-Ass arrived with the heavy weaponry, in Beast. We were currently on foot a distance away from our motorcycles. I could sense the fear that emanated from Shadow and Jackal. I was doing my best to be calm, but I knew the danger, as well as, if not better than the others.
I was very keen to get back to our motorcycles and get back to the safety of the safehouse.
We turned the last corner, literally a few dozen feet from the motorcycles, then a voice called out...
"Посмотрите, что мы здесь!" ['Look what we have here!']
I span around and saw a group of armed men behind us. We had no choice but to continue around the corner.
"Ready yourselves!" I growled to Jackal and Shadow. "This is not good!"
"I have a bad feeling about this!" Jackal said.
"Kick-Ass you had better get here right the fuck now!" I called over the comms. "They're here!"
"Four minutes, Hit Girl!"
I seriously didn't think that we had two minutes, let alone four. Time to stall.
"Перейти на хуй!" I growled. ['Go Fuck yourselves!']
The man who had called out, stepped forwards. He was obviously a senior Russian and had an enormous Krysha on each side of him.
"Это время для вас , чтобы умереть, Хит Девушка! Детишки тоже!" ['It is time for you to die, Hit Girl! The kiddies too!']
"Перед тем, как встать на путь мести , копать две могилы!" I growled back. ['Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves!']
"Действует настроения. Я возьму на себя риск," The man responded. ['A valid sentiment. I will take the risk.']
Time was running out and fast!
I drew a Katana and waited while Shadow prepared her bō-staff and Jackal prepared his ninja-to. We would have to fight, we had no other choice.
I started to run forward, followed by Jackal and Shadow.
Kick-Ass, Battle Guy, Hawk and Medic
We were still a block or two away, from Hit Girl and approaching at speed.
Suddenly there was a monstrous noise and a cloud of dust and debris could be seen billowing from a street, ahead and to our right.
Inside me, I knew that that was the street where Hit Girl, Shadow and Jackal were.
Hit Girl, Shadow and Jackal
I started to come around and found myself lying face-down on the street.
My body ached. I raised my head and I could see Jackal lying on his side, a few feet away; he was not moving. Shadow was just beyond him, face-down and again, not moving. My ears were ringing and everything was eerily silent, which was strange considering a building had just blown up beside us!
As the seconds passed, I started to hear some of the surrounding noise. In front of me I could see the Russians, who had been standing, conveniently, outside the blast radius, heading towards us. From behind me I heard the throaty roar of a large motorcycle, then almost immediately a much louder noise started to assault my ears. The banging noise continued and got closer, from behind me. I tried to move but couldn't. A large pair of black and green boots stepped over me and crunched through the glass and rubble. Used shotgun shell-casings rained down around me, as the shape that I quickly recognised to be Kick-Ass, fired his new toy; the AA-12 fully-automatic shotgun. I saw the Russians being literally blasted back by Kick-Ass' onslaught.
I felt hands grabbing me and hauling me to my feet. I turned to find Medic smiling at me.
"Come on Hit Girl! Let's get you out of here," Medic shouted cheerfully, over all the noise.
"What about Jackal and Shadow?" I yelled back.
"They're fine!" Medic replied and I turned to see Hawk and Battle Guy running towards Jackal and Shadow, as Kick-Ass covered them with his monster shotgun. Damn, my own personal terminator!
Medic helped me over to Beast, as I couldn't walk straight on my own and pushed me into the passenger seat. Then she helped Hawk push Shadow into the seat behind me. Battle Guy had pushed Jackal in the other side. Both Jackal and Shadow looked concussed and uncoordinated. I was having trouble focussing and I think that I must have passed out, as they next thing I knew, we were speeding away from the scene, with Battle Guy at the wheel.
Kick-Ass, Hawk and Medic
"Beast is clear!" I heard Hawk yell.
The last of the Russians were falling to my onslaught. I turned as Murphy and Fellowes pulled up at the scene and looked in horror at the literal pile of dead and mutilated bodies, in front of them.
"That weapon really suits you Kick-Ass!" Murphy commented. "We could hear the damn thing, blocks away!"
"Can you take custody of the motorcycles?" I asked, looking at the two Honda motorcycles that belonged to Shadow and Jackal.
"No problem! They'll be safe!" Fellowes responded.
"Let's go Hawk!" I said, the turned to Medic. "You think you can handle that?"
"No problem... I think!" Medic replied, mounting Hit Girl's Ducati.
"You scratch it, she'll fucking kill you!" I warned.
Medic just laughed and started the motorcycle, before roaring off!
I just shook my head, as I braced the Fat Boy for Hawk to climb on behind me.
Safehouse A
By the time I pulled into the safehouse, Hit Girl, Shadow and Jackal had been removed from Beast and we're currently lying on the mat, while Marty, Abby and Curtis helped to remove their masks and comms. I parked the Fat Boy and Hawk climbed off. She pulled off her own mask and comms quickly and then ran over to help with the injured teenagers.
