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[Assistant]
Perfect Weapon - part 3
(day eighteen)
Jonathan’s life is at an end. Domino attends his funeral and, once the mourners have departed, kneels down and places a red rose on his coffin. She doesn’t feel so lucky now, not when she can’t protect the people she cares about; not when the person who used to help her get better is in a box. She thanks him for opening her eyes and helping her to focus inward instead of aimlessly wandering. He gave her a whole new perspective about who and what she is and for that she’ll always be grateful. Typical, she thinks, that she didn’t even get to the payback part.
As she stands, her mobile goes off and she answers. Siryn is on the other end, dressed in civvies and relaxing as she speaks with her old friend. She tells Domino that she’s managed to salvage a bit of information from the laptop she pulled from the fire. She says, “Ye say y’knew this Jonathan guy longer than ye knew me?” Domino replies that they did some importing and exporting. Theresa tells her that maybe she didn’t know him as well as she thought, as Jonathan was playing both sides, using her and others to ‘liberate’ precious items, only to sell those items to the highest bidder. “And that’s just the tip,” she adds as she taps away on her computer. Domino looks surprised, her face dropping as she asks if she has proof. Theresa tells her that she has e-mails, letters, files and she’ll get her hard copies. He was dirty.
This isn’t the news Domino needs right now but she knows she has to face facts. She rubs her forehead, partly in frustration, partly in disbelief and asks Theresa to go on. She reminds Domino that she had been asked to try and find Project Armageddon too. Well, she found numerous recent e-mails from someone identified only as Krusny Silyotka. Krusny is livid that that Jonathan hasn’t responded since the explosion and is doubting Jonathan’s ability to deliver the weapon at all. Coincidentally, she continues, the CD in his computer seems to be a blue map of the same operation. Domino tells her that she knows; Jonathan stole it from her. Siryn puts her feet up and informs Domino that Jonathan has 96 hours to deliver the weapon or Krusny will send his people to finish the job. Domino thinks Krusny is bluffing, for if he knew the weapon’s location, Jonathan wouldn’t have been necessary. She asks Theresa to respond and tell Krusny to be patient; all will be taken care of in the allotted time. “You’re gonna find this ‘weapon’ yerself?” asks Theresa. Domino says she was just talking to Jonathan about some payback and doesn’t have a choice anymore.
(day nineteen)
Inside the mysterious mountain, the man in the red robe sits behind a desk, looking at what appears to be a computer screen. Behind him is a huge window in the shape of a cross, just like the one on the mountainside. Three of his robed disciples bow before him, interrupting his meditation. They apologize to him, informing him they have just returned from their most holy mission. He prompts them to continue with their report. One of them tells him that they encountered the one called Domino and, as mandated, she was not harmed. Another says that her knowledge of Project Armageddon grows and she has possibly uncovered the location of the weapon. He adds that he has heard foolish doubts within their own ranks. Some think it may be unwise to allow her to live as her resourcefulness could yet jeopardize their efforts to protect society from itself. Their leader replies that this is all the more reason to allow her to continue to do their work for them. She does the labor while they reap the benefits. He asks them to tell the doubters that they are wise not to underestimate their catspaw and arrogance is a mistake they can ill afford, but so is disloyalty. His left hand is shown to be gauntleted as he watches two men prepare his costume. His skin is also flesh-colored while his disciples’ skin is a whitish/grey.
He stands with his arms outstretched in front of the large statue of Christ as the two men place a sash around his shoulders. He tells his followers that everything has gone according to plan. They have Domino and her vast resources serving their needs and the death of her associate will further her resolve. Vengeance will drive her to do the impossible. As he takes a mask, he continues to say that they will follow, capitalizing on her immaturity and her propensity for leaving loose ends. Domino will find what they seek; leading them to the door she leaves ajar, even as she passes unnoticed.
Placing the mask over his face, he continues to say that, under the guise of protecting them all, they allowed foolish hands to protect the world. Now, with those hands prepared to strike, they must reclaim what they see as the ultimate weapon. The fools would jeopardize everything for a military goal; the foundation of civilization could collapse. He reaches out and takes a sword in his uncovered hand and adds that they have searched for years at great cost and, if Domino has the skills to lead them to heir prey and gain entry without capture, they may yet succeed in saving the world. He kneels down, holding the sword vertically and asks his followers to pray for the wisdom and strength to succeed. He then stands and holds the sword out in front of him, saying that it has been foreseen that if they fail in their appointed task, their path ends in death. “Hear me Armajesuits! I swear you this - we will not fail!” Their place of worship is shown in all its grandeur, a massive church with the Christ statue dominating the room.
(day twenty)
In the Florida Everglades, an alligator swims calmly through the river before being disturbed by a swamp craft being driven determinedly by Domino as the sun sets. She is wearing some hi-tech orange goggles and her standard costume. She thinks about her mission. She wonders which frightens her more; finding the woman behind those yellow memories and faded photos, facing a weapon supposedly capable of destroying entire civilizations, or doing it all alone. As the sun drops below the horizon, she cuts the engine and coasts her way in as she reaches her destination. She is close, she can feel it. Suddenly, a voice calls her to halt and a blinding light freezes her. She removes her sunglasses and momentarily catches sight of her assailants. Her craft then explodes in a huge ball of flame and smoke, shaking the swampland.
