Fanfic / Soliloquy

Soliloquy is a fanfic written by Shadow_Chaser. It's an Alternative Universe to the final two episodes of The Defenders (2017), where rather than wait for Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage to come to Danny Rand's rescue, The Hand's leaders decide that the best way to deal with the four heroes is to attack them first.

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Tropes contained in this fanfic:

• Action Girl: We get to see Karen, Trish, Misty, Claire, and Colleen be these.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • The Hand is more fleshed out in this continuity. The relationships between the Fingers are given more explanation, especially with Fingers who never got to interact on-camera (Sowande and Bakuto, in particular).
  • It is explained how members like Murakami and Bakuto pull their "disappearing into thin air" trick: the training they received in K'un-L'un allows them to slow down time around them.
  • The Fingers are established to have gotten their abilities due to mastering them as part of their initiation into the priesthood of K'un-L'un: Bakuto took the path of learning healing and endurance, Murakami learned how to mentally slow down time, and Madame Gao studied telekinesis.
• Adaptational Villainy: The Hand are more ruthless due to deciding to attack the heroes' loved ones at the precinct.
• An Arm and a Leg: Misty still loses her right arm while helping Colleen fight Bakuto, but it happens outside the precinct instead of at Midland Circle, and happens when the fight is interrupted by the tremors caused by the start of substance mining.
• Ascended Extra: The supporting cast of the standalone shows become a bit more relevant due to actively being targeted by the Hand.
  • Karen Page gets to shine a bit more and her role as one of the hostages in Nobu's attempt to lure in Matt and Elektra becomes relevant as it allows the Hand to determine they need to attack the precinct.
  • Trish Walker gets to use her Krav Maga and do some actual fighting.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Matt, Jessica, Luke, Karen, Claire, Colleen, Misty and Trish all work together to fight off the Hand when they come to the precinct.
• Badass Boast: After capturing Bakuto, Matt gets to deliver one on Danny's behalf as the disarmed sensei tries taunting Colleen.
  Bakuto: You do know that the second earthquake means that we have either succeeded in our goal or that your precious Iron Fist is dead.
  Matt Murdock: Danny would not fall that easily. He might be naïve, headstrong, and prone to thinking before he leaps, but he is the Immortal Iron Fist. He would not have received his powers if K'un-L'un did not deem him worthy.
  [Bakuto opens his mouth preparing to speak, but Matt shuts him up by punching him in the face]
  Colleen Wing: ...Thanks.
• Battle Couple:
  • Luke and Jessica, who are exes, engage Bakuto and his men and hold them off long enough for Matt and Misty to get everyone else out of the precinct.
  • When Matt's group is ambushed by Murakami and his men, Matt and Karen team up to fight Murakami while Luke and Jessica begin fighting Murakami's ninjas with an assist from Trish.
• Berserk Button:
  • Claire getting stabbed leads to Luke giving a ferocious beating on Bakuto.
  • When outside the precinct, Matt goes for Murakami first when he begins advancing on Karen. He also loses his composure when Murakami lobs a tonfa into Karen's leg.
  • Colleen lets out a scream of rage when Bakuto cuts off Misty's arm, and almost decapitates him, but Matt talks her out of it saying that they need him alive for answers and settles for knocking him out instead.
  • Elektra, in her lust for Matt's darker side, contemplates killing Danny to push Matt over the edge. Learning from Madame Gao about the attack Bakuto and Murakami are carrying out on the precinct, Elektra's first thought is the fact that she could leverage or kill Foggy to bring out Matt's darker side.
• Beta Outfit/Break Out the Museum Piece: Matt is forced to use his old black costume when Murakami and his ninjas ambush them. It's still got the rips in it from when Fisk and Nobu attacked him at the docks, indicating that he's not worn it at all since he got the new armor from Melvin. Jessica still mocks him for it:
  Jessica Jones: The black's better, definitely more slimming to your physique, but you still look like a dick.
