Chapter 99

The arena was carnage.

Flipped trucks. Blown engines. Torn dirt ramps. A crowd in complete upheaval.

Mordred stood on the hood of what used to be a monster truck—now a smoking, twitching scrap pile with a flame still licking out from underneath. She raised her arms like a champion gladiator.

“WHO’S NEXT!?” she shouted, grinning like a lunatic. “YOU WANNA RIDE? I AM THE DERBY!”

Someone running down from the stands threw a beer can. It bounced off her shoulder harmlessly.

Jessica came sprinting through the gate, shoving through a panicking staffer. “You’re gonna get us arrested!”

Mordred laughed. “Too late! I stole that one!” She pointed at the crushed truck behind her. “Wouldn’t let me in, so I made my own entrance!”

“I TOLD YOU THAT IT WOULD BE A BAD IDEA!” Jessica snapped. “THEY SAID YOU LOOKED FIFTEEN!”

“They were cowards!” Mordred shouted. “AGE IS BUT A NUMBER!”

That’s when the first guy swung. A thick-necked, drunken man in a sleeveless shirt and a muddy ballcap came charging at her with a folding chair.

Jessica’s eyes widened. “Mordred, don’t—”

Too late.

Mordred met the man mid-charge, caught the chair in one hand, and suplexed him onto the hood of a flipped car with a thunderous clang.

The crowd gasped. Then roared.

Matt Murdock arrived just in time to hear the second body hit the dirt.

“
What the hell is going on?” he asked.

Jessica ran past him, ducking another flying chair. “She started a riot!”

“She did what!?”

“THEY CALLED ME A KID!” Mordred screamed, bashing a cooler lid over someone’s head. “I’M A KNIGHT!”

The crowd was splitting—some trying to escape, others trying to join in. Drunken fans with too many beers, off-duty mechanics, and half the pit crew had joined the fray. Security was overwhelmed.

Matt turned, instinctively ducking a flying hot dog.

“We are going to die here,” he muttered.

Mordred was in the center of it all, laughing like it was the greatest day of her life, knocking men twice her size over with wild swings and eating a corndog between blows.

Jessica grabbed a plastic barricade and swung it like a shield. “How do we get her out of here!?”

Matt ducked another beer bottle. “Only one way, we fight.”

The next punch came from a guy in a denim vest with WRECKERS CREW stitched across the back.

He charged at Mordred with the kind of speed that said he’d actually won a few fights. Probably bare-knuckle ones in alleyways behind garages.

She grinned.

He threw a wild hook.

She ducked low, drove her elbow into his gut, and when he doubled over, kicked his legs out from under him with a sweeping heel. He hit the ground with a flat, painful thud.

Someone else tried to blindside her—another WRECKERS guy—but Jessica was already moving.

She wasn’t as flashy. She didn’t grin. She didn’t yell.

She just hit him.

A short jab to the chest, and he stumbled. A second punch, cleaner, cracked him in the jaw and sent him sprawling into a folding table.

Matt ducked as a half-full nacho tray whizzed past his head. He reached out, caught a thick wrist mid-swing—baton raised—and twisted.

The man screamed as Matt turned his arm into a painful lever and kicked out his knee.

Jessica turned to see another man with a wrench charging Mordred from behind. She shouted—“BEHIND YOU!”—but Mordred didn’t look. She stepped sideways, grabbed the man’s wrist as he swung, and headbutted him hard enough to drop him flat.

Blood poured from his nose. He was out cold.

“Woo!” Mordred crowed, spinning in a circle with both fists raised. “I haven’t had this much fun since that biker bar in Kent!”

Matt was less thrilled.

“WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE HIDING,” he shouted, ducking a flailing punch and kneeing a drunken mechanic in the thigh.

“We were,” Jessica shouted back, slamming someone’s head into a plastic cooler. “Until Mordred started the monster truck war!”

“You’re welcome!” Mordred roared as she lifted a traffic cone and hurled it like a javelin. It knocked someone clean off a table.

For every one they dropped, three more people seemed to get pulled into the brawl. Security had vanished. Concession workers were gone. All that remained was metal, fists, yelling, and carnage.

Mordred landed a heavy kick that sent a man flying into the back of a dented van. The impact left a crater in the door.

Jessica caught a bottle midair, looked at it, and then used it to block a punch before snapping the man’s arm across her knee.

Matt ducked under a flying cooler, then spun and swept the legs of a man trying to rush him with a tire iron. He could hear the whine of sirens now—distant, but approaching.