Three soldiers dressed in black fatigues and carrying heavy artillery watch as the flames die down. They stand knee-deep in the water as one of them tells Charlie to hose it down good as the General’s going to want to see evidence, charbroiled or not. Discovering what appears to be the body of Domino he replies, “Hey, it’s a chick. Your lucky day pal!” The third soldier says that maybe they should have waited before frying her. She got lucky and what’s left of the body doesn’t look half bad. Charlie tells them to get the body back to base and get an I.D. He’ll take care of the mess. The other two place the body in their inflatable, commenting on how heavy the body is, probably due to all the muscle on her. Charlie turns as they depart; reminding them to make sure the sentries know he’s coming through in a few. He doesn’t want his butt shot off because of them.
Back at their base, a bunker in the ground with watchtowers jutting out of the top, the General is shaving and orders his assistant to answer the phone. An American flag hangs beside him. The man informs the General that there’s a minor situation. Apparently, he tells him, some local, a woman this time, has breached their perimeter and their boys used cautionary force. They recovered her body and he asks if he wants an autopsy performed. The General asks why he is being disturbed over routine details, telling him to get the body identified. “Am I surrounded by a bunch of simpletons that I need to reconfirm standing orders?” he adds. His assistant tells his caller that the General says that they are a simpleton and to take care of it. Even if the dead woman is the sister of the first lady, he tells them, do not disturb the General again. If it is the first lady, then wait until morning.
Elsewhere in the bunker, Dr. McKay prepares to perform an autopsy on Domino’s body in the Forensics Department. He grabs a pair of scissors as he mutters to himself. He isn’t happy about having to perform another autopsy in the middle of the night. Bodies tend to show up and they have to move the whole base again. He can’t wait to pack. He looks at the body. “Female. Caucasian… I think. White paint has been applied to the outer epidermis, covering the entire body. Age…approximately early-to-mid-thirties.” Suddenly, he spots something unusual and runs his finger over existing scars lining the woman’s chest. He realizes that the body has already been autopsied. The body can’t be from tonight as she’s been dead for days. He looks round and asks who’s playing the joke on him.
The real Domino appears behind him, brandishing a pistol and says that would be her. She tells him that wasn’t bad joke considering she’s a deadly killer but, before he busts a gut laughing, maybe he should take a seat and a tranquilizer. She shoots the doctor and catches him before he falls. Although he’s passed out, she tells him to think positive; after all, when the Miami morgue calls he can tell them he found their missing cadaver. She releases a grenade and destroys the laboratory. The bunker’s staff are shocked as a plume of smoke billows up the corridor.
Soldiers are quickly on the scene and Peterson orders his men to put the fire out. He asks Tolbert how the doc is and ‘he‘ replies that he’s unconscious but alive. He orders Barrymore and Willis to put out the fire while the rest of them secure the area. He wants every room, corner and shadow inspected and tells them to shoot first and forget about any questions. The doctor is dragged to safety as they do so by Domino, who is dressed just like them, impersonating Tolbert. No-one notices her as she takes the doc into another room and whips the soldier’s uniform off. “Objective one complete,” she says, “The enemy is confused and disoriented. Now to make that work for me. Secure the Armageddon weapon then see if mom is actually hanging around.”
Inside one of the bunker’s raised watchtowers, Stan and his colleague receive news about what’s happened. Stan receives a message on the radio while his friend says he has a bad feeling about this and points at the computer screens, telling him that Sector 7 just went code orange. The med center is a total wash; fire bombed and their orders are to hold their post. Stan is frustrated that they’ve been in ‘Satan’s armpit’ for six months and when something finally happens they get stuck on mosquito watch. His friend replies that he’s crazy; he’s had his share of combat experience in the special forces and asks him to trust him that it isn’t that glamorized Hollywood crap either. He’s perfectly happy to get out of there if all he has to gory about are mosquito attacks.
A footstep is heard outside and Stan’s colleague steps over to the spotlight, pointing it outside and tells Stan that he heard something. Stan replies that he’s just scared and decides to check it out, heading out of the tower and into the grassy marsh surrounding the base. His friend calls after him but Stan replies that he knows he has a bad feeling about this but he should grow a backbone. He stops and looks into the trees, which are lit only by moonlight now, and hears nothing, not even a frog croaking. He turns to taunt his colleague a little, telling him it would send shivers down his spine. “Oh wait, you ain’t got a spine, right?” he turns back and finds standing before him one of the Armajesuits wielding a sword. Stan’s colleague spots them but it’s too late for Stan. Behind the first one stand around twenty-five to thirty more of them, all armed with swords.
The General has now made his way to the operations center and is pulling a back shirt over his muscular torso as he tells Peterson, who is looking at a large screen, arms folded behind his back, that he doesn’t like being awakened in the middle of the night by an explosion in his own facility. He wants to know exactly what happened, how security was breached and who, besides Peterson himself is to be assigned to permanent sewer detail for allowing this to happen. He turns to face the General and informs him that the medical lab is on fire, the fire being a result of the blast he heard. Dr. McKay was alone when the explosion took place and was performing an autopsy on the civilian they found on the perimeter. The General asks if the doctor is alive and if he’s been questioned. Peterson salutes, replying that the doctor has momentarily disappeared. The General turns and orders Peterson to go to code red. Only essential personnel will remain in Sector 7 to control the fire. All others will be redirected to the Project Armageddon corridor. Peterson tries to tell him something but the General tells him not to wait until he has a problem to solve a problem and reminds him to give the order to “shoot to kill.”
