As worried as he was right now, Danny was becoming fully aware of the word "irony."
Which in and of itself seemed to be a pun the universe apparently also thought was hilarious, but Danny wasn't in the mood. After all, it wasn't every day that the avatar of the enemy he learned to fight since he was twelve was laying unconscious in the back seat of his girlfriend's car.
He shook his head, even as he looked at the view outside of Colleen's car racing by. He was so sure this morning that he'd finally caught his nemesis doing something evil, and by the late morning, he wasn't at all sure of that. His right foot began to tap in his impatience - the papers she was carrying were in the trunk of Colleen's car, so trying to read any of them wasn't an option right now.
Sighing, he took a glance at Elektra - the Hand's demon that he had truly grown to hate in a very short amount of time. Right now, she just seemed to be a wounded woman, with large gashes through both of her shoulders, and the various other claw marks on her stomach and sides collectively made her seem... smaller than he remembered.
That night in the cavern under Midland Circle had only increased his hatred of her, because he figured out during their fight that she was the one that he had pursued in Cambodia - the way she dodged and flowed around his strikes and attacks had made that very clear. That she would then try to pull the "we're not so different" tact with him after killing Alexandra pretty much cemented her status as "bad person" in his mind. That she had twisted Matt's mind into thinking that staying under a collapsing building was somehow a good idea only helped highlight that.
And yet, here she was now. Danny had to admit to himself that since the Midland Circle building fell, she hadn't been acting the same - for the most part, he simply chalked it up to her trying to pull something else nefarious and evil. Given her recent history, he felt completely justified in that. But, what that... thing had said to her in the clearing was making him doubt. What if she had been a puppet all along, and had been fighting it every step of the way?
It didn't excuse the things she did necessarily, but it at the very least explained them.
Colleen's voice shouted at him made him jump in his seat. "Hey, Danny!"
He looked at her, affronted for a moment. "Did you have to shout?"
She raised an eyebrow at him. "I was trying to get your attention for the past few minutes. Your mind was in the clouds."
He sighed. "I'm sorry, I was just thinking about this whole thing. What's up?"
"Well," she said with a wry look. "We should probably give Claire some warning. Would you mind?"
"Yeah, sure," he said, pulling his new smartphone from his pocket. He'd just gotten it yesterday, and was still very proud of how shiny and futuristic it seemed, and he couldn't help but smile slightly as he used it to call Claire.
It rang three times before she picked up. "This is Claire," she said in greeting, and he could hear the stress in her voice.
He cringed slightly - the thought of adding to a stressful day of hers didn't sit well with him, despite it's importance. "Hey Claire, it's Danny. I kind of have an emergency."
"People don't 'kind of' have emergencies Danny, that's like being a little bit pregnant," he heard her sigh. "What happened?"
"Um," he said, because he really wasn't sure how to explain it. "Colleen and I have Elektra. We think she's in a coma."
He heard her take a deep breath. "Okay," he heard her say with forced patience, "Why do you and Colleen have Elektra, and why is she in a coma?"
Danny scratched the back of his head embarrassedly. "We followed her from the abandoned loft she'd apparently been living in since... things happened, since she had rented a car and seemed to be taking a trip. She drove out to the Niagara Falls campgrounds, and... things got weird. Since then, she hasn't breathed or moved, and neither Colleen or I could feel a heartbeat."
He heard another, longer sigh from the other end of the phone. "I know I'm going go regret asking, but give me the short version of the 'things got weird' part, Danny."
Danny closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "She uh... threw up a dragon, killed it, and then collapsed," he said tiredly.
There was a silence from the other end of the phone for a moment, during which he could almost see the combination of confused and annoyed on her face. "Bring her to... hang on," she said, and Danny heard what sounded like muffled voices having a conversation for a few moments. Soon enough though, she replied. "Bring her to Pop's old barbershop in Harlem. Luke and I will meet you there."
Danny blinked. "Wait, where? I uh... I haven't been to Harlem much," he said, embarrassed.