• Big "NO!": Colleen lets out a loud screech of rage when Bakuto cuts off Misty's arm.
• Bilingual Dialogue: Murakami solely speaks in Japanese. To convey this in a literary form, all of his dialogue is italicized. Colleen has to translate Murakami's words for Karen when he addresses them outside the precinct.
• Blood from the Mouth: Matt is bleeding from the corner of his mouth by the end of his fight with Murakami. Murakami doesn't fare much well either, as he spits out a wad of blood following the barrage of punches Matt delivers to him in response to Karen getting stabbed.
• The Bus Came Back: Tyler, the red-headed woman who had helped Nobu coordinate his kidnapping scheme and put a gun to Karen's head on the hostage bus, returns.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Matt has to talk Colleen out of killing Bakuto after he manages to cut off Misty's arm.
• Celebrity Paradox: Misty exclaims "Fucker dodged bullets, like something out of the fucking Matrix!" when Murakami nonchalantly ducks out of the way of her bullets, yet Foggy nor Jessica comment on how much Jeri Hogarth resembles Trinity.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Karen uses the gun she had drawn on Frank Castle when her apartment got shot up to cover Matt while he's fighting Murakami. It's also the first time since killing James Wesley that she's actually fired a gun.
  • The reason the Hand are able to identify the precinct where the heroes' loved ones are is because they know that Karen is someone Daredevil cares deeply about, and through pinging her cell phone, they identify the 29th precinct.
  • The Fingers reminisce about Nobu's scheme to use Daredevil survivors as bait for Matt and Elektra, and why that scheme failed.
  • Elektra remembers Tyler very well and has plans to kill her.
  • The gym bag that Foggy uses to deliver the Daredevil suit to Matt is established to be the gym bag that Matt takes when he works out at Fogwell's Gym.
  • When Bakuto and his men attack the precinct, they kill the lights first. Claire is very much reminded of the Hand's attack on Metro-General.
  • Matt's past relationship with Claire is acknowledged here.
  • Because Claire never actually set foot in Nelson & Murdock, she doesn't know that Karen used to be Matt and Foggy's secretary. She is aware though that Karen was involved in the Union Allied scandal and bringing down Wilson Fisk, had a role in the Frank Castle fiasco, and is someone Matt cares deeply about and one of the few people he hasn't pushed away since becoming Daredevil.
  • Trish gets to use her Krav Maga fighting Murakami's ninjas.
  • The tonto that Bakuto stabs Claire with is laced with poison, the same poison that Madame Gao's men used to coat their blades when Danny and Colleen tracked Gao to China, which Nobu's men had coated their blades with when they had attacked Matt and Elektra at Midland Circle, and is implied to have been used to poison Vanessa at Fisk's charity gala.
  • Trish volunteers herself to be the driver to get Karen, Claire and Misty to the hospital. She had previously been the driver when she, Jessica and Simpson had tried to black-bag Kilgrave.
  • The precinct attack happens after Foggy delivers Matt the Daredevil suit, so that exchange is unchanged, although a lot of new subtext is added to the conversation: Matt's "I don't have time for this" tone is because he's expecting Foggy to ream him out about putting on the suit again like Karen had when he grabbed her from the Bulletin, and also because Matt and Foggy are still at a bit of an impasse given the fallout of Frank Castle's trial, his abandonment of Nelson & Murdock, and the whole mess with Elektra and the Hand.
• Cop Killer: Bakuto kills Captain Strieber, and it's clear from the amount of blood on the blade of his katana when he gets to them that he's already cut down several other cops with it. He also is the one to cut off Misty's right arm.
• Crazy-Prepared:
  • Foggy has brought Matt not just the current Daredevil suit, but also the old black costume Matt wore when he was first going up against Wilson Fisk.
