Danny walked back and forth toward the front of the former barbershop, pacing as he tried to work off some nervous energy.
"You worried about your girl being around Elektra?" Luke asked, as he finished sweeping up most of the debris, looking with disappointment at the ruined interior of the building around them.
"No. Yeah. Kinda," Danny said, sighing. "No, I'm completely fine with my girlfriend being alone with a Hand assassin," he grumbled, as he pulled out his phone.
"This is what we talked about, Danny," Luke told him, giving him a meaningful look. "Matt gave her a chance, almost at the cost of his own life. So either he really is a moron in ways we didn't see, or he was right to do it. And if he was right, then we owe it to him to give her that chance as he would," he said, sweeping up broken glass into a dustpan, his massive form engulfing both broom and dustpan like they were children's toys. "You saw how she was acting. She's trying, Danny - and this is part of acknowledging that."
Danny squinted at him. "Aren't I supposed to be the optimist here, trying to talk you into doing things?"
Luke rolled his eyes, and chuckled. "I guess it was just my turn this time."
Sighing, Danny began to make a call. "Fine. I'll order food then," he said, immediately switching to Mandarin once the phone picked up, and speaking rapidly.
Shaking his head, Luke dumped the now-full dustpan into the metal trashcan he'd brought in from the back alley. Danny only paid half attention to him, as he made very sure his new friend the cook at the Royal Dragon was cool with making four of everything on the menu. "It would be like free advertising for the restaurant," Danny wheedled to the cook in Mandarin. "You'd be doing us a great service, and we'd be humbly grateful for..."
"Oh fine, fine," the cook grumbled bad-temperedly in Mandarin to Danny. "I want to be paid for it, and you're paying the full prices on the menu. Fei's orders."
"Yes!" Danny replied with a grin to the cook in Mandarin. "We'd consider it a great honor to have such good food before we..."
"Fine, fine," the cook grumbled. "Are you going to come get it when I'm done, or do you want it delivered, too?"
"Uh," Danny replied intelligently. "Well, I don't have a car right now, Colleen should be..."
"So, you want it delivered, too." the cook replied flatly, still in Mandarin. "Fine, but you're paying twenty dollars extra for it. Where are you?"
"One moment," Danny replied to the cook in Mandarin. "Hey, Luke!" he called in English, getting the larger man's attention. "Should we have it delivered here, or to Elektra's place?"
Luke actually massaged the bridge of his nose for a moment. "Claire has a car, Danny. We can go get it, and then just bring it over."
"That's even better. Thanks, Luke," Danny said brightly. "So, it looks like we can pick up the food from you after all," Danny told the cook in Mandarin.
"Oh, good. You saved yourself twenty dollars," the cook replied sarcastically. "It'll be ready in thirty minutes. Come by then, and don't bring trouble with you this time," the cook added before he hung up, not bothering to wait for Danny's reply.
"I think I may have annoyed the cook," Danny mused, as he looked quizzically at his phone.
"Maybe you shouldn't keep asking them to make you food every night, Danny. Especially when they're not even open yet," Luke said, giving Danny a pointed look.
"Well, this way they keep getting more money to help them re-open, right?" Danny asked. "If they get more money, then..."
"You're still asking them to do work when they're closed, Danny," Luke informed him while crossing his arms over his chest. "They probably don't want to tell you no, since you paid for all their damages and repairs, but it's still a bit much, man."
Looking chagrined, Danny scratched the back of his head. "I didn't even think about that."
Luke said nothing, but just smiled slightly as he swept up a new pile of debris from inside the shop. For his part, Danny sighed, and sat heavily into one of the chairs that was least ruined by the gunfire earlier today. "I guess I'm just worried," he said as he grabbed a broom, and helped sweep up.
"Understandable," Luke nodded while dumping another pile of debris into the trash. "None of us expected this week to work out the way it did. That said though," he said while giving Danny a meaningful look, "once the game is set, and you've made all the moves you can, you just gotta let the game play out. Just like chess."
Danny nodded to this as he swept the rest of the debris into a single pile. "If this plays out like we hope though, what does this mean for Elektra?"
