| Identity |
Daniel "Danny" Rand-Kai A.K.A. The Immortal Iron Fist
 
| Origin & Backstory |
 
[b]1988-1998: Death of a Family[/b]
In [b]1988[/b] Danny Rand-Kai was born to Heather Duncan Rand and businessman Wendell Rand-Kai, CEO of Rand-Meachum Inc. Danny's childhood was about as uneventful as the son of a billionaire's could be until the year he turned ten years old, when his father decided to take Danny, Heather and his business partner Harold Meachum with him in search of the mythical city of K'un-Lun. Meachum betrayed the Rand family, pushing Wendell off a cliff and abandoning Heather and Danny to die on the icy mountain slopes they were journeying through when they wouldn't join him in his hostile takeover of Wendell's former life. The two wandered lost through the mountains, stalked by wolves and weakened by cold and starvation. Eventually the wolves struck, and as Heather sacrificed herself to give Danny a few brief moments more to run the last thing he saw before collapsing in exhaustion was a set of shining, golden gates burning through a haze of snow.
 
When Daniel Rand next awoke, it was within the walls of the Eternal City of K'un-Lun. Its Immortal rulers had rescued him and taken him in, as he happened to arrive during the once-every-decade period when K'un-Lun intersects directly with the mortal plane. As an apology for failing to save Danny's mother as well, they offered to grant him any one request. It barely took Danny Rand any time at all to ask them to teach him everything they could about combat. Thus, while the world mourned the death of one of New York's most high profile philanthropists and his family, Danny Rand began his apprenticeship under Lei Kung The Thunderer.
 
[b]1998-2008: Birth of an Iron Fist[/b]
The Thunderer's training was brutal if also enlightening, designed to hone mind, body and spirit into a weapon forged with an immortal lifetime of experience. Danny's fellow students made his life no easier as he was constantly isolated, mocked and attacked due to his foreign heritage and status as an outworlder. But Danny persisted, the desire for revenge on Harold Meachum lending an angry fire to his efforts that no amount of guidance from his mentors or torment from his peers could extinguish. All the while Danny and the other trainees were told stories of the legendary dragon Shou-Lao the Undying, how he eternally guards K'un-Lun, his still beating heart magically separated from his body and placed inside an enchanted brazier that forced it to beat so that he would never die. They were also told that once in each generation a worthy warrior would be chosen from among trainees like them to face Shou-Lao and attempt to claim the Dragon's power as their own to become the Iron Fist, Immortal Weapon of K'un-Lun. Danny desired this above all else, both to prove himself to those who mocked him and to better exact his revenge against Harold Meachum.
 
It took ten long years of nearly endless training, but finally the day arrived when a warrior would be chosen to face Shou-Lao the Undying. To the surprise of nearly everyone but himself and Lei Kung, Danny managed to defeat every other challenger and earn the right to face the Dragon. When the time came Danny entered Shou-Lao's mountaintop cave and fought the massive dragon with his bare hands. It was a grueling fight, but in the end Danny was able to grapple with Shou-Lao and cover the still-gaping chest wound which tied the great serpent to its' still beating heart with his own body. The heat of the beast's fiery blood was so intense that it branded the dragon-shaped wound of Shou-Lao into Danny's chest, but in the end he held on long enough to subdue Shou-Lao. With that done Danny plunged his fists into the Undying dragon's molten, still beating heart again and again, until it truly died. The process infused Danny with the dragon's powerful chi and enabled him to channel it through his fists. Thus The Immortal Iron Fist was born!
 
[b]2008-2009: Iron Fist, Wanted Man![/b]
Afterward it was revealed to Danny that his coming to K'un-Lun was no accident, in fact his father Wendell was the brother of the Immortal lord Yu-ti and Danny was K'un-Lun royalty. The Yu-Ti offered Danny the chance to live forever in K'un-Lun as an immortal and a prince, but he rejected life in paradise, instead returning to the mortal world to seek revenge on Harold Meachum. He was able to track Meachum down to the Rand Tower in New York and fight past innumerable traps and bodyguards, only to find Harold Meachum a broken shell of a man not only confined to a wheelchair after losing both of his legs but already driven to insanity by guilt for his past crimes. However, before Danny could decide what to do, Meachum was killed by a mysterious assailant dressed as a ninja and Iron Fist was framed as Meachum's murderer. Danny found himself at the center of a nationwide manhunt after murdering the well known billionaire. Worse yet, Harold Meachum's daughter Joy put a sizable bounty on his head and he had no real civilian identity to hide behind. Danny spent the majority of his time alternately avoiding the police, fighting bounty hunters and misinformed superheroes alike, and desperately searching for the ninja to clear his name. He eventually found out that The Ninja was a vengeful wraith of a warrior and assassin who had once fought against K'un-Lun. He had been raised from the dead by an unknown master and framed Danny to try and destroy him and leave the Eternal City defenseless. However in their final confrontation the increasingly unstable Ghost Ninja ended up gleefully confessing all of this in front of a rather large crowd during their rather flashy battle and as a result Iron Fist was cleared of all charges with minimal difficulty.
 