“Cops are coming!” he called out. “We need to go!”

Mordred backpedaled away from a circle of big, angry derby fans. “Five more minutes!”

“Now!” Jessica shouted.

“Ugh, fine!” Mordred headbutted the nearest man for good measure, then turned and jogged toward the exit, shouting, “YOU GUYS SUCK! YOUR TRUCKS SUCK! AND YOUR FACES ARE WEAK!”

Matt sighed and followed, barely dodging someone flinging a steel thermos.

Jessica yanked Mordred by the sleeve and dragged her toward the perimeter fence. “You’re insane!”

Mordred grinned, breathless and flushed with adrenaline. “And yet, you followed me.”

-----

The apartment door slammed shut behind them.

Matt tossed his coat onto a chair and crossed his arms, jaw tight.

Jessica dropped into the couch like a pile of limbs, groaning as she grabbed an ice pack from the mini fridge and slapped it against her shoulder. “Okay. That was stupid.”

“That,” Matt said sharply, “was reckless.”

Across the room, Mordred plopped onto the edge of the coffee table—still grinning, blood on her knuckles and her cheeks.

“I told you we needed to blow off steam.”

“You stole a monster truck,” Matt snapped.

“It was parked,” Mordred replied. “Didn’t even have a lock on it. Technically, that’s just borrowing.”

Jessica let out a groan. “You totaled the other trucks. You crashed into the snack tent. I’m pretty sure someone called you a demon.”

“Wasn’t even the worst thing I’ve been called,” Mordred said proudly. “And come on, tell me you didn’t enjoy yourself. A little?”

Jessica hesitated.

She really, really didn’t want to say it.

But


“
the guy with the bat kinda had it coming.”

“See?” Mordred said, gesturing dramatically toward her. “That’s the spirit.”

Matt paced once, then turned, pointing a gloved hand at Mordred. “You can’t do that. You can’t drag people into chaos because you’re bored. This is supposed to be a secret operation, not an open invitation to a bar brawl.”

Mordred tilted her head, clearly confused. “Why not? No one died.”

“That’s not the point!”

Jessica snorted behind her ice pack.

Mordred leaned back, arms behind her head. “Look, you guys are acting like I destroyed a UN summit or something. It was a glorified redneck circus.”

“It was our cover,” Matt said through clenched teeth. “This place is supposed to be hidden, secure. Not the home base of a walking demolition.”

Mordred just grinned at him. “Then next time don’t let me get bored.”

Jessica groaned. “She’s like a nuclear weapon with ADHD.”

“I heard that!” Mordred called cheerfully from the fridge. “Also, we’re out of pizza.”

Matt pinched the bridge of his nose and turned to Jessica. “How are you okay with this?”

Jessica shrugged, flipping a bruised arm over the back of the couch. “I’m not. I just ran out of energy to fight it.”

“Exactly,” Mordred said, mouth full of cold fries. “We’re bonding.”

Matt sighed. Deep, long-suffering. “I need a drink.”

Jessica tossed him a beer from the counter. “Welcome to the team.”




The door wasn’t knocked, wasn’t pushed, wasn’t opened.

It splintered.

Jessica bolted upright from the couch, nearly spilling beer. Mordred stood up from the floor with a controller still in her hand, her eyes lighting up.

Matt was already moving. “We’ve got company.”

He didn’t need his radar sense to guess—heavy boots, silenced weapons, and the strong stench of cheap cologne and desperation.

“Kingpin,” he muttered. “This is his style.”

Three men stormed in, all armed. One went for Matt. The other two aimed straight for Jessica and Mordred.

Bad move.

Jessica ducked the first shot, shoved the couch over as cover, and drove her fist into the nearest thug’s stomach hard enough to send him flying into the wall with a sickening crunch.

Mordred didn’t even dodge.

The bullet hit her bare skin and flattened like it had struck a tank. She grinned.

“Oh, finally.”

Her boot connected with one man’s chest, launching him through the window and into the fire escape with a clang that echoed down the alley. Another swung a baton at her head—she caught it, snapped it in half with her bare hand, and shoved him through the kitchen table.

Matt disarmed the first attacker with precise, fluid strikes—more restraint than the others showed—but when the man reached for a second weapon, Jessica was already there, kneeing him in the throat.

The entire fight lasted
 maybe fifteen seconds.

