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The metallic clack-slide of the pistol racking a round into the chamber was already a loud sound. Amplified by the Draught of the Owl, it hit Maya's eardrums like a physical hammer blow.
She froze. The adrenaline she thought had receded came rushing back, thick and cold, flooding her veins.
"Take your hand out of the bag," the guard ordered. His voice was rough, tight with a nervous, aggressive energy. "Do it slow. Two fingers on the strap, let it drop to the pavement. Now."
Maya kept her eyes locked on the weapon. In the crisp, high-definition greyscale of her enhanced vision, the matte-black finish of the 9mm pistol looked unnervingly massive. She could see the slight tremor in the guard's wrists. He wasn't an icy assassin. He was a private contractor working a graveyard shift who had just found an intruder, and his finger was resting heavily inside the trigger guard.
Might 11, Arthur's pragmatic mind calculated frantically. Agility 10. It doesn't matter. A bullet travels at twelve hundred feet per second. You cannot dodge a bullet.
She slowly pinched the canvas strap of her messenger bag between her thumb and index finger. She lifted it over her head, her movements agonizingly deliberate, and let it fall. The heavy canvas hit the wet asphalt with a dull thud, the two remaining Stones of Silence clinking softly inside.
"Kick it away," the guard barked, taking a single, cautious step forward.
Maya gently nudged the bag to the side with the toe of her sneaker. She raised her hands to shoulder height, palms open, exposing the thick leather vambraces strapped to her forearms.
"What the hell are you wearing?" the guard muttered, his eyes darting to the strange, riveted leather before snapping back to her face. He squinted against the darkness, trying to make out her features, but the alley was too deeply shadowed, and her dark sunglasses obscured the top half of her face. "You the one who just dropped Miller? What did you do to the rig?"
Maya didn't answer immediately. Her amplified hearing was picking up something else.
Beneath the harsh, ragged breathing of the guard, beneath the distant hum of traffic on 10th Avenue, she heard a third rhythm.
Thump... thump... thump...
A heartbeat. Slow. Measured. Incredibly calm.
It was above them.
Maya didn't let her eyes drift upward. She kept her gaze pinned firmly to the barrel of the gun. If she looked at the fire escape, the guard would look, and whoever was up there would lose their element of surprise.
"I cut the hydraulic lines," Maya said. She pitched her voice a little louder than necessary, a deliberate anchor to keep the guard's focus squarely on her. "The excavator is dead. Union Allied isn't knocking anything down tomorrow."
The guard's jaw tightened. "Farnum is gonna lose his mind. Turn around. Face the brick. Hands flat against the wall."
The heartbeat above them shifted. Maya heard the faint, nearly imperceptible groan of rusted metal giving way to shifting weight. The fabric of heavy cotton sliding against brick.
She turned slowly, pressing her palms against the rough, soot-stained wall. The coarse grit dug into her skin. She was completely exposed. If the shadow on the fire escape missed, or if she had misjudged the sound, she was going to take a bullet to the back of her ribs.
"Spread your legs," the guard commanded. His heavy boots crunched on the gravel, closing the distance. He was stepping into her personal space to pat her down.
A rush of displaced air swept down from the third-story fire escape.
It was utterly silent until the moment of impact.
A heavy, dark mass dropped directly behind the guard. A gloved hand clamped viciously over the man's mouth, snapping his head backward and cutting off his shout. Simultaneously, a knee drove upward, burying itself into the small of the guard's back with a sickening, heavy crunch.
The guard convulsed, his finger spasmodically jerking against the trigger.
The 9mm fired.
Because his arm was being wrenched backward, the gun pointed straight up into the narrow strip of night sky. But in the enclosed, brick-lined alleyway, the muzzle flash was a blinding strobe, and the sound was apocalyptic.
