Team

"We make quite a team."

-Danny Rand

TUESDAY, EVENING

"You okay?"

Flame and stone was scattered all over the place. Sirens blared in the distance, screams and shouting. Mr. Interpol blew up three parked cars on the street. How could he know she would be standing by those three cars? Unless they were planted. Unless he'd been ready and waiting for someone like her to come strolling down that exact sidewalk. Knew she would listen to someone pleading for her help. She did not appreciate being in the dark on how somebody could be that prepared.

Jessica heard scuffling beside her. Freddy groaned and rolled onto his back, uttering, "What happened?"

"That would be called an explosion."

Groggily returning to awareness and gripping his arm to his side, he blinked blankly at her. She rolled onto her knees and checked the surroundings. Cops would be coming around to investigate and she didn't need the headache. Besides, she had an appointment for kicking ass to keep.

"Bastard messing my shit up. Not cool."

"Who was that guy?" the college kid lying next to her wailed. "Why did he try to kill us?"

"Million dollar question, Freddy. But that's the kind of crap that happens when you get into bed with bad people."

"I'm sorry," he remorsefully expressed. "I had to."

She didn't need to bother with a pawn. He wouldn't know anything or be useful. "Alright. You go home. I'm gonna go get some answers."

He sat up, fright sketched on his face. "Do you know where to go?"

"That depends. Were you telling the truth about the where?"

"Yeah. They didn't think you'd be alive to ever reach it."

She bit down on her tongue to avoid speaking. Jessica was incredibly irritated this punk would throw her life away for his brother. Of course she understood the reasoning, love and all that bullshit. Didn't mean she had to be happy about it.

Poking at a sore spot she could feel forming on her cheekbone, she grit her teeth and locked eyes with her fake client.

"Parking garage under construction ten blocks from here," she announced, standing up. "I'll find it."

/

"Aw, come on!" Colleen complained. "Now who are those guys?"

Danny staggered to a halt at a curve in the ramp. Ahead of him was his girlfriend and he tracked where she was looking. There was an increase of bad guys happening as they poured in from the main entrance. These people were dressed in various hues of clothing save for their matching black leather jackets. Hispanic.

He glanced behind himself to where Luke was knocking assailants about left and right. The man was pissed the men in gray assault gear were carrying short blades that could cut through his typically impervious skin. Aside from a thin cut on his arm, the only thing their enemies managed to do was earn renewed ferocity in their wannabe victim's bearing upon them.

One of the masked men attacked Colleen, distracting and causing him to almost miss the Hispanic firing a gun at him. He moved, avoiding the path of the bullet, and tossed himself over the side of the ramp without any further hesitation. Knowing what was below and the height, he managed to land on his feet atop one of the black SUVs, rolling forward and off in a single smooth motion. When he stood on the ground floor, he examined fresh surroundings.

There were a lot of criminals humming about here. The guys in the street clothes were continuing to transfer the crates of weapons into parked semi-trucks, behaving as though a battle was not currently raging all around them. He searched for their leader. Put him down, he could put a stop to their efforts. Theoretically.

The man with a silver and white beard and head of hair was nowhere he could see. What did they say his name was..? Calburn... He'd never heard the name until tonight. The leather jacket crew who had begun to ascend the car ramp finally took notice of his presence on the ground. Not the most observant bunch.

Shouting in Spanish echoed throughout the place as they presumably communicated their plan of attack. Someone else was yelling at them for firing a gun.

"You wanna bring the bloody cops down on us? Idiots!"

Ah. Danny zeroed in on his yelling target.

"Calburn!"

He heard his name and turned round to look. He didn't hesitate to yell for them to get on him. This late arrival crew did hesitate. They had handguns out and appeared eager to use them. When the first put his gun away in exchange for a knife, the rest followed suit. These men weren't trained in martial arts or anything of the sort. It was simple enough to read that on them by the manner in which they crept forward, reluctant to engage him at close quarters. They knew he could kick their ass, but orders were orders.

Danny grinned and waited. Their mistake for putting him up against the least skilled of them. This would be entertainingly fun.