[b]2009-present: A New Life[/b]
 
With help from a penitent Joy Meachum, Daniel Rand was able to prove his identity as the boy who vanished into the mountains many years ago and take back his father's company though he was mainly put in charge of public relations and Rand Incorporated's numerous charitable organizations. With vengeance long out of his reach Iron Fist decided to put his training to good use instead, becoming one of New York's many street-level heroes, though his duties as the Immortal Weapon of K'un-Lun also bound him to a world of martial arts and mysticism. Now as 2010 begins Daniel Rand-Kai is living a new life with new friends and new enemies, all while serving as a bridge for two very different worlds.    
 
| Attributes |
[b]Martial Arts[/b]-First and foremost Daniel Rand-Kai is one of the greatest martial artists on Earth, taught by masters with an immortal lifetime of experience with methods that would seem impossible to ordinary men. He is a master of all of the martial arts of K'un-Lun and many of the martial arts of Earth, including styles of fighting that have been unknown to most mortals for thousands of years. More mundanely he is a master of Ninjutsu, Jujitsu, Aikido, all forms of Shaolin Kung Fu, Karate, Judo, Boxing and even informal street-fighting techniques. He has complete mastery of nearly all martial arts weaponry and weapon styles, and is skilled enough at pressure point techniques to effectively use them against superhuman opponents and even beings whose physiology is completely inhuman.
 
[b]Chi Manipulation and Augmentation[/b]-Thanks to his training in K'un-Lun, Danny is able to manipulate his chi to enhance his strength, speed, reflexes, durability, endurance, agility and senses to superhuman levels, although doing this usually takes some concentration and leaves him greatly drained afterward.
 
[b]Chi of Shou-Lao[/b]-Thanks to plunging his fists into the molten heart of the legendary dragon Shou-Lao the Undying, Danny can call upon the dragon's immense and powerful chi and focus it into his fist. While this is primarily used for his signature Iron Fist ability, Danny has occasionally been able to utilize the Chi of Shou-Lao to heal himself and others in times of great desperation and it may have other functions as well, unknown to him. Danny's main usage is focusing the Chi of Shou Lao into his hands in order to make them practically invulnerable and capable of striking with massive concussive force. Although "Becoming like a thing of Iron" is how it was phrased in ancient K'un-Lun, the Iron Fist technique is capable of easily shattering or shredding through iron, steel and much harder and denser substances with relative ease. What's more, Danny can focus more of Shou-Lao's chi into his fists for stronger strikes and has yet to reach his maximum power with the Iron Fist.
 
[b]Meditation and Body Control[/b]-Thanks to meditative exercises learned in K'un-Lun Danny is able to exercise complete mastery over his body, enabling him to control his breathing and heartbeat well enough to slow them to a state indistinguishable from death, deaden himself to all pain, greatly slow the effects of drugs and toxins on his body, go days without sleep and adapt himself to a wide variety of environments with relative ease.
 
[b]Peak-Human conditioning[/b]-Danny's incredibly intensive training in K'un-Lun means that his body is trained and conditioned to the peak potential of an unassisted human, making him just short of a Steve Rogers-level of physically fit even without the use of his chi.
 
[b]Acrobatics[/b]-As part of his training in K'un-Lun, Danny was honed into a highly skilled acrobat, enabling him to maneuver through environments as diverse as the mountainous slopes outside K'un-Lun, the twisted jungles of the H'ylthri and the urban sprawl of New York city with equal ease, speed and grace.
 
[b]Stealth[/b]-Though not as skilled as some, Danny's mastery of ninjutsu includes training in the arts of concealment, deception and stealth.
 