"Oh for... here Luke, you tell him. I have to get ready for 'things getting weird,' evidently," he heard her say before he heard muffled noises again.
"Hey, Danny," he heard Luke say. "Claire wants to know first - is she okay otherwise? Any injuries or anything?"
"Heh, yeah," Danny chuckled mirthlessly. "She took some heavy hits from that thing during the fight. She has some massive claw wounds on her shoulders, arms, stomach, and her sides. Oh, it got her right leg, too," he said, looking at the motionless Elektra in the back seat. "Colleen had a first aid kit in the car, and we put bandages on the worst of them, but... we didn't have enough bandages," he said, his jaw clenched.
"Just hang in there Danny," he heard Luke say sympathetically. "It's not hard to get to Pop's old stop - I'll direct you both. Put me on speaker, okay?"
"Okay," Danny said, breathing a sigh of relief. It was really good to have calm friends to rely on, he decided, as he changed the call to go through speakerphone instead.
With Luke's voice guiding them from his phone, Colleen found the right route to Pop's old barbershop in question, and parked down the street.
Colleen and Danny looked at one another as she shut off the car. "One step at a time, right?" Danny said, giving her a strained smile.
"Yeah," she said, giving him a wry smile in return. "I'll get that cardboard box she was carrying - it might have some clues."
Danny nodded, and carefully withdrew Elektra's motionless form from the backseat of the car, gathering her in his arms. With a grunt, he slowly stood upright, gently kicking the back door of the car closed behind him. Idly, he noted that Elektra's skin was cold, as if she'd been in a freezer.
Luke opened the door, and held it open for them. "Damn, you weren't joking," Luke said, looking with awe at the wounds on Elektra's form as Danny carried her inside. "What did you say did this?"
"A... dragon, I think," Danny said, gently and carefully setting Elektra's motionless form onto one of the beds. "It wasn't anything like Shao Lao though. It looked... corrupted. Wrong, somehow."
"Let's focus less on the 'who' for now, and focus more on the 'what'," Luke said meaningfully. "What did it say, and what happened afterward?"
"It was... it was saying that it was tired of her being stubborn, and was going to watch as she died," Danny said more quietly. "It told her that it would find another host that wouldn't fight it so much, but only after it watched her fall down dead. She told it that it would never again harm another child, and then attacked it."
Luke shook his head. "How big was it?"
Danny shuddered. "Not as large as I remember Shao Lao being - about a third the size," he said. Catching Luke's look, he added, "a little bigger than a large truck, and it had wings."
Luke nodded at this, looking thoughtful for a moment before turning. "What do you think, Claire?"
"She looks like she pissed off a Siberian tiger," Claire said without looking up. "She's not breathing, and has no heartbeat that I can find. Her core temperature is lower than it should be at sixty five degrees, even if she were dead. And yet, with all that, her hands are both reading as one hundred ten degrees. This... makes no sense at all."
Danny shrugged. "She used her bare hands to rip open the dragon's ribcage and pull its heart out at the end of the fight, before she collapsed. Maybe that did it?"
Claire stopped what she was doing, and simply looked at him for a moment before shaking her head. "I don't even know what to say. Are you finding anything, Colleen?"
For her part, Colleen had been sitting cross-legged in the back of the room, carefully going over the papers in the box. "Yeah," she said, with a small voice. Her hands trembled, and a shaken look appeared on her face as she looked at the others present. "I'll read this out loud - half of this looks to be notes from various Fingers of the Hand right after the Hand was formed," she said, holding the old, yellowed paper up to the light. "'We must have our own test, our own warrior. The dragon we captured is almost ready - soon, its blood and rage will fuel our strongest warriors. His rage and bloodlust will live on through the blood, to last us countless generations. Its name was once Bright Sky, but we have the perfect name for the one who will help us cover the world in shadows, and it will remind it of its place.'"
A look of horror grew on Danny's face. "Shit. That makes all the mentions of the Black Sky look entirely different."