Domino, meanwhile, has taken out more security guards and hacked her way through a computer controlled access door with the laptop she carries in her backpack. She removes the rest of the bulky soldier’s uniform, leaving her in little more than a skin-tight, black leotard. She puts on the goggles and changes their settings, turning them green which allow her to see a laser grid criss-crossing its way down the corridor in front of her and she thinks ‘bingo.’ She doesn’t hesitate for a second as she begins a gymnastic tumble, gracefully leaping, turning and pirouetting her way through the gaps in the lasers before arriving safely at the next access door. She uses the incredible strength in her legs to hold herself upside-down outside the door which has the words ‘Project Armageddon’ written boldly on it.
Okay, she thinks, what have we here? A combination lock. She changes the setting on her goggles again which allows her to see the residue of fingerprints used to open the door previously which stand out in blue. The prints allow her to narrow the code down to just a few hundred thousand possible combinations. She holds her breath and reaches out, pressing the buttons randomly and hoping lady luck will pay her a visit. She does, and the door swings open as Domino smiles, opening the door further.
In the operations center, one of the staff informs the general that the security seal to Project Armageddon has just been compromised. He becomes agitated, asking by whom. He asks where the squadrons are that he deployed to that sector and wants them there immediately. He also demands to know what’s going on at the front gate. He wants bodies, telling his men to shoot anything that moves on sight. He doesn’t know who or what has dared to enter his base but they’re not leaving.
Domino, meanwhile, enters the room and whips off her goggles. She points her gun in front of her but, as she focuses on what is inside, her eyes widen and a look of shock and surprise covers her face. Standing before her is a small child, wearing an Umbro shirt and standing in what appears to be a playroom. The child looks like a small version of Domino, complete with one black eye, who tells her “Hello.”


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[Assistant]
Perfect Weapon - part 4
(Day twenty)
Domino has found a young child who bears a striking resemblance to herself, complete with eye patch and short, black, spiky hair. She feels pretty lucky to have gotten this far. As a spy, a secret agent and even a mutant, she thought she’d seen it all but this is something completely new.
The child looks up at her as she holsters her weapon and asks her if she’s here to play, adding that she must be new as he doesn’t think he knows her. Domino is shocked that the ‘weapon’ she has been searching for is actually a child. The kid is seemingly oblivious to her intentions and, as he pulls his trainers on, asks her if she’s a doctor, as he doesn’t like doctors. Domino looks to her right and sees an array of cameras behind a window, all aimed inside the room. In the room next to them is an operating table. It doesn’t take her very long to figure out who the patient is.
She bends down and holds the child gently by the chin and asks him his name. He replies that he is called Lazarus. He likes her eye patch; just like his. She tells him that she is here to help him and asks what they’ve been doing to him. Nothing today, he replies, but lifts his top to reveal several sores on his torso. The doctors said no more until next week; that’s how long they said it would take to heal the sores. Dom is horrified, asking who it was that did this. He tells her the doctors did it; that’s why he doesn’t like them. He knows she isn’t one of them as he seems to have a kind of intuition, knowing what people are like on the inside.
Unseen by Domino, a soldier approaches from behind and holds a pistol to the back of her head, ordering her to step away from the boy. In one swift movement, Domino stands and twists, shifting the weapon away from her and Lazarus before knocking the guy to the floor with a chop to his face. Blood streams from his mouth as she pins him to the ground, twisting his wrist into a submission hold but several other soldiers arrive along with their leader, the general and his second in command, Peterson. Lazarus informs Domino that the general is the bad man who always watches when the doctors come. As she lifts herself up, she promises him they won’t hurt him anymore.
The general orders her to step away from the ‘weapon’ and put her hands where he can see them or he’ll have her shot. Peterson and another soldier aim their weapons at her, so Domino raises her arms in surrender. The General removes Dom’s pistols from the holsters. He knows who and what she is, but he’s worked too long and too hard to let some past failure waltz in and ruin things. The weapon stays there unless he says so, he declares. He aims one of the pistols at Domino’s head and tells her that she’s good; he respects that, but she stuck her nose someplace it didn’t belong. Big mistake.
A scientist behind the general interrupts him, informing him that there’s something strange about her laptop. Suddenly, the computer explodes, Domino seemingly setting it off using a tiny device hidden in her right hand. He and two soldiers are thrown clear by the localized blast and Domino uses the distraction to leap into the air, grab her weapons back and kick the general in the face as she back flips, shooting the lights out before landing next to Lazarus.
Putting her infra-red goggles on, she asks Lazarus if he likes roller coasters. He asks what a roller coaster is and she grabs him, telling him that he’s got some living to do. The soldiers fumble about in the dark as Domino tells Lazarus that there are three basic steps; you hold on firmly, close your eyes tight and pray that it’s over soon. As she speaks, she shoots the two soldiers blocking the exit before doing a forward somersault, shooting two more soldiers in mid air. She quickly heads off down a corridor, telling Lazarus that they’re getting away from this place and he feels that she’s telling the truth, knowing that she would never hurt him.
As she walks into a more open area, she is at a loss as to why they haven’t seen one single crew cut since they left the general and his boys back in the dark. Suddenly, things look a little clearer as she discovers a group of Armajesuits amongst several unfortunate soldiers on the receiving end of some punishment. Their leader, sporting the red robe, stands with them. With Lazarus clinging to her, Domino aims her pistol at the leader and says that now things are a little clearer with the altar boys having crashed the party.
Their leader greets her, having hoped they would meet under less strenuous circumstances but knowing there could be no other way. Domino asks who the hell they are and their leader replies that they are Armajesuits; keepers of harmony and they have known her for a long time. The leader comments that Domino was searching for her mother was she not? Well, Domino should look closely, as her search is over. The mask is removed and the leader of the Armajesuits is revealed to be none other than Domino’s mother. The physical resemblance between the three of them is surprising, only her mother doesn’t sport a black eye patch.
