4820/Black Sky: Teach Your Children Well

Black Sky: Teach Your Children Well
Date of Scene:	05 July 2018
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Elektra is visited by her old mentor, Stick, and they discuss her future with the Hand.
Cast of Characters:	Elektra, Stick
Tinyplot:	Black Sky

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Elektra has posed:
Since her meeting with Shiva, things had been... well, not precisely quiet. Just calm enough. Elektra had no doubt it was just one of the many calms before the storm. But with a quiet evening at her disposal, and the need to get out and stretch her wings, so to speak, Elektra had donned her gear and head for the rooftops of Clinton. It had been far too long since she'd patrolled them.. If she remembered rightly, well before Claire and Luke had found out who she was. The Hugo Building hadn't been open yet. And she'd been furious with Matt..

Tonight though, Elektra has no agenda. She's calm. Or as calm as these days are allowing her to be. Shiva's offer of information would be useful. There was the Tournament to start sending out firm feelers on. And if she were honest with herself, there was always the chance she might run into Matt if she did so.

So rooftops it was. With the occassional foray into an alleyway here or there. For old time's sake.

Stick has posed:
     Stick had finally decided to make a move now that he was back in New York. He'd heard of things lately, and he could not ignore things anymore.

  The old man keeps a bead on Elektra, when she lands on a rooftop, he jumps down. With a thud on the roof, Stick approaches, his blacked out glasses on, a beat up olive drab shirt adorning his chest. "What the hell has you worked up so much?"

Elektra has posed:
Elektra doesn't so much startle at being joined, as at who it is who has joined her. There is no mistaking that low gravelly sigh a voice that the man uses, always sounding slightly disappointed in things.

So it is that she doesn't spin on him, weapons drawn - but it is a close thing. "Stick," she gets out in clipped and dry tones. "I thought you were dead. What brings you back now? I thought I'd made myself clear when we parted ways last time."

Stick has posed:
     Stick walks slowly, joining Elektra's side. "Everyone thinks I'm always dead. And good thing for me, I'm not." He quips, 'looking' out to the street below. "I have many reasons to be back. And none too happy." He says, his tone strict and firm. "I may be old, Elektra, but I'm not an invalid. The Chaste still follows my command."

Elektra has posed:
There's a ghost of a smile that touches upon Elektra's lips. Amused? Perhaps. Acknowledging? Oh, Most certainly. She knows her former mentor well. Just as she does little to nothing without reason, neither does he. It is, after all, where she learned it from, through lesson after painful lesson.

You were already old when I knew you, old man. And what Chaste? They were long gone when you and I parted ways. As I recall, you thought I was your last chance in that little war. And what did it buy you?"

She peers out over the city, taking in how the lights glow off in the distance, a soft grey in the humid haze of the evening.

"So you came back. Dare I ask? I presume you'll tell me regardless."

Stick has posed:
     "And you would have done well if you had stayed with it." He says, pointedly. The old man looking more and more unamused by the moment. "It bought me a former student that goes off and leads the enemy team!"

  Stick's face turns to meet Elektra. "Care to explain?"

Elektra has posed:
Elektra doesn't answer immediately. At least not the question.

"He wouldn't have ever come to you. I tried, you know. I can see the spark in him, he has it there. But he was never going to be what you wanted."

She'd met Matt because she'd been told to. She'd left Stick because she'd been told not to fall in love. Not just with Matt; with anyone. To feel was to be manipulated. To feel was to lose focus. To feel was.. to die. She'd taken every lesson she'd been given and internalized it to the point that she was the perfect killing machine - except in this one thing. And though she hadn't intended upon falling in love with Matt Murdock, she had. And when the choice was to end that, or him, or force him to become part of this insane war that she wasn't even certain existed, let alone see how two.. three?.. people could win..

There may have been other reasons. Elektra wasn't about to dig deeper within herself to dredge them up.

"It was an answer. My entire life was killing them. Theirs was killing me. I had a lead on a third of the faction heads when they came to me with a truce. It all ended - the hunting, the killing, the war - if I stepped up and became the Fist that Rules the Hand."

She gives a negligent shrugs. "It seemed a small price to pay for ending it. It was what you wanted, after all."

What she doesn't say is she's learned, since, how wrong she was. How the war hadn't ended. How it had just taken a political prisoner and changed the battlefield.

Then again, if she had to tell Stick that, he wasn't nearly the man he thought he was either.