"Yeah," Colleen replied to him softly, looking ill. "I'll keep going. I'll let all of you know if I find something," she said, taking a deep breath before reaching for the next piece of paper in the box.
Danny leaned back against one of the walls, resting his arms over his knees as he closed his eyes. His purpose since had been taken in by the monks was to be wary of the Hand - the eternal enemy of Kun Lun. Now though, the Hand appeared to be shattered. His mind drifted back to what Elektra herself had said to him on that rooftop, a few nights ago: "The castles have all fallen - only the weapons now remain."
He thought more about what else she'd said that night, and it took on a new light in context of what they knew now. He sighed - he just didn't know anymore.
Danny's musing was interrupted by the front door of the shop opening, and a frightened-looking girl looking in. "Luke!" she called. "Some guys are shooting the hell out of the Lennox apartment complex!"
Danny jumped to his feet, but stayed still at Luke's shaking head. "I'll go check this out. Danny, stay here to keep an eye on things - this won't take me long," he said meaningfully, as he followed the girl out into the street. While the door was open, Danny could hear the sounds of many automatic weapons in the distance, and shook his head. "Is Harlem like this usually?"
Claire shook her head, but didn't look up from carefully examining Elektra. "Not even close. This is someone trying something stupid, especially with Luke here."
Nodding at this, Danny began to pace along the back wall of the old shop. He took a few slow, deep breaths to focus his mind, as he'd been taught - and tried to let his mind think through this puzzle. He and Colleen had tailed her over the past few days, and they'd been pretty quiet, he'd thought. Then again, he thought as he cursed himself for ten kinds of a fool, they were tailing someone who had been trained to do so without being seen. Elektra had probably been onto them since the first night.
But, if that were true, what did that mean? She'd given them both the slip once or twice, but they'd always managed to find her again within an hour. If she'd known the entire time she was being followed, did that mean that those few times they'd lost her were intentional on her part? To do something without them seeing?
Then again, that's what they had both thought when they'd managed to track her to Matt's church. Danny very clearly remembered the feeling of his heart in his mouth, utterly terrified at the thought that Elektra would assassinate Matt's old priest. And then, the two of them walked out the front door of the church, with Elektra's hands still cradling a steaming mug - coffee, from the smell. She'd laughed quietly at something Father Lantom had said, nodded to him with a smile, and walked away.
He and Colleen were both completely perplexed by this. Father Lantom had been less than helpful, saying that what he and Elektra had talked about was between them, and them alone. He did say that they had nothing to worry about with her. This didn't at all reassure Danny, since for all he knew she had drugged Father Lantom, but they'd agreed for the moment to let it go.
Running his hands through his messy hair, Danny sighed again. This just didn't make sense.
His musing was interrupted however by the front door to the shop being engulfed in a burst of fire and shattering glass. Once he was over his shock, Danny ran to the front of the store, intent on being out in front of whatever was coming. He was not disappointed at all, since he saw four men armed with assault rifles jogging down the steps. His foot flashing out, he kicked the ankle of the man in front, forcing him to stumble and fall down the steps. Lashing out with a second, he caused the man in the back of the four lose his balance, and tumble onto the other three, pushing all four to collapse down the steps in an ungainly heap.
His smugness was interrupted however by the sight of more armed men coming in through the back door. Colleen darted toward them without hesitation. Her katana seemed to leap out of its sheath and slash out to cut a man's gun in half while he was still drawing it, with how fast she struck. Danny smirked at this, even as the men down the steps in front of the shop were getting to their feet.
With rapid strikes of his feet and hands, the four men were knocked out before they could fully get back to their feet. Glancing over his shoulder, he looked just in time to see Colleen kick a man in the chest, and then jump forward to kick him across the jaw, sending him to the floor in an unconscious heap. Even better, he saw that this man had been the last one.
"So," he started hesitantly, "anyone know what that was all about?"
As if in answer, gunfire erupted outside, and the building immediately began to shake. Danny could hear the bullets striking the sides of the building in an unending stream, and could see the building rapidly beginning to disintegrate. Claire had pulled Elektra to the floor, and was using the bed above them as a makeshift shelter, but that shelter would not protect against bullets.
