Though she wouldn't say so to the woman with her, Colleen had an ulterior motive for being willing to take Elektra back to her loft. Having never directly met the woman and only really heard stories before all this started, Colleen wanted to get a good read on this woman's mindset. Especially since she hadn't been acting to type over the past week.

Despite Bakuto's betrayal - not only of her as his student, but the ideals and mindset he'd taught her - Colleen very much was a student of Miyamoto Musashi's philosophies on life and combat as a samurai. What this meant in this instance was that she wasn't the sort to rattle a bush until a fox ran out and left the rabbit alone, she'd simply cut the bush in half, and the fox with it. "Sorry about the rental car," Colleen said casually, observing Elektra's reactions carefully out of the corner of her eye.

The woman in the passenger seat closed her eyes for a moment. "I'd completely forgotten about that amidst the utter debacle today turned into," she sighed, before opening her eyes once more and looking Colleen's direction. "Once this is all over, if you'd be willing to drive me back out there to get it, I'll give you recompense for the petrol."

"Petrol?" Colleen glanced at her with raised eyebrows and a smirk.

Elektra rolled her eyes, but gave a small smile. "You Yanks and your irritating habit of ignoring proper etymology in favor of trendy slang. You know what I mean."

That caused Colleen to laugh. "It's a mark of cultural pride, this is true," she said before smiling Elektra's direction. "And no problem - I would even without a bribe."

Elektra raised both eyebrows in question. "Oh?"

"Sure," Colleen shrugged. "It's always handy to have an undead ninja owe you a favor," she said, and managed to keep a straight face.

Giving her a disbelieving look for a moment, Elektra finally massaged the bridge of her nose and chuckled. "Thankfully, my status as undead seemed to have only been temporary. With that said however, if you truly need someone dressed in their pajamas to follow someone else, let me know. It would certainly be less dramatic work than the rest of this week has been so far."

"Can you follow someone in business casual instead?" Colleen asked, keeping this joke going as she checked her mirrors before turning. "P.J.'s are kind of unusual in New York."

"What about a clown costume?" Elektra said, looking thoughtful, but Colleen saw how the corners of her mouth were quirked up. "Unusual, perhaps, but I daresay nobody expects to be followed by a clown."

"Refuge in audacity - clever," Colleen nodded, trying to not laugh at this point. "In fairness though, it would have worked better if you were still a zombie. Many people are terrified of clowns, you know."

"That would be bad for trying to be subtle," Elektra mused, "but it would still work nicely if you wanted to give someone a rather unsettling day."

"Are you thinking of getting a clown outfit to fight crime?" Colleen asked with a raised eyebrow, but unable to completely hide her smile. "Because I can't decide if that's awesome or painfully funny."

"Well, there's nothing saying it can't be both," Elektra sniffed with mock-haughtiness. "Confusion is always a useful tactic, after all. Besides - I'm sure I can find a proper clown outfit I can wear my favorite coat with."

"So, New York is going to be visited by Perp-Slapper the Clown?" Colleen asked. "Well, we have some clown in red and blue bouncing around already, so you'll be in good company," she mused further, while hiding a smirk. "Matt, Danny, Luke, and Jessica are thinking of helping one another out and calling themselves the Defenders, so maybe..."

"I'm not going to pick someone at random to adopt for my cause of spreading peace via clown costumes in New York," Elektra retorted. "I'd like to think I have at least some standards."

"Speaking of standards," Colleen asked casually, "what are your plans after you've dealt with Madame Gao?"

"Trying to live," Elektra said meaningfully. "In some ways, for the first time. Though in my specific case the clown costumes are thankfully optional."

At this, Colleen finally gave into her stifled laughter, feeling a bit more relaxed around the woman in the passenger's seat of her car - for now, at least. "Well, that's good. It seems like you can't be too sure lately."

Elektra nodded at this. "Especially with strange women around doing strange things, immediately after being involved with dramatic things."

"Well," Colleen prevaricated for a moment. "Yeah. Like that. Listen, this must look like we don't trust you..."

"You don't - and to be blunt, you'd be foolish to," Elektra replied, glancing at Colleen. "That you, Daniel, and Luke would be willing to act as you did is commendable, actually."

Colleen blinked at that. This was not the response she expected once this potentially sticky subject came up, especially since the subject was Elektra herself. "What do you mean?"

"None of you trusted me at all, and none of you had any reason to after all the events that happened before and during the Midland Circle incident," Elektra explained, seeming tired, but determined. "Especially when I started acting against what all of you save Matthew knew of me. You collectively made the decision that keeping a closer eye on me was better than keeping one further away. By acting to assist me in certain ways, you could not only see up close how I was behaving, but would also be in a position to try to mitigate the damage if I went daft. It was a tactically sound decision on your parts, and an efficient one in that it put all of you in a position to influence multiple outcomes of the same situation."

Blinking slowly, Colleen almost missed the turn to the street on which Elektra's loft was found, and corrected her mistake with a quick U-turn once traffic allowed for it. "Shit, were we that obvious?"

"None of you wore signs or put up billboard advertisements saying so, but it wasn't too difficult a puzzle to figure out," Elektra smiled, unbuckling her seat belt as the car smoothly glided into a parking spot. "Additionally, though you're fairly light on your feet, Daniel is not."