Domino, having put Lazarus down, now aims two weapons at her mother but is clearly shocked at the revelation. She is angry, telling her mother that she used her and tried to kill her. She knew she was looking for her and did nothing. Domino hopes insanity isn’t hereditary. An Armajesuit takes the mask from Dom’s mother, as Domino asks her if this is how she envisioned their reunion. Actually, it was. She asks Dom if this complex means anything to her; does she have any sense of déjà vu? Domino looks around at a couple of robed Armajesuits, who her mother has dispatched using hand signals to flank her.
Her mother begins a prolonged explanation, first saying that Domino was born here; she’s come home. Domino and the child have more in common than she thinks. Her mother is the definitive link between the two of them, because Lazarus is her son. She explains that Domino and the boy were both part of a top secret government genetics experiment. The boy was deemed a success while Domino was seen as a failure. She was artificially inseminated to produce a mutant offspring that the government could research and develop as a genetic weapon. The patch Domino wears branded her a test subject. The others all fell like dominoes, one after the other, until only she was left. They either didn’t possess the mutant gene or didn’t survive the rigors of the testing.
Domino reels as she takes all this new information in. She was an experiment? Her mother is a walking weapons factory? She has a brother? Her mother continues to explain to Domino that she was left in a catatonic state, completely shut off from the outside world. Lazarus survived as a cryo-preserved embryo, catalogued for future experiments. Finally, she couldn’t take it any more and she had the Armajesuits steal her away to a sympathetic priest in Chicago. There, she was nurtured and loved as she never would have been here. Still, Domino refused to acknowledge the world around her. It wasn’t until her mutant powers began to manifest themselves that she finally awakened from her state. Soon after, she ran away in fear of her mutant abilities.
Domino, still aiming her pistol at her and now holding Lazarus again, says to her mother that she knew all this, yet never tried to contact her? She replies that Domino was a failure. She was supposed to visualize the future as she does. Instead, she relies on luck and so was therefore of no use to her. “Let me guess,” says Domino, “That’s why you’re here for the boy. He’s  useful.” Her mother replies that the boy is the future; that is why the child, her brother, must not be allowed to live.
Domino disagrees, saying the kid leaves with her. Her mother points her gloved finger at her, saying that Domino doesn’t understand. There’s no negotiation; she birthed the child and knows exactly what it is, what exactly it will become. If allowed to live, this seemingly innocent child will bring death and destruction the likes of which the world has ever known. He must and will be destroyed. “Over my dead body,” replies Domino.
Her mother reaches over her head and unsheathes her sword, which is fastened to her back, as one of her followers approaches Domino from behind. Suddenly, the general appears and shoots the Armajesuit in the back. He enters the room, followed by more soldiers. He tells Domino’s mother, Beatrice, that she gave a nice speech; lengthy, but then overly dramatic narration was always her speciality. He is surprised she didn’t tell Domino the rest. “Tell it you served as a voluntary government uterus; how you were institutionalized with dementia, before she escaped, and drifted into your traitorous little cult, killing your way up to leader.” He tells her she is a freak, and the only thing human about her offspring is the method of birth. They are government weapons, the perfect weapons; his weapons!
Beatrice holds her sword up, telling him he has no idea what will happen, what the child will do. Without flinching, the general shoots her, saying that’s where she is wrong. He knows exactly what it’ll do. Seeing her mother shot, Domino swiftly moves into action, shooting the general in his shoulder as she evades a return shot from him. He says that he should have had her drowned as soon as she gestated. Now on the floor with Lazarus, Domino fires another shot at the general but an Armajesuit gets in the way, his sword splitting the general’s pistol in two as Domino fires continuously with both pistols.
The Armajesuits and soldiers struggle against each other as Domino grabs Lazarus again in the commotion. “Pain, the hate, the mistrust. It’s so clear to me now, my gift, my reason for being…” Lazarus has realized what he must do and, surrounded by a strange haze, he floats a couple of feet into the air and holds his head, shouting that he wants everyone to stop hurting each other. Everyone suddenly ceases their hostilities and understands. Beatrice, having survived the shot, grabs her sword and stands up.
Domino appears unconcerned about her mother surviving Lazarus’s actions. Where everybody has become incapacitated, she and her mother remain unaffected. Domino remembers having discovered something interesting while browsing Professor Xavier’s library once. Shared bloodlines will sometimes act as a filter, producing immunities between close relations. Mutation is no different. A mutant mother is oftentimes exempt from her child’s mutant power. Fortunately for Domino, siblings can share the immunity as well.
Beatrice tells Domino that what she has just witnessed is just a small sample of his power. Lazarus is a weapon, one that can influence minds and manipulate decisions. He is a weapon more dangerous than anything ever unleashed upon the world. War would end, religion would collapse; a new savior will have descended upon the Earth. Nothing comes without a cost and it is because of this that her son must die. As she raises her sword, Domino cries, “Don’t!” Her mother is determined to kill Lazarus. She says that mankind would be mindless vegetables, addicted to the false tranquillity that would cloud its every thought and emotion. Domino aims her pistol at her and tells her to put the blade down; she doesn’t want to shoot her. Beatrice tells her that the future is clear. She refuses to allow it to come to pass; this is the only way. Domino tells her that she can’t make that decision but her mother replies that she has and it is now time for Domino to make her own. She does.
