You can learn a lot about a man in one five minute round of sparring. That was one of the things Pop had taught Danny, before the cavalcade of K’un Lun’s esoteric masters had tried to dress the same concept up in thousands of years of martial history: that in a fight, the eye is the most important thing.

He saw now that Luke was only testing his guard, throwing half committed moves and waiting for Danny to set the pace. He learned fast -- their first spar after Danny arrived ended with Luke in a guillotine hold, after he tried to rush at Danny and overwhelm him with size. Luke said Danny got lucky, and he was right. If Luke hadn’t gone for the takedown, Danny would have started with his seiken. A cheeky and practically useless strike from their days at Pop’s dojo. The punch was mostly ceremonial, to train the arm’s muscles and center the mind. He only liked to use it to set the tone of a spar, but against Luke, he’d have shattered his hand.

It was only right that they set to sparring immediately, not bothering to explain the intricacies of their individual situations. It was much simpler than that: Danny wasn’t dead anymore, and that meant he could step back into the ring with Luke. On Danny’s first day back, Pop’s was his first stop. He expected to find it a shell of itself, hollowed out and turned into one of a dozen brightly colored twenty four hour fitness lifestyle places that signaled the death knell of the local gym. Instead of a prim secretary and video screens on every wall, he was greeted by the Pop’s he remembered. Every wall plastered with the yellowing posters of bygone fight promotions, with the same scrap of note paper that held Pop’s exercise routine pinned to a decaying corkboard. It still smelled like Pop’s, the old sweat mixing with the new against the strained fabric of the mats. The only thing missing from the place was Pop himself -- instead he found Carl Lucas, already gloved up and hammering away at a heavy bag.

Lucas went by Luke, now, and Danny was pretty sure Luke had come to master at least two other combat systems in their time apart. The double he had thrown in their first round was wrestling, and the blocks he presented to Danny’s probing jabs was pure Jailhouse Rock. JHR wasn’t often taught, especially not by the Masters of K’un Lun, but Danny made it a point to be aware of as many unique martial arts as possible, and JHR’s fifty two blocks were some of the most singular in all Danny’s awareness. The two styles alone were a powerful combination, and the man had untold experience in classic karate on top. Though, Danny couldn’t judge just how far Luke had gotten in Pop’s kenpo. When Danny left, they had been preparing for their black belt exams, and there was no telling how high Luke could have risen from there. With dedication, he’d have had time to get to the Fifth or even Sixth degree… but you couldn’t tell by the way he moved.

Lucas used to be a stout, immovable block of a boy who could overcome anything Danny threw at him with a little heart and a mammoth dedication to karate above all else. It didn’t matter what Danny brought: from his judo sweeps to his aikido joint locks, Luke could always get around it and slam him with a huge, audacious karate classic. Pop would always smile and call him “a karateka’s karateka.” But he wasn't that kid anymore.

Now Luke was a street fighter, through and through. Danny could tell from the way he moved his head. Over ninety percent of street fights involve head punches exclusively, and your ability to protect your head was often the only thing separating you from a brutal death on the pavement. Luke’s head movement was immaculate, and each of his guards seemed sharper than the last, absolutely denying the possibility of a headshot. The other thing about street fighters is that they, as a rule, never take fights to the ground. It was too easy for a controlling position to become a weak one in the tangle of a grapple, and you could easily wind up with your head splattered across the concrete. It was there Luke almost tricked him, with his double at the start of their matches, it was antithetical to the style. But Luke had an edge that meant a concrete concussion wasn't so much of a worry for him.

Luke hadn't gone and spelled it out for Danny, but the man had to be indestructible or something close to it. As they grappled, even the softest parts of Luke’s body felt dense, even the skin over his pressure points seemed to reject Danny’s attempts to manipulate them with steel rigidity. Danny was still managing, by centimeters, to squeeze Luke into the positions he needed for his holds to function. If the ordinary person was clay, Luke was made of iron. It was something beyond what body conditioning and partial training could give you, totally unique from the secrets of the old masters.

But Luke wasn’t stupid. He had to know Danny was holding something back, too. He told Luke about K’un Lun already in the broad strokes, a hidden society in the deepest mountains of Asia playing host to some of the greatest masters of our time. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make the unvarnished truth emerge: about K’un Lun, about the purpose of the Iron Fist, and the identity and responsibility of its inheritor… and Luke acted in kind. Danny didn’t think it was something an ordinary martial artist would notice, but he saw the flickers in Luke’s eyes. It was something he’d trained himself to look for in every fighter, it was the thing he loved about every fighter, their ability to seize their moments in the way that is just unique to them. Their build, their speed, their power, and above all their absolute unique application of their lifetime of techniques, in that one crystalline and perfect moment. But now, as they faced each other, Danny saw Luke pick out his moments, and let them pass by.

The round timer buzzed.

“Damn, already? Never got a good hit in,” Luke complained.

“Don’t sweat it. I have a feeling we have a lot of good hits ahead of us.”