Two days later
Wednesday night

Hit Girl flew across the room, cannoning into the brick wall.

Jackal ran forwards but he was kicked in the stomach for his trouble. The teenaged vigilante fell to the floor, but quickly rolled back to his feet. Hit Girl tried to regain her feet but the enormous figure strode over and kicked the veteran vigilante in the thigh, eliciting a scream of pain.

Hit Girl rolled with the kick, before kicking out herself. Her armoured heel striking the equally armoured leg closest to her. The owner of the leg barely registered the strike.

Hit Girl was getting seriously annoyed.

I turned as Kick-Ass thundered forwards, moving fast towards Hit Girl and her attacker. I was still sore from dropping onto fire escapes days previously, but I struggled up from the floor where the armoured assailant had thrown me.

"Hey!" Kick-Ass yelled. "Why don't you pick on someone your own size?"

The man turned to meet his next attacker.

..._...

Size wise, the unknown attacker was six inches taller than Kick-Ass, wider too. His armour looked to be as cutting edge as our own and it had protected the man from our weapons, including our bullets. He had single-handedly taken down Hit Girl, Jackal and me with barely a scratch.

Now it was the turn of Kick-Ass.

Earlier that day
Wednesday afternoon

Glenview

"Why do you both look so unhappy?"

"Mom cooked," Anne-Marie replied simply and Danny pretended to vomit.

I laughed and then tried to stop as Mindy came out of the kitchen.

"They've only been with us a few weeks and they already know that your cooking sucks!"

"They were hungry!" Mindy replied defensively.

"Isn't that classified as 'cruel and unusual punishment'?"

Mindy's mouth dropped open in shock.

"You bast..."

"Mindy!"

Mindy scowled and the kids laughed at her discomfort.

"I'm still learning, okay!"

"You keep learning, Mom," Danny advised. "Just, please practice on somebody else!"

"Not funny!" Mindy grimaced.

Later that afternoon

Megan was late back from school.

Apparently, she had been in detention and she was in a foul mood. As I understood it, Marcus had had a go at her, too. We tried to be nice, but Megan was being bitchy – super bitchy! Then it all came to a head and I was glad Dave had gone out immediately after dumping Megan.

"Megan – cut that language out and be nice – grow up!" Mindy said sharply.

"Fuck you; you're not my fucking mother!" Mindy retorted angrily.

I saw Mindy's eyes flash.

'Oh, shit!' I thought and unbidden I grabbed the hand of each twin. I dragged them both upstairs out of the line of fire. The last I saw of Megan was when Mindy seized hold of the back of her blouse and her feet left the ground.

Mindy hauled Megan away towards the basement.

"Get the fuck off of me!"

I threw Megan onto the mat where she landed in a heap.

"You gonna kill me now?" She growled as she stood up.

"Your arrogance just keeps getting you into shit, doesn't it? You don't know when to quit."

"Come on; hit me, you fucking pussy!"

"Unlike you, Megan, I have self-control. You deserve to be hit and hard, but I won't do that – not to you."

"Why?"

"Because I care about you – Curtis too. I know that you've both been going through a lot. I should have been there to help you both before things went too far."

"There is nothing fucking wrong with us – you think we're going psychotic, like you?"

"Not like me, no – that takes a long time and worse crap than you've been exposed to. A lot has happened over the past year or so, Megan. You lost your Dad. Your Mom lost her job. You were forced to live in that shithole where we found you."

Megan was calming down – slowly, too slowly.

"Fucking hit me!" She growled furiously.

"Look, if you want to be a bitch, I'm sure Sophia will lend you one of her collars..."

"What!" Megan exclaimed.

"You want to be a real bitch, then we can fucking well treat you like one!"

Megan glared at me for a moment.

"You wouldn't..."

Megan did not sound too confident.

"You think I wouldn't put a collar on you and make you sleep in a dog bed? I would make you eat out of a bowl on the floor, with your butt in the air, too – and remember dogs don't wear clothes, either!"

Megan looked decidedly unhappy with that threat.

"You wouldn't fucking dare..."

"Try me, bitch!" I growled back with an evil smirk. "Strip – clothes off now – all of them... I'll go get that collar."

Megan glared, but then tears started to show themselves.

