imnotdaredevil (imnotdaredevil) wrote in newalliance, @ 2014-02-23 10:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | daredevil |
Who: Matt Murdock
NPCs: Skrull!Elektra, Skrull!Hand Ninjas, Skrull Queen Veranke
What: Hiding In Plain Sight- or how I learned to stop worrying and love the Skrull Empire
Where: Iga Province (Mie Prefecture), Japan
When: April 2nd-May 4th, 2013 [backdated to forever ago]
Notes: MATT IS THE SKRULLY QUEEN. AND IT IS IT IS A GLORIOUS THING TO BE THE SKRULLY QUEEN
With Karen dead, there was nothing to hold him to New York anymore. The tabloids knew all about Daredevil- or said they did at any rate- and while that was a problem enough in and of itself, it was Karen’s death that had pushed Matt to his breaking point.
He was done.
Done with Hell’s Kitchen, done with Daredevil, done with his law career. He had nothing let to give any of them. Hadn’t he done enough? Hadn’t he sacrificed enough? There were people who did less good in the span of their lives than Matt had managed in a decade-- wasn’t that good enough to earn him his place in Heaven?
Matt couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if God had lost against Satan when they decided to play with Job. What if God had backed the wrong horse,this whole time? What if he wasn’t strong enough, or faithful enough? What if Job just couldn’t take it and faltered?
He had to admit, it was a telling story, and Matt had cursed the day he was born more than once, had cursed the injustice in his life, had actively worked to change it- to go against the Devil in all his forms, to fight fire with fire.
Like Job, there was nothing left for him. Everything was taken from him, except his life-- because that would have been far too easy an out.
Then again, Matt was fairly certain they wouldn’t take his kind in Heaven anyway. He was a bad Catholic, for starters, and on top of that, he was the cause of the deaths and injuries of everyone in his life. Those he loved and cared about were slaughtered like lambs, their blood serving as the sacrament for his mission.
No; in the end, Job had been saved by The Lord, but Matthew Murdock was no Job. He was not faithful. He was not kind. He was not worthy of the sacrifice of God’s only Son and had squandered his salvation.
He slept on the flight out, fitfully, without dreaming. That, at least, he was grateful for. From New York, he went to London, then Paris, Rome, Prague and a few other cities in between. Matt never stayed long in one place- just long enough to catch the scent of the person he was after and follow it to the next step, the next lead, the next place.
All of which had brought him to Iga, Japan- home of one of two infamous clans of Ninja. The Iga Clan and the Koga Clan, from adjacent provinces in Japan, had been the centers for the tutelage of professional ninja- not the commoners or samurai who had been otherwise employed as spies and assassins- but those actually indoctrinated into the Art of Ninjutsu. It was a place Matt had been before.
There was an abandoned Shinto shrine near the central, ruined castle-- and that was where he found her first. He could smell her from a quarter-mile away, could practically feel the fishing-line thin threads of her hair being picked up by the wind the shuttered the leaves above. Matt pulled his backpack up higher onto his shoulder, using his cane more as a walking stick to climb up the steep hill rather than a guide (after all, there was no one left to hide from).
He could hear the smile in her voice, and knew he hadn’t surprised her. “You should have shaved before coming to see me.” Elektra said, the cloth of her skirt rustling as she turned towards him.
Matt couldn’t have said before this moment why he’d chosen to seek out Elektra after Karen’s death except that he may have been a masochist (on many different levels) but at this very instant, he knew why he’d left hearth and home and traveled for weeks to get here, with her.
“Bullseye killed my girlfriend.” He said weakly, his unseeing eyes focused somewhere off to the left, hidden behind his glasses.
Elektra considered him for a moment before crossing to him, never once checking the sais she wore at her hips. “That happens to you often.”
The laugh Matt gave was bitter and humorless, but it was something- some kind of noise that proved he was alive still, against all odds, and suddenly he sank to his knees, finding his feet unable to support him anymore. He laughed, an odd barking noise that sounded disturbed even to his own ears, and was finally silent, though his shoulders shook violently and he squeezed his eyes shut as if that would keep everything in.
Stepping forward, Elektra closed the space between them and lay her hands against Matt’s head, drawing him in against her. She eased her fingers through his hair and removed his glasses, and when Matt pressed his face against her stomach and clutched her against him, she pretended that she didn’t feel his tears soaking her shirt.
He shouldn’t have stayed. He shouldn’t have come at all, but he had and now that he was here with Elektra, nothing much else seemed to matter. The Hand that she had fallen in with, who occupied the small castle, were few- six to twelve, given the day- and they left him alone. For Elektra’s hospitality, Matt has promised that he would give them the same respect, even if it grated on his every nerve to share space with the fallen members of the Chaste.
For the weeks that he spent at the castle with her, Matt never wore his glasses and only carried his cane for long hikes in the mountains with the woman he’d fallen in love with back during his freshman year of college. She was still just as beautiful, just as young and deadly as she’d always been. Elektra herself was like a masterpiece sword, time and honing and heat and pressure had only made her more of what she already was, rather than breaking her.
There was a coldness to her now that hadn’t been there before, but Matt knew the same was reflected in himself. For all that though, his world was dark without her.
Perhaps it was uncouth, to mourn Karen with Elektra- but there was no one else Matt knew who would understand, who he could tell the entire story to without fear of judgement of reprisal. And he did, during their long hikes through the mountains, following the rivers- or at night when he couldn’t sleep but she held him all the same and let the cool, indifferent silence of the castle fill the room with a calming effect that Matt couldn’t quite put his finger on.
