Unknownfate
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Chapter 91
🕑 Added 2025-04-07 22:11:48 +0000 UTCMatt groaned as his entire body hurt after that very short but very brutal fight. He wasn’t a stranger to getting beaten up, but after all his training, it was rare he got knocked around this badly.
He couldn’t help but think back to the chain of events that led to this painful situation.
It all started that morning. He heard about a series of gristly discoveries around Hell’s Kitchen, bodies, broken and beaten. Someone had spent the night going around killing every lowlife they could find.
And they found a lot.
The killings themselves were also brutal, blunt force, no signs of weapons. This led the authorities to suspect some person enhanced being behind it; in particular, they were quick to shift the blame onto a mutant.
He couldn’t blame them for thinking that, it happened more often than he would like. Mutants, young kids who suffered, and during that suffering, they awoke some kind of power. And taking revenge on the world.
He hadn’t met any himself; they often didn’t last long, or disappeared, either captured or taken somewhere safe.
So when he heard about this case, he could hardly wait to investigate. Which led him to go out this night, trying to see if they were still around. And it didn’t take him long to find them: two people, two women as described by those they rescued.
He might not be able to see them, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t tell the difference between a man and a woman. And those two were women without a doubt, everything about them screamed that fact, even if the smaller one did act like a thug.
And now, he was in a tough situation; the smaller one had him beaten, and the only thing that likely stopped her from bashing his skull in was the older one, who seemed like a handler. Given the description, he half expected them to be a secret government project.
But now that seemed unlikely.
“Fine, I know a little about them; my mentor often talked about them, and I had a few run-ins with them. I know a place they might be, but it's unlikely to be their main base.” He finally had to spill the truth; it was either that or have it beaten out of him. And he didn’t want to suffer to spare the lives of those kind.
He disagreed with killing, but he also understood that he had no say in what these two did; he wasn’t enhanced, he was blind, he could feel the world, and he was good at fighting. But against this woman, not just stronger and faster than him, but also more skilled at fighting, he had no chance.
-----
I slightly nodded as Daredevil finally spoke up. He was smart, to admit his defeat like that. Beside me, Mordred was already itching to go smash his face in a few times until he spilled what we wanted to know, and his teeth.
“There’s a warehouse near the docks,” he said through gritted teeth. “Meatpacking district. Red doors. It’s one of their quiet spots. Many people enter, but few ever leave. Never had the manpower to breach it alone.”
“That sounds like our kind of place,” Mordred said, practically bouncing on her heels. “Let’s go knock.”
Personally, I couldn’t help but be suspicious, given that he was describing the same thing the now-passed-out runner had done. Which meant either the Hand was up to something, or he was trying to trick us.
But given that he had no reason to protect the Hand, I didn’t voice my suspicion, even if I was disappointed Mordred missed the strange coincidence.
…
The three of us moved through the city like shadows—well, two shadows and a thunderclap. Mordred didn’t bother hiding her presence. She leapt from rooftop to rooftop with the grace of a boulder, often whooping with excitement midair.
Daredevil kept to the shadows, silent, methodical. I was honestly impressed he could even keep up, because Mordred kept trying to get ahead, even if he was the one leading the way.
Eventually, we reached the warehouse.
It was squat and square, made of old brick and steel, sitting at the edge of the water like a forgotten relic. The red doors were closed, no signage, no windows. Silent as a tomb.
Daredevil raised his hand. “Two guards at the front, one at the back, about a dozen inside.”
“I’ll take the two in front,” Mordred said, cracking her neck. “At least try to handle the last guy on your own.”
Before anyone could argue, she was already airborne, boots slamming into the side of the wall before leaping through a skylight like a rocket.
There was a short pause.
Then a crash.
Then a scream.
Then a body flew out the other skylight—up, not down—and landed on the pavement beside us with a wet thud.
I looked at Daredevil. “She’s efficient.”
He didn’t even blink. “Terrifying is the word I’d use.”
We moved.
I followed Daredevil towards the back and watched him take care of the last guard who was alerted by Mordred’s attack. Knowing that they likely were on guard inside, we didn’t waste time entering.
While it was silent as a grave outside, once we were inside, it was totally different; it was a hive of activity. Inside, a large number of guards were waiting for us, enough that a lone person like Daredevil would be helpless, so I understood why he hesitated to go on his own.
Mordred, however, didn’t hesitate. She grinned like a devil and charged headlong into their ranks, fists swinging like iron hammers. Her strikes cracked ribs, shattered skulls, and sent men flying through crates.
Daredevil vanished into motion beside her, a red blur. He twisted around sword swings, his batons moving like extensions of his limbs. Where Mordred was a battering ram, Daredevil was precision. A nerve strike here, a sweep there. Two down, three down, four. He fought like he was born to it.
I watched for a moment longer, then stepped into the shadows, letting the two of them draw the heat. I wanted to see how many came, and from where.
A door burst open and six more spilled out, weapons flashing. One dove toward Daredevil—only to be intercepted by Mordred, who drove her knee into his stomach with a grunt.
“You face me!” she shouted.
“Take it seriously!” Daredevil snapped, backflipping over another’s strike and twisting midair to smash a baton into the side of their neck.
While Daredevil was good, he was still a mortal man, and if not for Mordred, he wouldn’t have lasted long against these numbers, because they just kept coming.
From the shadows.
From the rafters.
From the trapdoors in the floor.
More than two dozen now. Maybe three dozen.
“Getting crowded in here,” Mordred said between punches.
At this point, every step she took, she stepped on a downed ninja as she smashed her fists into another, just adding to the mess.