"Go sit on the couch," I said quietly.

I followed the young girl to the couch and sat down beside her.

"Megan – you've suffered a lot. You've been stabbed and badly hurt during some nasty fighting. You've got nothing to prove to me or anybody. You are one of my top operators and I am damn proud of you. Now your Mom's in hospital and that has tipped you over the edge – yes?"

Megan nodded hesitantly.

"We're all here to help you. Both of you – Curtis is talking to Chloe and Cathy, right now."

"How can you be so nice to me, considering what I've done... The way I've been treating everybody, especially you?"

"We all fuck up, once or twice," I replied. "Ask Dave and Chloe – I've fucked up more times than I care to think about!"

Megan paused for a minute before speaking again. She looked at me directly as she spoke.

"I need a rest, don't I?"

"Do you?"

"I can't bear the thought of not being Wildcat, even for a minute, but if I don't rest then I may never be allowed to be Wildcat again, right?"

"You got it, kid!"

"So, I'm grounded?"

"That's up to Marcus, but I'm standing you down from Fusion, as of right now. Get upstairs and you apologise to Anne-Marie, Danny and Stephanie. Then you spend some time being an eleven-year-old girl, okay."

Megan hesitated and then she nodded.

"Thank you, Mindy and I am really sorry for swearing at you. I mean that, I really do."

"I know."

Megan paused at the bottom of the stairs from the basement and she turned to me.

"Would you really have made me strip naked and put a collar on me?"

I laughed and then put on my evil face.

"We'll never know, will we, Megan!" I growled. "Unless, of course, you start behaving like a bitch again..."

Megan fled up the stairs.

That evening

"Hey, Mindy!"

"Hailee! You ready to look after these, err kids?"

"I can take it – I've faced worse..."

"Don't bet on it!"

"Hi, Hailee," Danny called out. "Guess what?"

"What?" Hailee replied.

"Megan owes the 'swear jar' about fifty-thousand bucks!"

Hailee laughed, which earned her a scowl from Megan.

"That bad, huh?"

"It was bad!" Anne-Marie confirmed with a grin, sticking her tongue out at Megan who did the same in return.

Hailee laughed.

"You have any trouble with Megan – just wave this at her," I said, placing a dog collar on the kitchen side.

Megan froze. She smiled sweetly and then suggested that they all go and watch a movie.

"Megan's learning to be a kid again," I whispered into Hailee's ear. "See you later – tonight should be a breeze!"

Three hours later

South Wells Street and West Van Buren Street

We had received a call from Voight.

The CPD had met up with something that they could not handle. Voight had reported it as somebody in an armoured suit – somebody big! There were only four of us on patrol that evening.

I was on my Multistrada while Kick-Ass was driving Iron Hide with Jackal and Shadow making out in the back! We came up West Jackson Boulevard and turned right onto South Wells Street driving beneath the 'L'. We stopped as we reached the southeast corner of The Loop.

It looked like the entire Chicago PD was out, including SWAT. We were met by Matthews who detailed four cops to watch our vehicles.

"He's in there," Matthews motioned towards a door with '404' displayed above it. "Second floor. Everything we fire at him seems to bounce off – he makes Kick-Ass seem rather small."

Kick-Ass growled.

"Down boy!" I quipped. "Leave it to us..."

Hit Girl and Shadow ran into the main door, pistols up in front of them.

Jackal jumped upwards pulling down the ladder to the fire escape. He rapidly climbed up to the second floor while I followed. A cop held the ladder in position. As we both reached the second floor, we heard radio chatter.

"Contact!" It was Hit Girl's voice.

I heard several shots, mostly the booms of Hit Girl's .40-calibre Glock 22 pistols, but interspersed with the sharper cracks of Shadow's 5.7-millimetre FN Five-seveN pistol.

"The fucker's bullet proof – at least Level III!" Shadow growled.

"Shadow run!" Hit Girl then growled as I heard heavy booms from .45-calibre gunfire. "The fucker has a fucking .45-calibre Kriss Vector!"

I felt cold inside my suit at that – those rounds would cut through the girls' lighter armour. There was no time for niceties so I drew my own Glock and shot out the glass in the nearest window. Having made my entrance, I ran through the office with Jackal close behind. I peered out of the door into the passageway and caught sight of a dull red shape.

