Marvel Reborn: Gems Of Infinite Potential

With Elektra having learned how to successfully access her progenitors memories our knowledge of Chi had skyrocketed. It would likely take her decades (and perhaps even centuries) to fully integrate the seven thousand years worth of memories that were her birthright but even a small cup, in relative terms of that collective knowledge and wisdom, was a staggering amount in absolute terms.

That knowledge had also led to several changes and another expansion in our operations. Having learned how to remove Stick's hold on Matt she was not going to hesitate to do so and trying to stop her would have been idiotic - to put it mildly. So the Defenders had been created largely to appeal to Matthew's sensibilities while also serving as the flip side of the Black Thorn coin.

The needed facilities had been built in the Rocky Mountains, deep below ground, and equipped lavishly but the real fun had come from Elektra and I working together to create a portal network with a Chi selectivity component so that only those whose Chi had been added to the approved list could even see, much less use, the portals. Once the facilities were created and ready we had started the recruiting with a core drawn from the dozen most morally upright and acceptable operators and agents from Envoy, and now here we were. Waiting on Elektra's arrival with Matt.

If the way she had just shoved him through a portal when they were sparring was anything to go by, she had decided to go with the shock approach to overcome his predictable objections.

While the blind man was still recovering she moved to join me on the raised dais at the front of the cavernous dojo room that acted as the core of this facility. Once she did she began to speak "Ladies, gentlemen," a glare at her boy toy, "Matt. You all saw how you were brought to this facility, through a glowing orange and black hole in reality. Even the dimmest among you", another pointed glare at Matt and the man winced "should have come to the conclusion that the world is much weirder than you knew when you woke up this morning.

"This weirdness is not new, things beyond modern belief have walked this world for eons uncounted. Sometimes they chose to act openly, in others these forces seem to have collectively decided to remain in the shadows. The world is experiencing, right now, another such switch. The age of man is in its waning days and the age of gods is about to return with a vengeance. You have all been selected for this opportunity because you are good people of strong moral character and principals in addition to your skill sets, and if you will accept then we will provide you with the knowledge and tools that you will need to defend the innocent against the depredations of those with abilities far beyond the norm."

She continued with her speech, explained the code she would expect the Defenders to abide by, and answered several questions but really got them was when she casually beat all of them at the same time with both hands behind her back. Well, that and the demonstration spar the two of us had.

We moved just slow enough that our audience could still see us, myself by accelerating time for my body and her with Chi enhancement to her entire body, and fought all out. She was clearly the better hand to hand fighter, and could have easily defeated me if she was really trying, but I was opening portals to strike from unexpected angles, creating walls of light to control the battlefield, and in every way giving as good as I got until she finally had been on the ground.

I had risen and spoken than "I'm Octavian Raith and I am a Sorcerer, a Master of the Mystic Arts. I'm sure that statement would have had you laughing if you heard it this morning but now? Well, do you doubt that people with abilities far beyond the norm walk this world?"

When no one spoke up I nodded and said "Good, we tried to avoid recruiting the truly idiotic. The order that I am part of has been fighting a shadow war against things from other realms, literally extra-dimensional aliens, for thousands of years but the prophecies are clear. Within the next ten years, we will fail to keep our shadow war contained, we don't know how or why or what will cause the masquerade to break and the veil to be lifted, just that it will. When that happens the world will see buried secrets unearthed and the light shone into the shadows of the world, and it needs to be ready for the truths it will learn.

"The truth is that my order can not defend everyone, or even most people, against these threats. Our time is tied up fighting things that threaten our entire world, our entire species, even our entire reality. But how do the police handle someone like Captain America deciding that he wants to rob a bank?

"That question is what led to the creation of the Defenders. Elektra had been fighting her own war against an organization known as the Hand, whose leadership is made up of five immortals that have been around for more than three thousand years and have abilities powerful enough that they have been worshiped as gods in ages past. Right now they are the worlds oldest and most powerful criminal syndicate. The two of us crossed paths and became allies, and now here we are. If you are willing then she will teach you to wield your Chi as she does, you won't be Captain America but you will be better enough that you can at least make someone on his level work for the win.

"And your mission? That will be to defend the little people just trying to go about their daily lives. You will walk among them, live among them, and be unknown to them even as you prevent crime, and protect them from the extraordinary. Know, however, that if you agree to join then membership is both binding and for life." I finished, using a minor chi technique that Elektra had taught me in preparation for this to ensure my heartbeat didn't give away the deception to Murdock's exceptional senses.

He was the one who spoke up though "And if we don't join? What then?"

"Then they will be free to leave immediately, with their memories between entering and leaving the portal to this place removed. You will likewise be free to leave once Elektra removes the ticking time bomb in your blood." I answered, not mentioning that the memories of everyone but him had already been altered by Elektra to remove the Killgrave interrogations that they had undergone to ensure we weren't infiltrated.

"What ticking time bomb?" he questioned, clearly knowing that I at least believed the statement to be true.

Elektra answered for me "The Chaste has been at war with the Hand for a thousand years Matthew, do you really think that they could have survived that long without their own abilities? Stick called himself master to us both but he was the leader of the Chaste as a whole and he had chosen you to be his successor. It is the knowledge of what that means that caused me to truly join with Raith here."

A hand twitch had the projector come to life and showed the parts of the interrogation of Stick that related to his own past and Matt.

You could see something in him break, some faint ember of love for the man he had considered a second father, die as he learned how he had been played.

"I have spent the nearly eighteen months since I found out using every resource at my disposal to find a way to remove his parasite and I have managed it." she said before her Chi became visible as an aura of absolute blackness that seemed to crush the room under its metaphysical weight.

She moved and her hand slammed into Matthew's c.h.e.s.t right over his heart. He screamed in agony as the black Chi flowed into his body in waves before finally ripping itself out of his back in the shape of a hand and in that hand's grasp was a ball of blood that radiated yellow light. At least until the hand closed around it before disappearing.

Murdock fell to the ground and wept even as Elektra caught him and I opened a portal under the two of them that went to Elektra's quarters in this base. She had confided in me that Matt would gain a lot of Stick's memories up until the point where he had made Matt his next host and so I acted to give the two the privacy needed to deal with the fallout.

In the end, all of the recruits had accepted our recruitment offer and were now bound to their oaths much the same way that the Hand's fingers bound many of their own. It was a Chi technique that required honest commitment from both parties to take and the individual could break it if they really tried (as opposed to the oath of blood and magic that the Black Thorn was bound by) but it should be enough. Between training the Defenders, keeping up appearances in public, and training Natasha and I Elektra's days were kept full. She simply didn't have the time to do much active fieldwork, meaning that the loads on Natasha and I had increased.

On the plus side, September 18, 2008, made me a very happy man. My little spy drones had hit pay dirt, a man named Chan Ho Yin had just set a dishtowel on fire in his hand in his tiny little Hong Kong apartment.