Three weeks later
Saturday night
Southern Chicago
The man saw nothing in the darkness and thought he was alone.
However, his 'sixth sense' told him that something was wrong. Then he caught a movement in his peripheral vision and tried to duck but saw the thick tread of a boot, only inches from his face. The boot struck his left cheek sending him backwards.
The owner of the foot that was encased in the boot rolled as they hit the ground coming back to their feet and turning to face the man as he struggled back to his feet. The eyes glowed a dull green as the creature stared at him from a few feet away.
"You gonna come quietly, cunt?" The creatures electronically enhanced voice asked casually.
The man reached into his belt and pulled out his Smith & Wesson pistol, taking aim at the green-eyed apparition. He was not fast enough as the creature bolted towards him and kicked the pistol out of his hand, and then he found himself back on the ground only this time in the dull glow of a street light he saw the green eyes barely a foot from his own.
However, it was not the eyes, which had his full attention, it was the three, razor sharp claws that extended from the creature's left gauntlet. The murderous looking points were a mere inch from his face. It was then that he felt something touching his groin. All the fight went out of him at the mere thought of where the other set of claws might be...
"Please..."
"You deserve to die..."
The man began to sob in terror...
"Wildcat!"
The sharp comment came out of the darkness – another electronically enhanced voice. Something purple came close and the man saw the claws vanish from sight as they retracted into the green-eyed monster's gauntlet and the pressure on his groin vanished.
The man heard the roar of powerful motorcycle engines and then listened to the engine noise fade, only to be replaced by a siren and then then he was bathed in blue flashing lights as a marked Chicago Police Department unit pulled up with a screech of tyres.
The man gave up without a fight and allowed himself to be cuffed and pulled to his feet.
"Ah shit!" One uniformed Cop exclaimed.
"Huh?" His colleague asked.
"The idiot has gone and pissed himself!" The first Cop grinned.
"They – they were inhuman..." The man tried to say as if in explanation.
The Cops both grinned as they exchanged looks.
"That, my damp friend, would be Fusion!" The second Cop laughed.
Three miles to the east two motorcycles rode side-by-side.
One was a purple Ducati Superbike 1199 Panigale R sporting the licence plate, 'HIT N RUN'. The other machine was smaller and was a brown and silver, Ducati Hypermotard SP with the licence plate, 'WILD ONE'.
"You're a nasty bitch," The purple, armour-clad, rider of the Panigale announced. "You know that, don't you?"
The other rider, clad in a similarly armoured, mottled-effect of three browns, turned her head towards her fellow vigilante.
"I learnt from the biggest, nastiest, bitch of them all!" She declared without hesitation.
"I have to agree with that statement...," A voice interrupted inside the helmets of both riders.
"What have you got for us, Battle Guy?" Hit Girl asked.
"Your last target was picked up, only the Cops were not happy!" Battle Guy explained. "Seems he managed to piss himself..."
"Fucking cool!" Wildcat announced. "I've still got it..."
"You mean the suit scared the piss outta him," Hit Girl interrupted.
"Okay, I will admit the combat suit is awesome and I love my new appendages," Wildcat allowed. "Yours is pretty cool, too bitch!"
"Your next target is ready for you, six point six miles – route is coming up on your HUDs now..."
"Awesome!" Hit Girl exclaimed as a route was projected onto the inside of the darkened visor of her motorcycle helmet.
Both riders twisted the throttles and accelerated taking the next turning on the right.
Safehouse F, Command Centre
Marty Eisenburg, otherwise known as Battle Guy leant back in his comfortable high-backed leather command chair and studied the wall ahead of him.
The wall was dominated by a horizontal array of three, ninety-inch flat panels. The right hand panel displayed a satellite image of Chicago with streets overlaid. There were four dots on the screen, in pairs; two were purple and brown, another pair were green and black. Both pairs were moving towards their own spinning red circle with a crosshair over it. Each spinning circle had an estimated time of arrival, or ETA, beside it.
Marty's command chair was raised up about a foot from the ground, giving good visibility of the screens. Beside him was a pair of computer keyboards and a pair of trackballs.
On the left hand panel was a breakdown of the two teams currently out on patrol. Detailed below each vigilante name were various statistics that included fuel remaining, current speed and course and status of equipment.
The central panel was currently split into four and showed four full colour, high definition camera views. The cameras were mounted on the motorcycles of the four vigilantes and the information was transmitted back to the Safehouse. Superimposed on each image was speed, course and location and the name of the vigilante.