Fuck the guy was huge! I fired off an entire magazine – but my rounds just bounced off the cunt! I did attract his attention though. He sent a few rounds in my direction before his magazine was empty. I took my chance and ran forwards. I seized hold of the Vector sub-machine gun and wrestled it out of the cunts hands as Jackal kicked at the tree trunks that the man used for legs.

Jackal managed to topple the giant as I ripped the Vector from his grip and threw it out of the nearest window. I turned as Jackal came flying past and the cunt ran up the next flight of stairs.

He was pursued by Hit Girl and Shadow, followed by Jackal. I followed along behind.

We were blindsided as we excited the stairs.

I felt myself being picked up and thrown to the floor. I rolled to absorb the impact and crashed against the wall. I looked up to see Hit Girl fly past me and hit the brick wall with an audible thud. She fell to the ground not moving.

"Hit Girl is down!" I called over the comms.

Jackal ran to help Hit Girl, but he was kicked hard in the stomach and he fell to the ground, an arm holding his stomach.

"Bloody wanker!" Jackal grimaced in obvious pain as he drew a pistol and emptied twenty rounds into the giant cunt as he turned back to the still form of Hit Girl.

"Hit Girl, move!" I yelled and I saw her stirring.

The veteran vigilante was not moving fast enough, being kicked in the thigh before she could fully move out of the way of the advancing juggernaut. I heard her scream out in pain, but she rolled and kicked out. The giant barely registered the strike.

As I got to my feet, Kick-Ass appeared from the stairs like a raging bull elephant. His body language told me that he was beyond pissed.

"Hey!" Kick-Ass yelled. "Why don't you pick on someone your own size?"

They clashed, punching and kicking each other as they took over the office with their fighting.

We all very quickly moved out of harm's way before we were trampled. It kinda reminded me of the T-Rex vs I-Rex fight in Jurassic Park! Kick-Ass was putting every ounce of his ample strength behind his punches and 'Red', we had no other name for him, staggered under the onslaught, but then he struck back and hard.

I winced inside my mask as Kick-Ass received two solid blows, one to his chest and another to the side of his head. Kick-Ass almost lost his footing but he then drove in with punch after punch pounding Red in the face, stomach and kidneys. The sound alone of the strikes, armour against armour, was awesome.

We could all hear Kick-Ass as he was on VOX and he was swearing worse than Hit Girl! Red was pushed down onto one knee, fending off the blows, but then he kicked out and swept Kick-Ass' left leg from under him, sending him crashing to the floor. However, Kick-Ass was not done; he drove his fist upwards and struck Red hard in the stomach, almost doubling him over with the power of the punch.

Kick-Ass rolled away and regained his feet, but he looked shaky.

"Kick-Ass – how about we teach this fucker to fly?"

"Sure would beat round fucking two!" Kick-Ass growled.

"We take him on three..." I replied, flexing my muscles – I was going to need every damn one of them.

"Three!" I yelled and we both ran forwards seizing an arm each and bracing our shoulders against Red's chest.

We drove the bastard backwards, increasing our momentum, fighting for purchase on the wood floor. Gunfire erupted as the girls got in on the act and blasted a window open – one that had no fire escape beyond it.

"Battle Guy, Hit Girl – tell Matthews that he has incoming!"

We had less than two feet to go and then the red cunt was airborne. He knew it too and he struggled against our combined strength, but we had the edge. He was fighting harder, knowing that he was going to die, but we just pushed harder knowing that he would kill us if we let him go.

"Stop!" Red yelled.

We did not stop.

"Why?" Kick-Ass roared back.

"Who are you?" I demanded with what little breath I had left.

"My name is of no consequence..."

"Fuck this – two, six, fucking heave!" I growled to Kick-Ass.

One more, hearty shove and the cunt fell backwards. I felt myself grabbed by a pair of hands and was thrown to the floor before I followed Red the quick way back to the street below. Kick-Ass fell off to the side against the window frame and collapsed to the floor. I turned to look up into my girl's hidden eyes.

"Thank you, gorgeous!"

"Fuck, I – am – in – pain!" Kick-Ass declared.