Maya screamed, clamping her hands over her ears as the gunshot detonated. The Draught of the Owl turned the decibels into a physical shockwave that rattled her teeth and scrambled her equilibrium. She dropped to her knees, her vision swimming in a chaotic blur of greyscale static, her head ringing with a high, piercing whine that drowned out the entire world.
Behind her, the brief, brutal struggle ended. A heavy body hit the pavement and didn't move.
Maya stayed on the ground, breathing through her mouth, waiting for the piercing agony in her eardrums to subside. Slowly, the static in her vision cleared. The ringing faded back into a dull, manageable throb.
She lowered her hands and turned around.
The guard was out cold, sprawled face-down on the wet asphalt. His pistol lay knocked several feet away, resting near a puddle of stagnant water.
Standing over him was the Devil of Hell's Kitchen.
He didn't look like a superhero. He looked like a man who had dressed for a riot. He wore heavy, dark cargo pants, tactical boots, and a tight, long-sleeved black compression shirt that clung to the lean, dense muscle of his torso. A black cloth was tied tightly across the top half of his face, covering his eyes completely, the knot resting against the back of his dark hair.
His chest was heaving. He held his left arm tight against his ribs, favoring a fresh, dark stain seeping through the black fabric. He had been fighting before he even got to this alley.
He tilted his head toward Maya, his covered eyes locking onto her exact position.
"You're the girl from the diner," he rasped. His voice was deeper than it had been in the daylight, roughened by exhaustion and adrenaline. "The one with the ledger."
Maya pushed herself up to her feet, her boots slipping slightly on the gravel. She didn't bother trying to deny it. "You followed me."
"You dropped a map of Union Allied's extortion ring into my lap, told me they were buying the 11th Precinct, and then walked away," he said, taking a slow step toward her. He didn't pick up the guard's gun. He ignored it entirely. "I wanted to know why. And I wanted to know if it was a trap."
"If it was a trap, I would have let him shoot you," Maya pointed out, gesturing to the unconscious guard.
"He wasn't aiming at me." The man in black stopped a few feet away. He turned his head slightly, listening to the demolition site on the other side of the chain-link fence. "Three slashed lines. Smashed pressure gauge. Severed wiring harness. You really did it. You crippled the site."
"They're tearing down people's homes," Maya said, keeping her hands visible. The physical presence of Matt Murdock was incredibly intimidating. Percy was a ghost; this man was raw, bleeding, violent reality. "Someone had to stall them."
"You're a kid," he repeated, the same disbelief from yesterday echoing in his tone, though this time it was laced with a heavy dose of frustration. He gestured sharply toward her arms. "Wearing medieval leather armor under a flannel shirt. Carrying a bag of rocks that... do something to the air. I couldn't hear a thing inside that fence for a full minute. What the hell was that?"
Maya's breath hitched. He heard the silence. Of course he did. A vacuum of sound to a man who saw the world through radar was the equivalent of setting off a flashbang.
"It's just tech," Maya lied smoothly, leaning on Arthur's knowledge of the broader MCU to build a believable cover. "A localized sonic dampener. I bought it off a guy who scavenges old Stark Industries prototypes."
Matt's jaw tightened. He didn't buy it completely, but he didn't press it. He could hear her heartbeat, steady and unwavering.
"You shouldn't be out here," he said, his tone shifting from suspicious to reprimanding. "This isn't a game. Farnum isn't just a corrupt real estate agent. He answers to people who will kill you and everyone you care about if they find out who slashed those hoses."
"I know exactly who he answers to," Maya shot back, taking a step forward. The Vigor 10 kept her nerves grounded, allowing her to hold her own against the towering vigilante. "I know about Fisk."
Matt physically recoiled, just a fraction of an inch, his head snapping back as if she had struck him. To hear that name spoken aloud in an alleyway, casually, was a shock to his system.
"Don't say that name," he hissed, his voice dropping an octave. "Not out loud. Not anywhere."
