Young Writers Society

Full Novel Synopsis: Sequel to 'The Spiralling', itself a sequel to the Kick-Ass (2010) movie. However, this novel can be read on its own. After Big Daddy died, Mindy was driven mad, subdued by Dave, and locked away in an Institute after killing all who she deemed responsible but Dave. Will she recover? What will happen next to a New York without her nor the Motherfucker? Elements of the Kick-Ass 2 (2013) movie and comic series will be taken in.

The Descent

Chapter 2: Hit-Girl Returns Part 2

The cab I was in pulled over before the Institute. I paid the taxi driver his due, and then even more as a tip, and because I was crazy with joy and excitement, with a little bit of anxiety thrown in. Sure, he called me crazy, but it didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered except for Mindy walking through the gates of Jameson.

My smile was pretty much a permanent establishment on my face as I walked through reception, skipped over to Doctor Paul’s office, greeting every single doctor, orderly and patient I come across, including the grouchy orderly with a pirate patch on his right eye. Knocking on Paul’s office door with a comical pattern, I opened it and entered. I could hardly wait to hear it from him.

Coming into his office, I noticed that it didn’t change one bit. Heavy wooden furniture, red carpets and various sorts of instruments lined a counter. Bookshelves behind him, and his certificates, like trophies, hung on the right side wall, displayed proudly. He didn’t change much either. Doctor Paul was still in his 50s, sporting a full head of grey hair, and is actually quite muscular due to the same hobby he had with Aldan, or Grandmaster. I could easily imagine him with a claymore, except… One of his arms, his left arm, was in a sling, and it was in a cast. My smile faded a little.

“What happened to your arm?” Before I even said it, I knew it had something to do with Mindy. The look of it took my smile right off. Something felt wrong. Immediately, I was looking around the room, my Kick-Ass-sense reactivated. I couldn’t help it. I was Pavlov’s Dog, and it refused to fade away even long after Demoness’ defeat.

“It’s fine, cheery, don’t worry about it, happened a few months ago when I failed to hypnotise Mindy Macready.” The doctor explained. He wasn’t even looking at his clipboard anymore. Mindy must have made quite an impression upon him. There was a glass of whisky on his side – for a moment I thought he was, again, nervous, but I didn’t see any beads of sweat, “It’d be out of the cast soon, so it’s fine and dandy, yeah?”

“Please, have a seat.” He waved his only working hand over the rather comfortable satin chair he had ahead of his desk, “Now let’s get down to the patient, shall we?” Patient!? My paranoid mind screamed, Still a patient!?

“Look, I know you’re absolutely, undoubtedly excited, happy, in cloud 9 over this, as I’m sure, but there are many things you should know first.” I was wide-eyed and wide-mouthed before it even started. I was going, ‘No, not another horrible twist again…’, like when I was watching an incredibly horrible movie, except this was way, way worse. My stomach was wrenching itself, tied in an intricate knot that only a 50 year old boy scout could disentangle. Doctor Paul noticed my distress, not that I was a master at hiding my feelings, “Look here, son, it’s not… that bad, considering the alternative.” Now that he mentioned the alternative, I couldn’t help but to agree – anything’s better than Demoness running around the city, killing hundreds all over again, starting another mass funeral. I cared less about her vendetta against me. You wouldn’t either, not especially after you’d seen the procession going down the city, the women and children in black, the walls of sympathy…

“What are you saying?” I feel like a soldier in Vietnam on an electrified bed, begging for a Rambo to save me from it, “What happened to Mindy?” Dr. Paul was looking at his clipboard again. I froze, tried to peek in on the details myself, but I couldn’t read it from afar, and the words I could somehow make out didn’t make half a lick of sense.

“Where do I start?” The good doctor said, still looking at his clipboard, and for the next few seconds, was silent. It felt like forever, as the cliché goes, but it was no cliché to me. I was dying inside, “Well, to start… She’s not Mindy anymore. It’s Mandy now.”

“Man… Mandy?” It doesn’t click with me. The most I could think of was that there was some kind of a new personality from her Dissociative Identity Disorder. Heck, I was running on nothing but a thread here. I couldn’t even remember the DID term until I glanced it off the clipboard.

