Danny Rand ☯ the Immortal Iron Fist (iron_fist) wrote in newalliance, @ 2013-10-30 22:52:00 |
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Entry tags: | iron fist |
Who: Danny Rand
NPCs: Steel Phoenix, Crane Mother
Where: K'un-Lun
When: October 25th, 2013 (backdated)
What: Danny battles Steel Phoenix in K'un-Lun
Rating: R. Blood. Gore.
This was it. The final round in the Tournament of Heaven. The result of this match would determine the city to have access to Earth during the next cycle. The champion would forever be remembered and honored. Immortalized. But none of that mattered to Danny Rand. For him, this was personal. Not about honor, but justice. Though on his way to the ground he now stood upon, he had been tempted at every turn by the fire of vengeance.
It had all started nearly ninety years ago, just before the last tournament. In that time, Orson Randall was the Iron Fist, who was honor bound to represent K'un-Lun. Only Orson had been so traumatized by the horrors of the First World War and what he experienced fighting in the trenches that he had disavowed violence. Orson had refused to fight, but agreed to participate, and this was not acceptable to the rulers of the other Heavenly Cities. Led into a further by Crane Mother, she and the other city leaders sent their champions to discipline Orson.
And during the confrontation, Orson slew Crane Mother's champion-one that she could only birth every three hundred years-outside of the tournament.
Orson fled K'un-Lun, never to return. Crane Mother plotted vengeance.
Just over a month ago, Crane Mother began to have it. She had been unable to locate Orson in the intervening years and had decided to exercise her vengeance upon Danny. Aware of his recent break up, she utilized her Crane Daughters as doppelgangers taking the form of his ex-girlfriend to attempt to seduce, and then kill him. The plan may well have worked if not for the timely arrival of Orson, who had sought Danny out at this particular time just as Crane Mother had, as the tournament was near at hand. Orson intended for Danny to be prepared for it when it happened, and Crane Mother wanted to take him out before it began.
When her daughters failed her, Crane Mother brought in her new champion. Not her birthed champion, as that would still be well over two hundred years away, but a specter from the past of both Orson and Danny. Steel Phoenix. Unmasked as none other than Wendell Rand, former young companion to Orson and father to Danny respectively. When Danny had learned the truth on a rooftop in New York City he had nearly died in the confrontation as he had been too shocked and wrecked with grief to defend himself.
But that was then, and this was... now. After defeating the Bride of Nine Spiders, and surviving the Prince of Orphans-surviving, because John Aman had refused to kill Danny after he kept getting up, and had mercifully decided to yield when he learned the truth about the Steel Phoenix and what Crane Mother had been up to-there was no way Danny was going to let Crane Mother have her victory.
Danny stood with his hands wrapped in white tape. His chest was bare, save for the mark of Shou-Lao which shown prominently upon his chest. The green pants of his gi were torn in places but still functional, and his feet were bare. He had a look upon his face that the mask of the Iron Fist did little to hide.
Across from him stood a man who was in a lot of ways his mirror image. Similar build and height. A mask that was all but the same, except for the color-purple instead of yellow. Black pants instead of green, and black tape instead of white. An emblazoned Phoenix upon his chest in place of a dragon. It was with no small amount of disdain that Danny's eyes bored into that symbol with the knowledge that it could have been Shou-Lao there instead.
The gong to begin the match resonated throughout, but neither man made a move. Danny could hear the slow beat of his father's heart, and the sound of his own sweat along the contours of his chest. This was it, one way or another.
It ended now.
Steel Phoenix moved in with a high kick, and Danny blocked with a forearm.
Danny started to go at the grounded leg, but had to use his other arm to ward off the follow up punch from his father.
It was hard for him to accept-and he refused to let it get to him right now, at this crucial time, but-it well appeared his father was still faster. Even after Orson had finally given him the Book of the Iron Fist to study from to prepare for the tournament.
Danny went for the Golden Star Gouge, a straight on fist to the face, but his father caught either side of his wrist to re-direct his arm and bring him forward into a vicious head butt.