"He's the reason I'm out here," Maya pushed, reading his reaction. "You can't take him down by just beating up guys in back alleys, and I can't take him down by slashing excavator hoses. We both know what the endgame is."
Matt stood silent for a long time. The distant wail of a police siren began to drift over the city skyline, growing steadily louder. Someone in the adjacent tenement had called in the gunshot.
"The ledger you gave me," Matt finally said, his voice clipped. "It connects Farnum to the demolitions, but it's circumstantial. Any decent lawyer will claim the bag was stolen, chain of custody is broken. I need a direct link between Farnum and the men doing the intimidating."
"Kostas," Maya said instantly, remembering the Greek diner owner. "The two guys shaking down the diner. If you can tie them to Farnum's payroll..."
"They won't talk," Matt said grimly, rubbing a gloved hand over his jaw. "I've tried."
"Everyone talks if you find the right leverage," Maya countered, remembering Percy's lessons. Find the joint. Break the foundation. "Farnum uses a dispatch garage on 9th Avenue. That's where the muscle operates out of. If you hit the garage, you find the records."
The siren was getting close. Less than four blocks away.
Matt turned away from her, stepping over the unconscious guard. He paused, looking back over his shoulder. The black mask hid his eyes, but she could feel the weight of his scrutiny.
"Go home," he ordered softly. "Stay away from the construction sites. If Farnum connects you to this, I won't be able to protect you."
He didn't wait for a response. He lunged upward, grabbing the bottom rung of the fire escape ladder with one hand, hauling himself up with an explosive burst of athletic power. He vaulted over the railing and vanished into the shadows of the fire escape, moving with absolute, terrifying silence.
Maya stood alone in the alley for a second, the wail of the approaching police cruisers snapping her out of the trance.
She grabbed her canvas messenger bag, slung it over her shoulder, and ran.
She didn't take the avenue. She stuck to the deepest shadows, her Draught-enhanced vision picking out every rusted nail, every puddle, every piece of broken glass in her path. She moved like a ghost, weaving through the labyrinth of Hell's Kitchen, putting as much distance between herself and the Union Allied site as her legs could manage.
The golden light of the Avalon Protocol flared in her vision just as she reached the 50th Street subway entrance, bleeding warmly into the greyscale world.
[Alliance Initiated: The Devil of Hell's Kitchen.]
[Renown EXP +50]
[Renown: Knight Errant (100/300 EXP to next rank)]
Maya swiped her MetroCard, her hands finally beginning to shake as the adrenaline crashed, leaving her utterly drained. She had sabotaged a multi-million dollar operation, stood face-to-face with a loaded gun, and formed a working truce with Daredevil.
And she still had to be home before Eleanor woke up for breakfast.
The N train at four in the morning wasn't a commute; it was a rolling purgatory.
Maya sat slumped in the corner of the hard orange plastic bench, her knees pulled tight together, the heavy canvas messenger bag clutched against her stomach. There was only one other person in the car—a guy passed out near the opposite doors, a half-eaten bodega sandwich resting on his lap.
Under normal circumstances, the subway was just loud. But with the fading remnants of the Draught of the Owl still clinging to her nervous system, the ride was pure, unfiltered agony.
Every time the train car hit a bend in the tracks, the screech of steel on steel drove a physical spike of pain right behind her eyes. The fluorescent lights overhead weren't just buzzing; they were vibrating with a frantic, electronic hum that made her teeth ache. Her greyscale vision was slowly bleeding back into color, but the transition was nauseating, leaving the world looking like a washed-out, overexposed photograph.
She pressed the heels of her hands against her temples, squeezing her eyes shut behind the dark sunglasses.
I survived, she repeated to herself, syncing the thought to the rhythmic clack of the wheels. I didn't get shot. He didn't turn me in.
But Matt Murdock's reaction to Fisk's name kept replaying in her pounding head. The Devil of Hell's Kitchen, a man who routinely beat armed thugs to a pulp with his bare hands, had physically flinched. Maya had the System. She had magical leveling and ghost knights. Matt just had his fists and a lot of Catholic guilt, and he was already bleeding from a fight she hadn't even seen.
