[b]” Are you still up for this Danny? That stab wound looked pretty bad.” [/b] Colleen’s remark only served to bring up the twinge in my abdomen and remind me of the fact that we were about to take on a potential horde of mystically and chemically enhanced child assassins along with gods-knew-what else and on top of that my qi still hadn’t healed my injury from earlier tonight. That said if I had to face down this sort of situation, Colleen Wing is definitely one of the people I’d pick to watch my back. She was one of the first friends I made outside of K’un-Lun, plus her brilliant archaeologist of a father having theorized about the Heavenly City years ago and her own detective skills are the only reason I’m not dead or in prison now. Seeing her perched on the rooftop next to me with a [i]daisho[/i] on her hips and a [i]tekkan[/i] in-hand, I almost feel like we aren’t about to walk into our deaths. “[b]He’ll be [i]fine[/i] Colleen, I patched him up myself… even if he did bleed all over my new couch.”[/b] The addition of Misty Knight did even more to make death feel less likely, even if ordinarily her presence would drive me to distraction. She was a good shot with the gun at her hip even if it was loaded with low-velocity taser bullets, an even better fighter who could go more than a few rounds with me, and if it came down to it having a super-strong cyborg arm built by Tony Stark probably didn’t hurt either. Especially considering the first time we met, she used it to knock me out cold. I fell for her then in more sense than one, even if sometimes I think I’m one second away from earning another robotic sucker punch. Still, with the two of them by my side I feel like I could take down a hundred super-powered killers. That’s a good thing, because we might just have to. The previous knife-wielding teenager’s faintly glowing blue-eyes and unusual abilities were unmistakably the symptoms of an Asura Dust user. The powdered drug not only artificially fuels a person’s inner [i]qi[/i] to unnatural levels but heightens their ability to sense the flows of qi around them, to the point that even someone without the years of disciplined training it had taken me to open my senses could read the intent of hardened warriors. I knew that sometimes Lei-Kung used it in small doses to awaken the senses of initiates and healers sometimes used it to boost the body’s natural healing abilities, and even I’d heard delinquents occasionally used it as a quick and dirty path to power. But the appearance of Asura Dust in New York unnerved me more than I was willing to admit, even to Colleen and Misty. It was a highly regulated substance in K’un-Lun, and as far as I knew, it should have been completely impossible for it to wind up in earthly hands. Worse yet, I’d always been cautioned that Asura Dust left its users open to manipulation and prolonged exposure to the oversensitivity it caused could drive strong minds to madness... …and someone was deliberately giving it to kids for their own dark rituals. Once I’d explained the situation it hadn’t taken long to get Colleen and Misty onboard, and with the feeling of so many people all gathered in one place giving off the telltale tainted qi of Asura Dust, it wasn’t hard to track the source to an abandoned storage warehouse, formerly owned by Rand-Meachum Inc, of all things. So here we were, on a rooftop overlooking a dilapidated building full of drugged-up, brainwashed kung-fu teenagers probably looking to kill us. [b]“Provided we don’t die tonight and it really makes you feel better, I’ll buy you a new couch and-“[/b] [b]“You wouldn’t have to if that macho bullshit between you and Jean’s boyfriend hadn’t wrecked my last apartment! Did you know that girl still won’t talk to-“[/b] [b]“Oh! So it’s suddenly my fault that I thought he was there to abduct you when-“ [/b] [b]“MISTY! DANNY! Can we PLEASE focus on how we’re going to infiltrate the abandoned warehouse full of homicidal teenage cultists?!”[/b] It takes a moment for me to school my embarrassment and to force the blush away from underneath my mask at Colleen’s rebuke, but then with newfound clarity of mind I focus everything I feel, everything I am, all that makes me Daniel Rand-Kai into my right fist. Then, I reach still deeper inside myself to grasp at a place both intimate and unknowable, to draw upon the Heart of the Dragon and the burning Qi of Shou-Lao. As I point at the warehouse below, I don’t even need to look to know that my hand is burning like a thing of molten iron. [color=gold][b]“Personally, I thought we’d just…knock.”