Luke gave him a kind smile. "That's up to her. Matt would probably know what goes through her head better than we would," he said, as he dumped another pile of debris into the trash can. "Alright - let's get that pile there, and then I'll let Claire know so we can get going."
Nodding, Danny helped Luke get the last of the pile of broken glass and other detritus into the trash, looking around with satisfaction once he was done. Claire was packing up the last of her medical supplies into her bag, and smiled at them both when they greeted her. "We ready to go, boys?"
"You know it," Luke said, giving her a gentle kiss. "I kind of wish you could be there, but..."
"...But work and money is a thing," Claire replied with a wry smile. "Besides, I think I had enough excitement last week with Midland Circle, and this week with patching up Elektra after she decided she was Russian and wrestled a bear."
Luke chuckled, and held her close for a moment. "Yeah, sorry babe. You know some crazy people."
Danny grinned, and held his right fist up, glowing softly with energy from within it.
"Yeah, you're a case in point," Claire told Danny while laughing. "Let's go get you your food, and I'll drop you two off."
The trip itself was fairly undramatic, the most exciting thing happening was the cook's surly looks at Danny when he got the food and gave the cook cash. The cook counted the cash, nodded, and then slammed the door in Danny's face.
Shrugging, Danny carried the bags full of food in cartons into Claire's car, and they continued into the older residential district of Hell's Kitchen, full of buildings abandoned after the Incident, most of which had yet to be cleared out or fixed up. After checking the address twice, Claire slowly turned down the street indicated, and parked behind Colleen's car.
Luke and Danny split the bags of food between them, Luke giving Claire a kiss before she drove off. The two men stood in front of the forbidding-looking, badly-lit building, seeing lights on within the upper floor. They shrugged, and began to walk to the entrance, when Danny heard the very distinctive sound of metal striking metal - of a blade parrying another blade, and it was coming from inside.
His eyes widening, Danny ran up the several flights of stairs with Luke right behind him, and he burst into the door - only to slow to a complete confused stop.
Luke stood immediately to the left, and smirked at the sight when he arrived. Danny looked at him incredulously, and then looked back at the scene.
Colleen and Elektra were sparring with their respective swords, and they weren't going at all slow. There was a rapid series of strikes and parries, almost too fast for Danny to keep track of - when they each took a step back, and started laughing. Colleen stood in a ready stance, her sword held in both hands, parallel to her body. In contrast, Elektra stood in a lighter stance, with a blade held only in her right hand, held backward and behind her body, up and along her arm.
"You are so full of shit," Colleen was laughing.
"I'm really not. I haven't practiced Zatoichi in years, and never in a spar," Elektra replied with a grim smile, as the two closed again into a blur of strikes and parries.
Luke and Danny watched, mesmerized, the food forgotten in the bags they carried as they watched the two women duel, their respective blades moving so quickly to only be silver blurs. Suddenly though, Colleen stepped into Elektra's guard, shoulder-checked her in the chest, and held the blade at her neck as she hit the ground in one smooth motion. Her shoulders heaving for breath, Colleen grinned down at Elektra, and pulled her blade away.
"I cannot believe I fell for that," Elektra said sourly, shaking her head with annoyance as she lightly leapt to her feet.
To this, Colleen laughed. "I told you we should spar. And still you doubt my wisdom," she said, making disappointed tsk'ing sounds.
"Maybe I should try using normal kenjutsu," Elektra said to Colleen with a calculating look.
"Maybe you should practice more," Colleen grinned at her. "Oh, hey guys," she said with a smile to Luke and Danny. "Sorry we didn't hear you arrive - we were a little distracted."
"I can see that," Luke replied with a smirk. "When did this start?"
Elektra shrugged as she helped Luke and Danny set all the food containers on the long, old table she had in what functioned as the living room/kitchen of her loft. "In retrospect, it would have come up eventually, I think. We started talking about sword styles shortly after we got here."
"Pretty much," Colleen said with a shrug, and a smile. "Oh!" she said, suddenly remembering. "Elektra, can I give Danny that green folder?"
The woman in question got out plates from her cupboard as she nodded in Colleen's direction. "Certainly. If you didn't, I would have offered it at some point."
