LUKE CAGE
Going from neighborhood to neighborhood in Manhattan can be a pretty wild experience. Me, I live up in the triple digit streets of Harlem, well out of the shadow of the high tech skyscrapers downtown like the Baxter Building or Stark Tower. You head across Lower Manhattan, to Chinatown and Little Fuzhou, you might as well be in the middle of Hong Kong. Herbal stores, noodle shops, discount electronics, laundromats, all decorated with kanji and dragons and pagoda towers or paifang arches.
Chinatown got started as a conclave of Asian immigrants all forced together by circumstance, and the set tripping down here has been getting out of control lately. Cantonese vs non-Cantonese, Vietnamese vs Korean. Some Yakuza offshoot calling itself "the Hand" even built a goddamn feudal Japanese castle in the middle of a demolished city block that they called the Shadowland.
The speakers in my sky blue hooptie are blaring "Express Yourself" as I speed the whole way down to Shadowland, hopping the curb more than once. I'm a reserve Avenger, I can do that shit. I powerslide around the corner to Confucius Plaza and see a fight straight out of an old Kung Fu movie: a bunch of dudes in modernized ninja garb and devil masks running around, swords drawn, closing in on Misty Knight and Colleen Wing.
I see Misty is having trouble, a rarity for the tough-as-nails sister. The ninja is laying into her with quick sword swipes, and the sound of metal ringing against metal fills the courtyard as she's blocking them with her bionic arm, the sleeve of her red leather jacket torn to shreds. Misty was an NYPD officer that lost her arm during a terrorist bombing and Stark-Fujikawa provided medical care for wounded cops and firefighters by outfitting them with prosthetic replacements.
I get out of my caddy, but I'm ambushed by three of the Hand assassins. Thanks to an illegal experiment that was done on me in prison, my skin is as hard as titanium; I'm rarely in danger unless I run into a bad guy packing exotic metals like vibranium or adamantium. Their swords are razor sharp, but made of good old fashion steel that does little more than shred my $500 shirt.
I look down at the tattered remnants of expensive ass yellow silk hanging off my large muscular frame. "Oh, you assholes! You wrecked my shit!"
I grab one of the little kabuki bastards, pick him up by the neck, and slam him down hard on the already severely dented hood of my car. Another ninja stabs at my exposed back, but his sword shatters from the force. "Nuh uh, you messin' with BLACK POWER MAN, fool!" I give him a size 16 Timberland boot to the face, knocking his punk ass teeth out.
I make my way over to where Misty Knight is fighting, knocking the little punks out of my way with backhanded bitch smacks. "Damn, playa, you're a one man wrecking crew!" Misty calls to me as a haymaker from her bionic arm sends a ninja flying back several feet. Behind her, Colleen is dancing a deadly ballet with a katana of her own, matching the ninja assassins with superior technique passed down from her samurai ancestors. I take a moment to check out her tight little Asian ass in those white spandex yoga pants.
The Hand is slowly surrounding us on all sides. They can't touch me, but I know the girls don't have the luxury of invulnerability like I do. Just before the ninja clan rushes in on us wolf pack style, Iron Fist leaps into the fray with an elaborate spinning kick that windmills around cracking three guys across the jaw. Danny may be a rich white boy, but he learned Kung Fu in some Shangri-La looking place in the Kunlun Mountains so I guess that's as authentic as you can get.
I see him charging up his mojo, or chi, or whatever its called. Embers glowing in his hand as he draws back his fist before snapping it forward, striking a ninja in the chest hard enough the crack a sternum and knocking him back into the crowd, bowling over a few more guys from the force of the punch. Danny might be chill, but the immortal Iron Fist ain't a honky to mess with.
The four of us manage to overcome the odds, cuz the Heroes For Hire ain't nothing to fuck with. The sound of police sirens heading to Chinatown is the signal for everybody to scatter.
*******
The four of us separately made it back to the Heroes For Hire office on Park Avenue, around the corner from Marcus Garvey Park. After the brawl, the four of us are sitting around the table eating cheap takeout I grabbed on the way back from Chinatown. Its a tiny office space with pretty spartan decorations thanks to my shoestring budget; one of the few indulgences I splurged on was a coffee maker that's always on the fritz.
"How did that go off the rails?" I ask Misty around a mouthful of sweet and sour chicken.
