POV Matt Murdock
I had always wanted to help people I never felt like I had any possibility to until I met Auggie Anderson. He was blind just like me and he even wasn't born blind like me as well.
But through training by his first master Stick he rose above it. Then he traveled the world learning all that he could. He went to Tai long and learn the art of chi to such an extent they wanted him to be the dragon warrior the iron fist but he declined.
Next place he went was Ta Lo there he learned about harnessing nature and a whole new set of martial arts. He also got a few of those dragon scales which he said he'd give me when I decided to go out like the Red Wing.
Then he went searching once more and found Karnak and learned the art of flaws and with it he was able to best most opponents without even using chi or nature's breath.
I have been given the super soldiers serum late last year on my 20th birthday. To say my enhanced senses went into overload would be an understatement I could hear things from miles away smell things from the same distance my radar sense as Auggie named it was big enough to span the entirety of Hell's kitchen and more.
It Had been 2 years since then and I had rain been in my senses to enough that I could harness it properly. I had asked Auggie to make me my suit and he did.
The first night out as the Daredevil made me realize something I'm way too strong. If I use chi I punch too hard and they'll never walk again. And I use nature it's too strong and I become a danger to myself and others. Not to mention the super soldier serum.
After that first night I had worked tirelessly to rain in my strength so that I wouldn't needlessly mangle my enemies.
That was until I faced the hand. They're unlike any enemy I had faced but compared to Auggie they were relatively weak. I was able to use flaw detection too take out most of them but I had to use most of my strength as well.
I began investigating this Hand with the help of the skills Auggie had given me and the connections I had as a starting lawyer. I slowly scrounged together a location.
It was down by the docks in Harlem thanks to all my abilities I was able to get there relatively fast I could almost fly on the wind I figured I should install some form of glider into my suit.
Being blind made for detection a little different instead of seeing and predicting or slowly learning like that. Me and Augie had to use hits received and blocks successful to slowly Divine a way to get past our enemy.
Auggie was still better than me at this point but when it came to fighting people like this every punch was like a fortune cookie telling me exactly where to hit and how hard.
That night the Hand knew the fear of the Red Demon, Daredevil.
With the help of Auggie things are progressing faster his computer skills were always helpful and I did wish to learn them but I couldn't learn them when I was at law School not to the extent that he has it down.
This made most criminals easy to find and with little effort they were taken out but there was something strange happening. I kept running into this Name. An enigma everybody feared him and nobody called him by anything but his title.
You see everybody works under a system even criminals. Now usually they're separate gangs. In those separate gangs have separate leaders. But what was happening here was rather different each of them was under another leaving much of my work uneffective.
Obelisk that's all there was a name I had beat a few henchmen for intel but there was nothing it was strange they seemed to accept the beating like he was worse.
-
It ended up taking me 3 weeks with the help of Auggie and Shield but I finally had a clue. There was supposed to be some sort of meeting taking place in a construction site later today.
From the reports I had read it was supposed to be between the hand and Obelisk. I didn't know much about the hands leaders I did know what they had their fingers dipped in and that was enough.
Obelisk on the other hand was everywhere every trade every market devious or otherwise. He had a particular fondness for construction. I can never figure out which ones he owned or invested in but it was there
Obelisk entered without a word, a towering presence wrapped in a bone-white suit, tailored to drape over muscle like armor. His cane more for show than support clicked against the stone as he walked. He said nothing, because he didn't have to. His silence was command.
The fingers remained seated, watching. Measuring.
"He's Strong" Murakami said first, voice like gravel. "The Devil of Hell's Kitchen. Red armor."
"He cut down six men without drawing breath," Bakuto added, his tone clipped, resentful. "And we trained them."
Sowande leaned back, folding his arms. "He's not just a thorn. He's a dagger now."
Obelisk didn't sit. He walked to the center of the room where a miniature model of Manhattan sat on a table a city of stone beneath his fingers. His hand hovered above Hell's Kitchen, casting a shadow over it..
"He is a man," he said finally, his voice slow and deliberate. "A man with a mask. And masks come off."
"He's more than a mask now," Alexandra muttered. "He's a symbol. Symbols don't bleed easy."
Obelisk pressed his finger down, snapping a small red building in the model in half.
"Then we bleed the city around him."