Stick has posed:
     Stick gave a sigh, again with Matt. "Matt? Matt wanted what I couldn't give him. I guess he still hasn't found it with you either." He mentions, still believing in the not loving bit. "Bullshit. If this is what you call an end to the war, I'd like to see what you think a full battle is."

  "So, Fist that rules the Hand, how are you going to fix this mess?" He asks. knowing full well she could be over her head.

Elektra has posed:
"You wanted him to be you. And then you wanted me to be you."

The words are softly uttered.

"Found it in me? Is that your quaint way of asking does he love me?" Elektra turns so that her back is to the roof ledge, leaning against it. "I'm not sure it matters. If the past is the past, then you shouldn't care, should you?"

The words sit out there between the two, fading away. Elekta gives a small shrug and sighs. "How am I going to fix this? Do you think I'm not aware that there are only two ways this plays out? That I am the Fist, or I'm dead? As I said, I made a mistake. I wanted an end, so I believed one could be had."

Stick has posed:
     "Matt wanted anyone to love him. He wanted a father when he was a kid, I needed a soldier. He wanted someone to love. He couldn't be the fighter I needed." He says, more than a little contemptful. "Correct, unless you can kill the Hand, which is what I was trying for this entire time. A lot of good it did me, One lost puppy and a cat stuck in a tree."

Elektra has posed:
"So I'm the cat," Elektra asks, quirking a brow. "Better than what I might have imagined you'd have said."

She leans back some, looking up at the sky. "I was trying to kill them. It wasn't working. I wanted it to end. I wanted to believe that this could be an answer. That maybe I could change things.." With a small shrug, she looks over again. "You never said what the war was. Only that there was a war. And that we had to win it. 'You're the answer, child. You have to win at all costs.' Well, this was at all costs. I am my own enemy. They want me. I don't know why, but they do. It's the perfect little trap, though."

"I can't openly end them, or I die. I can't walk away, or I die. And I can't makea move until I know what it is they want." She smiles somewhat ironically at that. "And over course, now that I'm within the eye of this storm, I can't even see what it is they want. So unless you're offering to help me, your concern is noted."

Stick has posed:
     Stick again looks at Elektra. "You still don't get it? Why exactly I'm here? You're too large a risk for them to fully have, and too great a loss to take if you die."

  It was as close of an 'I care about what happens to you' as anyone would ever get from him.

Elektra has posed:
"Fully have?" Elektra turns to the man now, no longer making pretense of watching the skies. "Is that what you think this was? Is?"

She shakes her head and looks at him. Really looks at him. Sees how the years have weathered him even further than she last remembers, or so it would seem. It wasn't so long ago since she last saw him, but he seems older. More vulnerable.

"Are you saying you've come to kill me, then?"

Even with that last qualifier, that 'too great a loss to take' she isn't certain that isn't why he's here. Even as something within her stirs uncomfortably at the admission of his concern. His care. What she knew intellectually - that she was as much the daughter he never had, as he was the father Matt wanted - still left an odd sensation in her gut to hear him say it. Moreso because she knew he'd turned from Matt precisely because the man wanted a father figure.

"All I can do is be the Fist until I know what it is they want. What's at stake. All I can do is try to mitigate as much damage as I can."

It's a full on admission that she knows no matter how this turns out, unless she becomes them fully, becomes the Hand in the way he speaks of, this choice of hers will be her death. That she doesn't see any other way out of it.

Stick has posed:
     "If I was here to kill you, Elektra, I would have done it when I first saw you tonight." Stick admits, though he sounded a bit troubled at that. "I wanted to help get you out of this mess. Without dying, and hopefully to deal a good blow to the Hand."

Elektra has posed:
"I figured as much," Elektra says of his decision. She knew him well enough for that. Knew herself well enough for that. If he'd wanted her dead, he wouldn't have given her the possibilty of escape.

"I'm a bit stuck right now. Though, I have ears to the ground. People who have more leeway than I do to look at these matters. In some ways for as much as this was a mistake, it also has had advantages."

Advantages. Plus new rules. The Hand was not only being brought fully into the current century, but she'd put out rulings on the most distasteful of their practices. Made them into something that, if not acceptable or respectable, was at least less of a blight upon the humanity it preyed upon.

She hadn't lied when she thought this was the answer. ...Nor, as it happens, when she said she'd miscalculated.

Stick has posed:
     Stick thinks for a moment, then returns back. "If you are the Fist, and they are still keeping secrets from you, then you are going to need to be able to manipulate things without them realizing it. Its also wise to assume you arte being tailed everywhere you go."

