EmmaCruzader
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Still Defiant! SI [Marvel/DC] 68: Hard Lessons
🕑 Added 2025-06-01 16:04:51 +0000 UTC68: Hard Lessons
Feeling his back slam against the thick metal doors of the warehouse, tearing them from their frames and then flying uncontrollably for at least five meters before hitting the ground and beginning to roll, Matt Murdock could only curse under his breath.
With a quick movement of his hands, he propelled his body into the air—this time by choice—and after an agile somersault, landed on his feet with perfect balance, as if he hadn’t just taken a hit comparable to being plowed into at full speed by a damn freight train.
Although his suit managed to absorb most of the impact, Matt could still feel the muscles in his back protesting and his spine cracking slightly.
'I’ve gotten careless,' he thought, feeling the burn of fire in his abdomen.
It was like having a piece of red-hot iron pressed against his skin, piercing through the fabric and padding of his suit with a ease that nothing else had managed before: not high-caliber bullets, not grenades. Hell, not even the damn rocket launcher the Russian mob had tried to kill him with a few days ago had shaken him as much as the simple, direct blow he had just received.
A blow he should have dodged—could have dodged—but didn’t.
Matt wondered how he had allowed his fighting style to change so much.
When he first started going out into the streets, his priority had always been to avoid lasting damage, to predict his opponents’ movements and strike back before they attacked first; now, he had let himself be carried away by arrogance, by the false sense of security that the suit he wore had given him.
He had stopped worrying about being caught off guard, no longer acted with caution—he threw himself into conflict recklessly, behaving as if he truly were invulnerable, when he wasn’t.
He needed to fix that, destroy these new habits, return to what he once was.
But that would come later—if he managed to get out of the mess he was in.
With the sound of a small crowd of footsteps reaching his ears, Matt could "see" his enemies beginning to surround him.
Trained men, skilled killers—every breath, every movement of their bodies told him that. But it wasn’t any of them he was worried about. No. Even if there were twice as many, Matt was confident he could take them down—special suit or not.
He couldn’t say the same about the woman leading them.
As he heard her approach with slow steps, Matt took a long breath.
Who they were, where they had come from, and why he was their target were just some of the questions buzzing in his mind. And even though he didn’t yet have the answers to most of them, Matt didn’t have to think too hard to get an idea of who they were connected to.
Some time ago, he had run into a strange group—a group that showed up when he began interfering with the Chinese drug trade.
The Hand.
An organization filled with the most skilled and lethal warriors Matt had faced in a long time. Interfering in their operations had been complicated—but at the same time, simple. It wasn’t like fighting the Russians, the Italian mafia, or some low-level gang. The Hand was far more organized; its members, more focused.
If the group had been at the height of its power, Matt didn’t know how much time or effort it might have taken to drive them out of New York. Fortunately, after Graviton’s attack on the East Coast, it seemed their infrastructure had taken a serious blow.
One significant enough that what was left of them could be destroyed by his hands.
Or at least, that’s how it should have been. But of course, nothing is ever that easy.
The woman began to speak, and the mention of the Hand in her words partially confirmed his suspicions: this had to be related to them. Although, from the way and tone in which she spoke about the group, Matt could tell they weren’t exactly on the same side. There was likely some kind of connection. After all, there weren’t many criminal organizations that dressed and armed their members like ninjas.
“Who are you?” he asked, though he knew he wouldn’t get an answer.
He needed to buy some time, think of a way out of this. Of course, the idea of fighting crossed his mind—but Matt knew his limits. The kind of power the woman had just displayed wasn’t something he was sure he could overcome with skill alone.
Not to mention the group of warriors following her. Even if they weren’t as strong as she was, they weren’t weak either. Their presence in a fight where he was already at a disadvantage was definitely dangerous.
While Matt’s mind raced, the conversation continued.
"Does it matter? All you need to know is that this is the end of the line. Your recent actions have made you a thorn in our side that must be removed—no matter the cost. But today I’m feeling especially generous, so if you surrender to me, I might show you some mercy."