The train finally groaned to a halt at Ditmars Boulevard.
Maya stumbled out into the thick, humid pre-dawn air. The sky over Queens was a dull, bruised grey, threatening a miserable, sticky heat for the day ahead.
She walked the few blocks to her apartment building in a haze, her legs feeling like wet cement. The Vigor 10 baseline meant her muscles weren't failing, but her central nervous system was utterly tapped out. The adrenaline crash, combined with the alchemical hangover, left her shivering despite the eighty-degree heat.
She bypassed the front lobby, slipping down the narrow alleyway alongside the brick building. The rusted fire escape ladder was pulled down from her exit earlier. She grabbed the metal rungs. Hauling herself up three stories felt significantly harder than vaulting the Union Allied fence a few hours ago.
She reached her window, wedged her fingers under the sash, and eased it up. It gave a soft, familiar squeak.
She tumbled headfirst over the sill, landing on her bedroom floor in a heap.
For a long minute, she just lay there on the scuffed hardwood, breathing in the smell of dust and the faint scent of Eleanor's lavender laundry detergent. It was safe. It was boring. It was the best thing she had ever smelled.
Maya slowly pushed herself up. She stripped the heavy flannel shirt off, wincing as the fabric rubbed against a fresh scrape on her shoulder. She unbuckled the thick, boiled-leather vambraces. Her forearms underneath were completely drenched in sweat, the skin pale and wrinkled from being trapped under the tight leather for hours.
She shoved the armor, the broken box cutter, and the empty glass vial into the deepest corner of her bottom dresser drawer, burying them under a pile of winter sweaters.
She didn't even bother taking off her jeans. She crawled onto the mattress, burying her face in the thin pillow, and passed out the second she closed her eyes.
"May? You awake?"
The voice was muffled, filtering through a thick layer of cotton in Maya's brain.
She groaned, rolling onto her back. Sunlight was aggressively stabbing through the gaps in the blinds, slicing across her face. The greyscale was completely gone, replaced by the glaring, overly bright colors of a late morning. Her head throbbed with a dull, persistent ache—the final parting gift of the Owl Draught.
"Yeah," Maya managed, her voice cracking. She cleared her throat, rubbing her eyes. "Yeah, I'm up."
The bedroom door pushed open. Eleanor stood there, holding a spatula. She was wearing an old, faded t-shirt and sweatpants, her hair tied back in a messy knot. It was Friday. Her day off.
Eleanor's casual smile dropped the second she looked at the bed.
"God, Maya," she said, stepping fully into the room. She kept the spatula pointed toward the floor, her brow knitting together. "You look awful. Did you sleep at all?"
Maya sat up, immediately regretting the sudden movement as the room tilted slightly. "I'm fine. Just... a headache. The AC was making this weird grinding noise all night."
Eleanor didn't buy it. She walked over, sitting on the edge of the mattress. The springs complained loudly. She reached out, pressing the back of her cool, dry hand against Maya's forehead.
"No fever," Eleanor murmured, though she didn't sound convinced. She moved her hand, brushing a tangled lock of dark red hair away from Maya's eyes. "Look at me. Look at the bags under your eyes. You're completely pale."
"Mom, really, I'm okay," Maya said, trying to pull back slightly without seeming defensive. "I just need some water."
"You pushed it yesterday," Eleanor said, her voice tightening with that familiar, underlying thread of panic. The panic that came from five years of watching monitors beep. "Walking around the city in that heat. I knew it was too much. Doctor Aris said normal activity, Maya, not... not walking ten miles a day."
"I took the subway most of the way," Maya deflected, rubbing her temples. "It's just a migraine. Please don't freak out."
