In the dim underground parking lot of the Roxxon Energy Building, the flickering lights cast eerie shadows. Elektra stood alone, her sharp gaze fixed on a middle-aged man in his 50s who knelt trembling on the cold concrete. The man—Stan Lee, an accountant for Roxxon—clutched his glasses with shaking hands, his eyes swollen from crying. Several of Roxxon's private guards lay sprawled unconscious around him, Elektra's handiwork evident in their bruised forms.
"…They took Daniel. I don't know how he is now," Stan sobbed, his voice cracking like dry twigs. "These bodyguards—these men—they weren't protecting me… they were watching me. If I say anything, they'll kill my son." The man broke into desperate weeping, reduced to begging at Elektra's feet like a cornered animal.
Elektra frowned. Her heart was rarely soft, but this man's terror stirred a sliver of pity. She had found Stan by following the trail in the Hand's secret ledger.
The Hand's leaders were far more careful than their street-level operatives. Their past operations were all but erased, leaving only faint traces. Yet Stan—an accountant forced to work for them—was an overlooked loose end. His unique skills had made him valuable, and they'd kidnapped his son to ensure his loyalty.
It was pathetic, in Elektra's eyes.
'The Hand—an ancient and ruthless order—and they can't even train their own accountants? They have to blackmail a civilian?'
"Do you know where they're keeping your son?" Elektra's tone was firm but not cruel. She needed Stan's full cooperation, and saving his boy would make him a reliable ally.
"It's… it's some kind of drug den," Stan stammered, his mind racing. "They call it the Farm. It's heavily guarded, like… like something important is hidden there. I don't know what's inside, but they're keeping something secret—something terrible."
Elektra didn't waste another second. Grabbing Stan by the arm, she all but dragged him into a nearby car. Under his shaky guidance, she sped off toward the Farm.
Unbeknownst to Elektra, Daniel and Stick had been watching from the shadows.
As her car vanished into the night, the two men exchanged glances. Nearby, one of the Hand's guards stirred, groaning as he reached for his phone. He barely managed to make a call before—shhhk!—a blade flashed in the dark, severing his head cleanly.
"Stick," Daniel said coldly as he stepped out of the gloom, "there was no need to kill him that fast. A live guard would've been useful to Elektra."
Stick, wiping his blade clean, did not flinch. "A frightened snake rattles its nest. They've already mobilized everyone they can. We don't have time to play nice."
He turned, tapping his blind man's staff on the concrete, his movements deceptively slow but quick enough to vanish into the night.
Daniel sighed and glanced around. With a subtle motion of his hand, flames erupted across the parking lot, consuming every trace of the scene—burning bodies, blood, and evidence—until nothing but ash remained.
'This partnership with Stick won't last long,'Daniel thought.
They'd agreed to cooperate until the Hand was dealt with, but after that? They would part ways, each returning to their own paths.
Truthfully, Daniel had considered using Stick as his gateway into Kunlun. But the old man was too guarded. Even mentioning Kunlun directly would turn Stick into a sworn enemy. For now, Daniel would keep his own counsel.
The Farm itself was hidden inside an abandoned apartment complex slated for demolition. City plans marked it as condemned property, destined to be replaced by luxury high-rises.
But instead of tearing it down, the Hand had fortified the area.
Barbed wire fences circled the block, armed guards patrolled the perimeter, and the place radiated danger.
Elektra left Stan at a safe distance before donning her crimson scarf. Moving like a shadow, she slipped past the outer guards, her training under Stick paying off.
The exterior was easy. The real challenge was deeper inside. The place swarmed with ninjas, their presence masked by silence and shadow. To get to the heart of the Farm, Elektra would have to outwit or kill them one by one without raising the alarm.
Daniel and Stick followed silently from a distance, choosing—for now—not to intervene. They knew exactly what the Hand was doing. Yoshioka Nobu, one of the Hand's top enforcers, was baiting intruders. Letting Erica rush in would draw out the enemy and reveal their defenses.
In truth, this job should have fallen to Daredevil, but neither Elektra nor Stick had mentioned Matt Murdock's name. He remained their trump card, a final backup. If Daniel hadn't exposed Kunlun's involvement, he suspected he'd have been kept in the dark as well.
By the time Daniel and Stick slipped into the building, Elektra had already subdued the security chief—the same man Daniel had seen at Roxxon. The man was tough but no match for Elektra's skill.
Oddly, the man seemed far too confident for someone with a knife to his throat. He led Elektra deeper underground without fear, almost as if he was guiding her straight into a trap.
The path spiraled downward, three floors beneath the surface. The dim lights barely pierced the darkness as Elektra stepped into the basement's secret chamber.
What she saw froze her blood.
The room was a butcher's gallery of horrors.
Dozens of emaciated men, women, and children were crammed into steel cages. Blood trickled from their veins into a network of black tubes and crimson-stained channels that snaked across the floor, all feeding some unseen ritual deeper in the shadows.
Daniel recognized the stench immediately. He'd smelled it before, back at the chemical plant the Hand had used as a sacrificial site. This was the same operation, relocated here after he'd burned the previous one to the ground.
Elektra's jaw tightened as she scanned the cages. The victims were pale, weak, some barely clinging to life. Many of them were children.
This wasn't random. The Hand didn't grab just anyone off the street. These captives had been selected for specific traits—bloodlines, ages, something linked to their occult experiments.
'Monsters,' Elektra thought bitterly. 'How many innocents have they bled dry over the centuries?'
As she stepped closer to the cages, a voice cut through the silence, "If I were you, I wouldn't touch them."
A figure emerged from behind a pillar, his presence radiating danger.
He wasn't dressed like the usual black-clad Hand ninjas. Instead, he wore a tailored gray suit, a black mask concealing his lower face. In each hand, he held a short blade, their surfaces a dull, pitch-black—absorbing light rather than reflecting it.
These blades weren't made for show. In the dark, one would never see them coming.
Yoshioka Nobu.
Elektra recognized him instantly—the apprentice of Murakami, one of the Hand's five leaders. Nobu's skill was legendary. Even without supernatural powers, he was among the deadliest men alive.
Her gaze flicked to the blood channels running from the captives. They pulsed faintly, as if alive, draining the victims into the depths of the Farm. Elektra's blood boiled. If she didn't act soon, these children would die.
"If I don't move them now, they'll die faster," Elektra snapped, her voice trembling with rage.
"You don't understand," Nobu said calmly. "By our methods, they should have died hours ago. It's only our care that sustains them. If you interfere, they will die instantly."
His tone was almost gentle, but Elektra knew it for what it was—a stalling tactic. He wanted time for the blood to finish draining.
She clenched her fists. Every instinct screamed at her to cut the tubes and free the captives, but one wrong move could kill them all.
Her fury burned in her chest as she met Nobu's cold, unblinking gaze.
And then, they moved at the same time.