“Yes, she’s not Mindy anymore, and certainly not Hit-Girl, and most importantly, she’s not Demoness anymore.” He continued. My heart felt like it needed a defibrillator. I would have been glad if she was cured, but this was something else entirely, I felt it down to the bones, and my bones weren’t made of Adamantium.

“I’ve tried every treatment available. In the area of Psychotherapy alone, I’ve exhausted Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, Insight-Oriented Therapies, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. Then there’s Hypnotherapy, which of course, as you might gather, gave me this broken arm.” I couldn’t even understand half of what he was saying. All I could focus on was the bit where Mindy, the Hit-Girl I knew, the girl who I helped Marcus Williams to take care of, God rest his soul, the girl who I had to tuck in at night at the cop’s house, who I had to comfort on many said nights to even get her to even take a nap ever since Big Daddy died, the strong girl who single-handedly took down the notorious D’Amico family, was no more, somehow gone, just gone like that, “- No doubt been exhausted as well. You wouldn’t want to know the kind of chemicals I had to pump into her on a regular basis, and most of them don’t work.” He had continued droning on even when I was losing focus, remembering the Mindy Macready I knew, the Hit-Girl who saved me from being executed live in front of a camera, before the whole wide city.

“You… brainwashed her.” I choked on my own words. My brain felt like it was expanding. I was clutching my head, covering my eyes. The dam broke again, just like it always did in the last year – Tears were spilling. I could feel pain, almost physical pain in there, in my skull. I wouldn’t be surprised if I woke up in the asylum the next day, kept in a straitjacket.

“That’s a crude term, not even half right, but excusable.” The doctor continued. Despite understanding my distress, he seemed confident in what he was doing. I couldn’t help but to imagine him in a corny Nazi SS Uniform, but half of me knew that it wasn’t his fault, “It was an experimental treatment, a package of treatment I used to deconstruct and reconstruct her, deleting memories and personality traits at the root of her Demoness complex. In simpler terms, it’s a combination of memory-wiping drugs, electroshock treatment, and various forms of procedural therapy.” His last explanation was a little more on my level. I could understand, just barely, not that it made it any easier.

“I understand this is very hard, very difficult on you. I’ve read your accounts, all 129 pages of them, but this is the only way. We’ve worked together for the past year, that is over 320 days, and you would have to trust me.” The doctor continued. The next time I looked up, he had already put down his clipboard, “Dave, listen to me. What I say next will be substantial, important, very essential.” And I was thinking at the time, isn’t everything you’ve said so far extremely substantial? Too substantial?

“Her treatment is not over. The next phase falls upon you. I’ve done the deconstruction, I’ve cut away the tumour, x-rayed the cancer. She’s a clean slate now, and you’re her new author.” The doctor continued. His clipboard was down, but he had switched to his computer, “She doesn’t even know her new name, Mandy. You could choose to give her a new name, but I recommend Mandy Lizewski, just not Mindy and especially not Mindy Macready. I need you to stir her clear from all that nonsense that drove her down to my Institute, do you understand?”

I could only nod, and nod away. Mindy… or rather Mandy, had to be given a life far away from violence, from all that military and police training Big Daddy had given her, from all that experience she had taking down petty criminals and the bigger mobs and mafia. No more superheroes, no more comic books, not even that sort of cartoons, “Give her a feminine life, something normal. There might be some residual memories – maybe an odd muscle memory, or an unclear emotional response, but with time, she will completely forget, as you call it, get over it, get a move on, and she will then live the normal life she deserves.”

“Are you ready to meet her?” The doctor said as he was switching off the monitor on his computer, putting his only good hand over his clipboard ceremoniously.

“Yes, yes, please.” I said, my voice visibly shaking, but not from straight-up happiness or excitement any longer. I was terrified, somehow, of meeting this new vulnerable little girl the doctor told me about as opposed to the Hit-Girl I knew who could kill a man with his own finger. I was more used to the rough Hit-Girl as opposed to… Mandy. I regretted not convincing dad to come with me.