Matt didn’t need to hear her heartbeat to know she was lying. From the moment they met, he knew she was after one thing only: to kill him.
It seemed he could no longer afford to delay things.
"How kind… but I’ll have to refuse," he said through clenched teeth as he tightened his fists.
She let out a sigh. Her heart rate began to rise, blood coursed faster through her veins, and in an instant, the unnatural heat radiating from her body multiplied. With a smooth and swift motion, she unsheathed the two long daggers she carried at her hips. In the blink of an eye, the metal of their edges took on the same incandescent glow that radiated from her hands.
“In that case, I’ll give you a quick death!” she shouted, stomping the ground to launch herself forward with such speed the air crackled.
Matt barely managed to react in time. His body was still halfway through the motion to dodge when the tip of one of the daggers reached his neck—less than a centimeter from hitting him. If the suit couldn’t withstand the searing edge of the weapon, the mark it would leave behind was going to be horrible.
Seeing her attack about to land, a wide smile began to form on the woman’s face.
A smile that was cut short when the sole of a shoe smashed into her face.
“What!?” she growled in pain, her body flying violently to the side, crashing into several of her men and sending them all to the ground.
'Where from?!' Matt felt a chill climb up his spine, paralyzing him for a second as he sensed how someone who hadn’t been there before suddenly appeared in front of him.
No - it wasn't that he hadn't been there before. His senses simply hadn't managed to fully identify him until now, as if he'd been hidden behind a haze... one that only cleared at this very moment.
“Sorry to crash the party, guys. I love your cosplay, but I think the roleplay’s getting a little out of hand, don’t you think?” the stranger said, his nervousness barely masked behind a clumsy attempt at a joke.
His voice was young, just mature enough to not sound like a child's, yet still far from a man's.
“You!” the woman growled through clenched teeth, springing to her feet. She roughly shoved off the men who had fallen on top of her and stared with caution and fury at the masked one who had attacked her by surprise.
A thin trickle of blood slid from the corner of her lips, and an ugly bruise had formed on her left cheek.
“Oh, shit!... Are you okay!? I didn’t mean to hit you that hard.”
Peter winced. Ever since he got his powers and understood how much strength he’d gained, he always tried to hold back as much as possible when hitting others. Closing the distance before she reached the guy in black had forced him to act fast, with no time to hold back, moving more on instinct than on experience.
How that ended with his foot smashing into her face was something Peter was still trying to figure out.
The woman narrowed her eyes as she heard him. With a cold snort, she spat a clot of blood onto the ground, then pointed one of her glowing daggers at him, her gaze burning into him. On her cheek, an orange light began to shine, causing the wound there to visibly fade away.
'Regenerative ability?' Peter let out a small sigh of relief at the sight—relief that vanished the moment he saw a vicious smile form on her bloodied lips.
“That was a good hit. I’ll make sure to return it twice as hard,” she said, her words far too sinister for his liking.
“H-hey, wait! How about we all calm down? I don’t know what’s going on here, but no one has to get hurt,” he said, raising his hands as he noticed the men surrounding them slowly beginning to close in, their weapons aimed at the two of them.
The woman let out a small laugh that didn’t reassure him in the slightest. On the other hand, the man he’d come to save—whom he now recognized as the Hell’s Kitchen vigilante—moved closer, his back now against Peter’s.
"Thanks for the help, kid, but we’re not getting out of here without a fight," he whispered.
Frowning, Peter swallowed slightly and lowered his arms with resignation, settling into a barely-decent boxing stance.
“Alright… I guess it’ll have to be the hard way, then.”
“Kill them.”
The woman commanded—and the ninja-clad men launched themselves at them.
Peter would never admit it—and anyone who said otherwise was a liar—but when he saw the sharp tip of a katana coming straight for his neck, a small squeal of panic may have slipped from his lips.
