Chapter 53 : Tempus fugit (A helping hand/A not-so helping Hand)

 

Aria’s bedroom, the Thomson’s house, Forest Hills, Queens, New York, 24th of February, 20:12

 

A knock on my door distracts Iris and I from our respective activities.

 

Iris had been giving her all to raise her hugging proficiency, of course, while I was doing my homework in a record time.

 

“Yes?” I answer while looking over my shoulder.

 

Flash opens the door and steps inside, closing it carefully behind himself.

 

“I need a favor.” He starts with a serious look.

 

“Alright, what is it?” I ask archly as I turn my chair to face him properly.

 

“Maybe it’s about making little spawns?” Iris muses aloud before Flash can answer.

 

I guffaw at my blood-sister’s remark while Flash sputters.

 

“Hell no!” He exclaims with a scowl, “That would be even worse than the talk I had with dad when I was eleven.”

 

Yeah, considering he was still a violent alcoholic at the time, I bet it set the bar pretty high in terms of awkwardness.

 

And I’m certain I could do worse just to annoy him!

 

Flash sighs as he passes a hand over his face.

 

“Jokes aside, what do you need?” I ask as one of my hands loses itself in Iris’ hairs to distract her.

 

It works splendidly and she starts to nuzzle my neck, Flash totally forgotten.

 

“I need materials.” He answers seriously, his composure back in force, “Constructing things in the Mirror Dimension can only get me so far since I can’t bring my prototypes back.”

 

I am aware that he’s spending an awful lot of time on his own experimenting with his abilities while I train the others, but I wasn’t aware he had reached this state of progress.

 

“I’ve downloaded all I could find about modern engineering in my head from the internet.” He explains while tapping his head with his finger, “But I can’t benefit from it if I can’t apply it in the real world. All the machines are weird in the Mirror Dimension since they are copies of existing ones which makes the feedback extremely lackluster.”

 

I slowly nod. I’ve noticed the same thing after all when I tried to communicate with them myself.

 

“So I need to either get some or build them myself to start making myself useful.” He ends up, folding his arms over his chest sulkily.

 

I chuckle.

 

A sulking boy isn’t really a pretty sight.

 

“Why does Flashy look constipated like that, sister?” Iris innocently asks.

 

I laugh while Flash throws my symbiotic half a look.

 

“Because he has an issue that frustrates him.” I gently answer my unabashed blood-sister.

 

Since we’re more or less permanently in a state of merged-mind these days, I totally know that she only asks for comedic purposes but I have to play my part.

 

Reeling up your siblings is, after all, a sacred duty of the eldest.

 

“Alright, I was running low on money after all.” I finally answer Flash’s plea, “Rewarding martial artists for their knowledge is surprisingly costly if you’re generous.”

 

That, plus the fact I spent nearly five hundred bucks on clothes to cheer Jessica up on Valentine’s day.

 

It had been a good time. I even helped Liz’ finds some shoes that even Flash had liked and I did spent some time with Gwen so she doesn’t get all moppey without it being a date.

 

All around, money well spent.

 

Even if a surprising amount of the clothes I bought for Jess’ were from Hot Topic. For someone pretending that she doesn’t share my tastes, she had certainly demonstrated a preference for alternative dresswear.

 

Teasing her about it had become one of my favorite pass-time in school.

 

“Time to steal from good ol’ Fisk once more, I guess.” I muses aloud.

 

Flash blinks.

 

“Wait.” He starts, “Do you mean Wilson Fisk, the real estate mogul?”

 

“The one and only.” I answer, gesturing vaguely around us, “The guy is known in the crime world as The Kingpin. He has his greasy hands in almost every mafia related business in New York City.”

 

“And you stole his money?” He asks, a little wide-eyed.

 

“That and I ripped apart one of his warehouses in the process of bringing you back.” I lazily point out.

 

Flash’s jaw hangs open splendidly as Iris chuckles for the both of us.