With dismay, he actually saw the walls begin to crack, and almost immediately afterward, bullets were flying through one wall and out the other, right over his head. This kept up for what seemed like an eternity, and then suddenly, they all stopped at once.
His ears ringing from the sudden quiet, Danny looked around, working his jaw a few times to clear his ears. A moment after he did, he heard Madame Gao's voice coming from above them - she must be standing on the street looking down into the shop, Danny realized. "There's no need for further violence today, this neighborhood has surely seen enough of that," she said in a kindly voice, her voice carrying nonetheless clearly down to them.
Danny's eyebrows furrowed, as he looked toward the front of the shop, now simply a mass of broken glass and twisted metal. She continued after a moment, as he knew she would. "All we want is what belongs to us anyway - surely you can understand. The Black Sky has been nothing but trouble for New York, and she brings nothing but trouble to you now. I wish to help her, and I believe I can help her to find meaning in her existence. Just hand her over, Daniel - I'll even ensure that this old building is remade, better than before. Consider it a gift, and my apologies for your inconvenience."
Looking with disbelief at the mass of bullet holes and shredded plaster, and again at the destroyed shopfront, Danny gave a disbelieving laugh. "You call this 'inconvenience', Gao?"
"A necessary precaution," Madame Gao replied mildly. "If only this world were a better one, so that violence would not be needed," she said, before sighing. "Nonetheless, we must work within the means we have at our disposal, to ensure that our purpose is fulfilled. The Black Sky is dangerous, a weapon crafted of human form, a relic of a more brutal time. Much like leftover bombs from wars, Daniel, we must dispose of this weapon properly, or it may hurt someone else."
While she was speaking, and Danny was listening with half an ear, he also checked to make sure Claire and Colleen were okay. Thankfully, both were. Claire was obviously very stressed out, but she was focused down on her patient, and trying her best to block out everything else. Colleen was panting lightly for breath, but had already barred the back door of the shop from further entry.
Danny's right hand clenched into a fist, and a yellowish light began to glow within his clenched hand as he looked toward the front of the shop. "And what happens if I decide she's under my protection? What if I tell you that I won't let you take her?"
He heard Claire's quiet gasp from beside him, but he was focused on Madame Gao's reply. "I must say, I am surprised at you, Daniel. Isn't fighting to protect someone who caused such pain and misery somewhat foolhardy? You cannot know her mind, you cannot understand her motives, and she has been twisted and changed from what she was in life into being death's weapon. Surely you can see that she is a danger to those around her?"
His jaw clenched in anger, but he refused to let her mess with his mind again. He could feel the heat that his right hand was giving off, which perfectly matched the anger he felt at this moment. "And your idea of a reasonable and convincing argument involves automatic weapons fire, right? The only thing I'll give you, Gao, is my advice: reconsider your life choices. Maybe shooting up someone's store just to get their attention isn't a friendly gesture."
"Ah, the noble and idealistic advice of the young," Madame Gao replied. "Be reasonable, Daniel. You've put yourself in a position where you're being forced to defend one of your greatest enemies, when you don't have to. You have nothing to lose by giving her up - in fact, you'd be doing yourself and everyone you know a favor by taking such a dangerous weapon off the streets."
"And your hands for such a weapon is safer?" Danny replied, the sarcasm heavy in his voice, even as his right fist clenched even more tightly. He heard Claire gasp again, but his attention was still fixed on Gao.
"Come now, young one," Madame Gao replied with a gently chiding tone in her voice. "Can you even claim to know the great and storied history of the Black Sky? Do you know how it was formed, what its limits are, or more directly - how to properly kill it? With such things that you do not understand, Daniel, it would be foolish to proceed unless you know more about what it is you are dealing with. Wouldn't you say?"
His jaw clenching in anger now along with his right hand, he was just about to reply when he saw rapid movement to his right. He heard a loud gasp for air, as he saw Elektra sitting up, her gaze fixed to the front of the building.