Without even thinking, his body dodged the attack, and quickly, his hand shot out, grabbed the arm holding the sword, and yanked the man forward, slamming him into two of his comrades and sending all three tumbling several meters across the ground.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the man in black behind him easily taking down four of the ninjas, disarming and knocking them out with a skill and efficiency Peter had never witnessed before.
If the only thing they had to worry about was the group of more than a dozen armed warriors surrounding them, the fight wouldn’t have lasted more than two minutes.
Too bad it wasn’t just them.
With his spider-sense tingling, Peter moved, ducked his head, and barely avoided a flaming leg swinging toward him.
“Tch!” the woman snarled as her attack missed. Without pause, she twisted her body in midair, sending another kick his way—one he dodged again—as a wave of fire burst indiscriminately from her leg.
"Watch out!" Peter shouted, hastily shooting a web at one of the men and yanking him out of the way just before he was hit by the flames.
His good deed went unrewarded. That brief moment of distraction was seized by his enemies: two of them closed the distance, weapons ready to strike.
Peter still hadn't tested how durable he'd become. He knew he could withstand hits pretty well—if the fall from great height he suffered on his first day was any indication—but he had no idea how well he’d fare against a stab. He supposed it was time to find out.
Or maybe not.
Before the weapons could reach him, his fellow vigilante stepped in: he moved into their path, deflected the attacks with precision, and took down the warriors in a matter of seconds.
“Cool!!” Peter shouted, yanking on the web still in his hand. He used the enemy he had just saved as an improvised wrecking ball and flung him into a group of unlucky ninjas.
The attacks continued, but with both of them fighting together and watching each other's backs, their enemies began to fall one after another.
‘Why isn’t she attacking?’ Peter frowned. Despite the chaotic battle, his attention hadn’t strayed from the woman for a single moment. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her walking slowly, circling them, as if she wasn’t the least bit concerned that her men were being defeated.
"Strong, fast, and agile... but your movements are very strange. I've never seen a fighting style like yours—it almost looks like an amateur's," the woman said, looking at him, judging him.
‘Is she analyzing me?’ Peter blinked, puzzled.
“I’m flattered. It’s the first time a fiery lady like you is giving me so much attention. How about we drop this and go grab a drink instead? You know, just chat like normal people?” he said, before his brain could stop him.
The woman scoffed, then resumed a combat stance, the daggers in her hands once again glowing intensely.
"I guess you're shy..." Peter didn’t get to finish the sentence. In an instant, she vanished from her spot, reappearing beside him in a burst of absurd speed.
“Whoa!” he shouted, twisting his body to dodge the blow that clearly aimed to decapitate him. Did this girl have some sort of fixation with slitting throats?
In a blur of movement, she unleashed dozens of attacks, all aimed at his vital points, seeking to cause the maximum damage possible.
Peter dodged them all. She might be fast—faster than anything he had seen before—but not fast enough to outmatch his reflexes.
'She’s trying to kill me.' The thought was far from comforting.
"Argh!" the woman growled furiously, fed up with not being able to reach him. The heat radiating from her body surged suddenly, and twisting her body violently, she launched a kick that Peter couldn’t dodge.
Reacting quickly, he crossed his arms and took the blow head-on.
The air exploded. The ground beneath his feet caved in, and a small shockwave swept through the surroundings, sending all nearby fighters flying. Matt managed to stay on his feet, but even so, his body slid back several meters from the force of the impact.
‘It burns!’ Peter clenched his teeth. The sleeves of his hoodie turned to ash upon contact with the flaming leg, leaving his bare skin to withstand the wave of heat. Pushing back hard, he hurled the woman away and then looked at his arms with concern.
His skin was reddened, but there were no blisters or charred flesh as he had feared.
Amazed, he watched in fascination as his skin returned to its normal color within seconds and the pain faded.
'All right, looks like I heal quickly too.' Maybe he should have explored his new abilities more thoroughly. Shaking his head, he pushed those thoughts aside for now and fixed his gaze on the woman, who was also watching him with a frown.