  • Karen brought her gun to the precinct, even though she, Malcolm, and Foggy were the only three of the heroes' loved ones to not get targeted while everyone was being moved to the precinct. Given that in the past year, she's been kidnapped by James Wesley, Colonel Schoonover, and the Hand, and several attempts have been made on her life in the course of her investigations into Wilson Fisk and Frank Castle, her preparedness is very justified.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Elektra looks at Madame Gao as the ring finger of the Hand: considered the weakest, but in reality one of the strongest that was hidden and worked in concert with the other fingers of a hand.
• The Corrupter: Elektra, out of her twisted love for Matt, thinks that killing Danny will be enough to drive him over the edge and bring out his dark side she's so turned on by.
• Defiant to the End/Face Death with Dignity: With Misty and Strieber holding guns on Bakuto, Strieber realizes that Bakuto isn't going to surrender, so he keeps his composure to give one last order to Misty.
  Capt. Strieber: Detective Knight?
  Misty Knight: Sir?
  Capt. Strieber: I am ordering you to get these people out-[Bakuto stabs him through the heart with his katana]
• Delaying Action: Bakuto and Murakami coordinate an assault on the 29th Precinct and the heroes' loved ones to break Matt, Luke and Jessica's spirits as well as stall them while they harvest the substance.
• Distressed Dude: Malcolm and Foggy get to play this part.
• Even Evil Has Standards: The Hand have gotten their fingers into all sorts of companies, but Bakuto has insisted that they leave Stark Industries alone because they don't want the Avengers to know about their existence.
• Friendly Enemy: Bakuto considers that he and Sowande were these before Sowande's beheading. Sowande's men have pledged loyalty to Bakuto in light of their boss's death.
  Bakuto had rather liked his conversations with the other man, even when they had attempted to kill each other numerous times. The ones he found to be the most enlightening usually involved their mutual deaths or the death of one another from time to time. There had been something exciting and he would freely acknowledge, arousing, when he sunk his blade into Sowande or when Sowande scored an extremely well-placed shot in his own body. The black man's – he would never call Sowande African as Sowande was as K'un-L'unan as he was – death had been like a keen blade in his own heart.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Zigzagged during the precinct attack. Trish and Jessica are the only women to not use weapons. Karen and Misty are using guns, Claire is using her claws, and Colleen is using her katana.
• Hidden Depths: The Fingers are more fleshed out here.
  • Sowande, despite being dead by this point, is established to have had a very friendly relationship with Bakuto.
  • Murakami is established to have not thought highly of Nobu.
  • Elektra is established to have never thought too fondly of Foggy, seeing him as a thorn in the side given how he was Matt's biggest support.
• Immune to Bullets: Misty tries shooting Bakuto when he shows up at the precinct. The bullets hit...but Bakuto has no reaction to them. Later, Murakami nonchalantly dodges when Misty and Karen try to shoot him.
• In Spite of a Nail: Despite the plot changes, a lot of things from the original show still happen: Misty Knight still loses her right arm fighting Bakuto, Midland Circle is demolished, and Matt is presumed "dead".
• Insistent Terminology: Whereas the protagonists call Murakami's men 'ninjas', Murakami prefers their Japanese name shinobi. Nobu apparently preferred the Western name over the Japanese name.
• Ironic Echo: Matt repeats Foggy's "That's what family's for" back to him as Foggy is assisting a wounded Karen into the getaway van, as a way of promising him that he'll come to the hospital to check on Karen once he and Colleen have dealt with Bakuto.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Matt is a bit upset when Karen first draws her gun at the precinct, due to the fact that in all this time he's known her, she's never let on that she even owned a gun.
• Non-Action Guy: Malcolm and Foggy spend the entirety of the attack in this way as they are the only ones who have no fighting skills. They spend most of Murakami's ambush trying to protect a wounded Claire.
• Nonchalant Dodge: Murakami casually dodges the bullets when Misty and Karen shoot at him.
  Misty Knight: Fucker dodged bullets, like something out of the fucking Matrix!
  Jessica Jones: Shit, he didn't show that the first time around. Trish, how's your krav maga?