"At 'some point,' huh?" Colleen smirked.
"Yes, eventually," Elektra replied with an answering smirk.
"What did we just miss?" Danny asked Colleen, looking confused. "What was that 'eventually' thing about?"
"She was going to see if you could figure any of it out first," Colleen said, smirking again at Elektra. "So... is anyone actually hungry right now? I'm not just yet."
Shaking her head, Elektra set the last of the many food containers on the long table. "No. I likely will be after we're done, though."
"So," Luke said, as he leaned comfortably on the doorframe of Elektra's kitchen/living room. "Should we get to planning for tonight?"
Nodding grimly, Elektra walked over to a folder on the counter, and unfolded a large set of blueprints from it. "This is the building Gao calls her castle. The blueprints are modified version, to include some of the changes she's made to it over the years, but it doesn't account for all of them," she said meaningfully. "However, that does give us a starting point."
The other three nodded, studying the map as Elektra began pointing out entrances, exits, and weak points in the structure. "Unlike with Midland Circle, I don't know if any innocents will be there," Elektra said darkly. "So, speed must be of the essence of this plan."
"What do you mean?" Danny asked her with squinted eyes. "About Midland Circle, and innocents."
Massaging the bridge of her nose, Elektra replied quietly. "In retrospect, I should have done more to help you. What I did at the time was make sure all innocents were out of that building well before the four of you arrived, made sure to wire up the building with explosives, and I made sure the surviving Fingers of the Hand were all together, at the very bottom of the pit."
"Yeah," Luke squinted in thought. "I remember Claire saying it was weird that they found another set of explosives. So that was you?"
To this, Elektra nodded with a wry smile. "I didn't expect all of you to bring your own, but I suppose I should have. No explosives this time, so we'll have to be careful."
Luke had to admit that he was impressed at the plan she laid out. "Looks like you have all the bases covered," he said, nodding in satisfaction. "I can't think of anything we're missing. Colleen? Danny?"
Danny had his eyes narrowed in thought as he examined the plans, but he soon shook his head as well. "No, I think I'm good. Colleen?"
Having studied the map already, Colleen nodded once. "The only tricky part will be that possible underground area she has beneath the warehouse floor. I don't see any entrances to it from the blueprints."
"Yet another thing that wasn't included," Elektra sighed. "So, is everyone clear on the plan otherwise? Any objections?"
The three all shook their heads after checking with one another, and Elektra smiled grimly. "In that case, I'll get ready."
Luke had much experience with waiting for women to get ready, but those were mostly for dates, and not... waiting for Elektra to finish assembling her tactical kit. Something that she had finished doing in less that three minutes, to his surprise. He saw that she was wearing that same damnable long black coat he remembered, but her hair in a ponytail and a black mask over the bottom half of her face helped to soften the image of her that he remembered. "Everyone settled, then?" she asked the others as she finished tying the mask behind her head.
With her being the last one not ready, the four set off through back alleys and winding streets toward Madame Gao's warehouse. It was a walk of about a mile through winding and trash-strewn alleys as the four walked with determined strides, closing the distance in minutes.
"Is there a reason we're not taking the car?" Danny asked as they walked.
"If something goes wrong, then the car with us in it is more easily tracked," Colleen told him as they walked. Elektra nodded once to this.
"It's just a precaution, nothing more," she added to Colleen's statement.
The four fell back into silence as they closed the distance, and finally saw the warehouse itself in the deepening evening. Once they did, they all slowed to a stop, taking a moment to steel themselves. "Colleen, make sure the workers get out unscathed," Elektra said to the slightly shorter woman, who nodded once. "Luke, if you'd be so kind as to get their attention at the front, Daniel hit from the right side entrance, and I'll go from the top down. Are we clear?"
The other three nodded once more, and they broke apart. Danny walked with purpose to the side entrance, Colleen walking with him. Luke walked like an unstoppable goliath toward the front entrance, while Elektra ran up the side of the building, and vaulted up onto the roof without a sound.
The guards in front of Luke looked a bit nervous, fingering their guns as they saw him. "This is a private business. We're closed," one of them said in an authoritive tone.
Luke kept walking, and didn't even slow his stride.