"I'm not freaking out," Eleanor said quickly, though her fingers were picking nervously at the hem of her shirt. "I just... look, maybe we skip the city today. You stay here. I was making eggs, you can eat, and then just lay on the couch. I'll put a movie on."
Maya looked at her mother. Eleanor looked so desperately hopeful, so eager to just have a normal, quiet day where she didn't have to worry about her daughter shattering.
I can't stay on the couch, Maya thought. Fisk's guys are going to realize that excavator was sabotaged this morning. Matt is probably planning to hit the dispatch garage. I need to be ready.
But saying that out loud would put Eleanor in a psych ward.
"Okay," Maya sighed, forcing a small, appreciative smile. "Couch day. Sounds good."
Eleanor visibly sagged with relief. "Okay. Good. I'll... I'll finish the eggs. Scrambled?"
"Perfect."
As Eleanor hurried out of the room, leaving the door cracked open, Maya leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and burying her face in her hands.
She needed to check the damage.
She closed her eyes and focused inward, calling up the Avalon Protocol. The golden text flared immediately against the darkness behind her eyelids.
[Host Status]
Vigor: 10
Might: 11
Agility: 10
Aether: 13
Renown: Knight Errant
[Current Active Quests: None]
She had cleared the board. But the silence from the System wasn't comforting. It felt like the deep breath before a plunge.
She opened the Blacksmith's Forge tab. Her Essence reserve had taken a massive hit from buying the Stones of Silence and the Draught, leaving her with only 350. It wasn't enough to buy anything substantial. If she got cornered today, she'd be relying entirely on her bare hands and Percy's brutal lessons.
"Eggs are up!" Eleanor called from the kitchen, the clatter of plates masking her voice.
Maya pushed herself off the bed. Her legs felt heavy, but the throbbing in her head was already beginning to recede. The Vigor stat was doing its job, aggressively repairing the microscopic wear and tear on her nervous system.
She walked out to the kitchen. Eleanor had set two plates on the small table, piled high with scrambled eggs and slightly burnt toast.
Maya sat down, picking up her fork. "Thanks, Mom."
Eleanor sat across from her, pouring coffee. For a few minutes, the only sound was the scrape of silverware. It was awkwardly quiet. Eleanor kept stealing glances over her coffee mug.
"So," Eleanor finally broke the silence, setting her mug down. "I was thinking. If you're serious about this portfolio for SVA..."
Maya chewed a bite of toast, nodding slowly. "Yeah?"
"I was talking to a woman at the clinic yesterday. Her son goes to Pratt for graphic design. She said they look for life drawing. Figure studies. Stuff from real life, not just buildings." Eleanor leaned forward, her tone encouraging but cautious. "Maybe instead of wandering all over Manhattan, you could take a life drawing class? There's a community center over in Astoria Park that does them on Tuesday nights. It's safe, it's indoors, and... well, you'd be around other kids your age."
Maya froze, her fork halfway to her mouth.
A life drawing class. Sitting in a brightly lit room with a bunch of retirees and high school students, drawing a bowl of fruit or a bored model, while Matt Murdock was out getting stabbed in alleys trying to take down a mob boss.
"I don't know, Mom," Maya said, lowering her fork. She tried to keep her tone casual, but the hesitation was obvious. "Classes are kind of... structured. I like drawing what I see on the street. It feels more real."
"It's just an idea," Eleanor backpedaled quickly, sensing the resistance. "I just thought it might be nice. You know. To make some friends."
The words hit Maya harder than the wooden waster in the Mindscape.
Friends. The original Maya hadn't had friends. She had been too sick. And Arthur... Arthur had been a solitary guy, focused entirely on his dead-end job and his quiet life. Standing here, inhabiting this eighteen-year-old body, she realized how profoundly isolated she looked to her mother.
"I'll think about it," Maya said softly, meaning it. Not because she wanted to go, but because she recognized the desperate need in her mother's voice for her daughter to have a normal life.
