[b]The Tiger Pit [/b] The crowd filled the underground arena with a roar louder than any real tiger could manage, a roar so intense that it should have been impossible for it not to shake the streets of New York above. Tonight, the infamous street-fighting venue was packed to capacity and overflowing besides, the only clear spaces were the raised ring at the center still shrouded in darkness and the high platform used by the Pit's ever-popular MC. The man himself strode out onto the dias, the spotlight highlighting the snarling orange-black tiger design of his mask and gleaming off of his metallic three-section-staff, and as he arrived to take up the microphone the multitude in their thronging hundreds fell completely silent. After all, they had gathered to watch a man die. [color=orange][b]"Ladies and gentleman, Brothers of Heaven and Earth, fighters of all ages! Tonight I, Chaka, give you a show the likes of which this august battlefield has never before witnessed! Tonight, I give you that which many of you have claimed is impossible! I give you the breaking of a living weapon! I give you the death of an Immortal! I give you...IRON FIST!"[/b] [/color] Floodlights finally lit the ring revealing four equally musclebound and menacing fighters at the corners and lying in the center, a masked figure in green and gold with a dragon-mark on his chest and his costume bloodied and torn, his feet tied together and his hands bound behind his back. The masses screamed their approval at the sight and cheered wildly as the sound of a bell pierced through air thickened by their bloodlust but as the four bare-knuckle brawlers converged on their victim, he actually managed to stand, wobbling just slightly in his bonds and...smiling. Despite this bizarre development, the first of the fighters to reach the masked man sauntered right up to him and lashed out with an almost contemptuous right hook, certain that the blow would wipe the insolent grin right off his face and send him sprawling back to the mat to be beaten... only for his fist to meet empty air as the still smiling man rocked back on his heels and swayed away from the punch. Suddenly, with whip-like speed and the same sickening crack the still tied up smiling man snapped his whole body forward into a headbutt that sent his attacker reeling back and screaming against a tide of blood and mucus from his now pulped and shattered nose. As the crowd's gasps of astonishment turned to shouts of outrage the other three fighters rushed the smiling man as one, attempting to pummel him with a rain of punches and kicks from all sides. But the man never stopped smiling. Instead, gold mask dripping red, he twisted, weaved and pivoted in place and almost miraculously the fighters' blows seemed to flow around him like a river around a rock, instead crashing into his enemies. After a few moments of this two on opposite sides had beaten each other to the point of collapse while the last backed off exhausted and eyeing him warily as the crowd and Chaka alike fell silent at their failure. Perhaps overwhelmed by shame, the final brawler circled, then roared and charged his tormentor from behind, launching into a diving tackle to bring him down and immobilize him. Without missing a beat and despite his bound feet the masked man launched into a jump that carried him over the tackle before bringing his full weight down on the big man's back and driving the air from his body in a pitiful wheeze. After which he hopped off the unconscious lug and gave the crowd an apologetic bow. By this point the original assailant with the broken nose had recovered himself enough to give a last screaming and desperate charge, only to be met by a sudden dropkick that brought both attacker and recipient down together. Only one of them got up, and he was still smiling. The crowd booed and raged in disappointment, only to be cowed by the voice of the somehow calm Chaka [color=orange][b]"My brothers I feel your disappointment! Your rage! But do not think that the Iron Fist will go unpunished for his insolence! No! For we were prepared, even for this! No common beating for our great foe, no! Instead I give you the death of a thousand cuts! I give you...ROUND TWO![/b] [/color] Suddenly, eight men in bestial masks leaped from the shadows into the ring, each wielding a straight-bladed Chinese [i]jian[/i]. With impossible grace they rushed the man in green and gold though his hands and feet were still bound, preparing to slice him to ribbons in a slow, agonizing death. Once again the crowd ignited, eager to see the hated man's life blood spilled across the canvas and sure now that even his skill couldn't save him from eight trained swordsmen. But then with no apparent effort, he flexed and snapped the ropes binding his feet together. What happened next was lost in a flurry of kicks too numerous and varied to track and a few impossible-seeming leg based grapples that turned a roundhouse into a chokehold and a somersault into a flipping throw, but the only thing everyone could see was that in the end all eight swordsmen were strewn about the ring out cold. At this, the gathered crowd completely lost control. They rose up in tens perhaps even in hundreds, almost all of them trained fighters and all of them rushing the ring in blind fury to tear one man apart with their bare hands and anything else they could find, hellbent on killing him themselves and lent strength by an untamed rage. The man at the center of it all snapped the ties on his hands. A lot could be said about what happened next, but the only words that matter are these. He is the Immortal Iron Fist and they fell as rain in a storm. [hr] After a long half hour of healing meditation, Daniel Rand-Kai looked back at what he'd done with more dread and disappointment than pride. Chaka had fled the Tiger Pit as soon as the mob got too worked up and apart from the a hundred or so semi-skilled thugs beaten or arrested for street-fighting in a city of millions, no real justice would be served tonight. Worse yet he was no closer to bringing down the Chiantang's organization considering another pit could be opened just as easily somewhere else. So the question had to be asked... [i]Why? Was it just selfish rage and self-indulgent violence? Is that how I squander my father's gifts, my master's teachings? At least I didn't use the Chi of Shou-Lao, the Iron Fist, but if I can't find a good use for them then why do I have them?[/i] Danny pushed his doubts aside and ascended the stairway out of the pit. Somewhere up there were more villains to fight and innocents to protect. Hopefully a purpose would come with them.