The dozen or so were nearing striking distance when an airborne sports car slammed into the side of them, instantly knocking over three and scattering the remainder. He searched the direction the car came from and was quick to understand it had been thrown by the skinny woman striding through the entrance.

"What's up, boys?" Jessica Jones merrily greeted. Her face dropped a little. "Hey, where you going?"

Calburn was not amused, huffing in anger by her appearance. "Kill her too! Get it done you good for nothings!"

She fixed her attention on him. "Trying to kill me before I've even gotten the chance to know your name. I've gotta say, not very nice."

The shipment completion had become derailed, everybody working on it ceasing to confront the newest intruder. Jessica seemed pleased to be a distraction and smiled at the men who were apparently going to assault her with their mere fists. Her strength could easily overpower any of them, though perhaps in high enough numbers they would be able to overwhelm.

"Jessica!" he called out.

Noticing him, she put her arms up in a kind of "why" gesture. "What the hell, Rand?"

The first of the street clothed thugs reached her and she grabbed his arm, snapping it effortlessly. She shoved him out of the way of her field of vision so she could be looking across the room at Danny again.

"What's the idea?" she asked him, ducking beneath a trio of guys and twisting around to give one of them a solid kick. "Having a party without inviting me.."

Jessica slammed an elbow into one of them trying to punch her and gave the guy next to him a fist to the face. Both tumbled away in pain, struggling to recuperate. She welcomed the rest of them to keep on coming. Reluctantly, they did.

He ran forward and joined into the fray, landing highly skilled blows against them. It was a minute or two and then they were mumbling and tripping over each other to get distance from the two defenders of New York. They went to join the leather jacket wearing men who had yet to make their move on Danny following the car throwing incident.

Stepping up to stand beside her, he said, "These people are bad news."

"I get the idea, yeah," she snorted. "Tracked the obviously up to no good cartel to this place. Blackmailed someone to pretend to be a client and then tried to blow the both of us up. You?"

Danny put himself in a combat stance, breathing in and out evenly. "Luke caught the gray uniform types stirring up trouble in his neighborhood. I mean, I don't think they looked like that then, but it was them."

He noted his comment had her frowning at him and he glanced sideways uncertainly. "What?"

"Doesn't it sound the slightest bit like a trap to you?"

It was his turn to crinkle his face into a frown. "What do you mean?"

A new voice addressing him directly brought their combined focus to the masked gray leader.

"Iron Fist. Though you are most certainly not welcome for interrupting our business here tonight, welcome."

He was standing on the roof of one of the black SUVs that brought him and his men shortly before. Why he would do that was uncertain. Maybe to make his voice more easily heard or to gain their quick attention. Grandstanding as it were.

"Who are you?" demanded Danny.

"We are Wachhund," he explained, clear enough despite the scarf. Also clear was his German accent. "In your language, Watch Dog, or as some have come to call us, Cerberus."

"What do you people think you're doing?" Jessica demanded.

The answer came readily. "Heart. As a powerful Heart, Wachhund is the portion responsible for eigengrau, or eigenlicht. That means intrinsic gray. Never the true darkness, but instead what you see in the absence of light."

He spoke carefully, poignantly. It showed signs of talking about a heart as a metaphor or something with bigger meaning. He didn't understand what that significance could be.

Impatiently, Jessica asked, "Meaning?"

"We are always there. We are everywhere. We are 'immer wahrend'. Eternal. We are, in many ways, the gray that exists within each soul, in everything."

"Sounds like a load of crap," the private investigator determined. "Poetic sounding, but nonsense."

"But you understand the morally gray, Ms. Jones," he mused. "Which means you are closer to understanding us than say, your friend there."

Danny glared at the presumptuous nature of this man's declarations. "Why are you in New York?"

The black visor covering his eyes bothered him. He wanted to see who he was talking to. It was the best method to read someone and know their selves. He was learning how to better identify the hearts of those he encountered, past experiences teaching him never to accept a person at face value. This situation took no thought. They were bringing weapons into the city. His claimed home.

"The present world's time has come to its end. A natural conclusion in our eyes," the man explained. "Corruption pervades, sickness spreads, the planet itself dying. The selfish nature of mankind created and fortified its own self-destruction. We are here to facilitate the transition between the old and the new."