"Okay," Eleanor smiled, looking genuinely pleased. "Just think about it."
Maya finished her breakfast, helping Eleanor clear the plates. She moved to the living room, collapsing onto the faded floral sofa as promised. Eleanor put on some mindless daytime television, the low murmur of the TV washing over the room.
For an hour, Maya just lay there, staring blankly at the screen. But her mind was miles away, across the river, back in Hell's Kitchen.
Farnum.
The police siren from last night echoed in her memory. The cops would have found the unconscious guard. They would have seen the sabotaged excavator. Farnum was going to be furious, and he was going to demand answers from the dispatch garage.
If Matt was going to hit the garage, he was going to do it soon. Probably tonight, while the operation was still scrambling to figure out who hit the demolition site.
Maya couldn't go back into a physical fight. She was bruised, her gear was broken, and she had no Essence to buy tactical advantages.
But she couldn't just sit on the couch and watch a soap opera while the Devil of Hell's Kitchen walked blindly into a hornet's nest she had kicked over.
"Mom?" Maya called out.
Eleanor poked her head out from the kitchen, a dish towel in her hands. "Yeah, honey?"
"I'm feeling a lot better," Maya said, sitting up. "I think I'm going to head to the local library for a bit. Just to use the computer. Look up some of the admissions requirements for SVA."
Eleanor hesitated, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Are you sure? You looked like death an hour ago."
"Just needed food," Maya lied, offering a bright, completely artificial smile. "I promise, I'll just be at the library. It's three blocks away. I'll be back in an hour."
"Okay," Eleanor sighed, clearly conflicted but unwilling to smother her. "Take your phone. Call me when you get there."
"Will do."
Maya grabbed her messenger bag from her room. She didn't pack the heavy leather armor or the Stones of Silence. She packed her sketchbook, her phone, and a plain black baseball cap.
She wasn't going to fight today.
She was going to use her Tier 1 Information Broker.
She left the apartment, walking briskly down the sun-baked Astoria street. She didn't head for the library. She walked toward a small, dingy internet cafe tucked between a dry cleaner and a halal butcher.
She walked inside, the bell chiming over the door, and paid five dollars in cash for an hour on a terminal in the back corner.
She sat down in the creaky rolling chair, pulling her hat down low over her eyes. She didn't touch the sticky keyboard. Instead, she closed her eyes and visualized the golden silhouette of the massive raven.
[The Rookery of Tintagel Online.]
Query, Maya thought, focusing the intent of her mind directly into the interface. James Farnum. 9th Avenue Dispatch Garage. Current activity.
The raven flared.
[Intelligence Cost: 100 Essence. Proceed?]
It was steep. It would leave her with almost nothing. But information was the only weapon she had right now.
Proceed.
The Essence drained from her account. The text cascaded down her vision.
[Intelligence Report Generated]
Target: James Farnum.
Status: Highly agitated.
Recent Activity: Target was alerted to the sabotage at Site 4 at 0600 hours. Target believes the act was committed by a rival syndicate (Russians) attempting to stall Union Allied contracts.
Current Location: Target is currently en route to the 9th Avenue Dispatch Garage.
Tactical Shift: Target has ordered all available muscle to consolidate at the garage to protect the remaining cash ledgers and physical deeds before they can be moved to a secure bank vault this evening.
Threat Assessment: The garage is currently fortified. Estimated 12-15 armed enforcers on site.
Maya's eyes snapped open. She stared blankly at the flickering Windows desktop on the monitor in front of her.
Twelve to fifteen armed men.
Matt Murdock didn't know that. He thought it was just a dispatch hub with a few thugs hanging around, like the guys he had fought in the diner. He was going to walk into a fortified bunker.
Maya grabbed her bag, her heart slamming against her ribs. She couldn't call him. She didn't have his number, and he didn't have a phone that she knew of.
She had to warn him. And she had exactly zero magical tools left to do it.