 

“You never told me that!” He exclaims a little loudly, his arms falling alongside his body.

 

I blink and parse quickly through my memories.

 

Uh.

 

“My bad, I actually didn’t.” I shrug lightly, “Well, now you know.”

 

“And you want to do it again?” He asks, wide-eyed.

 

“The guy is an arsehat of prime quality.” I answer with a half-shrug, “He deserves it.”

 

“That’s not the point!” Flash answers, eyes bulging, “You admitted five seconds ago that he had ties with the mafia!”

 

“I’m afraid I’m not really seeing your point?” I ask as I tilt my head.

 

“That’s the thing, you’re not afraid.” He drawls while starting to pinch his nose in frustration.

 

“If it’s just armed goons, there is no way I’ll be in any sort of danger.” I answer back nonplussed.

 

“You realize you’re literally provoking the god of irony, right?” He deadpans.

 

I chuckle.

 

“Alright, I may have raised a flag.” I concede while raising my hands in mock-surrender.

 

“Exactly.” He sighs.

 

Flash works his mouth for a beat as he thinks.

 

“I’m coming.” He decisively say after a beat, his brows furrowed.

 

I look at him archly.

 

“Worried much?” I tease him.

 

“You’re the one who is always harping about bringing some backup when doing an op.” He points out, raising an eyebrow of his own, “Are you going to become the type of teacher that answers ‘Do what I say, not what I do’ when someone points out your failures?”

I wince as Iris chuckles lightly in my neck, [Mirth] dancing on our merged-mind.

 

“Point taken.” I drawl.

 

“Good.” Flash answers while nodding once, “So when are we going?”

 

I sigh.

 

“Let’s wait for everyone to fall asleep.” I answer back, one of my hands rubbing one of my temples, “I’ll have your cd player ping you when we’ll be good to go.”

 

***

Unspecified house those basement serves as a smuggler cache for Fisk’s operations, Forest Hills, Queens, New York, 25th of February, 00:37

 

“I really want to say ‘I told you so’ but I have the feeling that now isn’t exactly the right time.” Flash drawls next to me.

 

“You’re right.” We shoot back, “The moment doesn’t seem appropriate.”

 

I’ve chosen one of the closest warehouses from our home to reduce the grasp Fisk has on our bloc.

 

Everything went fine at first. The security was borderline lackluster with an antiquated surveillance system that barely covered everything. So it was a matter of seconds before we took down the quintet of guards that watched over the place.

 

Things got pear shaped when we went to the basement. A bell trap, of all things, that Flash triggered while walking downstairs signaled our presence to a previously unknown party.

 

I hadn’t paid attention to the borderline animalistic minds that had been near the warehouse when we dropped in.

 

Now, as I see the silently running ninjas garbed in black and red, I understand that we’re facing the Hand. My telepathy probably got fooled by their history of never really dying in exchange for their humanity.

 

“Brace.” We clip at Flash’s attention as we lean our back on his own.

 

Iris and I are clad in our standard full jumpsuit look-alike battleform, all shades of white, purple and lilac, which is a blessing since I did not want to expose my whole arsenal this early in the game to random schmooks.

 

Flash isn’t that lucky, garbed in the tac-gear he had pilfered what seems a lifetime ago on another of Fisk’s goons the night he resurrected.

 

At least, he wears a balaclava so our anonymity is preserved.

 

<“Listen carefully,”> I telepathically communicate to him in virtue of being in contact with him, <“Those guys are basically zombie-ninja.”>

 

<“You’re shitting me?”> He blurts out mentally.

 

<“I’m not.”> I answer sternly, <“They have access to a mystical macguffin that can bring their dead members back to life when they die. We don’t want that or they will keep coming back to annoy us.”>

 

<“What do we do then?”> He asks, dread rising.