"Abby?"
"Yeah, Marty," Abigail 'Abby' Hunt replied.
"Remind me to check Hit Girl's speed sensor – I think it's malfunctioning..."
"Why do you think that?" Abby replied, trying not to laugh.
"She seems to be obeying the speed limits..."
"Funny bastards – I heard that!" Hit Girl growled over the open comms.
"Maybe marriage agrees with her!" Abby suggested.
"How are the boys doing?" A voice asked.
Marty span his chair around to face Chloe Bennett, otherwise known as Shadow. Behind her stood Hailee Richards, otherwise known as Petra. Both wore their combat suits, but without their identity concealing masks. The two girls were awaiting the call to provide assistance if required.
"They are having a peaceful night, so far – they are about mid-way through their patrol – no activity for them so far tonight," Marty reported.
"The girls?" Hailee asked.
"Well... Wildcat made one guy piss himself with those new toys of hers!"
Chloe grimaced, well remembering her first meeting with those 'new toys'.
Southern Chicago
We were a few minutes from our next target, so I began thinking back over the past three weeks.
After all the excitement of the wedding, it had felt a little strange being back home and getting back to a normal life. Dave and I had decided not to head off on a Honeymoon; I did not want to leave the twins, not yet. Nonetheless, we both got ourselves stuck back into things. We had taken a few days off from Fusion, though, but we had a City to protect so we needed to get ourselves back into fighting shape.
...+...
Talking of shape, I had had to acquire Megan a new combat suit – she had grown somewhat around the chest and hips, quite a bit actually, over the previous month or so and now had a much fuller and more feminine figure as well as having grown about three inches upwards!
Curtis had seemed to enjoy the changes, as did the other boys both at school and at DJAK. Despite Megan having enjoyed a brief period of allowing boys to touch her, she had now gone shy about the more visible physical changes to her body. She also seemed to have gone back to being quite moody, and Curtis had seemed to suffer the brunt of this! Curtis, as usual, was actually quite sweet about it, despite his being a little embarrassed by it all.
There was one slight problem, though. I was aware that for a while, Curtis and Megan had been quite intimate with each other; indeed, how far they had gone down that road, I had no idea and I had not wanted to pry. Now though, when Megan and Curtis were sparring, Curtis was often too scared to put his hands or fists anywhere near her chest, which usually meant that Megan flattened him without hesitation!
"Curtis – they're breasts; they won't bite!" I told him.
"They won't; but she will, if I touch them!" Curtis replied and I laughed in response.
"For fuck's sake Curtis, they are a part of me – I don't mind if you touch them," Megan said, then added quickly with a deep blush. "Accidentally, of course!"
"It just doesn't feel right!" Curtis moaned.
Then Megan surprised me enormously by grabbing Curtis's right hand and placing it on her left breast!
"Does that feel right?" Megan teased.
Curtis yanked his hand back as if he had just been burnt and blushed bright red and I thought, 'you brazen little bitch'!
After that little episode, Curtis ignored Megan's breasts when sparring, much to Megan's displeasure when Curtis accidentally hit them!
...+...
Wildcat's new suit was one of quite a few that I had ordered, but it had been the first to be delivered and it was also the first to come out of Lucius Fox's funhouse in Gotham and it was the first of a very new, cutting-edge, design.
"It feels awesome!" Megan had exclaimed as she first appeared from the armoury where she had changed.
The combat suit was in the same, three brown, mottled effect colour scheme as previously, but there the similarities stopped. The black undersuit weighed less than the one that she had previously worn and allowed the skin to breath better during extreme activities; it was also stab and bullet resistant to Type IIA standards. The modular contoured armour, in the same mottled brown, clipped onto the undersuit and joined to the other sections of armour to form a semi-rigid Type IIIA armour that covered the important parts of the body. The armour was ultra-flexible which suited Wildcat's fighting style perfectly.
To test this, she performed some complex somersaults and movements that proved her agility in the new armour. The updated full-face mask was fitted with the same anti-lift feature as my own and was slimmer while still being fitted with the voice changing technology as before and, of course, the ears. One other small difference were the eyes – they glowed! For intimidation purposes, the eyes of the mask glowed a dull green and the eyes were shaped like those of a cat. I had to admit that they were quite ominous in the dark.