"I don't sense any use of Chi in you… So how are you this strong?" she asked quietly, making Peter confused. Chi? Like that mystical stuff from comics? Was that what she was using to glow and throw fire?
What kind of people had he messed with?
" I eat my vegetables?" he replied, unintentionally.
The woman clicked her tongue—she didn’t seem to like him much. Her orange eyes drifted between Peter and Matt, then settled on her fallen men lying on the ground.
For a moment, Peter held on to the hope that she might decide to back off… but she didn’t.
Instead, the daggers in her hands glowed even brighter, and with a blur of motion, she hurled them in his direction. The projectiles flew at an incredible speed, even faster than a bullet—but to Peter’s eyes, they were still slow enough to dodge.
She should already know an attack like that couldn’t touch him—so why had she done it?
‘I’m not her target…’ His pupils shrank as realization hit him, and he didn’t need the buzz of his spider-sense to know he had to move.
Stomping the ground, Peter spun sharply and launched himself toward Matt—just in time to see that she was already in front of him, her fists blazing with fire.
For a moment that seemed to stretch out, Peter watched with his heart in his throat as the two stood face to face… and to his complete surprise, the woman ended up slamming face-first into the ground.
In the split second before she reached him, the vigilante had acted first, dodging the attack and using her own momentum against her to send her crashing down hard.
“Amazing!” Peter shouted at him without stopping his advance, arriving just in time to block the woman’s counterattack.
Her flaming fist crashed against his left palm. The flames incinerated his glove and burned against his skin, but even so, Peter endured the pain and held on, determined not to let her escape. With a strong pull, he forced her closer and drove a knee straight into her abdomen, knocking the air out of her lungs.
Peter might not have been the best fighter, but he'd taken enough beatings to know where to hit.
Before the woman could recover, Matt lunged at her, tackling her to the ground and starting to punch her repeatedly in the head, trying to knock her out.
Peter froze for a moment at the unexpected display of violence.
“Hey!” he shouted with a frown, starting to move closer. Sure, she’d tried to kill them with a fair amount of enthusiasm earlier—but that didn’t mean they had to do the same… right?
"Enough!" the woman shouted, and a wave of flames burst from her body, sending Matt flying and slamming hard into the ground.
“She doesn’t look too happy,” Peter said as he helped his masked partner to his feet.
“You think?” he replied with a ragged gasp.
They both watched the woman surrounded by fire with caution. She didn’t appear to be injured. Her hair was disheveled, and her expression was clearly that of an enraged person, but aside from that, Matt’s blows didn’t seem to have affected her at all, despite how relentless he had been.
Somehow, that made Peter feel stupid for having worried about her. Of course she’d be fine. He had hit her before—maybe not with everything he had, but hard—and she’d gotten back up with barely a bruise, which vanished a second later.
She wasn’t an ordinary woman. She, like him, had powers, and he couldn’t treat her like a low-level thug. If he wanted to end this fight before things got even more complicated, he needed to cut loose a little—which was easier said than done. One wrong move, and he could seriously hurt her… or worse.
Peter didn’t know what he would do if the worst happened.
'But she won’t be the only one you’ll have to do that with...' a part of him thought.
Setting aside the monsters, rumors about superpowered individuals kept surfacing from all over. Maybe Defiant had been the first to show himself so publicly—and perhaps also the strongest—but he had certainly not been the first to exist, nor would he be the last. That was becoming more and more evident to everyone.
Just as it was becoming clear that having powers didn’t make you a good person. Despite everything, there were few heroes in the world…and if Peter wanted to join that small number and become one of them, he needed to be able to face the many others who would choose to use their gifts for evil.
Like the woman in flames before him.
He didn’t know her name, or even why she was doing this, but what he did know was that she was a killer. He didn’t need to see her murder someone to understand it—their brief encounter earlier had told him that. And that’s why he needed to stop her, even if it meant hurting her.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, catching her attention.