Jessica sounded alarmed. "Another crazy group of people intending an operation to change the world? Has everybody lost their minds?"

It was a reminder of the shadow organization, Hand. There was an unpleasant taste left in his mouth. The Iron Fist was the sworn enemy of the Hand and he defeated them with finality. They were planning action against New York and beyond when he and the others labeled defenders stopped them. Now here was another organization intending similar, if not worse plans for New York. It would not be allowed.

A gloved hand came up to rest on the man's belt while a finger on the other pointed toward the two of them.

"You and your kind will not get to live in the new world."

"Surprise, surprise," a less than thrilled woman remarked a short distance away. "You're trying to remove the Defenders from the equation."

Colleen slid to a quick stop near the bottom of the ramp. Separated by a wall of leather jacket criminals with their backs to her. She was spared a few glances from them but when she did not attack, merely went back to looking at him and Jessica. Letting this man talk. So he must be in charge of everyone here?

"But not me. At least not me dead. What do you want from me?"

In his experience, the bad people wanted to use the power of the Iron Fist for their own personal gain. He would never be tricked into letting that happen again. He'd been incredibly stupid to let it occur the first time. There would never be a second time he would be that foolish. His respect and control over his power was much stronger compared to when he first left K'un-Lun. His determination to use its power for good and the protection of his chosen home would not falter either.

"Let you drown in your despair."

As bewildered as he was, Jessica spoke up. "Come again?"

"Kill the women!" he commanded, and flipped off the top of the car to the ground.

When he glanced at Jessica to get her reaction, she rolled her eyes and strolled straight into the crowd of jackets. Colleen quickly joined in and the pair of women took on the mob with practiced ease. Lifting his gaze to the level above, he could just make out Luke continuing to fight the armored ones.

"You can't protect this city."

Danny lowered his attention to the speaker. The masked man was reaching over his right shoulder, removing a baton kept there. He clicked a switch and the narrow weapon extended on both sides, creating a staff.

"You never really answered. What do you want from me?"

The man stepped closer, squaring off with him. Danny put himself in combat stance, circling around one another, neither being the first to engage. He would attack but he was waiting for his answer.

"You can't protect your allies," was all the man said.

"Answer me!"

"I did. But you failed to listen."

Angry at not getting what he wanted, he sprang forward, swinging a fist at him. His arm was batted away by the staff and he spun himself about to lash out with a foot. The full force of the rod was brought down on his leg, and he grimaced, stepping back. The weapon was a strong material that really hurt, unsurprising.

"Your failure to heed the signs is proof you will fail your allies as you will fail this city. In the end, your fall will come shortly before this city falls to ash."

Danny came at him again, landing and missing blows in turn, but the ones landing didn't cause him to falter much. He sought out weak points and aimed to hit the spots between armored plates, but his opponent had now turned onto the offensive. The end of the staff glanced off the edge of his jaw despite his attempt at avoidance.

He stumbled and tripped, falling toward the ground. Catching himself on his hands, he immediately pushed up and hopped back to balanced feet. His hands pressed flat to each other as concentration filled his entirety. He focused solely on the chi, allowing it to flow through his body to encompass him.

The staff was swinging downward at him in a vertical arc. He met it halfway, intending to snap the weapon in two, then try to get some answers from his enemy. Instead his empowered fist connected and met resistance.

It didn't break. Taking advantage of his puzzled state, the man kicked out, hitting him in the chest. Danny staggered away, clutching the spot he was struck and eying the opposing weapon like it might snap outward and strike him all on its own.

"Like it?" the masked leader inquired conversationally. "I inherited this from my father and his before."

"Who are you?" he pointlessly demanded, knowing he wouldn't receive an answer.

"Eternal."

Danny ducked a swing and stepped quick to continue avoiding a renewed assault on him. When he finally managed to get a moment to breathe again, he channeled chi into his fist. He used his left hand to gain a hold on the weapon and drove his glowing fist into his enemy's chest.