He spent weeks there, healing and finding some balance to life again. Early in May, they were returning from a hike and climbing over one of the old bridges. Matt paused for a moment and turned his head towards the group of Hand Ninja who were assembled at the far side of the bridge, speaking in quick whispers that- for some reason- he couldn’t quite make out. He didn’t recognize it as a language at all let alone one he could understand.
“What’s going on?” He asked, but she didn’t answer except to ask him to stay back and headed towards the group.
As soon as she got closer, the others began to speak in rapid Japanese- but it was a distinct change from the noises they’d been making before. And this language he could understand.
”Dead.”
“Get the body out of here.”
“What happened?”
“Fell from the roof, broke his neck.”
“--mustn’t let him know.”
“He’s going to find out!”
“Get rid of the body- quickly!”
And of course, those were never sentences one wanted to hear.
Suspicion prickled in his chest and despite Elektra’s warning to stay back, Matt had already leapt up onto one of the wide, raised edges of the bridge and dashed across it towards where the others were assembled.
Something didn’t smell right. Death was in the air, for certain, but recent and not yet the putrid stench of decomposition-- but this body, it didn’t smell familiar at all- not like any human or animal that Matt had encountered. One firm smack of his cane against the stone bridge gave his radar sense a much better picture of what was happening, though it still didn’t make sense.
There was an outline- pointed ears overly large like a vampire bat’s and a long, thick chin, segmented into distinct rows. Whatever this corpse was, it wasn’t human… and they were trying to hide it.
“What the hell is that, Elektra?” He demanded, taking two steps back and planting his feet where they landed on the edge of the bridge.
Some of the ninja began to draw their weapons, but she calmed them with a gesture.
“I hoped that we might do this the easy way but it doesn’t seem like that will be possible now.” She said in English, moving towards Matt and climbing onto the edge of the bridge to face him squarely. Her face changed- his radar sense could pick up the rippling in her face thanks to the noisy wind and river rushing by beneath them, surging with mountain snow-run off. “Matthew Murdock, our queen will require the use of your form until we have dominated your planet.”
“.... What?” Had he heard her right? the use of his form? Planetwide domination? “What are you? Some kind of Avengers level alien-Loki-thing?” Because even with his extensive knowledge of some of the more dangerous and mystic parts of Ninjutsu-- Matt had never encountered anything even remotely close to this.
“We are the Skrull. Our homeworld has been destroyed and we will claim yours as our new home. Please come peacefully. The Skrull would like to harmonize with humanity, not destroy it.” She said, pleasantly, holding out a hand that was still very much Elektra’s despite the change of her facial features. “But make no mistake, should you refuse, your form will be commandeered for our Queen’s usage. You have already lost this battle, Matthew Murdock. Surrender now so that we do not need to harm you.”
And that was the moment it hit him-- if this wasn’t Elektra, then that made two loves that he’d lost within the span of just a few short months. Though he had lost Elektra before, that didn’t lessen the pain… in fact, it only made it worse. And that pain curled up tightly around itself and hardened into a deep, biting rage.
He charged in a split second, raising across the space between them and raising his cane, holding it behind him as he charged like a matador’s cloak, waiting until the last moment to swipe it around in front of him and connect with the Skrull’s shoulder.
The battle between the two was short and vicious. The problem arose when it became clear that the Skrull that had been Elektra had no aims to kill her attacker-- for whatever reason, the Skrulls wanted him alive.
Matt, on the other hand, was blinded by rage. He never would have considered himself to be the kind of person who would willingly kill someone with his own bare hands; but that pretense had abandoned him in this moment. Right now all he wanted to do was slam his cane and his fists and his feet and elbows into the lump of flesh that had pretended to be Elektra and to keep doing so until the pain that had roared out of him like a hurricane consumed the thing that had the audacity to impersonate his former lover.
The exchange of blows lasted less than a minute before the two parted again, standing on opposite sides of the bridge- Matt with his back to the rest of the Skrull’s army of Hand ninja. He was breathing heavily, could feel cuts and welts and bruises springing up in places that he hadn’t even realized had been hit… but the Skrull was in no better shape. Wobbling on unsteady legs from the repeated blows to her head, a rock came loose beneath her foot and with nothing more than a look of surprise, she tumbled off of the bridge and disappeared with barely a sound into the snow fed river below.
Matt jumped for her when she started to fall- out of habit rather than any any desire to see the alien walk amongst the living again- but there, half hanging off the rock wall with his hand reaching out into cold, empty air, he realized just what had happened.
He had killed her. Not directly- he hadn’t pushed her from the bridge- but she was concussed and dizzy from their fight and if he’d been faster, or stronger or better then one less life-- even the life of something so vile as an impersonator of his lost love, would have been saved.
He’d lost. And if God were watching now, He would surely be settling up His gambling debts.
That realization came with a fresh wave of anger and as Matt stood, taking a position up on the center of the bridge to face down the rest of the Skrull-infested Hand, he untwisted his cane into two separate escrima sticks and experimentally rotated one in his left hand.
“C’mon.” He spat from between teeth clenched so tightly he thought they might shatter under the pressure, then repeated it as a shout, “COME ON!”
Blood flew from his mouth as he shouted and the Skrulls leapt- an entire horde of Hand Ninja springing from the shadows, crawling out from under the bridge, swarming up from the shadowed trees, swarming like ants to overcome the desperate and dangerous man on the bridge.
It was only a few moment before the battle was won, the sheer manpower of the Skrull force clearly overwhelming the already injured hero and the last thought Matt could recall before blacking out entirely was that they better not just stop at knocking him unconscious. If they knew what was good for them, if they wanted to live, they would kill him right then and there.
Because as soon as he was free again, there would be Hell to pay-- and the Devil always got his due.