"Hey!" the other guard called to Luke, annoyed. "This isn't your momma's house, man," he said, laughing at his own joke.
Luke wasn't laughing, and he wasn't slowing down. The two saw that he would be on them in seconds if he didn't change his stride.
Nervously, they readied their assault rifles at him. "Get back, we mean it!" one of them called, his voice slightly shrill in his anxiety.
Having still said nothing to them, they both opened fire at him, stopping in shock as they saw the complete lack of damage they were doing to Luke, apart from his t-shirt. "People like you are why I'm about sick of always getting new clothes," he said to them, before smacking their heads together, knocking them both unconscious.
He un-readied the guns, ejecting the clips and the spare rounds, and threw them into a trash bag in the nearby dumpster. Walking past the now-unconscious guards, Luke got his first glimpse of Madame Gao's inner sanctum.
The people inside moved with slow, mechanical movements, and it took Luke a few moments to see why. With horror, he realized that all of them had had their eyes removed, nothing but empty sockets where eyes once were. They didn't appear to notice him as he moved through the rooms, something that disturbed him more than the sight of their sightless eyes.
Pushing into the room beyond, Luke found that he was now in a large, darkened warehouse, mostly empty. Empty, that is, except for the small, unsmiling figure of Madame Gao standing in the center of the room, looking at him with what seemed like disappointment. "Of all the people I expected to arrive at some point, you were not one of them," she said to him with a calculating look. "Unless, of course, one who did asked you for their help," she said with a small smile. "Was it young Daniel? So sure of an evil villain that must be destroyed with the power of punching?" she continued, with a mocking note to her voice.
Luke simply stood still, and said nothing.
"Nothing to say? That tells me it was your young friend Daniel," she continued, smiling benevolently at him. "One must be careful - he is impetuous, and rarely stops to get all the facts of a situation before leaping into it. Tonight serves nicely as a case in point, I think," she said, gesturing expansively. "I am but a humble businesswoman, trying to pick up the pieces of a life of thousands of years of planning, shattered. Like anyone else, I'm just trying to make my way in the world. Surely you can see that?"
"Just like your workers can't?" Luke retorted as he crossed his arms, having just about met his limit from this woman.
"I take in criminals, and the destitute," Madame Gao said sadly. "Not all of them truly understand what it means to fit into a society, so adjustments must be made to ensure they live healthy and happy lives."
"And a healthy, happy life means they get their eyes cut out?" Luke asked sharply.
"Yes, this way they cannot see that which they are not meant to see," Madame Gao smiled kindly at him. "You served in the military, I understand - surely you understand the importance of operational security?"
At that moment, the cement wall behind Madame Gao exploded inward, Danny's glowing fist the first thing visible through the debris and dust. Danny himself strode through the hole he'd made in the side of the building, walking up to Madame Gao, and stopping the same distance from her away as Luke had.
Madame Gao began backing up toward the doorway to the warehouse, shrouded in shadow behind them - only to stop, and turn to look at the doorway. Seeming to melt out of the very shadows themselves, Elektra emerged from the darkness of the entrance, fixing Madame Gao with a glare.
Madame Gao's mouth opened, as if to say something, but she closed it without a sound.
"Thank you both, Daniel, Luke," Elektra said to both men, while her eyes continued to bore unblinkingly into Madame Gao's. "I can take it from here."
"If you're sure," Luke shrugged, and after a moment, began walking out the hole in the side of the building Danny had made.
Neither Madame Gao nor Elektra seemed to move or breathe for a few moments, until both men were out of sight and earshot.
"So, this is your solution?" Madame Gao asked Elektra quietly. "Instead of realizing that you have far more to learn, you instead decide to try to murder the one who drew attention to it?"
"Your 'solution' involves my death, and you choosing a new unlucky child to become your next pet assassin," Elektra retorted with her jaw clenched, as she began to feel her heart pumping liquid fire into her veins again. "If this is the supposed 'wisdom' you're so proud of, then it becomes my duty to make sure you retire. Quietly, or not."
Madame Gao regarded Elektra in silence for a few moments, and then slowly ducked down into a crouch, with one hand still on her little cane. Madame Gao just as slowly placed her free hand palm-down on the floor of the warehouse, and smiled at Elektra.