Fox had designed a new utility belt, which was both slimmer, lighter. The belt was fitted with a more compact, integrated encrypted communications system. Wildcat's SIG Sauer P250 fitted securely into a holster that was mounted on her right thigh, with three spare magazines mounted on her belt. Fox had thoughtfully provided a removable mounting on her back armour, for Wildcat's Wakizashi sword.
Next, were the gauntlets, and her claws; it seemed that Fox was a fan of the Wolverine...
The claws had been embedded into the back of her new, slimmer, gauntlets and they were extended and locked in place at the press of a button, mechanically – Fox said he was working on an electromagnetic version. Once secured in place the three claws on each gauntlet were a natural extension of Wildcat's hands.
"So, you like it?" I asked after watching the young girl test out her suit for a few minutes.
Wildcat pulled off her mask and she was grinning fit to burst.
For a bit of fun, we had agreed not to let on about the claws to anybody else.
..._...
A few days later, it had been Shadow's turn to model her new combat suit.
There was the same undersuit as Wildcat wore, in black, and on top of this were the dark blue and slate grey contoured armour panels attached to form the semi-rigid Type IIIA armour. Her new gauntlets were just as slim as before, but lighter, while retaining the extra layer of slate grey armour on the back that would allow Shadow to deflect blows from swords, or other melee weapons. The gauntlets extended up her lower arms to the elbows, with extended sections to protect the elbow joints. These connected with armour that extended down from each shoulder, protecting the shoulder joints with Type IIIA armour and extending down over the upper arms. The gauntlets were Navy blue, but the shoulder and upper arm armour sections were slate grey. Additional armour extended up from her chest panels to protect the collarbones and neck.
The new armour was able to withstand more punishment in combat, but overall the combat suit was much lighter. Again, like Wildcat, she wore the new utility belt with the enhanced, integrated communications.
Shadow's mask now included integrated voice changing technology, as well as the anti-lift feature, which would become standard for all members of Fusion.
...+...
The two girls had faced off against each other across the mat at the Safehouse.
Shadow moved in first, striking Wildcat in the chest and nodded with approval as she tried to strike again, but Wildcat seized her fist with her right gauntlet and twisted it, before Shadow then got the shock of her young life. Wildcat raised her left gauntlet and brought it up towards Shadow's face, and then suddenly Shadow screamed and froze as three, fatally sharp, titanium blades suddenly appeared just inches from her face.
Before Shadow knew what was happening she was on her back with the triumphant Wildcat, kneeling on her chest, one set of claws at her neck and the other hovering over her heart. There was applause from the balcony above.
"Fucking hell!" Shadow yelled out angrily recovering from her shock. "Get the fuck off me, Wildcat; you're heavy!"
I saw the claws retract in an instant and Wildcat stepped back, away from Shadow so that the fallen vigilante could regain her feet. Both girls pulled off their facemasks and Megan was grinning. Needless to say; Chloe was annoyed.
"What the fuck were those?" She growled angrily.
"These little things?" Megan asked raising her left gauntlet and triggering her claws, which shot out and locked into place.
"Yeah, those!" Chloe replied with combined admiration, annoyance and curiosity as she moved in closer to examine the claws. "Retract them..."
Megan did as requested and the claws vanished.
"Neat!" Chloe said approvingly, smiling at Megan.
She had then turned to me, understanding the little stunt.
"Funny, Mindy – very funny!"
Megan and I just started laughing and Chloe just scowled.
...+...
That had all been the weekend after wedding.
A couple of days later, though, was one of the most eagerly anticipated days of my life!
I was legally an adult...
It had been my eighteenth birthday and I had felt like a kid on Christmas morning. Now, we did not have sex eighteen times, although Dave and I had tried our best! It felt different being an adult, officially at least – I had been an 'adult' according to my fake id for the past three years!
As for my birthday presents – more about them later...
Northern Chicago
The two motorcycles pulled over into the darkness of a badly lit alleyway.
The largest machine was a monster Ducati Diavel Carbon in black, green and yellow, with the licence plate: 'KICK'. The other machine was not a Ducati, but was a Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R in tan, with the licence plate: 'JACKAL'.
The formidable green and yellow, armoured form of Kick-Ass rose from the Diavel. He was shortly joined by Jackal and they both headed down the street waving at the pleasant greetings that they both received from ordinary Chicagoans.