Domino shoots and Beatrice is thrown to the ground as her sword shatters. Lazarus wakes from a kind of self-induced trance and asks what’s happened. She tells him the decision’s been made; it’s over. She takes him in her arms once again and looks around at the soldiers and Armajesuits who stand still, remaining in Lazarus’s thrall. Domino tells him that the sleeping beauties will be waking up soon, so they should leave before his effect completely fades. One Armajesuit begins to come round and Domino shoots him as she runs.
The general also begins to clear his head but the repercussions of Lazarus’s power are serious. “Why? Why did I have to know?” he mutters to himself as Domino kicks her way through the room. She reaches a helicopter and starts it up, asking Lazarus not to touch anything. She doesn’t need any more distractions right now.
As the chopper rises from the ground, one Armajesuit leaps towards it, crying, “No! Don’t leave us!” A soldier says he’s lost the peace. He seems confused. The hangar bay doors are closed so Domino fires the machine guns at it and flies the helicopter to freedom. Back inside, the general asks one of his soldiers to hand him his sidearm. Without even looking up, he takes the weapon and points it behind his ear. “I can’t go back; I can’t un-feel.” He fires the pistol, killing himself instantly.
Domino pilots the helicopter back to civilization. She has lost much in this life; memories, friends and now, her mother. Today, however, she has found something she didn’t even know was missing; herself. She smiles as Lazarus sleeps on her lap.
(Chicago)
At the Church of the Sacred Heart, Father Rudolpho Boschelli stands before a huge sculpture of the Madonna and child. Domino leads Lazarus inside, hand in hand, and tells the priest that he does not know her, but this child is in need of him. She asks him not to ask any questions concerning his origins. He should simply find it in his heart to care for him as he has cared for so many others.
Lazarus approaches him and Father Boschelli tells Domino that, years ago, a woman approached him with an identical request. That woman’s eyes spoke of pain and despair, as if she knew all the sorrows of the world and was powerless to relieve them. He bends down on one knee and strokes the boy’s hair. He says that the child was a blessing, as all of god’s children are, but she ran away. He has often prayed that she found whatever it was she sought. He looks up, but Domino has gone. Some things never change, he thinks as he wishes her god speed.
(Day forty-nine)
Domino, looking relaxed and dressed in comfortable clothes, sits on Jonathan’s gravestone and talks to him. She says he betrayed her, used her and lied to her. He gave her every excuse imaginable to turn what she once felt for him into unbridled hate; but she can’t hate him. All she can remember is all he had done for her and the way she felt about him. She may never understand what he did and, to be perfectly honest, she doesn’t really want to know. All she knows is that her eyes are now open. Life is a chance that you have to take, filled with decisions you make and consequences you live with. She places a rose on his gravestone. She’s taken her chance and for the first time, she doesn’t think her powers had anything to do with it. She says her goodbyes, and wishes him the best of luck.
At the church, during the night, the door to Lazarus’s room opens and he wakes up, rubs his eyes and grabs hold of Beatrice, who has come to collect him. She holds her sword in her other hand. “In my eyes, there is no such thing as chance,” she says with sorrow.


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[Assistant]
Relax and Be Replaced
Mutopia:Xavier’s school:Sitting in the Cerebro unit, nose bleeding from the psychic strain, Charles Xavier holds two guns to his head. He’ll say this only once, Cassandra! Get out of his head or he fires! Moments later, he has killed himself.
X years later:Club Morlox where the cool mutants meet:At a table Barnell Bohusk aka Beak sits with two young women who flirt with him. One of them admires his X-Men jacket. She loves his shirt, she continues (on it an arrow pointing downwards). It’s very instructive. Beak realizes this may be his lucky night. “Listen up, you spoiled undeserving brats!” someone shouts. Dammit, blocked again, Beak sighs. Sorry ladies, duty calls.
The caller is one of several armored and armed U-Men who have entered the club. Look at them, all those amazing powers and abilities! They’ve been handed the world on a plate and what have they done with their genetic gifts? They have squandered them on cheap thrills and bacchanalia. And proven themselves unworthy of their Doom-given gifts.
Now they, the worthy, the patient, have come to take them from them. They’re not here for their lives, they are here for their talents.
While Beak is holding his hands up like the others, he grabs a metal rod with his foot.
If nobody moves, they will make this as quick and painless as possible. Resist them and they’ll boil them alive in their own skin.
The U-Men begin to attack and mutilate the helpless mutants. Beak is about to hit one of them when the rod suddenly flies out of his grasp and, seemingly out of its own volition, hits a U-Man several times till his faceplate breaks. Then it flies into the hand of the person responsible. “To me, my X-Men!” Magneto shouts and orders his team of young X-Men (Angel Salvadore, Martha Johansson, Quentin Quire, Ernst, Basilisk, Dust and Glob Herman) to attack.
Quentin telepathically forces the U-Men to turn their guns on themselves. Hardcore! Basilisk chuckles while Dust lectures him that rejoicing at the loss of any life is shameful. What if they just break their legs? Basilisk asks. Can he laugh at that?
Glob Herman squeezes one U-Man’s head even as he begs for mercy. Mercy? Magneto scoffs and uses chains to throttle the last fleeing U-Men. This is his mercy.
Beak flinches. And Angel tells him to stop being such a wuss. She thought he liked death metal. Murder and chains. That’s different, he replies. And don’t think for one moment she can’t smell that trampy perfume on him, she laughs.