[b]Multi-Lingual-[/b]Danny is fluent in numerous languages and dialects used throughout China, as well as American English and Japanese.
 
[b]Some Knowledge of the Occult[/b]-For someone who professes to totally lack any interest in or aptitude for magic Daniel Rand-Kai possesses a surprising amount of knowledge regarding the mystic arts, supernatural lore and arcane secrets mankind is typically not meant to know. However, Danny himself will swear-up-and-down that he's hardly an expert in such matters, instead insisting that growing up in the high society of K'un-Lun necessitates a basic understanding of such things.
 
| Character Notes |
 
[hider=Places, Companies and things]
[b]K'un-Lun[/b]-Daniel Rand-Kai's adopted home, K'un-Lun is an ancient and mythical city whose dimension only overlaps with Earth once every ten years. While legendary for its' martial arts among those who know of its' existence, K'un-Lun is also a place of great mystical and occult importance as it is in truth one of the Seven Cities of Heaven, seven locations that form a nexus for all the world's chi and serve as a mirror to the world itself, collectively known as the Heart of Heaven. K'un-Lun is a place of magic and wonders in many ways. A tree whose fruit grants everlasting life, Immortal Sorcerer-Kings, dragons both great and small and ancient technologies and arcane artifacts lost to mankind for ages are all things residents of K'un-Lun hardly spare a second glance at. However in many other respects K'un-Lun is much like ancient China, especially for the common folks who are not immortal but live much as their ancestors have for untold centuries.
 
[b]H'ylthri Jungles[/b]-When K'un-Lun is not connected to the mortal world, it is often surrounded by dense and wild jungles more vibrant and ravenous than any known on Earth. Apart from numerous strange plants and creatures the primary inhabitants of these jungles are the H'ylthri, a race of sentient plants that are uniformly powerfully telepathic and also capable of creating clones of other sentient beings given enough time. The H'ylthri hate K'un-Lun with a passion and desire it and its' peoples to be swallowed up by the jungles. Danny once spent considerable time stranded in the H'ylthri Jungles, and described it as the toughest environment he has ever experienced.
 
[b]Rand Incorporated[/b]-Formerly Rand-Meachum, a multinational conglomerate headquartered in New York and founded by Danny's father Wendell-Rand'Kai and his business partner Harold Meachum. While Rand Incorporated has subsidiaries involved in a wide variety of businesses including Rand Oil & Chemicals and Rand R&D, Rand Inc's initial focus was on real estate and land development, and as a result the company actually owns more buildings in New York City than any other with the potential exception of Wilson Fiske, though many of them are leased to Tony Stark and Norman Osborne respectively. Shipping, Freight and Transportation are also a specialty of Rand Incorporated and it actually holds the patents to and manufactures high-speed mag-lev trains used for everything from the Tokyo subways to American freight cars. RandMedia is also a well-known branch of Rand Inc, subsidizing cable TV companies, radio stations and newspapers like the Daily Globe and internationally published paper the News Express. Rand Incorporated also began using its' control over advertising, shipping and building-space to break into retail and distribution, with Rand-Mart quickly becoming one of the bigger retail chains in the U.S. It's overseas where Rand Incorporated really makes its' money and image however, as the company has incredibly strong long-standing relationships with business partners in East and Southeast Asia, especially Taiwan, Japan and China. There Rand Incorporated is involved in a wide variety of business ventures and often serves an intermediary role in American markets. It also has a large philanthropic and charitable branch.
 
[b]The Rand Building[/b]The most iconic structure owned by Rand Incorporated, the Rand building is a towering skyscraper that serves as the headquarters and financial heart of Daniel Rand's empire. It also houses a Wuguan as well as a small living area and meditative space custom built for Danny when his duties to the company call him away from his actual home. A secret sub-basement of the building links into a network of tunnels to other Rand-owned buildings Iron Fist uses to get around the city. The windows of the skyscraper's top floor in Danny's office are also designed to secretly open and are positioned in such a way that he can effectively jump to surrounding buildings for vigilante activities. Also although Danny declines to use any such function ordinarily, Harold Meachum installed a series of death-traps into the building including hidden wall-spikes, collapsible machine-gun turrets, camera-mounted lasers, sprinklers that dispense acid, rooms that lock and emit hallucinogenic gas and stairs, elevators and floors that collapse into bottomless pits on command. Danny has since modified all of these to be decidedly non-lethal but they are considerable measures.
 