Shaking her head as she got out of the car, and hefted the large cardboard box of papers from the back seat of her car once more. "Damn," she exhaled as she lifted the box with her legs. "I'm definitely getting my workout today."

"That reminds me," Elektra asked, as she helped Colleen with the box up the several flights of stairs to her loft. "You practice kenjutsu as your preferred sword style, yes?"

"Yeah," Colleen answered with a smile. "I've focused on that primarily since I first learned. Do you have a favorite?"

"Yes, though I don't think I would have admitted it out loud before now," Elektra sighed as she helped Colleen maneuver the box up the next flight of stairs. "Zatoichi kenjutsu is mine, though I truly do need to practice."

"Wait, why wouldn't you want to admit that out loud?" Colleen asked, perplexed. "And why Zatoichi specifically?"

"The answer to the first would be because I learned it from Stick, and I don't like thinking about him," Elektra said darkly. "He and I did not have a good history, one could say. As for the second, one could say that Zatoichi best embodies chaos as a style - it's a sentiment I like, especially for a sword duel."

"Somehow, I'm not surprised that you like causing chaos," Colleen said, with a friendly smirk. "That said, if you think you can control your zombie strength, I'd like to spar with you sometime. My dojo hasn't seen enough good spars in it."

"That makes sense," Elektra replied with a smirk. "Daniel being there would be enough to bring down the level of spars in your dojo, after all."

Colleen rolled her eyes at that. "You know, most people would be impressed by what he can do. His teaching getting cut short wasn't all his fault."

"Just most of it?" Elektra retorted, but nodded afterward. "My main issue with it comes from my perspective with the Hand, which I definitely know wasn't an unbiased source," she continued, shaking her head with an annoyed look. "However, the point remains that the monks of Kun Lun never really attempted to further refine or expand on the arts they knew, while the Hand did. Yes, the monks of Kun Lun stayed relevant because of the no-mind focus they learned, but that focus could only ever close the gap between them and their Hand adversaries. Without the innovation along with the focus they used, they were always on the defense because of that stagnation of technique."

"So..." Colleen prompted Elektra, even as Elektra was opening the door to the abandoned loft that currently served as her apartment.

"I just learned how to save my own life and sanity because I pushed myself to learn how," Elektra retorted, and then shook her head. "I suppose that's unfair of me to think of him in those terms. Nonetheless, I know for a fact that I'm going to be spending quite a bit of time getting to know the changes I've gone through, especially with what I recently learned that allows me to move faster than usual. The fact that Daniel can still only summon his chi into his right fist is... disappointing, really."

"So, you want to spar with Danny too, is what I'm hearing," Colleen smiled, as she helped Elektra move the box to the part of the loft that served as Elektra's study area. "Nice place, I have to say. I was expecting something more depressing."

Elektra laughed at this. "Something evocative of Edgar Allen Poe, I suppose?"

"Yeah!" Colleen grinned, warming to the idea. "You just need a grouchy talking raven, some black curtains..."

"Yes, some proper items of distinction," Elektra said with a smirk. "As for Daniel..." she sighed. "Read through some of the papers I put in that green folder over there on the desk. The Hand may have been a bunch of amoral bastards of breathtaking scope, but they kept pretty good records. The records they had on previous holders of the Iron Fist title should help illustrate what I mean. Look through them if you like, and make yourself at home - I desperately need to change," Elektra said, before walking into the bathroom to do precisely that.

Shrugging, Colleen walked over to the old desk Elektra was using, and began to leaf through the papers in the green folder. To her surprise, she saw detailed notes and observations of capabilities of various incarnations of the Iron Fist, including observations and effects by generation. She quickly became absorbed in the reports, seeing entries where previously observed Iron Fists were able to fill both of their fists with their distinctive chi, and some were even capable of doing so with their feet, elbows, and knees. Directing the energy to be used for healing was something she had personal experience with, she thought as she touched the place where she'd been poisoned, but these reports made it clear that far more was possible than simply dissolving poison within someone's body.

This also brought to mind the comparison Elektra made, and very likely why she made it - while there were many notes and clues that Danny could follow to move further on the path he was on, Colleen hadn't found any notes even distantly referencing anything even close to what had happened with Elektra. Just like with what Elektra was planning to do with Madame Gao, she was forging a new path for herself, too.

"What do you think?" Elektra asked her, distracting Colleen from her thoughts, and the papers strewn about.

After taking a moment to collect her thoughts and return to the present, Colleen gave Elektra a smile. "I think we should be sparring."

To this, Elektra blinked, and then smiled. "After Gao is dealt with, definitely. When are Daniel and Luke arriving?"

Checking her phone, Colleen shook her head in disbelief. "Danny texted me to say that they're bringing four of everything, and that they'll be here in about half an hour."

Giving her a quizzical look, Elektra sought to clarify. "When he says 'everything,' did he mean..."

"Yes," Colleen sighed. "Four of literally everything on the menu."

Elektra sighed, and shook her head. "On the plus side, we'll have enough for a victory feast of sorts for when we get back."

"Fitting, since it's from the Royal Dragon," Colleen smiled.

"I just hope nobody gets hit by a car at random tonight," Elektra sighed.

To this, Colleen smirked. "Oh yeah, I heard about that. No, I'm pretty sure that's just you, and only if Jessica is involved."