• Obfuscating Disability: Matt has to desperately hide his secret identity when the precinct is attacked. During Bakuto's wave of the attack, Matt hangs back with Foggy, and they help Karen and Trish attend to a maimed Claire, while Luke and Jessica fight Bakuto and his men to keep them back while Misty and Matt lead the others out to safety. Once outside, Matt plans to slip into an alleyway to change into the Daredevil suit, but is forced to resort to his original costume because there's not enough time to change into the red armor before he has to rush in to keep Murakami away from Karen.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: By virtue of always being under Alexandra's thumb, Elektra knows pretty much everything about the operation even if she had been mostly mute up until her killing Alexandra.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • When the precinct is attacked, Jessica curses "Shit!" at the first sign they're under attack, and when Matt realizes the Fingers have brought an army larger than that they faced at Midland Circle.
  • Matt when he senses Murakami's presence and realizes that this is a planned attack on them.
• Parallel Conflict Sequence: Danny's fight with Elektra in the caves and breaking down the wall with the Iron Fist happens concurrent with Murakami and Bakuto's attack on the precinct.
• Point of Divergence:
  • Bakuto and Murakami's attack on the precinct happens right after Foggy delivers Matt the gym bag with his Daredevil stuff.
  • For Madame Gao, Bakuto and Sowande, the point of divergence is right after Elektra kills Alexandra, and right after Alexandra's remains are removed from the room.
• Precision F-Strike: Jessica shouts, "I hate fucking ninjas!" as she uses a potted plant to strike a group of Bakuto's men inside the precinct.
• Retcon: Elektra's fight with Danny in the pit during the actual show happens simultaneous to Matt, Jessica and Luke's fight upstairs with Madame Gao, Bakuto and Murakami in the parking garage. Here, the fight happens while Matt, Luke and Jessica are still at the precinct, and the power outage triggered by Danny punching out the wall with the Iron Fist is the signal for Bakuto and Murakami to start their attack.
• Sensory Overload: The shrill noise of the precinct's fire alarm going off is enough to send Matt into this. He's able to focus once Foggy squeezes his hand. Apparently, Foggy did this every time they had a fire drill in their dorm when they were in law school.
• Sherlock Scan: Matt recognizes Colleen's Hand training from her fighting style
• Shoot the Medic First: Claire is stabbed in the shoulder with a poisoned tanto by Bakuto during his attack on the precinct, forcing Matt, Karen, Foggy, Colleen, Malcolm, Trish, and Misty to coordinate getting her to safety while Jessica and Luke hold off Bakuto's men. Once outside, they are ambushed by Murakami and his ninjas, and when it's all said and done, Misty has also lost her right arm and Karen has been stabbed in the knee.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Matt and Colleen remain behind to interrogate Bakuto while Luke and Jessica are taking a wounded Karen, Claire, Misty, Malcolm, Foggy and Trish to the hospital. Matt punches Bakuto in the face to knock him out before Bakuto can counterract Matt's defense of Danny.
• Skewed Priorities: While escaping the precinct, Matt has to actually tell Foggy to stop pestering him about keeping his two lives separate because right now, with Claire badly wounded (plus Misty and Karen by the time the second part of the fight is over), protecting his secret identity is the least priority on his mind.
• Slasher Smile:
  • Murakami lets one form as Karen and Misty try shooting at him.
  • Matt exhibits one as he and Karen fight Murakami.
• Swapped Roles: The precinct attack has plenty of elements from the climactic fight at Midland Circle, but moves some of the roles around: for instance, it's Luke who provides Misty with medical attention after her arm is cut off, instead of Claire and Colleen. The image of Claire and Colleen hobbling with a wounded Misty out of the Midland Circle lobby is replaced with Foggy and Malcolm carrying a wounded Claire.
• Switching P.O.V.: Several times. In scenes focusing on the Hand leaders, things are told from Murakami's point-of-view, and occasionally from Elektra's point of view. When switching to the protagonists, Matt is the focus character.