[b]Dojo of Thunder[/b]-A martial arts school at which Danny teaches as part of Rand Inc's charity and youth outreach programs. Danny actually has come to deeply care for the students there, and while he doesn't teach them the secret martial arts of K'un-Lun he tries his best to teach them not only how to fight but how to live well and improve themselves and their communities.
[/hider]
 
[hider=Supporting Characters]
 
Allies
Lei-Kung the Thunderer-an Immortal of K'un-Lun and Danny's primary instructor in the martial arts, Lei-Kung trained not only Iron Fist but all the warriors of K'un-Lun past and present and is a martial artist, warrior and leader with thousands upon thousands of years of experience. He was also one of Danny's primary mentors and caretakers from the age of nine or ten until he was twenty and is one of the closest things Danny has to a father figure.
 
Yu-Ti the August Personage in Jade/Nu'An-another Immortal and the ruler of K'un-Lun. The current holder of the title Yu-Ti is Nu'An, a powerful sorcerer and mystic who also happens to be Danny's uncle. Nu'an allegedly rules K'un-Lun with benevolent wisdom along with the four Dragon Kings, but he has occasionally shown darker and more pragmatic tendencies though he maintains all that he does is for the good of both K'un-Lun and the mortal world.
 
Miranda Rand-Kai/Deathsting-Danny's older half-sister born in K'un-Lun, Miranda was secretly trained to be a master of the martial arts by her betrothed despite the laws of the Eternal City unfairly forbidding women from combat roles, and is currently exiled to Earth. She is nearly as skilled in the martial arts as Danny and after a few misinformed fights, is aware of his identity as Iron Fist. She also possesses mystical gauntlets known as the Serpent's Sting that are capable of focusing her own chi into a powerful attack similar to the Iron Fist. While she hates K'un-Lun with a passion and is determined to do whatever it takes both to survive on Earth and have her revenge, she still cares about Danny and struggles with his role as guardian of the place that destroyed her life.
 
Colleen Wing-A close friend of Danny and a skilled martial artist and detective, Colleen was one of Danny's first real allies and friends outside of K'un-Lun and helped him track down the ghost ninja that framed him for murder. She is extremely skilled with a sword as well as unarmed combat, and is a member of the Daughters of the Dragon detective agency along with Misty Knight.
 
Misty Knight-A former police detective and expert martial artist, after she lost her arm in a police raid and was forced to retire Misty Knight decided to become a private investigator and bodyguard for hire, even replacing her missing arm with a cybernetic prosthetic developed by Tony Stark, whose life she once saved. Misty was invaluable in tracking down the Ghost Ninja and helping Iron Fist clear his name, and Danny has been openly in love with her since she first knocked him unconscious with one swing of her cyborg fist when they first met, though she's unsure of where she stands on the issue.
 
Jeryn Hogarth-Danny's chief financial and legal adviser, while Jeryn is no kung-fu expert or crime-fighter by himself, he performs the vital task of running the day-to-day affairs of Rand Incorporated as well as keeping both Danny and his 'bodyguard' Iron Fist out of legal trouble should the need arise.
 
Antagonists


[hider=The Cult of Khan]
The Cult of Khan is a shadow organization both inside of and outside of K'un-Lun that's dedicated to the worship and restoration of Master Khan, an immortal sorceror who used his powers to conquer all seven of the cities of heaven as well as at least portions of Earth and other dimensions and declared himself a god, using blood sacrifices from his subjects to continually increase his power and keep the population in slavery. Khan was 'killed' by the first Iron Fist but in actuality managed to flee and survive in a severely weakened state. Now he plots his revenge on all Iron Fists and K'un-Lun while looking for ways to heal himself and restore his full powers. As an immortal he's had plenty of time to worm his way into the world like a spreading infection and has an army of slavishly devoted followers, highly trained warriors, spirits and demons bound to his beck and call. However, the Cult of Khan is not as present in the world as the likes of the Mandarin or Fu Manchu, as Khan's main concern is restoring his body and powers so he can reclaim his inter-dimensional empire. While numerous people have been corrupted into the Cult of Khan either through choice or Khan's own mental powers, some of its' main members include:

