"The Iron Fist? You're right—then let's do this the Iron Fist way!" Daisy put away her sword and shield. Her weapon work was nothing special; in aerial combat the sword and shield had too small a strike range, Adamantium's conductivity was poor, and the Phoenix flames lost too much when clinging to the longsword—in the end, her powers served her better.
She'd burned through a fair amount of chi already, and reinforcing herself again now, she reckoned three minutes of use would drain her dry. Fortunately she didn't fight by relying on chi.
A faint glow of flame played over her fists—just a touch of reinforcement, enough to both prolong the fight and sharpen her attacks.
The dragon voiced his approval of the change, praising her for finally showing a bit of a martial artist's spirit.
The two "people" clashed together again. The fiercest aerial combatant in the entire Marvel Universe was the Falcon—the man was thoroughly mediocre at ground fighting, pinned down by Crossbones until he was crying uncle, but in the air almost no one could beat him; even Iron Man and Ms. Marvel conceded they fell short of his dogfighting technique.
Part of that was talent—more of it was bitter, grinding practice.
Daisy was a hundred and eight thousand miles from that level. She could fly, that was all; she had no technique to speak of.
Luckily the dragon only wanted to come out and play. He felt he'd weakened Daisy by going all out himself, so he eased up some, his attacks soft and pillowy, now and then even feigning failing old eyesight to let her land a couple of blows.
Daisy had every reason she needed to win, and she'd already given it everything.
Her agent training hadn't taught her any profound martial arts, but the pattern—dodge the enemy's attack, strike with maximum force, then dodge again, then attack—she knew that one cold, and she was living by that principle now.
Dodge wherever she could, attack with all the force she could muster, the pseudo-Lasso of Truth binding the dragon now and then so she could get in and hammer a couple of punches, the energy stored in her Vibranium bracers released at any moment. The sky was blanketed with her vibration frequency, and her teleportation was carried to the very height of its art.
Lei Kung watched their battle in rapt concentration. Past Iron Fist selections had all taken place down in the cavern; in his whole life he'd never so much as seen what the dragon looked like, let alone watched him fight.
He was carefully weighing the two sides' strength. As he saw it, Daisy was about on his level—if Daisy could win, so could he; if Daisy gave it her all and still lost in the end, that would be a blow to his own warrior's spirit as well.
He watched a long while and still couldn't tell which was the stronger, so he turned and asked the master: "Venerable, who do you think will win?"
The Venerable, a single step from unity of heaven and humanity, could see that the dragon was holding back. By what he knew, every generation's Iron Fist selection had involved some degree of the dragon going easy; killing a dragon by fist and foot alone was no ordinary feat.
With his present strength he could kill the dragon, but it would be utterly pointless. His own chi had been cultivated over a thousand years; there was no question of doubling back to absorb the dragon's chi now—that would be idiotic.
To Lei Kung's question, he said mildly, "The Iron Fist will be born on schedule. All of it lies within fate's design."
That could be taken any number of ways. Knowing the master's temperament, Lei Kung turned his attention back to the great battle in the sky.
Sssht—with a dull thud, twenty minutes having passed, Daisy once more drew blood from the dragon with her Atomic Cutter.
But she was in far sorrier shape now than twenty minutes ago. A dragon claw had laid open a furrow across her shoulder, blood pouring from it without cease; a dragon tooth had punched clean through her lower belly; and her left leg had been snapped by a lash of the dragon's tail, bent now at a grotesque angle.
The wounds were charred over—"treated" by her chi.
The dragon was like a game character with a digitized body: no matter how grievous the injury, so long as he had energy he would heal. She couldn't. Cauterizing her wounds by the nature of her chi staunched the bleeding in time, but she'd still lost a quarter of her blood, and even with a strong constitution she was beginning to feel dizzy.
The dragon, by contrast, still looked radiant—even after taking another Atomic Cutter strike, he mended himself again in short order.
Daisy silently cursed him for cheating. Fighting a boss with no health bar in sight—the pressure was too much!
"Keep going, little girl!" The dragon was like a stern master. The Venerable could see the signs of him holding back; Daisy, caught inside the fight, could not.
She could only swing her fists again and again. When her chi ran dry, she popped her claws—she'd claw a wound open on the dragon if she had to, bite a chunk of flesh off with her teeth if it came to that.
That streak of viciousness in her was roused, and she gritted her teeth and held on.
Dodging mechanically, throwing punches mechanically—and the dragon, right on cue, kept adding pressure. Every time Daisy thought she was about to win, the dragon's strength rose with it, but only by a sliver, as if to tell her: just push a little harder and you'll win. Girl, what are you waiting for?
Her consciousness was growing hazy. Over and over she wrung energy from her body—blood, cells, every last scrap of strength from her genes called up to fuel her next punch, her next dodge.
"A marvelous constitution. Looks like her potential runs high." The Venerable said it out of nowhere, and Lei Kung couldn't make sense of it; as he saw it, Daisy was all but finished—overdrawing her body like this was a cardinal sin for a martial artist.
"I can beat you! I won't lose!" Daisy clenched her teeth, resorting to a kind of self-hypnosis: a single conviction—beat this big lizard!
Two more wounds joined the rest. Her back, smooth as fine jade, was torn open in a long gash, the edges curled outward, flesh and blood a ruin, the bone visible deep within. Her Vibranium bracer had blocked the claw at her forearm, but the upper arm was still clawed open, every bit as ghastly to look upon.
Her powers were spent to the last, her chi burned dry, her mental force nearly run out, even her physical strength all but gone—only a voice in her heart kept telling her she could hold on a little longer, and as long as she could hold on, there was hope of winning.
A new power, as if it had heard her cry and her refusal to yield, hesitated a few times, and then—having seen her tenacity—broke through layer upon layer of obstruction, skirted countless restrictions, and passed a thread of strength to her from the deepest reaches of her cells.
That thread of power was so vast it seemed it could shatter a planet. Daisy snapped instantly awake. She didn't know where this strength came from, and she didn't care now; she only knew this was her last chance.
The power poured into both her arms, and her vibration powers, already spent to nothing, blazed back to brilliant life.
A conviction of certain victory flashed in Daisy's eyes as she looked the dragon dead in the eye. "Senior, I've won!"
Both fists clenched, she brought them down with everything she had, against the dragon's head and the whole of the space around it.
That cry of hers rang out tremendously loud, her voice ringing across all of K'un-Lun.
Danny Rand—who'd never quite fit in, off training his fists alone while everyone else discussed the dragon in the sky—heard her voice too. He'd never heard Daisy speak, but in that moment he knew the only one who could be fighting the dragon was Daisy.
Thinking of someone from back home, Danny Rand lifted his head to the sky. Across several thousand meters, even a dragon of that size was no more than a small black dot in his vision, to say nothing of Daisy—yet Danny felt he could see her. He saw Daisy's indomitable spirit.