When the smoke cleared, Mordred was tying one man to a radiator with electrical cord. Jessica was icing her knuckles with a frozen burrito. Matt was glaring at the carnage like it personally offended him.

“What was that?” Jessica asked, looking down at the groaning heap at her feet.

“Kingpin’s subtle way of saying hello,” Matt said. “He must’ve figured I’m back. Sent a message.”

“Well.” Mordred picked up one of the goons by the collar, gave him a little shake. “Let’s send one back.”

-----

A bloodied, half-conscious thug is thrown onto the floor in front of Kingpin.

“...They weren’t normal. The girl who crashed the derpy, she smiled when we shot her. The other one—she crushed Luis’s ribs through his vest. I—I don’t even think they were trying.”

Kingpin says nothing. He leans forward slightly. His fingers steeple.

Then:

“Interesting.”

-----

The morning sun cast a lazy glow over Hell’s Kitchen as the trio returned to their apartment. Mordred pushed open the front door with her foot—already halfway through a pastry she’d bought at a food cart on the way.

She stopped.

“
Huh,” she muttered through a mouthful of dough and jelly. “Did we
 walk into the wrong place?”

Jessica stepped in behind her, blinking hard.

“Nope,” she said, slowly lowering her sunglasses. “This is it.”

It was spotless.

The shattered coffee table had been replaced. The walls, freshly painted. All signs of bullet holes, beer stains, and blood had vanished. Even the mini-fridge had been restocked.

Matt followed last, pausing on the threshold with a furrowed brow.

“I don’t need sight to know this is insane,” he said dryly. “The scent of industrial cleaners and new wood? Someone threw a renovation party overnight.”

Jessica gave a low whistle. “Stark doesn’t play around.”

Mordred threw herself onto the newly replaced couch and sank back with a satisfied grunt.

“I love this place,” she declared, stretching out like a queen returning to her throne. “If we keep wrecking stuff, maybe he’ll replace it with gold next time.”

Before anyone could respond, the front door opened again—on its own, thanks to Stark’s override.

Tony Stark strode in, wearing a blazer, jeans, and a pair of custom-tinted sunglasses. His expression was not amused.

“Oh good,” he said, voice dry as ever. “You’re all still alive. I had my doubts.”

Jessica instinctively stepped aside, as if to avoid being in his line of fire.

Mordred waved lazily. “Yo.”

Tony didn’t wave back.

“You know,” he began, “I gave you a secret base. I gave you tech. I gave you money. What I didn’t give you was clearance to start a riot during a monster truck show.”

Mordred raised a hand. “Okay, first off, I didn’t start it. They refused to let me join.”

Tony stared at her.

“So you stole a truck?”

“They were being sexist!”

“You flattened four trucks. Four!” Tony shouted. “And two porta-potties.”

Jessica coughed and tried not to laugh.

Matt stood in the corner, arms crossed, his expression unreadable. “We got it under control.”

“Really? Because from what I hear, someone got thrown through a hot dog stand and a guy named ‘Bam-Bam’ has sworn vengeance.”

Mordred grinned. “That guy had it coming.”

Tony looked to Jessica. “And you?”

“I was just
 You know. Trying to make sure she didn’t set the place on fire,” she said sheepishly.

He rubbed his temple. “Look, I don’t care how you do this, but I need you focused. You’re supposed to be my eyes and fists out here while Arthuria plays king in Camelot. What I don’t need is headlines like ‘Hell’s Kitchen Brawl Linked to Blonde Maniac and Her Weird Roommates.’”

Jessica winced. Mordred beamed like it was a badge of honor.

Tony pointed to the kitchen counter. A sleek tablet rested there.

“Files. Photos. Intel. All of it. Delivered from Arthuria’s raid and cross-referenced by JARVIS. There’s a paper trail from that underground lab you hit. Chemicals. Locations. People. I want you three to go through it, find the next target, and handle it. Quietly.”

“Boring,” Mordred groaned.

Tony didn’t blink. “Too bad.”

He turned to leave, then paused at the door.

“Just get some results, or I will have to give your father a call. I’m sure you don’t want that.” He left before Mordred had a chance to shout at him.

So it was just the other two who got to hear her threats and rants.

(End of chapter)

Chaos, that is Mordred’s middle name.

Mordred Chaos Pendragon. The prince of burgers!

A little chapter of just some fun chaos, a lot of Mordred’s life is just fun chaos, if she can get away with it. which she often can’t due to being around the other knights, or her father, but without those to keep her in check.

Chaos!