Master Khan, otherwise known as the Master of Darkness and Most Ancient of All Wizards-As the legends fearfully whispered in K'un-Lun go, when the primordial darkness that the Japanese refer to as Amatsukami-no-Mikaboshi was driven from the world in battle with the gods, a small fragment of it was severed and left behind. From this fragment was born Khan, a shapeshifting being steeped in malice and dark sorcery that ruled over the seven cities in an ancient era of blood and terror. It was only when Quan Yaozu the first Iron Fist came into his power that Khan was defeated. Though he is thought long dead or a fairy tale by most, Khan very real and is merely vastly weakened and in hiding. Using the subtle tentacles of his cult, he plans to find a cure for his weakened state and reclaim his empire while destroying or corrupting all Iron Fists. Even in his weakened state, Khan is still a shapeshifting eldritch being and sorcerer of great power with untold ages of experience in the mystic arts as well as a powerful telepath.

Fera-When Master Khan learned of the new Iron Fist Danny Rand, in his cruel insanity he decided to craft a new, bizarre tool for the Immortal Weapon's destruction. Fera is a [i]yaoguai[/i], a malevolent supernatural entity spawned of the tortured spirits of the very wolf pack that killed Danny Rand's mother before his eyes. As well as proficiency with the martial arts of K'un-Lun, Fera has superhuman strength, speed, agility, reflexes, and durability that make her more than a match for Danny in combat. In addition she possesses magically sharp claws that can easily tear through steel given her strength and senses and tracking abilities far superior to any wolf that enable her to track in any terrain. While not exactly evil, her sense of morality and way of thinking is far from any human norm. However much she may not wish to kill and despises Master Khan for creating her his dark magics compel her to obey him in all things, including hunting Iron Fist and his allies.

Scimitar-An assassin and master swordsman raised by the Cult of Khan, Scimitar was given no real name of his own as a sign that he is merely a weapon for Master Khan's use. Despite that, he actually believes that serving his god and master is divine law and seems to find meaning in combat. More than anything this has lead to him seeing Iron Fist as a fellow warrior whom he could respect were they not diametrically opposed. He wields a pair of swords crafted by Khan whose blades are composed of purely mystical energies, allowing him to change their shape and either let him zap opponents non-lethally or cut through or vaporize metal and flesh with ease.

Gin-Goh - A once powerful warlord who terrorized central Asia and was peerless in combat, Master Khan wanted to use Gin Goh to create the ultimate warrior and general to eternally command his armies. Therefore the sorceror-god crafted a powerful curse that ensured that if Gin Goh were ever killed, he would merely come back stronger. Unfortunately for Khan's designs, endless centuries of painful death have twisted and warped Gin Goh's mind, and while he still retains both immense physical power and instinctive fighting skill, he is little more than a mad, sadistic berserker kept docile only by Khan's telepathic leash.

Ghost Ninja(s)-While Daniel Rand-Kai is not aware of the fact, it was actually Master Khan who sent his disciple the Ghost Ninja to kill Harold Meachum and frame Iron Fist, then deliberately mislead the Immortal Weapon into attacking Oroku Saki and other mystical ninja organizations. The Ghost Ninja is a nameless assassin trained in dark arts by Master Khan, and Khan can actually summon multiple copies of the Ghost Ninjas to carry out his dark works. Fortunately, these multiple copies of the ghost ninja's wraith are much weaker, especially since last year, when the original Ghost Ninja's sword was destroyed by Danny Rand-Kai. The Ghost Ninjas can fuse back together into one warrior for a power boost, but without the sword they can only temporarily stabilize. along with his mortal converts, the Ghost Ninja serves as Khan's primary source of footsoldiers.
[/hider]

Davos/The Steel Serpent-Davos is the natural born son of Lei-Kung the Thunderer and was once friends with Wendell Rand-Kai during their time together in K'un-Lun. However, Davos' pride lead to him challenging the dragon Shou-Lao when doing so was Wendell's right, and his failed attempt at becoming the Iron Fist drove him into both exile and a seething hate for the line of Rand-Kai. Davos has had identical training to Danny plus several additional decades of practical experience to apply it along with none of Danny's restraint. as a result he is more than capable of defeating Iron Fist despite the latter's skill. In addition his incomplete Mark of Shou-Lao also allows him to absorb Danny's Iron Fist chi through a crushing technique, as well as literally drain the life out of others he gets in his death grip. Danny and Davos have fought only once, and Danny only survived the experience because Davos insisted killing 'an inexperienced child' would taint his revenge.
 