[/b][/color] [hr] [b]BOOM[/b] Ordinarily I’d take a certain amount of satisfaction in the way a portion of the wall simply disintegrates under my punch, but already there’s a pack of softly glowing blue eyes staring at the three of us from the darkness within and the gleam of drawn knives in the night signal that the battle’s begun. I lash straight out with a barely-pulled elephant kick at the first to attack me though he can’t be older than fourteen, but he slips around my strike like wind through a forest and it takes all my speed to evade his counter-cut. Out of the corners of my vision, I can just make out Colleen having equal trouble disabling her near-clairvoyant assailants though an occasional [b]bang-zap-thump[/b] indicates Misty is having no problem utilizing the stun-bullets to good effect, at least in the cases where they manage to hit. Their technique is rough and formless but that hardly matters when they outnumber us more than tenfold, possess speed and strength no untrained kids should have and know our moves as soon as we make them. I find myself having to draw on reserves of qi to just out speed their battle-precognition, but I know that just like Misty’s taser bullets, it won’t last. Colleen’s working on a level of skill and grace I’ve rarely observed in anyone, the blunted false-sword a whirling blur keeping the brainwashed hordes at bay and occasionally even striking a successful disabling blow. But we were fighting to defend and disable and they were fighting to kill. It was inevitable that we were going to get cut. Then it gets worse. As soon as blood starts to flow still more children and teens with the same knives and glowing blue eyes pour against us, and all of them begin chanting in unison, first at a whisper but building into a howling scream: [color=aquamarine][i][b]"Blood for the Master! Blood for the Master!"[/b][/i][/color] Now I’m, certain we’ll be overwhelmed. I draw on the fiery Qi of Shou-Lao, knowing if I have to I can extend the Iron Fist to blow them all away… …but I can’t bear to strike. Not at innocents caught up in someone else’s sick scheme, so many of them the same age as my students at the Thunder Dojo. But how can we beat them when their enhanced sensitivity lets them read us so effortlessly… Then it hits me. Immediately I pour all that I think, all that I feel, all that I am into my fist as I did before, but this time rather than channel the Qi of Shou-Lao into punch of force I release it in a broad, gentle wave that washes across the warehouse. With it I send every feeling and memory of calm, safety, love, gentleness that I’ve ever experienced. For just an instant, I feel my heart and mind linked with dozens of others through the flow of qi. Then one by one, their eyes clear of the glow, and they each begin to slump into what seems like a soft sleep. Like this, it becomes painfully clear that these kids are runaways or maybe homeless, a few of them probably no older than twelve or thirteen, almost all of them grimy and starvation-thin, and just as I wonder what kind of monster would possibly do this an answer literally steps out from the shadows. [b]“That was quite an impressive display, Fist. My Master was unsure of your survival, but I see you were able to negotiate things without a single life lost. Well done!” [/b] Before I can say a thing Misty empties the rest of her ammunition at the figure, but the blinding flash of an energy blade vaporizes the stun-bullets in mid-flight with only a look of annoyance from the man, and just like that, I recognize him. A fanatic I hadn’t crossed paths since last year… [b]“Scimitar! I thought you a man of honor, not some putrid drug-peddler and slaver of children!”[/b] [b]“Bah! Honor comes from serving one’s cause and master, and the two of us were younger still when we were trained to serve our causes.[/b] [b]“If that’s the kind of master you serve then I’ll destroy you both!”[/b] My fist burns with rage and all three of us move to attack him, but the flash of his blades is blinding and when my eyes clear again, he’s gone. <<[b]you motherless pile of dogshit![/b]>> Even without the Iron Fist, my punch cracks the wall, but the only response I get is echoing laughter and then: <<[b] “Master Khan shall rise, Young Dragon!”[/b]>> I’m shaking, numbed by rage and a vague sense of dread at a name used to haunt my childhood, but then Misty is there steadying me and somewhere far off Colleen is saying [b]“Don’t worry Danny. We won. These kids are safe, and we stopped whatever they’re planning.”[/b] So why does every instinct I have tell me this is just beginning?