The world spun, white dots danced before his eyes, and crowd gasped as he swayed, but Danny managed to remain on his feet.
At least until his legs were swept out from under him so fast that Danny felt as though, for just a moment, he had taken flight until the hard ground reminded him of the painful reality that he was in.
Purple fire caught his attention, and a quick flash back to the last time he had experienced the Steel Phoenix Blow first hand caused him to roll without thinking, as his father buried his fist in the stonework floor.
It was as much as opportunity as Danny was like to get, and so he got up and launched into a Good Fortune Thunder kick, his heel connecting along the base of his fathers jaw, and his toe just beneath the chin.
Steel Phoenix reeled backward, but before he could fall Danny came in with an upward sword hand blow against the back of his skull, pitching his father forward now so that his skull smacked into the ground right next to where his fist had been buried.
"Get up", Danny said, as he removed his mask and tossed at the Phoenix. "I don't know how you stole my father's body, but I swear I will break it before I let you tarnish his memory anymore than you already have."
His father rose slowly, with measured steps, and removed his own mask upon looking at Danny. The sight of Wendell Rand had unnerved him before, but now Danny just narrowed his eyes, seeing now the man who raised him but the one playing at his strings. Crane Mother.
Danny surged forward with a Dragon Stamp, a jumping kick with one leg curled up in a half lotus position that Phoenix blocked with two forearms. Danny landed, dropped to one knee and spun to connect a back elbow Monkey Blow into his father's abdomen. He went to capitalize with a strike from his knee, but Phoenix blocked the move with a well placed kick to the shin before Danny could raise the leg, sending him backward.
When they came together again, it was a flurry of punches, kicks, and blocks with both forearms and legs. In a way it resembled a dance routine save for the sound of the impacts and the splattering of blood as Dragon and Phoenix tore into one another with little regard for the other.
Danny ached. His head was still swimming, and every time he could a split second he had to wipe blood from his eye with the back of his hand. Phoenix looked no better, but they were both still standing. Both still ready to give it their all.
"Enough of this", Danny said as his right fist became wreathed in mystic flame. "Let's see how well the Phoenix really flies against the Dragon." His father strode forward, with his own purple flaming fist. This was not how Danny wanted it to go down, but he saw little other way of keeping the Steel Phoenix down long enough to end all of this. He was betting a lot on the power of Shou-Lao that he had earned against the might of the Crane that had merely been bestowed, and as he charged Steel Phoenix he hoped he lived long enough to see his wager pay off.
Under normal circumstances, the Iron Fist in action resembled little more than a flaming fist. But as Danny swung, the fire took form into the head of a dragon with mouth agape, and when he slammed his knuckles into those of the Steel Phoenix the effect was immediate and catastrophic for his adversary.
The bones in his father's shattered, his wrist snapping and rolling backward along the forearm that broke with a sickening crack as he spun away from Danny to land face down upon the ground.
Crane Mother was screaming something, but she drowned out by the roar of the ground that washed over Danny as he strode toward the body of his father that scarcely seemed to move. He took a knee, turned the Steel Phoenix over, and nearly choked on what he saw.
His fathers eyes. And the fading symbol of the Phoenix.
"...Danny.. I'm.. I'm so sorry, son.. for everything, I.."
This time, Danny did choke as he tried to respond.
"...I'm proud of you.. you did what I never could, became the man I wanted to be.."
"That's funny.. here I thought.. I thought I was the one always trying to be more like you.."
Wendell Rand made a painful smile, as the color began to fade from his face with the dwindling influence of the Crane. For a moment he looked around, past Danny at the city of K'un-Lun, before finally returning his gaze.
"That's right, Dad.. you finally might it back here.. I'm just sorry it had to be like this.."
"Me too, son.. me too.. look.. I don't have much time here, but I need.. to ask your forgiveness.. for trying to bring you here with your mother and.."
"It wasn't your fault-"
"..And yet you would not have been lost out here had I not brought you both along.."
Danny sighed heartily. There were tears in his eyes. "Of course I forgive you.. I love you, Dad.."
"I love you too, Danny... I love you... too...."