C28: Fight Back
"Do you really think evading my gaze can break the influence of my pheromone-based neurochemical control?"
Kilgrave's voice dripped with smugness as he watched Li Ran leap behind the antique store counter. The smug curl on his lips deepened, this was familiar territory. He had reduced Avengers to puppets before; an antique dealer stood no chance.
He strode forward confidently. The black barrel of a pistol suddenly emerged above the counter, Kilgrave's expression faltered, only slightly.
Then he noticed the tremble in Li Ran's hand, the rigid grasp, the way the gun quivered in opposition to his will. That slight hesitation brought back Kilgrave's grin. "Looks like I win again," he said softly.
"Stand up."
The command carried weight, like psychic iron. Despite the resistance flickering in his eyes, Li Ran rose stiffly from behind the counter.
Kilgrave's eyes traced from the gun to Li Ran's frozen expression. "If you'd been a second faster, maybe we wouldn't be here. But fate favors me, as always…"
"I don't think so."
"What?!"
The voice echoed from behind a shelf. Kilgrave's smirk shattered. His head whipped toward the sound and to his horror, Li Ran, still under his influence, had spoken. His lips curled into a strange, defiant smile.
"Turn around!"
Kilgrave bellowed instinctively. The command struck Li Ran like a whip. He obeyed, his body turned with mechanical awkwardness. A second later, the enclosed space cracked with a deafening gunshot.
Kilgrave opened his eyes, heart thundering. He looked down, no wound. Across from him, Li Ran stood unmoving, the barrel still smoking. A raw, panicked laugh escaped Kilgrave's throat. "Ha! I told you! I always win in the end—"
"Yes…"
Li Ran's voice rasped, low and strained, barely escaping his throat. Despite being under complete psychochemical manipulation, he forced each word out.
"You… haven't… won."
"Stop bluffing. You can't resist me. You can't turn this around!"
The cracks in Kilgrave's composure were widening. Li Ran's resistance had rattled him to the core. He couldn't risk letting this anomaly survive. Raising a hand, Kilgrave prepared to command Li Ran to pull the trigger on himself this time.
But then—
A violent pulse of danger tickled the back of his neck. Kilgrave spun.
The bullet that had missed earlier, one he thought irrelevant, was curving midair. A graceful, impossible arc twisted through the room as if guided by unseen hands.
It turned. It homed in.
And this time, Kilgrave wasn't fast enough.
The bullet struck center mass.
A gasp, purple blood misted the air. Kilgrave stumbled, disbelief etched across his face as he collapsed.
[Famousness from Kilgrave +135]
---
bang bang—
"Boss, are you okay?!"
Jessica Jones burst into the antique shop, Old Jack and the rest subdued and unconscious in the alley. For someone who tried to drink away her trauma with cheap whiskey in Hell's Kitchen, she was still damn effective when it mattered.
Jessica had always told herself she was done being a hero. Done with pain. Done with Kilgrave. But seeing Old Jack, a harmless local, used as a weapon by that bastard again cracked open old wounds.
She kicked the door in, expecting the worst. Instead, she found Li Ran standing amid toppled shelves, holding a pistol, motionless. A smear of violet blood painted the floor.
Her eyes widened.
Li Ran glanced at the ruined door, then at Jessica. He twitched a wry smile. "You tell me. Do I look alright?"
He'd faced off with metas, vigilantes, and once narrowly escaped crossfire during a turf war between Kingpin and the Hand. But this? Facing Kilgrave, the man who once forced Jessica to kill for him was in a different league entirely.
If not for the synergy of [Wesley Gibson]'s enhanced reflex suite and [Arc Ballistics], the ability to bend projectiles like Deadshot or Bullseye, Jessica would've walked into a crime scene, not a wounded survivor.
"You... met him?"
Jessica's voice wavered. She already knew the answer. Only one man in New York bled purple.
But Li Ran nodded anyway. "If you mean the guy in the designer purple suit with the sociopathic control kink—yeah. The blood on the floor kind of gives it away."
Jessica crouched, stared at the stain. Her voice cracked. "But how? Under his influence, people don't just... shoot him. That doesn't happen."
[Famousness from Jessica Jones +85]
She wasn't wrong. Kilgrave's psionic abilities, rooted in a rare strain of the mutated neuro-pheromonal virus he excretes were nearly absolute. His power didn't just command the mind. It rewrote the will.
"You know who he is?"
Li Ran already knew, of course, he'd scanned Kilgrave's profile via the Prayer Order System. But to maintain his cover, he feigned ignorance. "You mind filling me in? Because I'd really like to know who the hell just tried to Jedi-mind-trick me into blowing my brains out."
Jessica's jaw tensed. For a long moment, she didn't speak. Then her voice fell, icy and low.
"His name is Kilgrave. Or... the Purple Man. He's a monster. Former test subject of the Canadian branch of the Weapon Plus program. His voice isn't suggestion, it's command. He once made a mother abandon her baby on a subway track just to prove he could."
She paused. Then forced out the rest.
"He... he used me. Controlled me. For months. And I couldn't do a damn thing about it."
The shop fell silent. Only the hum of an old ceiling fan buzzed overhead.
"Anyway," Jessica exhaled. "I told you what I know. So tell me, boss... how did you resist him long enough to pull a Wanted-style curve shot into his chest?"
Li Ran looked her straight in the eye.
"Ever hear of the Assassin Brotherhood?"
Jessica blinked.
[Famousness from Jessica Jones +25]
---