The night had been peaceful for the two veteran vigilantes, who were enjoying the peaceful stroll. They were on a regular patrol route, which probably explained why there was no trouble; both vigilantes commanded instant respect. As always, they stopped to chat and exchange pleasantries with the Russian Mafia Kryshas who stood guard at the edge of Mafia territory.
The Fusion/Russian Mafia truce was still in effect. We both kept out of each other's territory and we maintained friendly relations between former enemies. You could see it as a Cold War in Chicago, but it worked and had kept the peace for several months.
Suddenly the night began to warm up as the two vigilantes headed north.
"You hear that, Jackal, my boy?"
"I did – breaking glass!"
I ran towards the sound with Jackal close behind. As we approached the local Mom and Pop store, we heard the noise again. It was Arnold and Marie's store; they often gave us a coffee to keep us both going at night; they loved seeing Hit Girl and Shadow.
"I'm going around back..." Jackal announced darting down a dark alley.
A dozen yards down the street I noticed three Range Rover SUVs parked up – something was happening, something that required backup.
I brought up my left gauntlet and pressed a button on the five-inch touch screen visible there.
Safehouse F
The green dot on the flat panel changed to a spinning green circle and an alarm sounded.
"Kick-Ass just called for backup!" Marty called out. "Shadow and Petra, roll out!"
Shadow and Petra pulled on their masks before they ran for their transport. Petra dived onto her graphite black, Honda Fireblade ABS CBR1000RR motorcycle, hitting the starter and adjusting her equipment.
Beside her Shadow mounted her Ducati Superbike 899 Panigale in navy blue and black with the licence plate: 'SHADOW'. Shadow smirked as Petra accelerated out of the opening vehicular-access door ahead of her, her licence plate read: 'BITE ME', which Shadow always thought was amusing. Shadow followed a few yards behind, racing up the tight spiral of the concrete ramp.
Both motorcycles burst out of a darkened alleyway before accelerating towards Kick-Ass and Jackal. They followed the navigation directions, which were projected onto the inside of their darkened visors.
North Chicago
The moment I entered the store, all hell broke loose.
Firstly, a bottle of something smashed into my back armour, followed by something more solid. I studied the scene before me and saw four armed men smashing up the store while the storeowners, Arnold and Marie were held at gunpoint by another man. My anger rose past boiling point and headed for critical mass.
"Stand down!" I yelled out and all five men turned in my direction.
There seemed to be a consensus between the five men and they all replied in the same manner. I ignored the bullets as they collided with my heavy chest armour. They wanted to play, well I was in a mood to play; nobody fucked with our friends...
I reached the first man and seized hold of a large jar of pickles, smashing it into the side of the man's head. Blood exploded into the air and the man dropped to the ground. The next man struggled to reload his pistol as I advanced on him, smiling as I grabbed a tin of 'Heinz Spotted Dick' before smashing it into the man's face.
Two down!
That was when Jackal made his appearance as one man ran towards the back entrance and promptly returned to the shop unconscious as Jackal shrugged off bullets and made for the fourth man. The fifth man was mine; I rubbed my gauntlets together in eager anticipation and my target seemed to blanch as I advanced towards him.
Jackal's man hit the counter at the front of the store and he slid down to the floor, not moving before he went to cover the main door. The last man was still pointing his pistol at Arnold and Marie.
"Do I need to say anything?" I growled menacingly.
The man was obviously trying to figure a way out of his predicament and was constantly looking towards the main door of the store. The man had reinforcements who might arrive at any moment. I was certain that the Range Rovers up the street contained those reinforcements.
"Kick-Ass, this is Shadow – one minute..."
"Three black Range Rovers – watch out!" I warned.
"I see 'em!" Petra reported.
Shadow and I pulled over in the darkness of a broken streetlight.
The black Range Rovers were visible a couple dozen yards ahead. I removed my helmet and pulled out a G-36C from the back of my motorcycle. Shadow was doing the same with her P90.
"What do you want to bet that those are as armoured up as Beast?" Shadow asked.
"No bet – I can see the extra weight from here!" I replied.
"Now what would armoured SUVs be doing here?" Shadow asked reasonably.
"Notice a lack of tags?" I commented.
"I did – no way to know why they are – thoughtful of them..."
"Plan?" I asked.
"We wait..."
It took only a few minutes as a door opened and two men climbed out of the centre of the three vehicles. Each man was armed with a SCAR-L Mk 16 PDW, a nasty weapon that fired 5.56-millimetre rounds.
The good news was that our armour would protect us, but the rounds would hurt nonetheless!