Chiantang, The Black Dragon-Formerly a dragon who terrified K'un-Lun, Chiantang was defeated by a previous Iron Fist, bound to a human form by K'un-Lun sorcery and banished to Earth ages ago. He has since made a living as the leader of one of New York City's most notable tongs given his ageless nature and supernatural powers. Although Chiantang is powerful and established, within recent decades his organization has become increasingly pushed back by new players including the Golden Dragons.

Fin Fang Foom-An ancient shapeshifting entity that appeared on Earth in China in the form of a massive dragon thousands of years ago, He Whose Limbs Crush Mountains was sealed away when a past Iron Fist came to the mortal world with a magical herb from the Floating Gardens of K'un-Lun capable of casting Fin Fang Foom into a deep slumber. That said, Foom may awaken at any time to wreak havoc upon the world once more and worse yet due to his shapeshifting powers he may walk the human world unseen, waiting to unleash death and destruction for purposes unknown.   
 
The Twelve Brothers in Silk-Twelve brothers and martial arts masters of the highest caliber, each one skilled in a different animal-style of martial art. The Silk Brothers are freelance assassins of great renown and both while he was on the run and over the past year, they have crossed paths with Iron Fist many times, each time Danny barely defeated them, but losing only seems to make them more determined to kill him.
 
Ben Turner/Bronze Tiger-A martial artist of world-class skill with affiliations with the League of Assassins, Iron Fist first encountered Ben Turner when he was hired by Joy Meachum to kill her father's alleged murderer. Danny was narrowly able to defeat Bronze Tiger, who has since taken up the idea of trying to recruit the Immortal Weapon to the League of Assassins himself, though Danny has always adamantly and violently refused such offers.
 
The Foot-While Iron Fist tries to stay out of the affairs of ninjas and their ever raging shadow wars the Foot's recent battles with the mysterious Kingpin have attracted his attention, not to mention they and the Hand are the top candidates regarding who sent a centuries banished ghost ninja to frame him for murder in the first place. Danny has begun investigating the Foot Clan on his own to try and find out if and why they sent such a creature after him.
 
The Hand-Another ninja group Danny has been investigating for ties to the ghost ninja that tried to ruin his life, Danny treads equally carefully around the Hand, preferring to leave ninjas to ninjas unless they threaten other people. That said, if the Hand have really already tried to destroy his life once, Iron Fist prefers to take them down before they try it again.
 
Items
 
[b]The Jade Mirror[/b]-A massive mirror of polished jade through which the Yu-Ti can gaze upon all that occurs in numerous dimensions, and also open up portals between them if so desired. Nu-An mainly uses this to watch over Earth, though it is also used when he desires to transport others into or out of K'un-Lun as when Davos and Miranda were banished.
 
[b]The Anomaly Gem[/b] a gem which contains the souls of every past Iron Fist, the anomaly gem was fragmented into many pieces ages ago, many of which were lost in the mortal world. As they contain the collective power of numerous Iron Fists, even the fragments are mystical sources of great power.
 
[b]Dragonslayer[/b] a [i]jian[/i] which is the traditional sword of the Immortal Iron Fist made from a fang of the first incarnation of Shou-Lao and dipped in the beast's own heart, it is forged to resonate with the Chi of Shou-Lao better than any mortal weapon. While the Dragonslayer is locked deep within K'un-Lun, it has been used in the past to defeat and bind Chiantang, slay the Sorceror God Khan and defeat numerous great evils in the past.

[/hider]
 
| Character Goals |
I want to successfully weave Iron Fist into the Maximum Comics universe while also drawing on his lore to create stories that are   well-crafted and self-aware while staying true to the character's Wuxia and Kung-Fu B-Movie influences in a way that's fun to write and to read. Overall I want to collaborate with everyone to have a fun time, make something cool and expand the Maximum Comics universe for the better, especially where its' martial artists are concerned.
 
| Sample Post |

[hider=The Path of the Righteous]
Danny Rand-Kai slumped against a wall in his little corner of a restaurant that the characters blazing outside assured him was named Fujian Family Restaurant while the English lettering beneath muttered something neighborhood kids probably snickered at. All things considered it was pretty much a hole in the wall, run-down, neglected and usually without more than a handful of customers in sight. A fine layer of dust would have coated everything if the dust wasn't too embarrassed to be seen there and the decor had to be going on a few centuries old and was likely begging to be put out of its' misery. 

