What thoughts does a drunken man have?
Most would tell you none. At least, no coherent thoughts.
Zhou Cheng would slur otherwise. But that would also mean leaving his comfortable doorway. He remembers a show he watched when he was little, and there was a kid named Stoop Boy who never left his stoop. The characters spent the entire show trying to get Stoop Boy to leave his stoop and go and play.
Zhou's never left the Hand since his master bit the dust. Most days he sits in the doorway, drinking, waiting for something to happen to him. Staying loyal, he tells himself. He's staying loyal to his master's orders.
You have far too much power. You must drink to control that power, Zhou. Otherwise it will control you and take you down a path you cannot return from. Do not trust that path.
The dragon inside of him rumbles.
Some stray kids wander his way. They tug on his sleeve. He slurs some joke, makes them giggle. They tug at his arm again, but he stays put and waves them away. They jump around and pretend to be ninjas in the concrete yard in front of his doorway. It looks like fun, like when he was little. But he's not moving. He's waiting. His time will come.
With every passing day, he drinks a little more.
"My liver's going to die at this rate," he mumbles to himself.
A brown mouse pauses and stares at him with wide eyes. "Think I was dead? Sorry to disappoint."
It squeaks and scurries away.
No one expects anything important of mice. They got silent paws, stick to the shadows…
Even Madame Gao looks disgusted with him, and he knows the old bat has seen far too many things to be considered sane. What must he look like? His master would be proud.
He despises the Iron Fist the moment his eyes fall upon the boy.
White American boy, billionaire, with no loyalty to the very people that helped him achieve his power, just another man who thinks he can get to the top and stomp on everyone else once he's there.
Zhou would never do that.
He wishes he had the power of the Iron Fist.
Maybe that thought alone makes him disloyal. A traitor. Undeserving of Danny Rand's title. As undeserving as Danny Rand is. Zhou meets Danny's challenge. He stands on unsteady feet and mocks the boy—he leaves his stoop.
The dragon rumbles. It glares at him from the dark, eyes bright green and accusing. Zhou pours baijiu over it. A screech echoes and the eyes vanish. Calm. Yes. Focus on fighting Danny Rand. Kick, block, flip—lying down now. Okay. The ground feels nice.
Stomp, stomp—dodge.
Oh, Danny Rand is pissed.
Zhou wishes he could remember what he said to piss off the boy, what he said to end up with a bloody nose, but too soon and too suddenly darkness engulfs him. And oh, does the unconsciousness feel good.
He pulls through the fight. He wakes to someone throwing freezing water over him.
"What the hell?" he yelps, bolting upright. Oh—why did he do that? The entire world spins and he holds his head.
"Up and at 'em, drunk boy. The Hand skedaddled while you were passed out," a woman's voice informs him.
"Who're you?" he mumbles, eyes screwed shut. Lightning splits his head.
"The name's Az. What's your name, again?"
"Zhou Cheng," he answers, and he thinks about finishing his title, but if the Hand left him, that means he's on his own. He failed them. No need for titles anymore. No one wanted him after his parents died—why would the Hand want some dirty, drunk, worthless orphan that couldn't even defend a doorway?
He manages to glimpse the woman standing in front of him before the light becomes too much and he shuts his eyes again. Tall, white, scars slashing across her face, loose sweatshirt, dark jeans, short and wild hair. Odd. And is that an accent in her voice?
"Here," she says, tapping the side of his head with a plastic bottle. Zhou blinks at it. "I don't know how you fight drunk like that. How's your liver doing?"
"What is this?"
"Water. Need something else?"
She dangles one of his bottles in front of him. He snatches it and greedily gulps. The anger and pain in his chest subsides, the swirling, thrashing dragon calming. His head relaxes its death grip on his brain.
"What is that?" she asks.
"Baijiu." He pauses, placing her accent. "You're Russian? You'd like it. It's basically vodka."
She swipes the bottle and takes a swig. "Ooh. Not bad. Yes, I'm part Russian. And you?"
"Unimportant."
She scoffs and hands him the bottle. "Am I wasting my time?" she asks, tilting her head and fixing him with a hard stare.
It makes his skin grow hot and uncomfortable. He drinks again. "Depends," he replies, wiping his mouth. "What are you spending your time on?"
"Your worthless sense of self. You're giving up and you haven't even started."
"Given up on what? The doorway?" He leans back on his elbows. "I failed my mission to protect the Hand. I don't see the point in continuing it if the Hand is gone. They obviously don't want me."
She shakes her head and stands. "Good-bye, Zhou."
"Wait, wait," he calls. He rubs his eyes. "Let me get my head straight." Taking a deep breath, he shoves himself to his feet. The world spins for a moment. It settles, centering on her. "Alright, alright."
Her eyes flick over him. "Alright. Let's go."
"Where to?"