  • This is very apparent in the precinct attack, where the lead-in to the attack is told from Matt's perspective (as the attack happens right after he receives the Daredevil suit from Foggy). Then it switches to Claire's point-of-view as the attack begins and Bakuto kills Strieber, overpowers Misty, stabs Claire, and engages Colleen. Once Claire is stabbed with the poisoned tonto, the perspective changes back to Matt as he and Foggy show up. When they're ambushed outside the precinct, the perspective changes to Murakami's perspective, meaning the majority of the scene is Murakami's fight with Matt and Karen, while Luke, Jessica and Trish's fight with Murakami's ninjas, plus Colleen and Misty's second round with Bakuto, are happening in his peripheral vision. Once Murakami and his men flee, the focus turns back to Matt as he rushes to get the tonfa out of Karen, then uses the tonfa to break into a parked van so Trish can get their casualties to the hospital.
• Tactful Translation: When Murakami ambushes the group escaping the precinct, he addresses them in Japanese. Karen doesn't understand a word he's saying and asks Colleen to translate.
  Murakami: [in Japanese] It would have been easier to shoot every last one of you dead, but then there would be nothing to live for and nothing to lose.
  Karen Page: Anyone understand what the hell he just said?!
  Colleen Wing: He's saying he could have shot us dead with the bows and arrows that each Hand member gets training for, but he's considering this a courtesy and favor for keeping us alive for now.
  Malcolm Ducasse: Why?
  Colleen Wing: We're apparently bait.
  Murakami: [in Japanese] Exactly.
• The Adjectival Superhero: Murakami regards Jessica as "The Unyielding Woman" and Luke as "The Man with Unbreakable Skin".
• Violently Protective Girlfriend:
  • Karen provides cover fire for Matt while he's fighting Murakami.
  • Male variant with Luke, who becomes an unstoppable rage machine against Bakuto and his men after Bakuto stabs Claire.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • A villainous example happens as Murakami expresses annoyance at Bakuto for not grabbing Danny when he went to attack Claire and Colleen.
  • While they're escaping the precinct, Foggy tries to once again warn Matt about not casting off the blind man act, but Matt shuts him down saying that at this point, saving Claire is more important than his secret identity.
• We Have to Get the Bullet Out!: The knife-wound variant. With Claire stabbed, Matt has to tell Karen and Trish to not remove Bakuto's tonto so that Claire won't bleed to death. Which also proves detrimental because Bakuto poisoned the blade. On the other hand, Matt immediately goes to work removing the tonfa that Murakami uses to stab Karen in the leg, as it's shallow enough that Karen doesn't need to risk bleeding to death.
• Worf Had the Flu: Colleen's stomach wound visibly hinders her, and easily gives Bakuto the upper hand when they fight. Likewise, Matt is still a little off in the head from getting knocked out by Elektra when she captured Danny.
• Written-In Absence: Brett Mahoney's absence is revealed to be because he is on vacation with his mother. Matt is silently grateful for this, as it means the Hand will have no reason to go after Brett.
• Wrong-Name Outburst: Once Murakami's men retreat, Matt rushes to remove the tonfa that Murakami lobbed into Karen while Luke frantically improvises a tourniquet from what's left of his hoodie and shirt trying to stop the bleeding from Misty's severed arm. Seeing that Misty needs to be rushed to a hospital immediately, Luke calls out to Matt to get him to hurry up with Karen.
  Luke Cage: Hey, M-er, Daredevil! We need to get Misty to a hospital quick, she's bleeding out too fast for me to do anything!
• You Fight Like a Cow: Bakuto is not too impressed with Claire's fighting abilities.
  Bakuto: Such ferocity, and is this what Colleen is resorting to sending me when she can't fight her battles? Not even a full trainee?
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Elektra senses that the Fingers are planning on eliminating her once they get to the substance. So she in turn has plans to get rid of them.