 

<“We kill them all to the last one while never allowing them to reach the corpses of their fallen.”> I answer coldly, <“Then we reduce them to ashes.”>

 

<“Are you for real?”> He mentally screams at me.

 

<“One hundred percent, Flashy.”> I answer stonily, <“We have to make a show of force that implies that we know what they are or they’re going to plague the city like rats.”>

 

<“Those guys are hardened killers, Flashy.”> I explain further when he doesn’t answer, <“And they can’t be held behind bars because of their ninjutsu. We have to put them down so they’re not allowed to make anymore victims.”>

 

<“I’m fucking mad at you right now.”> He mentally growls.

 

<“And so am I at you for triggering that shitty trap.”> I clip back, <“Now, put on your war face because it’s rip and tear time.”>

 

<“Aria?”> He asks.

 

<“Yeah?”> I answer, expecting him to say something clever.

 

<“I told you so.”> He does not.

 

<“Fuck you, Flashy.”> I drawl back while mentally rolling my eyes at him, <“You’d better rid yourself of any kind of retching reflex by the way.”>

 

The whole exchange barely took a few seconds due to it being mental and we disengage as the first Hand member reaches us.

 

He lunges with his short sword, trying to impale us. Since we’ve long switched our active mind for one of our accelerated one, we easily sidestep his move while directing a talon hand toward his center mass.

 

Coated in our touch-TK as it is, the tremendous speed and strength of our strike make it so our hand goes through his chest as easily as if it was a sheet of paper.

 

We reflexively close our fist around the mixture of flesh, bones and heart that we have taken while striking through as the ninja gurgles his last breath.

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We rip our arm out of his chest, spraying blood absolutely everywhere in the motion.

 

The ninja fall and we step onto his torso as two others come closer.

 

They won’t retrieve their brother in arms, we guarantee it.

 

Two cutting motions, one from each side, are directed our way. It’s a simple affair to catch their swinging hands as they do so since no matter how much we bend, our touch-TK make it so we’re always braced and we cannot fall.

 

We pull them forward toward us, using their own momentum against them as we direct a knife hand for each throat. They impale themselves on our claws, blood flowing the length of our arms.

 

In the same motion as we lay them down aside from the first one, we take their sword as they fall and shish kebab them with the first one.

 

We feel another quasi-animalistic mind creep behind us, warned by our telepathic mind running full tilt to prevent those kinds of ambushes.

 

We bend backward as if we were doing the limbo as he strikes in another cutting arc and we punch toward his midsection at the same time. Holding him in place by a burst of telekinesis on his feet, our fist goes through once again, shredding his innards and his spine to bloody chunks.

 

Once more, as he falls forward due to what others would think is his own momentum, we sidestep like a dancer while twirling his own sword in the air before he joins his brethren with a new spiky addition to his physique.

 

Three others rush at us at the same time as we lay our eyes on Flash for the first time since the battle has begun.

 

He seems to have taken a page in our book since two Hand ninja lay at his feet, although they seem to have had a very unpleasant encounter with the floor since it is caved in and they are halfway through it.

 

We nod approvingly.

 

That will do just fine.

 

We crouch as three blades try to impale us from three different directions. Doing a handstand, we do a full circle with our legs extended and the claws on our feet in full display, accelerating the rotation with our touch-TK. Carried by their momentum, the three ninja shred their own bellies on the deadly blender we make.

 

Somersaulting back on our feet amid a shower of blood and various bodily fluids, we rapidly assert control of the three falling blades with our two hands and one of our feet, and three pinned to the ground butterflies join the previous ones.

 

In our mind-eye, we feel the Hand ninja stop in their tracks.

 

We see that Flash had laid down two more of them, trapped in a similar fashion as the others.

 

Nobody moves for a while.

 

We feel them retreat without a sound.

 

“Drat.” We mutter under our breath, “They’re retreating.”

 

Flash relaxes his stance before turning himself toward us.