She jerks her head in a vague direction. He runs a hand through his hair and follows her out of the Hand building and onto the streets. They weave through the alleys. She makes a turn, and suddenly Zhou doesn't recognize the bricks here, the white, windowless buildings scarred with cracks. The temperature drops. He shivers. She says, "Iron Fist is a power from Heaven, right? You need some help from Hell."
Zhou perks up. "Hell? Paradise Lost, Dante's Inferno Hell?"
Her eyes light up. "Mm, more like the ninth layer of Dante's Inferno. You ever heard of Niflheim?" she asks, turning and walking backwards, ginning lopsidedly. Unlike Zhou, she seems completely unbothered by the cold. His eyes flicker to the logo on her t-shirt. A white hand.
"Are you from the Hand?"
She glances down and chuckles. "No—it's the White Hand of Sarumon from The Lord of the Rings."
"I only read The Hobbit."
Snow hits his face. Wait—snow?
He glances up. The sky swirls with thick, gray clouds and sheets of snow. No more bricks—stone towers all around, black peeking beneath the layers of snow and ice. "Woah…" He stumbles.
She grabs his shoulders and steadies him. His bottle swings from his wrist, tied there by a red string. "Careful," she says with a laugh. "There's a cliff to your left."
He looks to his left. Yup. "When did that get there?"
"How drunk are you?"
He takes another swig from his bottle. "This is Hell?"
"This is Niflheim, the coldest region from Norse Mythology. Hey, eyes up." He drags his eyes from the cliffs and the infinite abyss to her. "You cold?"
"Y-yeah," he says through chattering teeth.
She unzips her sweatshirt and gives it to him. He gratefully puts it on. It smells nice, like freshly dried laundry, and it has that pleasant warmth, too. Nonetheless, he shivers. "I'm a pussy."
"A little bit, yeah." She shivers, too. "But it's still too damn cold to dally 'round. Hurry up." She tugs on his hand and he stumbles along after her. He wonders if this isn't some dream and he's still unconscious on the floor. After all, there's an abyss next to his left—it feels straight like its straight out of Milton. He half expects to see Satan walking ahead of them, ready to sweep into Eden and tempt Eve.
Az halts outside a tiny stone door. An engraved serpent winds its way up and down the door. "What is it?"
"Jormungandr."
"Mouthful."
She pushes the door open to reveal…shadows. Yep, he's seen shady doors like this before. "After you," she tells him. "Go to the left."
Zhou steps inside. So warm. He folds his arms over his chest and revels in the warmth, stomping the snow from his shoes. It melts in a puddle. She steps over the puddle and shakes the snow from her hair.
"Why's your hair so short?" he asks. He rakes his eyes over her body, resting a bit too long on her ass. She gestures upwards with her hand. "Sorry," he mumbles. "Drunk, you know."
"No excuse. But I do have to say, you have a nice ass yourself," she says. He chuckles. "And the hair is just preference. Doesn't get in the way during a fight."
"Where'd you get the scars?"
She points at the shadowy hall. "Keep walking. It's a narrow passage, so I'll go behind you."
Zhou hesitates. "I can't see."
"Trust the path."
He takes a breath and starts forward. Trust the path. Each footfall finds solid ground. Az keeps her word and walks behind him, close enough that he can feel her breath on his neck. When he tries to stop she nudges him forward. The walls seem to close in, like the cold stones of a grave.
"Where—,"
She shushes him. He presses his lips together. Warm air touches his front. The cold seeps away, leaving him sweating in the woman's sweatshirt. His mind clears—the alcohol leaves his system almost as fast as the heat came upon them. In that moment of new clarity, he turns and faces the woman.
"What's your full name?" he demands.
"Az Lokiovna." She unzips the sweatshirt for him, fingers tracing down his chest along with the zipper. "You know the dragon inside of you? This was his home. Madame Gao killed him and gave his power to you. And what do you do? Pour baijuice or whatever the hell it is all over him." She takes a step back and falls into a fighting position.
The power will engulf you.
"It's disrespectful," she continues. "You have this great gift and you treat it like a disease. And then you have the audacity to wonder why you could never be the Iron Fist."
"Shut up!" he snaps, lunging forward.
The dragon erupts. It sinks its claws into his brain and shuts all other thought down. Fire rises in his chest and pumps him forward. Flames blind his eyes.
Az evades. She darts and ducks, rolling and worrying him with short, quick jabs. Annoying, really. The flames subside enough to let Zhou see and think, but all Zhou thinks is wolf. Dragon versus wolf. Flames lick at the edge of his vision.
He shakes his head. "Let go!" he snaps at the dragon. "I got this!"
One claw lets go. The dragon snarls. Damn the Hand, putting this wretched, disobedient dragon in him. He cracks his fist over its horned head. It does nothing but surprise the dragon. "Let go." The other claw vanishes. Zhou wins. His eyes clear—and where'd she go?
Az grabs him from behind and spins him around. She punches him in the jaw once, twice, a third punch to his gut.
He collapses. His head spins and his jaw feels like it might just fall off.
Black.