It looked like the combat sits had taken the brunt of the impacts from flying debris, but the three of them must still be badly bruised and I think concussed too. The combat suits looked a real mess, but they seemed to have done their job as all three of them were all still alive.
At that moment Medic rode in and parked the Ducati beside me. She was grinning from ear to ear.
"You enjoyed that, did you?" I asked.
"Hell yes!" Cathy replied, pulling off her mask and comms, then climbed off the motorcycle. She ran over to the mat and started checking out Mindy, first.
I pulled off my own mask and comms, then walked over and checked on Chloe. Kim and Battle Guy were helping Josh out of his combat suit. I helped Abby and Curtis with Chloe's combat suit, before going over to check on Mindy.
Mindy was coughing steadily; she must have breathed in a lot of the dust. I helped Cathy pull off Mindy's combat suit and found a lot of bruises, but I was pleased to see that nothing seemed to be broken.
Once Cathy had finished her checks of Mindy, Chloe and Josh, she tallied up the injuries.
Mindy had a badly bruised right shoulder and a concussion, plus many smaller bruises but nothing worse.
Chloe had a concussion, multiple bruises over her body and a nasty bruise on her left thigh, but again, nothing worse.
Josh, naturally had acquired the worst injury; along with a lot of bruises, he had also sprained his right wrist rather badly and Cathy had strapped it up for him.
Between us, we had got the three teenagers into bed and the rest of us got out of our combat suits and sat down with some coffee.
..._...
"Thanks, team!" I said.
"No problem Dave, we just did what we do!" Marty said.
"That was a fun first patrol!" Cathy admitted, with a smile. "I enjoyed the Ducati, though!"
"Never a dull day around here!" Kim quipped.
The following morning
Saturday
Safehouse A
I awoke to a lot of pain.
"Ow!" I whispered.
"It'll hurt, Mindy, but you're gonna be fine," Dave said.
Dave was sitting on the bed, beside me.
"Chloe, Josh?" I asked, concerned.
"They're banged up a bit, just like you, but otherwise they both survived. They're still asleep."
"How did we get back here?" I asked.
"Marty brought the three of you back in Beast. I rode back with Hawk and... Er... Medic brought your Ducati back!"
"Dr Bennett rode my bike?" I responded angrily, sitting up and ignoring the pain.
"Calm the fuck down! She got back safely!" Dave replied. "Didn't know she could ride though!"
"That woman keeps surprising the fuck out of me! Now I know where Chloe gets her damned brazenness from!"
"You're so cute when you're mad!" Dave said, smirking.
"Asshole!"
..._...
I inspected my body, in the shower. It was a fucking mess; bruises everywhere and my right shoulder hurt like hell. The hot water helped soothe things just a bit, enough to take the edge off at least! I got dressed and went to check on the kids.
I checked on Josh first; he was just getting out of bed and he looked a fucking mess, with bruises everywhere. He smiled at me weakly.
"It looks worse than it really is, I think!" Josh said. "I'm gonna get a shower, ease my aching bones!"
I laughed and it hurt!
Next, I checked on Chloe. She had just got back from the shower and again, I hoped that she actually looked a lot worse than she actually was!
"You okay, Chloe?"
"I've been better; everything hurts!" Chloe replied and I could see tears in her eyes, from the pain. "Could you help me get dressed?"
..._...
Once Chloe was dressed, I went to get Josh and then we headed for the kitchen, which sounded quite noisy!
Once we got there we found that the kitchen was very full. Dave, Marty, Kim, Abby, Curtis and of course, Cathy were there, drinking coffee and finishing off some bacon and eggs. We were all ushered into seats and had food placed down in front of us. Curtis insisted on helping Chloe!
"Once you've eaten I'll check each of you over, okay!" Cathy advised. "Make sure that you all drink and eat."
While I was stuffing bacon and eggs into my mouth, I suddenly had a thought.
"Cathy! When did you learn to ride a motorcycle?" I asked, accusingly.
"Ah!" Cathy scowled at Dave. "Dave told you, did he?"
"What? Mom can't ride a bike!" Chloe stated.
"Oh yes she can!" Dave corrected Chloe. "She rode back on Hit Girl's Ducati, last night!"
"She did what?" Chloe exclaimed.
"There was no room in Beast and Kim rode back with Dave, so I brought the Ducati back. I used to ride dirt bikes; started when I was fifteen. Your father had a motorcycle, years ago and I often rode on the back, not to mention borrowing it from time to time. I know more about riding motorcycles than Mindy does!" Cathy elaborated.
"Yeah, right!" I responded.
"Maybe I'll get a motorcycle; I'd forgotten how much fun it was!" Cathy said, smirking.
"Thanks for bringing my motorcycle back. What about the other two motorcycles?" I asked.
"Fellowes took them; I'll pick them up later," Dave replied and I saw relieved looks on Josh's and Chloe's faces.