But it really was family owned, the tea was always hot, Mandarin twanged rhythmically outward from the kitchen like notes from a half-familiar song punctuated by occasional breaks of vibrant Cantonese swearing, and they served some of the best damn [i]jiaozi[/i] in the city. It also helped that they were willing to serve weirdos in costumes.

 After half a lifetime in the mythical, ageless city of K'un-Lun few places in New York felt like home to the Immortal Iron Fist, but here in a dumpy restaurant still halfway-stuck in tradition he could at least close his eyes and pretend for a minute that that wasn't so. Besides, after a long day of sitting in on Rand Incorporated meetings for matters he was still barely learning to understand and fighting crime in a city that hardly seemed to notice it was nice to just lose himself in the mechanical, barely conscious motions of his chopsticks as he ate. It was only when he brought the chopsticks to his mouth that he realized he'd just used them to snatch at a dart instead of a dumpling. He sighed and set his chopsticks down, realizing for the first time how unusually crowded the restaurant was today. Danny had really been hoping for a break, but as his master Lei-Kung would say, the path of the righteous is endlessly long and full of many sharp rocks and pitfalls.

"Really, guys? I can't even finish my lunch first? Y'know it's safer by far to pull a tiger's tail than to pull a starving man from his meal, right?" The only answer was a chorus of scraping chairs and one dropped blowgun.

By the time the first assassin rushed him with a knife in hand Iron Fist was already vaulting across the table in a perfectly executed jump kick that snapped the killer's head back and sent him crumpling to the floor. Two more lunged at Danny as the first went down and he turned to grab the recently delivered teapot off of his tabletop. He tossed the scalding liquid in their faces before kicking one man in the chest hard enough to send him flying into another table that promptly collapsed, then casually smashed the empty ceramic kettle into the face of the second and slammed an elbow into his temple in the same motion. Honorable combat was fine and good, but Lei Kung himself would laugh in Danny's face for playing fair with would-be assassins. Nevertheless, he tossed the remains of the teapot aside and gestured for the last four to hurry up already.

They fanned out, wary now that they’d already seen him take down three of their comrades.  One of them picked up a broken table leg and charged, roaring as he swung it. Iron Fist barely shifted as the heavy wooden club missed twice by a hair’s breadth, lashing out to shatter it with one punch then knocking the assailant unconscious with a well-placed spear-hand to the throat. But the thug wielding the table leg was revealed as a distraction as soon as he fell, one of his allies grabbing Iron Fist in a crushing grip while the other stepped in with yet another upraised knife. In less time than it took to blink the Living Weapon broke the grip along with a few of the now agonized man’s toes and threw him hard into the knife-wielder and several splintering chairs.

As the last assassin standing reached for a concealed gun heedless of keeping a low profile, Daniel Rand-Kai turned to him and sighed.

“See, here’s how this part goes. You do the dishonorable thing and pull the gun, I let you take five, maybe six shots-“

[b]*BANG* *BANG* *BANG* *BANG*-[/b]

The gun was out of the shooter’s hands and being casually disassembled before he got to shot number five.  He tried to bolt for the exit, but as soon as the last piece of the handgun hit the floor he found himself suddenly slammed against the wall and held there by the neck.

“Now interrupting like that was just plain rude.  You need to learn some respect, and you can start by answering my questions.”

As Iron Fist lifted his free hand up so it was right in the hired killer’s face, he found himself focusing on his love for the place they’d ruined along with all of his anger and all of his sorrow at the assault on one of his last few sanctums. Focusing all of that and really all of his being into his fist, along with just a [i]touch [/i] of the fiery Chi of Shou-Lao. His hand began to glow, to smolder, to [b]burn.[/b]

“Now, who hired you?”
[hr]
Afterwards, he put down enough pocket change to more than make up for the damages but he doubted the terrified owners would let him come back again any time soon. As he left the Fujian Family Restaurant, he contemplated both the latest attempt on his life and his still empty stomach.

[i] Well, it's fine if the path of the righteous is strewn with many sharp rocks and pitfalls...but it had better lead to a new restaurant eventually. [/i] 
[/hider]