It was as if electricity coursed through his veins. In an instant, the world around Peter froze, his synapses fired at full speed, and a fleeting blue glow flashed in his brown eyes.
Then he moved.
The ground exploded beneath his feet, the air in front of him tore open, and his clothes ripped apart, the friction beginning to ignite embers in the fabric fibers.
In a fraction of a second, his hand was already on her face. She didn’t even have time to react before a stream of blue energy exploded against her head, coursing through her entire body and causing uncontrollable spasms to shake her.
She resisted… or at least she tried. But soon, her eyes rolled back and the fire surrounding her was extinguished.
Peter didn’t have a clever name for this power yet. In fact, he had barely used it since discovering it. At first, he thought it was something akin to the ability of electric eels, but he quickly discarded that idea. It wasn’t just electricity. Whatever his body generated was something else: different, strange—and above all, much more dangerous.
He didn’t like using it. Not against anything alive, and even less so against a person. But right now, his options were few… and he preferred this over risking hitting her so hard that, by mistake, her head ended up exploding.
Carefully, he took her still-spasming body and laid her down on the blackened ground. With the fight over, he could relax a little and think about who he should call.
‘I don’t think the police can handle this,’ he thought, looking at the dozen-plus men dressed like ninjas sprawled across the floor.
If he had learned anything during his short time as a vigilante, it was that the police usually weren’t much help—even against regular criminals. If the crime was clear-cut, then it was fine. But… what kind of hero waits for someone to commit a crime before stopping them?
That’s why he had often run into trouble with the officers he encountered, even more so when the victim decided not to press charges.
And in this case, who was the victim? Maybe the owner of the warehouse whose doors had been destroyed? He didn’t know how docks worked, but maybe they could press charges for property damage… which wasn’t exactly good, since he had caused some of that damage himself.
“Uh, Daredevil, right?” he asked, turning to the man who had already stepped up beside him.
“That’s what they call me,” he replied, his voice slightly muffled by the mask. “You’re the Queens vigilante. I’ve heard a few rumors about you… didn’t expect to find you out here,” he added, making Peter glad. If his exploits were already spreading to neighboring boroughs, that had to mean he was on the right track, right?
“Je, well, I thought I’d go a little farther than usual tonight. I don’t have a name yet, but you can call me Spider if you want,” he said, a bit hesitant at the end.
The truth was, he had been thinking about using “The Human Spider” as his hero name, but when he mentioned it to some of the people he rescued, most of them said it was terrible, so he ended up going with “Spider” until he could come up with something better.
‘I’m getting distracted,’ he thought, shaking his head before gesturing with his hands toward the group of fallen enemies.
“Anyway, do you know what we can do with these guys? I don’t know if we should call the police or something like that… especially because of her,” he added, nodding toward the woman at his feet.
Though the news talked about a new kind of prison being built to contain monsters and “special” criminals on the site that once was Rikers, for now there was still no place that could hold people with superpowers… at least, as far as Peter knew.
He hoped Daredevil—who’d been a vigilante far longer than he had—might have a solution to the problem. Otherwise, his second-best idea was to head for Stark Tower and hope Iron Man would be willing to help them.
“I have a… contact. He’s helped me deal with people like her before,” Daredevil said, offering no further explanation.
Peter’s curiosity sparked. He wanted to ask more, but before he could, the hairs on his body stood on end.
His spider-sense buzzed… though strangely. Normally, his sixth sense gave him a clear signal about where the danger was coming from. This time, it didn’t. It was as if the danger was everywhere… and at the same time, nowhere at all.
‘Freaking confusing,’ he thought, cursing inwardly. Daredevil must have noticed the change in his demeanor, because he tensed as well.
“What is it?” he whispered, and Peter was just about to answer when a figure shot out from the darkness, closing the distance between them in a fraction of a second.
Too fast! Even with his enhanced reflexes, Peter barely saw the attack coming, his pupils shrinking as he felt a palm press against his chest.