That moment, Cyclops and Emma Frost, neither in particularly good shape, arrive. Cyclops orders the “children” to stand aside. Help has arrived. He begins to shout orders at the White Queen who receives some mental feedback sounding like… laughter.
Behind the times as always, Mr. Summers, Magneto remarks amused. His X-Men begin mocking Cyclops and Emma. Quentin remarks they’ve been here for hours. Was Cyclops busy getting last place in an aerobics championship? They couldn’t find their legwarmers, Basilisk chuckles. Angel tells Emma that Pat Benatar called. She says she is a thousand years old. On the plus side, it looks like the surgeons were finally able to remove her self-respect, Dust snarks.
Emma turns into her diamond shape and snaps that she suspects Dust isn’t wearing a hijab due to modesty but because she is hideous. She tries to mindprobe her. Furious, Sooraya turns into dust and attacks Emma. Scott tries to stop her with a weak optic blast.
Ah, the petty bickering, Magneto tuts. No wonder Cyclops and Charles never accomplished anything. He will not allow them to set such an example for his students. Leave! he orders.
Another day at the Xavier Memorial Education Nexus aka the Atom Institute:Magneto and Quentin Quire walk past some students outside, a gifted human composer and a mutant who will play his work with his special appendages.
Quentin observes that the composer is a flatscan. Isn’t he?So long as they are absolutely exceptional, Magneto reminds him, they care not what species they are from. Is he practicing for a press conference? Quentin mocks. The school is over 90 percent mutants. It’s only natural, Magneto agrees They are Homo superior after all. But, in order to move forward, the entire world must acknowledge and come to embrace their superiority of their free will. He wasted decades trying to set mutants apart from humankind. What was he thinking? Quentin tells him not to be so hard on himself. It’s not his fault he is so old.
Magneto tells him what he is going show him he hasn’t shown anyone yet. He trusts Quentin. As a matter of fact, he reminds him of himself. He leads Quentin to a secret room. His actual children have all been disappointments so far. Quentin he has faith in.
He continues that when Charles killed himself, he was in mental contact with Jean Grey, the ideal female form and container of the Phoenix Force. The psychic feedback knocked her into a coma. He shows him an egg-like cocoon in which a female shape rest. She… it has been like that ever since. But with Quentin’s help, not for much longer.
Mutopia Medical Center:A couple visits one Dr. Henry McCoy with the wish that their child become a mutant. They complain their neighbors’ child is a mutant and the child is already designing quantum storage architecture at the age of seven. A human baby can’t compete with that. They just want their child to have a chance.
Hank understands but warns them life for a mutant is not all peaches and daisies. He can barely put on his pants with his paws, much less hold a pencil or type. Secondary mutations are unpredictable. For all he knows, their neighbor’s child might turn into a puddle of quantum goo at the age of 16.
Hank examines the husband’s sperm and finds several sperms carrying the X-gene. Just a decade ago, only one man in twenty had any sperm with the X-gene. This year he has yet to identify a single fertile man without one. Doom’s law: evolution itself is evolving.
The woman asks if he can tell what sort of abilities it will have. Anything from being able to fly or stop time to being born with no bones and a constant life in anguish. There’s just no way to tell.
Outside the Atom Center, Beak and Angel watch their kids at play. Angel asks if he got numbers from the girls last night. He is embarrassed but she continues she was thinking the right one was hot. She also liked the other one with… She shouts at one of their kids. He defends himself his sister hit him. The girl claims No-Girl did it. Don’t give her that No-Girl nonsense! Angel replies. Face down in the dirt for the two. Ten minutes!
Beak wonders where they are getting it from. He hasn’t thought about No-Girl in years. Was it all a joke or did they actually believe in her? Angel muses. She can’t remember.
In their bedroom at the mostly abandoned Xavier Institute, Emma asks Scott if this is about Jean. Scott denies it and muses he doesn’t even know what he saw in her. Other than everything. Maybe it was just the hair. How many redheads did he end up marrying anyway? Who could possibly care about any of that? Emma teases. Not him. Not anymore, he admits. Since the professor died, they’ve made so much progress. He feels like he’s betraying Charles’ dream for not embracing it. But he also feels he’d be betraying Charles if he ever sided with Magneto.
Emma laughs. He sounds like a punk kid who’s depressed his favorite underground band became popular. He’s got a fabulous woman with diamond skin and he can shoot lasers from his eyes. How bad could it be?
He confides the one blast last night, when he freed her from Sooraya, took everything out of him. It feels like it will take him another day to recharge. And technically they are not lasers. They are optic— She interrupts she has an idea. She orders him to look at the TV and think about turning it on. He does and succeeds. On her orders, he manages to change the channels. Is she doing that? Emma tells him he’s doing that. She is just giving his neurons a push to figure out how. He tries changing channels until they hear a human complaining about human kids not having any chance against mutant freaks. Disgusted, Scott turns off the TV. He jokes he bets that guy would be worried he’s going to put remote control factories out of business. Emma chides him he is thinking too small. This could put everyone out of business.
The Atom Institute:In the Danger Room, the students stand in a line as Magneto addresses them, telling them they are here because they are the best of the best. Exceptional. The smartest, fastest, strongest, most creative, most talented people the world has to offer. The most amazing beings who have ever walked this earth. And their children will make them look like simpletons. Humanity has its head in the sand. Most of them are unable or unwilling to admit their time at the top of the food chain is over. But they must ever be vigilant. When the human race realizes it has been supplanted, there will be panic. Some will roll over and die and others will react like trapped animals. And attack.