 

He instantly gags when he sees us covered in blood amid our makeshift shrine of impaled Hand members.

 

“Oh fuck.” Flash blurts out, his face strangely green for a cyborg, “I’m going to get sick.”

 

“We told you to rid yourself of any kind of nausea inducing reflex.” We coldly answer, “Do it now before you leave more evidence behind.”

 

The fact that he does so is flagrant as he immediately gets some colors back on his face.

 

He still eyes our display with visible quiziness.

 

We sigh under our breath as we bring to our position the four he downed by himself toward us with a flicker of TK.

 

“Good job.” We offhandedly comment as we pile the ninjas together.

 

“You’re welcome.” He distractedly answers, “How the fuck did you manage to put them down so…”

 

“Gruesomely?” We offer as we start to gather all the materials, various containers of chemicals, weapons and money next to us with another flourish of TK.

 

“Yeah.” He answer back.

 

“That’s one of the martial arts we’ve been developing for the group.” We explain as Iris starts to ooze all around us to swallow our spoils in her pocket dimension, “Jessica is learning it too. It should be a bit less effective since she doesn’t have claws, though.”

 

“The one for fliers.” He nods to himself.

 

“Yes.” We answer as we start to gather all the air around us in a half-sphere centered around the Hand ninja’s bodies.

 

By the time Iris has finished gathering what we came for, the pressure inside the half-sphere is so high I think I’ve heard some bones crumble.

 

“What are you doing?” Flash asks quizzically, having visibly gathered some of his confidence back.

 

“Increasing the pressure of the air so we get ourselves a nice and fiery kaboom once we leave.” We answer as we start forming a second layer inside the half-sphere, setting it in rotation with the other, “Step closer, please.”

 

He does so and we clamp one hand on his shoulder at the same time as we punch a hole upward with our TK.

 

The two different ceilings and the roof open themselves under our might, giving us a nice clear view of the night sky.

 

“Don’t move.” We comment, “We teleport as soon as the explosion starts.”

 

Flash doesn’t answer, eyes still locked on the gruesome display.

 

Our dilated senses catch a spark in the bottom corner of our eyes and we teleport upward as high as we can.

 

The rumbling sound of the explosion catches up to us a few seconds later as we have chained a few more teleports to land on a faraway building.

 

In the distance, we watch the previously owned by the Kingpin house crumble on itself as the fire starts.

 

Iris and I disengage our merged state, the danger having been dealt with.

 

I turn myself toward Flash.

 

He’s eyeing me strangely.

 

I also notice that his outfit sports a certain number of cuts that weren’t there previously. He probably traded blows at some point, confident that the ninjas’ blades couldn’t go beyond his metallic muscles.

 

I sigh lightly as Iris blossoms on my back, hugging me.

 

“Sorry for that, it wasn’t exactly how I planned to introduce you to the reality of the life of a super.” I say to my ‘twin’ with an apologetic smile.

 

Flash opens, closes, then opens his mouth once more.

 

“What you said about them, it was true, right?” He softly asks after a while.

 

“To the extent of my knowledge, yes.” I answer while nodding, “The one thing I could be mistaken about is the undying part, albeit if you could have felt their minds you would have some doubt about their humanity as well.”

 

He sighs mightily as his shoulders sag in relief.

 

“So, we really had no other choices?” He asks for confirmation.

 

“I swear we did not.” I answer decisively.

 

“Alright.” He answers while turning around.

 

I raise an eyebrow.

 

“What are you doing?” I ask puzzlingly.

 

“Giving myself back my gag reflex and probably puking my guts out in the aftermath.” He deadpans back.

 

“You want me to pat you in the back?” I hesitantly ask.

 

“No, I want you to say ‘You were right and I was wrong’.” He snarks.

 

“Get bent, Flashy.” I drawl while rolling my eyes.

 

In fact, he promptly bends forward a beat later.

 

But not because I asked him if the retching sounds I hear can be trusted.

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