The powerful blow made him fly across the room, slamming against the side of the SUV he'd been standing atop earlier. His eyepiece was partially shattered, staff fallen from his hands, and he clutched at his face. He was trying to prevent it from revealing his face. Who was this guy?

He managed to keep it covering, though part of his eye and cheek were showing from the missing chunks in the plastic gear. The man gripped the side of the truck to pull himself to his feet. His head came around to look at Danny.

"That fist is as powerful as the stories tell."

Any further words they might have exchanged were abandoned when a body falling onto the roof of the SUV drew their attention. A second one followed right after but this one was from somebody who jumped purposefully and landed on his feet. The first wasn't so lucky, and groaned, barely conscious form rolling a bit before going still.

Luke kicked the guy a final time anyway. "Yeah! Recognize me now I bet, don't you?"

The single eye he could see in the leader narrowed, turning and staring up at the guy. Danny took the brief respite to find his other friends. But instead he glimpsed someone in ninja attire creeping within shadows. Before he could begin to surmise what the ninja was doing there, he was sidetracked by Luke now on the ground floor fighting his former opponent.

His ally held the clear victory in his grasp by superior strength. However, whenever the staff hit him, it hit him like it would anybody else. Luke was far from just anybody. Once more he found himself wondering where the soldier looking people got their weapons.

"Danny!" Colleen called, jogging across the room to join him with Jessica doing the same not far behind.

A perusal informed him the enemy was scattering. The conscious ones were dragging their unconscious buddies away from the area, making a run for it. Since they were abandoning the trucks filled with crates of weapons, he allowed them to go. His partner reached him and saw something he didn't, yelling a warning toward Luke too late.

The masked man must have flicked yet another switch on his long staff because a sharp end caught Danny's eye. He managed to jab it into Luke's shoulder right as the man grabbed hold of his throat. Luke lifted him off the ground and squeezed. His expression spoke of how annoyed he was they could break his skin with their blades.

As fast as he'd won the upper hand, he lost it for no apparent reason, opening his grip. The leader hit the ground roughly and rolled himself up with a backwards somersault away from him. Rubbing his throat, he glanced up at the roof of the SUV where the unconscious man was no longer, and then at the driver still obediently seated silently behind the wheel. Honestly, Danny had forgotten all about them.

Engines turned on near simultaneously, and the black cars sped into motion, speeding for the front entrance. Jessica looked as though she was considering on a way to prevent their retreat, but then they all noticed Luke as he dropped to the ground.

"Luke!" the investigator yelled.

Danny and Colleen raced to join her at their fallen friend's side. The leader had gotten in an SUV and left with the rest, but he put that frustration out of his mind. There was a much more immediate concern.

He instantly knew to check the spot where the spear had stuck him, however shallowly. Luke lied on his back, disoriented and unresponsive to their worried questions. The hole wasn't too big and wasn't bleeding very much.

"What can even hurt him, Danny?" Colleen was asking.

He only shook his head, clueless as to what might be capable of it. Soon he'd fallen unconscious, eyes slipping closed, and they were exchanging terrified looks. What if it was a type of poison?

Jessica must have been sharing his train of thought by watching him. She peered down at Luke.

"There might have been some kind of substance coating the tip of the spear. We have to get him to a hospital."

"Wait."

He had a better hold of his powers. He could heal this. Danny shut his eyes, focusing his chi. He settled himself, feeling for whatever was disrupting inside Luke's body. But there was nothing there.

Danny opened his eyes, confused. "I can't find anything wrong."

"What are you talking about?" Colleen questioned. "He's unconscious!"

"I can't sense anything," he muttered, staring helplessly down at his friend.

Colleen placed fingers to his throat. "His pulse feels normal."

Both of them were looking at him now, expectantly. He didn't have the answers. He didn't know what was going on. There was something major happening inside New York and he didn't have a clue about that either. He was useless.

When all he did was stare numbly at his hands, his failure to utilize his chi, Jessica groaned in impatience and distress.

"Danny?"

"I'm calling Claire," announced Colleen.

Jessica agreed, but persisted. "We should get him to a hospital."

"I don't know," he finally managed to say aloud. "I don't know why I can't use my power."