The Danger Room scenario begins. The students face armed angry humans. Quentin orders Dust to set up a sand screen to blind them. The humans switch to infrared. Like they practiced, Quentin instructs the Cuckoos, who scoff they don’t need his instructions.
They connect the young X-Men psychically to every grain of sand from Dust and they see in 360 degrees. Angel and Beak realize the soldiers are almost on top of them. Angel throws up acid to attack one of them, while Beak hits the other.
The Cuckoos fall down, exhausted from the strain. They almost have this wrapped up, Quentin announces. Calling Basilisk “Cyclops,” he orders him to take the last one. He hesitates first then takes the last soldiers out and informs Quentin that name is not gonna stick.
The session is over. Glob Herman tells Basilisk that “Cyclops” is cool, retro even. He doesn’t want the same name as an old doofus. Even if he has a wife that’s always half-naked.
The Cuckoos are exhausted. Magneto is pleased that Quentin is pushing the team hard.
Later at Harry’s Hideaway:A strangely tall Logan sits hunched at the counter. A man asks if he is the Wolverine, then remarks that whoever gave him that name musta been blind ‘cause he looks like a freakin’ owl. His buddy laughs and tells him to spin his head round.
Logan unsheathes his claws and points out it ain’t the hairdo that gave him the name. Anyway, the man looks like this bottle. He cuts it apart, despite his claws hurting his hand. And if he keeps mouthing off, he’ll look like that bottle.
Geez! the horrified men reply Someone makes a joke and his first instinct is to murder? If he weren’t like eight feet tall, they’d say he got a serious Napoleon complex. What is the deal with that anyway? Was his secondary mutation just a growth spurt? He’ll have them know his secondary mutation is his ability to get wasted, he retorts.
Scott Summers congratulates him, then tells him to shake it off. It’s Magneto time. Logan swears at him. Scott warns him to be careful. His finger hasn’t healed yet. An optic blast to the face wouldn’t be pretty. How many people’s wives will he get to sleep with, if he looks like Freddy Krueger?
Logan calls his bluff. Scott’s optic blasts are as shot as his healing factor. He couldn’t even give him a suntan. Scott protests he certainly could. He’ll make him look like George Hamilton. Who needs Sentinels when skin cancer will do, eh? Logan remarks. Cyclops sits down at the counter and gets a beer. What are they doing here? Logan wonders. Magneto again? Why? He won fair and square. Scott reveals he’s got Jean locked up inside. They got a man on the inside. Dammit! Logan swears.
The basement of the Atom Institute:Magneto leads Esme to his secret room, claiming he has never shown it to anyone but he trusts her. As a matter of fact, she reminds him of his wife Magda. Sealed within this egg, growing, evolving, lies whatever is left of the Phoenix.
When does he think she’ll come out? Esme asks. Magneto points out they have no idea what will emerge. For this egg to hatch, it will require a psychic father and mother.
Meanwhile, in District X, a man makes his way through the streets, stumbling and falling several times, until he drags himself to a doorway. He speaks into the speaker phone: “Hank… it’s me.”
Inside, Hank McCoy realizes the voice is familiar. He jumps down to the door to find a very dead human-looking Hank McCoy.
Elsewhere, Cyclops, Emma and Wolverine wander through a forest. Wolverine complains about them being cagey, about how they’ll get their powers back. The High Evolutionary is at the top of this hill? Scott replies, if they told him, he’d never have come along. Don’t make him regret this Logan grumbles. Emma observes the fact Logan can’t smell where they are going makes her think his powers have ebbed even further.
They reach a ridge and below is the U-Men’s headquarters. Two U-Men surprise them but don’t panic. After all, it’s only the old X-Men. Classic X-Men, Cyclops corrects them. He thinks “old” is right, Logan remarks.
Cyclops does something to his visor and orders the U-Men to take the guns out of their face and take them to the man in the mask. The men obey. Simple hypnosis, he explains to Logan. Better than a remote control, Emma remarks.
They open the prison cell to find a chained Xorn inside. Which one of them has come to take his place? he asks.


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[Assistant]
X vs X
U-Men Base:Via a screen, the U-Men look at their new prisoners – Cyclops, Emma Frost and Wolverine – who just traded places with Xorn. Their leader angrily asks them why they traded Xorn for three washed up has-been mutants. None of this make sense, he mumbles. Everything is happening so fast. He can’t even remember how he got here this morning… What the hell is happening to his mind?
Aw nuts! he swears, as the illusion fades and he sees his three teammates as prisoners.
The base explodes a moment later, while the X-Men and Xorn walk away. They mind explaining any of that to him? Wolverine asks. Their psychic shields are amateurish, Emma explains. As the U-Men were siphoning energies from Xorn to power their headquarters, he was slowly corrupting their dampening devices to the point where Emma could detect him. And Xorn is? Logan asks. He is a healer, the man in the iron mask informs him. With a skull mask? Logan demands. Can’t have the alpha without the omega, Xorn replies cryptically.
He takes Wolverine’s and Cyclops’ hands and states he senses a strange unnatural blockage within each of them. Describe their problems more fully, so he can seek out their root cause.
Cyclops explains his optic blasts are super weak and they are recharging so slowly. He used to be capable of blasts so powerful they could knock down vault doors one after another. Now it takes him days to recharge after one blast.
Wolverine reveals his healing factor is shot. He should be able to recover from any injury in a matter of minutes. Not so much now. His friggin’ fingertips haven’t grown back after twelve hours.
And mostly she’s just bored, Emma claims.