That was when Madame Gao shifted. Her movements were small, but deliberate, the kind of motion that made assassins hesitate. Her cane rested across her lap, and when she spoke, it was with that ageless calm that made even demons wary.
"You speak as though power is permanence," she said, eyes locked on the back of his head. "But I remember when you were Wilson Fisk a boy clawing for respect in a city that never loved him." The room went dead still.
"I do not answer to that name."
"No," Gao continued, her voice now a slow dagger of memory, "you buried it. Along with your fear. And wrapped the tomb in white silk."
The others looked between them but remained silent. This was not their place. This was a wound between titans.
"I've broken cities in my bare hands," Obelisk said, voice deepening, eyes narrowing. "Do not mistake your years for leverage."
"And yet," Gao replied with a thin, knowing smile, "it's the Devil you're afraid of."
For a moment, it was just the sound of the storm and the quiet stretch of something ancient between them. Then Gao stood, slow and deliberate, and turned her back to him.
"I will not clean up after your pride, Fisk."
And with that, she walked toward the exit. No one stopped her.
-
POV Matt Murdock
The first thing I noticed about the meeting wasn't the voices it was the scent. Damp concrete, sweat, old blood. Fear, too. It clung to the men in the room like smoke clings to wood.
And then there was him. Obelisk. Or should I say, Wilson Fisk.
I had always known he was dangerous, but what I sensed now wasn't just danger it was calculated inevitability. Like a boulder already halfway down the hill, and the only thing left to do was brace for the crush.
My heart pounded steady in my ears as I listened from the rafters above. Auggie's advice ran through my mind: Breathe with the world, not against it.
When Gao left, I knew this was my chance. I couldn't take them all at once not yet. But maybe, just maybe, I could strike a blow to their plans before they realized I was even there.
I waited until the meeting fractured, until the Fingers scattered into smaller groups, whispering plans in the shadows. Then I moved.
My body sang with energy, chi threading through my muscles like a river of quiet fire. I dropped down into their midst with the wind at my back and the fury of Hell's Kitchen in my fists.
The first man never saw me coming. A quick tap to the temple, he crumpled. The next tried to swing a sword, but nature's breath was already in my veins. I flowed around him, snapped his wrist, and sent him sprawling.
Alarms sounded through the building someone must have hit a silent trigger.
I gritted my teeth. Good. Let them come.
More Hand soldiers poured out from the shadows. I ducked and wove, striking nerves, breaking weapons. Every blow I took I turned into a lesson every stumble revealed a flaw I could use.
But then he moved. Obelisk.
He didn't rush me like a thug. No, he walked. Calm, deliberate, each step a thunderclap in my senses.
I felt the air shift an instant before his cane came swinging like a sledgehammer. I barely ducked under it, the wind slicing the skin on my cheek.
Super Soldier Serum. Chi. Nature's Breath. Flaw Detection.
I had never needed them all at once before. Tonight, I did.
He was faster than he had any right to be like a mountain learning to run. Every blow he threw could shatter concrete. I could hear the ground cracking under his boots.
We traded blows for what felt like hours compressed into minutes. His flaw was subtle not a weakness of body, but of rage. He fought like a man trying to erase himself his weakness.
I baited him. I let him think he had me cornered near a half-built stairwell. And when he lunged, I used nature's breath to move not against him but with the collapsing scaffolding.
The whole structure groaned and shifted, throwing dust and debris into the air, this being ineffective with my radar sense active.
He roared low, furious and for the first time, I heard something else behind it: fear. Not of me. Not really. But of what I represented.
I didn't need to beat him tonight. I just needed him to know:
You will bleed, and you will fall.
With a last surge, I lashed out, chi compressing into my palm, and struck the ground at his feet. The floor buckled, sending him crashing through to the level below.
Silence.
Sirens screamed in the distance S.H.I.E.L.D. backup, probably sent by Auggie.
I didn't wait around. I sprinted into the night, letting the rain wash the blood and sweat from my face.
Later, as I sat on a rooftop overlooking the shattered construction site, Auggie's voice crackled over the earpiece.
"You poked the bear, kid. He's gonna come hunting now."
I smiled grimly under my mask.
"Good," I said. "Let him."
Hell's Kitchen wasn't perfect. It was scarred. It was battered.
But it was mine.
And for the first time since I put on the mask...
I believed it could be saved.