I was honestly surprised at how many there were. And that they fearlessly kept coming. I could understand against Daredevil, he would get tired, slip up, but against Mordred? Surely they could see that was nothing but a death sentence.
However, nothing lasts forever, and eventually, the wave began to thin.
Everywhere, bodies slumped over, unconscious or dead. The entire room slowly grew still, the fighting ended, and the groans and painful cries stopped bit by bit as people either passed out or pretended to.
Mordred stood near the center of it all, bloodied but grinning, one foot on a pile of defeated Hand operatives. “I thought ninja were supposed to be quiet,” she panted, brushing a smear of blood from her cheek. “These guys scream way too much when you break their arms.”
Daredevil leaned against a broken pillar, breathing heavily. His suit was scuffed, his lip bleeding, but he was upright. “That’s the last of them—above ground, anyway.”
I stepped forward from the shadows, brushing dust off my sleeves. “Then we find the rest.”
Mordred turned, eager again. “There’s more?”
I nodded toward the back wall, where a heavy steel hatch had been wrenched open in the chaos. A few ninjas had tried to escape through it earlier, only to be knocked back by Daredevil’s baton or Mordred’s foot. But it hadn’t gone unnoticed.
“Down there,” I said. “Underground. Their real operation.”
Mordred’s smile widened. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let's see what they’re hiding.”
But I raised a hand. “No. First, we question one of them. Alive.”
Mordred groaned. “Fine. Just don’t blame me if he loses a few teeth.”
She dragged one of the survivors toward us—a masked man wheezing through a cracked ribcage, barely conscious. Daredevil crouched beside him first, his tone quiet but cutting.
“You’ve lost. The others are down. You tell us what’s below, or I let her finish what she started.”
The man coughed blood, his head lolling weakly. “You… you don’t know what you’re messing with.”
“We’re aware,” I said calmly. “And you’ll tell us anyway.”
The poor guy spilled everything he knew, which wasn’t much, but with at least a dozen of his compared clearly brutally dead right in front of his eyes, he didn’t dare hold anything back.
He worked for Madame Gao, a powerful old monster, or so he called her. I knew that she was indeed old, but powerful… that I wasn’t sure about. She was enhanced, but the fact that Stick and Elektra had given her trouble for a while now, yeah, she wasn’t all that great.
But at least this allowed Mordred to know a bit more about them without me having to tell her everything. I wanted her to find her own information, and to not rely too much on me.
My knowledge was, after all, very limited when it came to these things.
The stairwell beneath the steel hatch was narrow, steep, and reeked of chemicals.
Mordred wrinkled her nose as we descended. “Smells like piss and poison down here.”
“It’s not poison,” Daredevil murmured, brow furrowing. “Not exactly. That’s the stench of manufacturing. Illicit kind. Cookhouses. Chemicals. And… fear.”
As we descended, the air thickened—hot, heavy, choking. The sound changed too. There was no conversation, no barking orders. Just… shuffling. Labored breaths. The low, rhythmic scrape of hands working against metal.
We reached the door. Mordred kicked it open with a clang that echoed like a gunshot.
She froze.
So did I.
But Daredevil didn’t.
His head tilted. His nostrils flared. His face contorted slightly—not in pain, but in alarm. His hand shot out, brushing the wall, then clenched into a fist.
“What is this place?” he asked.
Nobody answered right away.
The silence inside wasn’t just eerie. It was unnatural. Like the room had been trained not to breathe too loudly.
Then Daredevil spoke again. Softer this time. Almost shaken.
“I can smell blood in the air. Chemicals. Human waste. Too many heartbeats. Rapid, irregular. Sick. Exhausted. But no one’s speaking. No one’s even whispering.”
He turned toward me, his expression tense.
“Why aren’t they speaking? Why can’t I hear any voices?”
“They can’t see you,” I said gently.
His head turned slightly.
“They can’t see anyone,” I continued. “Their eyes are gone.”
Daredevil stiffened. A beat passed.
“Blinded?” he asked, the word catching in his throat.
“Yes.”
He was quiet for a long time. Then, barely audible, he said, “That’s why their heartbeats don’t change. Why they keep working. They don’t know we’re here.”
Mordred’s voice was a whisper of rage. “Slaves.”
Daredevil exhaled, long and low. Then he walked forward slowly, tapping his baton lightly against the floor until it touched the edge of a metal table.
He crouched beside one of them—judging from the labored breathing, it was a young man. Carefully, he extended a hand and touched his arm.
“We’re getting you out of here,” he said, voice thick now. “You’re safe.”
The man flinched, confused. But didn’t stop working.
Fear kept them all working; they ignored everything, the loudness of our entrance, the gentle voice of Daredevil, fear kept them from thinking, so beaten and abused they were, that even that they feared doing.
I could only sigh; this was human misery made manifest. The rot of this age, pure greed at its worst. Where a human life was reduced to a number, the amount of profit they could earn for someone else.
“Come, let's gather information, we need to find the ones behind this, the real enemy.” I said lightly and placed a hand on Mordred’s shoulder.
She shook with rage, wanting nothing more than to rip everything apart. But she had no one to punish for this, everyone already down. “Matt Murdock” I said, getting his attention. “Help these people.” I said, pulling Mordred towards a pair of doors, looking for an office or something like that.
(End of chapter)
So, here we have a team up. But not a happy ending. But this is a cold, dark world. Where not everyone gets a happy ending, and not every hero is left smiling.
Still, they are a step closer, aren’t they? Surely they will find what they are looking for and everything will turn out just great. The bad guys are in jail, and everyone else is happy, dancing, and singing under a rainbow!