Contrary to what he expected, it wasn’t a violent impact he felt. Instead, it was a gentle shove that struck him and sent him flying uncontrollably through the air until his back hit the river’s waters and his body sank beneath them.
.
At the docks.
The figure that had burst onto the scene straightened up, watching impassively as two columns of water rose after the fall of both vigilantes.
‘That won’t keep them down for long,’ he thought, kneeling to lift the woman into his arms and gazing at her unconscious face with a brief flicker of concern in his eyes.
“You were too reckless, Xialing.”
Despite the scolding tone in his voice, Zheng Shang-Chi was glad this encounter had happened. With his sister now out of the fight, he had much more freedom to carry out his plans and achieve his goals.
Casting one last glance at the churning river, Shang-Chi turned and leapt into the darkness, his figure melting into the night.
.
With a splash, two figures emerged at the surface of the water.
“He took her,” Matt said, his fury barely contained. Peter, at his side, winced, uneasy at the the feeling of having been caught off guard for the first time since he got his powers.
Even his spider-sense, which until now had seemed infallible and almost precognitive, had failed him this time… No, it hadn’t failed him—it had warned him, but somehow his mysterious enemy still managed to get the better of him.
Realizing that felt like having a bucket of cold water dumped over his head—or more like being thrown into a river of ice water, and not just in the literal sense. He didn’t like to admit it, but lately he seemed to have gotten a bit arrogant. And though it was a bitter lesson, being knocked back down to earth cleared his mind.
Humility. His uncle always told him he should carry it with him. And though in recent days he had almost forgotten it, now he understood he must never leave it behind....
“What do we do now?” Peter asked as they both swam back toward the docks.
Matt remained silent for a few moments before answering.
“I don’t know who they were or why they came for me, but I have a feeling they’re planning something—something dangerous. And I know someone who doesn’t like it when people like them start thinking about doing dangerous things.”
At that, Peter raised an eyebrow.
“Your contact?” he asked tentatively, and Matt nodded.
“If there are more people like those two with them, then this isn’t something I can handle on my own anymore,” he said, and then looked at him—or at least Peter felt like he was being looked at.
“I might need your help too.”
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Note:
Well, I’ll say without a doubt that May was a hell of a month. Work was overwhelming, my spirits were in the gutter, and my inspiration and creativity were nowhere to be found for several days.
Luckily, that’s all over now! I’m feeling much better. Super sleepy, of course, and definitely with more energy drinks in my veins than blood… but better nonetheless! Hahaha.
That might be why there are one or two grammatical errors in this—so if you spot any, I’d really appreciate it if you pointed them out so I can fix them later :D!
Putting that aside, let’s talk a bit about the chapter. This might be more of a prelude to what’s coming. Writing Peter and Matt was definitely tricky, but also a lot of fun. I’ve always liked their dynamic in the comics, and while I don’t know if I can fully replicate it, I’ll at least give it my best shot.
Now, regarding the mention of Chi: in case it wasn’t clear, the Mandarin—and by extension, his children, as well as some of his elite soldiers—know how to use Chi. That alone makes them a significant threat. But it doesn’t end there, because they’re also super-soldiers enhanced with Extremis... You can imagine what that implies.
As an extra bit of info: the Ten Rings warriors who attacked Tony at his building were only Extremis-enhanced super-soldiers—not Chi masters.
Anyway, I hope the chapter was satisfying! Writing the fight sequence was tough as always, though the world-building part came a bit easier. Very soon, our friendly neighborhood wall-crawler will meet Defiant.
We’re getting closer and closer to the formation of the first superhero team!
Comments
EmmaCruzader
Well I tried to make the 'Je' sound like a half laugh, but I guess a yeah would be better?
Arcanum
Tftc! Believe the group should still be called The Avengers. Hope we get a pov. Of spiderman reacting to defiants heart or something like his general aura
TUSF
> “Je, well, I thought I’d go a little farther than usual tonight. Je -> Yes/Yeah/something not French, lol