  When the old man stretches his neck, giving a crick before he sighs again. "If they suspect you aren't putting their best interests in mind, then they will be working against you, even if they aren't showing it." Its how Stick would do things if he were them.

Elektra has posed:
There's something of a delighted little laugh from Elektra, but its notes are too bitter to be a pure thing. She certainly isn't truly amused. "You think I'm unaware?"

Her shoulders rise and fall in a graceless gesture. "It's already begun, the underhanded mechanisms. There was an attack on friends of mi.. On Matthew and a friend of his. By chance I happened to be in the vicinity." Truth be told, it was quite likely not by chance. Elektra was sure it was an outright message, delivered in full simply because she /was/ there. "So I toe the line. Or so they think."

There's an irritated shake of head. "This is insanity. I can't be speaking of this as us and them. I /am/ the Hand. You're our sworn enemy. Merely speaking to me is a problem for us both."

Quieter, "I don't know if I know what to do anymore. I may have to become all that they are simply to save us all. It might not be a choice any longer."

Stick has posed:
     Almost immediately as she quips, Stick raises a brow. "You want help, or don't you?" Then she mentions Matt, to which he sighs. "You'll have to use him in this you know. Aside from you, he was my most promising student.

  A mirrored shake of the head. "You don't get it, do you? You're not them. Even if you devote yourself to them, they will never see you as one of them. You're just a tool for them to use until they can kill me. They'll turn you just enough to do it, then turn the sword on you as soon as its convenient." His voice is pointed, even if he was the supportive fatherly type before, he's not mincing words now. She's grown up, she chose what she wanted.

Elektra has posed:
"I get more things than you fathom, old man."

Her lips tighten over a frown, then relax, the gesture occurring several times while Elektra tries to figure out what to say next. "Of course I know I'll have to use him. Do you think I enjoy that prospect? He's.. you know him, Stick. He'll rush in like a fool and I'll have to.."

Lips press tightly together again as she stops herself, then manages to spit out in frustration. "You were right about that. Falling for him makes him a liability. I can't make the choices I need to when he's part of the risk."

She sighs. "All I wanted was an answer. An end. Now everything I care about" - witness, Matt Murdock - "is at risk. Of course I want help."

Stick has posed:
     Stick turns around, walking over to the edge of the rooftop, looking to jump off. "The answer was to have you finish them off once and for all. You can still do that, you know." He says, turning his head to Elektra as much as he can. "It won't be as easy as it was supposed to be. But it can be done."

Elektra has posed:
"From inside? You don't imagine they won't remove me as soon as any wind is caught of that?"

Elektra turns back out towards the city.

"Not so easy old man. There's you. Me. Matt. Hardly an army. And Matt won't fight your war. Not even for me."

Stick has posed:
     Stick turns to Elektra once again.

  "How long has it been since you and I saw each other?"

  He knew perfectly well what the answer was, but he wanted to hear it from her.

Elektra has posed:
"Long enough," Elektra prevaricates. Then, "Years. I don't see the point of your question, though. Nothing has changed since then. He still won't kill, and I won't force him to. I never understood why you sent me to meet him that day. I don't think it was to see what failure looked like. I think you needed him."

"Your real failure wasn't Matthew. It was me. I didn't perform as expected, did I? Your great killing machine, and I fall for the man you couldn't teach to kill. Leaving you nothing but broken warriors for a war that nobody but you believes in anymore."

Stick has posed:
     Stick turns to Elektra, keeping his cool. "The lost puppy won't have to kill if he doesn't want to." He doesn't say anyhting at the broken warrior comment, but despite opinions to the contrary, he does know tact.

  He crosses to the ledge again, crouching down on the ledge. "What you failed to realize, is that I had enough time to create the army."

Elektra has posed:
"And that's supposed to make me feel suddenly relieved?"

Elektra shakes her head.

"So you have an army, old man. They weren't with you long enough to learn everything they needed. You still need me. Matthew, too, if you truly want to win."

Stick has posed:
     Stick gazes plainly at Elektra. "If my plan was to not include you or Matt, I wouldn't have sought you out."

  The Chaste grandmaster says one final thing before he leaps. "I'll be in touch." Then he leaps, quiet and without much trace.

Elektra has posed:
Elektra watches him leap away.

"You're a fool, old man," she whispers to herself as he disappears. "And I might be a bigger one for believing you."

With that, she, too, takes her leave, disappearing into the night.