The city was quiet, if quiet meant a roaring background of sound against which no one noise thrust itself more than another upon his heightened senses. No sirens split the air, no screams echoed across the night. At least not here where he patrolled, as he did most nights, flitting like a shadow from roof to roof. A vigilant guardian, tirelessly defending the defenceless…….

*Yeah right* Matt thought to himself as he stepped lightly on a narrow ledge high above the almost deserted streets. That might be what they said in the newspaper articles Foggy so delighted in reading to him over morning coffee but it wasn’t the truth. The truth was that he was bone weary , wanting nothing so much as a hot shower and a couple of hours sleep before he had to assume the responsibilities of the day.

Matt Murdock Attorney at Law. Another defender of the defenceless if you wanted to look at it that way. Most of the time he did, feeling he was making as valuable a contribution through his actions in the courtroom as he did prowling Hells Kitchen in his familiar red costume. Nevertheless, the last couple of days had given him matter for reflection.

Sure the majority of his clients came from underprivileged backgrounds, a fact that Happy never stopped grumbling about, even if it was only for the form. It was certain too that many of them would have gone unjustly to prison if he hadn’t stepped in to fight their cause. But still. Compared to the Morlocks Compared to that whole lost community of mutants that he had recently encountered, the lives of the people in Hells Kitchen looked like a slice of paradise.

Swinging his billy club out to catch a conveniently placed flagpole, he propelled his athletic body high up into the air, spinning gracefully round before coming to land on the next rooftop, crouching there for a few moments as his thoughts turned once again to recent events.

Despite his own enhanced abilities he had had little to do with mutants before Spiderman had come tapping at his window looking for help. Now his contact with the Morlocks and the Xavier Institute had brought the mutant question into sharp focus, the many infractions in their civil rights glaringly obvious to the lawyers mind, the injustice of their position flagrant and unacceptable. *Now that I know them personally that is!* Matt thought bitterly *So how come I never saw it before?*

That was what really bothered him he had to admit. He had been so sure he had his his hand on the pulse of injustice in this city and suddenly wham here was a whole section of it that he had had sadly overlooked.* Easy for a blind man to do* he thought wryly *so why doesn’t that make me feel any better?* Anyway he had had a wake up call with a vengeance.* Mutants rights. Something to add to my busy social calendar. When I’ve had some rest that is! *

The night had been particularly tiring. He had been over making sure that everything was Ok with Mary Jane , only even starting to patrol when he was sure the next shift of watchers from the Institute was safely installed. Maybe they were all being over cautious. Maybe the goons who had jumped Peter and so mysteriously rejuvenated him weren’t interested in his family but the risk wasn’t one either Matt or McCoy was prepared to take. Between them they would make sure that Peter's loved ones were protected, even if it meant a few hard nights in the process.

He stretched, stifling a yawn and allowed himself to start thinking of heading home. Everything seemed peaceful enough. * Surely just this once I could ……..* The explosion, for surely that was, what it was pushed all thoughts of rest from his mind, the noise filling his ears even as the vibration reached up to him through the very stones of the building itself.

Close, but not so close as to blind him with its volume. Throwing himself from the roof top, no sign of fatigue in his swift relentless progress, he tracked its aftermath through the well known district. Scant moments passed till he was narrowing in on the target, sensing another blast as he approached , this one loud enough to make him wince but thankfully muffled by the bulk of the building which had surrounded it. The plan of the city was clear in his mind a tracery of sonar readings , navigation by sound rather than sight, strange and incomprehensible to anyone not endowed with his mutated senses but nonetheless efficient.

He knew now which building was under attack. The Third National Bank, corner of 29th and Maine, its soft and under protected flank ripped apart as he had expected it to be. Still something wasn’t right, Matt knew that at once. The pavement beneath his feet was oddly cracked and broken, smashed from above but not by any explosion from the feel of things. Likewise there was no smell of chemicals hanging in the air, nor any scent of burning coming from the gaping hole. Rather there was an odour of….. oil, mechanical fluid mingled subtly with the unmistakable smell of a man.

Daredevil stopped for a second running his sensitive fingers over the gaping hole which had been punched….that was what his hands told him…… in the side of the building. Warning bells were sounding now in the back of his mind, the need for caution growing as he stepped forward.

Whatever was waiting in the eternal darkness was no mere gang of bank robbers. It was a force to be reckoned with that much was obvious. He fought down the images of what a machine capable of making a hole in a solid concrete wall could do to a mans body, walling the fear up as he always did till people watching him thought that it didn’t exist when in fact it was all too real and always present.

Now as he made his way silently up the corridor, following the loud sounds of ripping doors and scattering coins, another scent reached him, the scent of freshly spilled blood, the lack of an accompanying heartbeat screaming to him that this criminal had already killed once and would not hesitate to do so again.

The noise was bordering on the uncomfortable now as he neared the vault, sensing the figure who reigned amongst the devastation. A man and yet not wholly a man, the smells and sounds of metal surrounding him, a haze of arms spreading out from his back in some obscene parody of life. Strong. Heavy. Deadly. And, as Daredevil was about to find out very, very fast.

Edited by: MattMurdock69 at: 2/25/05 5:43 pm