I wake up and slip out of bed automatically at five AM just like every other morning, although more of those seem to start in the little modified penthouse at the top of Rand Tower than they do in my actual apartment these days. It feels as close to home as anything does these days, there are still traces of my father in the architecture and now that the last remnants of Harold Meachum’s influence have been scrubbed out of the place it almost feels comfortable. More importantly, it connects directly to my personal training hall.
I had it built to replicate the feel of Lei-Kung’s the Thunderer’s domain as exactly as I could, walls lined with weapon racks, each corner dedicated to one of the Four Heavenly Beasts, even the Thunderer’s symbol inscribed on the back wall behind the striking posts. It’s a little slice of K’un-Lun in the Big Apple, and it’s just about the only place that really feels familiar.
As soon as I step into the sacred space and finish paying my symbolic respects to the Thunderer and the Dragon, I start the day off right. Three straight hours of action meditation, each movement of the K’unlunquan forms performed precisely and deliberately. It comes to me easier than breathing, my body flowing through techniques meant to disarm, to disable, and to kill with all the natural ease of water in a river. I let my mind grow blank as my body remembers every step, block, counter and strike drilled into me since childhood, linking me back to a tradition that transcends not just Danny Rand-Kai but human history. At various points I whirl to pluck weapons from the racks and weave them into the forms without stopping, speed increasing with each move until there’s no longer time for conscious thought, only action and being. By the time I’m done at eight I shift into passive meditation as much to cool down as I do to discipline my mind and spirit.
This is exercise of a different kind, and as I pull my body into the lotus position my mind focuses on the unseen, both inward and outward. The flow of qi is everywhere and if you’ve been trained to sense it like I have you can feel it pulsing through the earth, hanging ambient in the air, surrounding, penetrating and binding together each living thing. By the time I’ve focused enough to match my own qi to the flow surrounding it I can feel my morning fatigue slip away along with the aches and pains of last night’s battles. By the time nine in the morning rolls around I’ve performed ablutions, changed into a decidedly non-super suit and gotten ready to face the day.
That’s a good thing, because even being the figurehead for Rand Incorporated is a whole new kind of battle I was never trained to fight. Before I even have time to sit down at my desk Jeryn Hogarth’s already bustled in with a folder of reports in-hand. He’s a short man, balding a little, pudgy and definitely no superhero. But my father’s financial empire rests in his capable hands and I’ve watched him control boardrooms and courtrooms alike with the sort of mastery I only wish I could have on the battlefield.
”Danny! I’ll skip the pleasantries and get right down to brass tacks! The head of the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism’s on line one and he’s asking for you.”
“Really, For me personally? Isn’t it like ten at night over there?”
“Well apparently there was some kind of minute timing failure on their automatic train protection system around five hours ago. Nobody’s dead, thank God, but he still wants a personal statement from you as the head of the company that we’re looking into it. A lot of the Shinkansen uses Rand trains, Danny.”
Fortunately K’un-Lun was a surprisingly good place to learn formal, apologetic Japanese and with enough sincerity and some advice from Jeryn I managed to avoid outraging half of the Japanese government.
“What’s next?”
This time a mix of amusement and irritation instead of panic:
“First off, more demands from J. Jonah Jameson. Apparently since the Daily Globe’s a subsidiary of Rand Media he’s demanding you to pressure the editor to ‘start publishing the truth about That Arachnid Abomination, Spider-Man!’ his words not mine. I wouldn’t bring it up, but he’s started denouncing you in the papers.”
There’s not a word descriptive enough for how weary my sigh is.
“Tell Jameson that I don’t believe in corporate interests interfering with the free press.”
“A shame or we could just buy him out and shut him up, huh? Moving on…”
Over the next hour or so Jeryn brings up other aspects of Rand Incorporated business and my public image, we work through our response to the railway fiasco in Japan and he updates me on our progress on getting Wayne Enterprises, Stark Industries and the other major multinationals on-board with a joint charity effort. A dizzying amount of work, and I hardly understand most of it, but it’s all necessary to preserve my father’s legacy and see that it grows.
By ten ‘o clock it’s off to the Thunder Dojo, one of the charity and PR efforts I spend most of my time involved in as Danny Rand. Teaching martial arts to underprivileged kids probably wasn’t what the board had in mind when they suggested I get personally involved with my charities, but at least I’m doing what I know. The kids aren’t exactly ready to learn the ancient secrets of K’un-Lun, but the safety and discipline’s good for them like it was for me and being able to beat seven shades of crap out of a thug doesn’t hurt in a city like this. The smiling faces whenever you show a kid how to flip a guy through a window don’t exactly leave you hurting for warm-and-fuzzy feelings, almost enough of them to make up for the fact that I probably helped put some of their parents in jail.
On that note, the real deal doesn't begin until the afternoon. Then I trade one suit for another and its’ Iron Fist’s turn to get to work. Today though, I barely get the mask on and start hopping roofs before my Randtech communicator starts whining. It’s Colleen Wing on the other end, the modern-day Tomoe Gozen that heads up the daughters of the Dragon with Misty Knight.
“Danny, where the hell did you go last night?! You just vanished during that bust at the fish cannery and next thing we know the Tiger Pit gets busted up with over a hundred goons inside?”
“Colleen it’s fine, I ran into a little trouble trying to take down Chaka but-“
“But nothing Danny! I know you’re Mr. Kung-Fu Badass and everything, but if you’d taken half a second to signal us we could have nailed Chaka to the wall! I know you've had some things to work out ever since all that stuff with the ghost ninja, but you need to stop being so self-destructive.”
She’s probably got a point, but before I can say anything a scream interrupts from an apartment window. I leap down from the roof above then grab the sill and swing through, ignoring the pain from the braking glass. The scene inside only registers as a series of disjointed sounds and images: a bloody upraised knife, a bleeding, screaming woman on the floor trying desperately to shield a wailing child, a leering face twisted in strange bloodlust, a shout of ‘Blood for the Master!’…
My body moves even before my mind catches up, grabbing the man’s wrist before the blade can descend again, twisting it into a lock that I know will hurt, kicking his legs out from under him faster than he can react…
Or that’s what should happen, but he slips my wristlock like nothing, turns to face me as he checks my kick with ease and rams the knife into my stomach with force that pierces my quick attempt at a qi-shield, twisting…I fight through the blinding pain, shut it out and grab the knife hand as it stabs, ram my forehead into his face while enhancing the blow with my qi. For a second I see his eyes, the whites glowing a strange, soft blue. He crumpled then as the headbutt connected, but it never should have gotten that far.
The police picked him up later after they took care of the woman and child, said he was just some kid who went missing a few weeks back, probably strung out on something. But I know better. No untrained runaway could’ve tagged me with that knife. Worse yet, I think I know what drug he was on…
And it came from K’un-Lun.
“Danny, what happened? You cut off and-“
“Colleen, you were right, I don’t think I can manage alone. I need you to meet me and bring Misty.”
There’s someone new in town and they've been ordering killings…
And the Immortal Iron Fist might be the only one who knows enough to stop them.
Captain Uni![] definitely the appearance of a reliable supernatural detective!](http://i.imgur.com/t86Xw.png){kind=link}