For a single heartbeat in time, all was silent and still. A moment later, the ground shook, and a massive crack appeared in the cement of the floor. Far from stopping, it began to rapidly multiply, the floor beneath their feet crumbling rapidly into dust, sending both Elektra and Madame Gao falling downward.
Unperturbed, Madame Gao landed lightly on her feet, brushing dust and debris from her shirt and shoulders delicately. Elektra had landed in a crouch, rising to her feet as she regarded Madame Gao with narrowed eyes. The room they were now in appeared to be an underground training room - vast, with a wide array of weapons displayed all along the walls.
"To challenge one of great wisdom and power," Madame Gao said with a teacher's cadence to her voice, "Is an exercise of folly unless you understand what they understand. And child, you know nothing of who you challenge," she said, idly gesturing off to the side. As if in answer, a sword lifted from the rack on the far wall, and flew at high speed directly at Elektra's right eye.
To her newer perceptions, the sword seemed to move through water to get to her. Twisting to the side, she reached out and caught the handle of the sword before it flew past her, and examined it. "Japanese make, with a straight edge. A daito," she remarked, as if she were at an antique store, before flicking her gaze back up to meet Gao's eyes. "Well, if this is the blade you want me to end your life with, I suppose I can accommodate you."
Madame Gao's eyes narrowed as her hands stretched out to her sides, and weapons along the walls began to lift from their displays, and fly through the air to spin around Madame Gao like a veil made of sharp steel. With another gesture, eight of the blades suddenly launched themselves from their orbit around her, and flew at Elektra, point-first.
Dodging out of the way, Elektra consciously breathed embers into her heart, feeling it respond with pure fire that almost felt like it would burn her internal organs to ash. Even so, the swords seemed to move as though the air were made of thick syrup - Elektra exhaled, and moved. The blades in the air around her slammed in an arcing wave down where she stood a moment previously, the many swords moving like a flowing curtain of steel through the air. Nonetheless, her eyes narrowed as she realized that by being on the defensive and dodging as she was, Gao had the advantage in this fight - and this was a factor that must change.
Giving herself fully to the fire within her heart and veins that seemed like it would cook her flesh to ash, she charged through the minuscule gaps in the many swords flowing defense around Madame Gao as fast as she could. The blades were unable to change direction in time before she was past the first ring, parried aside a curtain of knives as she ran past the second edged steel veil, and behind Gao, her back to the older woman as she stabbed behind her as hard as she could.
Everything in motion around the two stopped suddenly, hanging in mid-air for a moment before dropping to the ground with a clatter of steel against cement. Elektra felt the tension in the handle of her blade, held underneath her left armpit, with the blade straight through Madame Gao's neck. After a moment, she viciously yanked it out before turning around, and walking to look Madame Gao in the eyes.
"This time, you rancid piece of shit," Elektra said before whipping the blade straight across her body and through Madame Gao's neck, "stay down."
Silence seemed to fill the room like smoke as the hollow sound of Madame Gao's head hitting the floor echoed around her. Elektra closed her eyes for a moment, taking a slow, deep breath as she felt the fire within her begin to quell.
After the moment had passed, Elektra climbed up the latter on the side of the room back to the main floor of the warehouse, and picked her way around to meet Luke, Danny, and Colleen at the designated meeting point.
"Is it done?" Colleen asked her, her eyebrows raised meaningfully.
Elektra nodded slowly, taking another deep breath as the four began to walk together. "Yes, the Hand nonsense should be over now, except for the loose ends from their holdings in various parts of Asia."
"So, now what will you do?" Luke asked Elektra.
"I think it's about time for that food Daniel managed to get," Elektra said with a small smile, as she tugged down her mask. "After that..." she sighed. "Matthew and I really do need to have a proper talk, now that all the fireworks are over with."
Colleen looked at Elektra critically for a few moments, until the taller of the two had had enough. "What is it?"
"Just wondering if Madame Gao managed to shoulder-check you," Colleen replied with a grin. "Your defenses aren't great."
"Oh, do shut up," Elektra said with a smirk, rolling her eyes.