District X:Hank McCoy examines the man who broke down in front of his door - another non-mutated version of himself. Since the fingerprints are different, it cannot be him from the past, he reasons to himself. He then recalls that, even before he gained his fur, his hands were huge, whereas the hands of this Hank are of a normal size. The DNA test confirms the body is a human Hank McCoy.
Night time at the Atom Institute:The Stepford Cuckoo Esme, who shares a bed with Magneto, wakes up crying ‘no’, then she shakes Magneto awake. She shouts she had a nightmare, a vision! Ms. Frost and Mr. Summers are gathering allies and they are coming here! Rubbing his eyes, Magneto assures her Summers wouldn’t have the nerve.
The next moment, an optic blast shatters the wall and in step Cyclops and his team. Cyclops announces they know he is keeping Jean Grey hostage and has been using her to block their powers. He demands he hand her over or they will destroy everything he built brick by brick.
He is so pathetic! a voice announces. He turns around to see Magneto’s team of young X-Men (Dust, Martha Johansson, Basilisk, Angel, Beak and Glob Herman). Ready to destroy the future to recapture their past, Dust continues.
Cyclops faces Basilisk and misses. He realizes he may have his powers back but they are rusty. Wolverine jumps in front of Scott, facing Basilisk’s blasts and giving Scott an opening that he uses to take out Basilisk.
Glob grabs Wolverine and tries to suffocate him against his gelatinous body. Emma mentally takes him out in return. The Cuckoos announce it’s a shame Xorn couldn’t cure her terrible haircut. She tries to talk to them. Using their powers, they tell her they are her worst nightmare. A reminder of her former glory. She’ll never be as young or pretty again. Emma screams under the psychic assault.
Quentin joins them and announces he wants to help with the psychic assault. He kneels down next to Emma and asks if the mean quintuplets are ganging up on her. That’s not very fair, is it? He actually restores Emma. Not fair at all they both shout. Together they strike and the Cuckoos realize Quentin betrayed them. In disbelief, Esme asks he chose Emma over her? He deliberately tricked them into overextending themselves earlier. Quentin agrees. Knocking out the Cuckoos was the only way to get a psychic signal to Scott and Emma without them noticing. He is the better psychic and now she is going to tell him everything about Magneto’s plans for the Phoenix Egg. Whether she wants to or not.
The others are still fighting. Cyclops tries to reason, then uses his new power to manipulate Beak, who hits Martha Johansson’s glass container. Xorn gently lifts her up, heals her and puts the brain in Glob Herman’s gelatinous body, so they can heal together. He answers to her psychic questions that they may be adversaries but will never be enemies.
Quentin is with the Phoenix Egg. Magneto walks in announcing he trusted Quentin. And he trusted him, Quentin replies, until he saw Magneto had a woman chained up in his secret basement.
That egg is not a woman, Magneto scoffs. That egg is the key to mutant supremacy! With it he can – they can— Quentin interrupts he already ripped his schemes from Esme’s mind. He’s used the Phoenix Egg to pump the student body full of Mutant Growth Hormone! He used it to inhibit the old X-Men’s powers and fill them with doubt! He knows his insane plan to use Quentin and Esme as psychic foster parents to prematurely hatch the egg! And finally, he knows Magneto and Esme have been sleeping together. Although Magneto should probably know she thinks he lacks Quentin’s youthful vigor.
A metallic tentacle impales Quentin. He dares speak to him as a rival? Magneto scoffs. An equal? Quentin thinks he could operate at his level? He is the master of magnetism. The superior Homo superior!
The dying Quentin chuckles weakly. He calls Magneto an idiot and reveals he already bonded himself to the egg. What has he done? Magneto demands.
The Phoenix Egg rumbles. Magneto panics, then hears the Phoenix song call to him. He is ready. His destiny!
He turns around when Xorn announces that death is the destiny of all men. And that is what he will surely find if he embraces the egg. He didn’t think this through, did he? Magneto mocks. A man in an iron mask versus him. He might as well have come here with a gun aimed at his temple. He crushes Xorn’s mask and the star inside his head is freed.
Realizing he is a worthy opponent, Magneto suggests Xorn join him, together they can use the Phoenix egg to protect the mutant race. Xorn stresses he is neither his foe nor his ally. Nobody can control what is inside that Phoenix egg. He senses there is more to it than either of them can anticipate. He will destroy it and him if he has to.
Elsewhere, Cyclops assures the young X-Men they are just here to save Jean. Their teammate Quentin told him that his estranged wife is a prisoner here in some cosmic egg. Magneto has probably been using her power to pit them against each other for years.
Dust points out his argument would be more compelling if he weren’t just caught trying to hypnotize them into believing they were being manipulated. He comes into their school in the middle of the night shooting lasers— Optic blasts, he corrects her automatically. This is why he never accomplishes anything, she tells him. Who even knows if his wife is actually here?
Esme reveals there is the Phoenix egg but she’s got full faith in what Erik is doing with it. Has he ever led them astray? Unlike that bald cripple who chose suicide over facing reality.
She’s invalidating her argument right there by resorting to mean-spirited, ad hominem attacks, she is admonished by Beast who sits at the widow. Some days he’d give his right eye to wake up bald.
Oh great, another grandpa! Esme scoffs. Scott thought Hank retired. Hank thought so too until a human version of himself showed up dead at his doorstep. His less handsome counterpart died from some unknown viral strain. This strain seems to be in the air all around them and seems to be drawn to the Atom Institute. Logic would dictate this too is connected to the Phoenix egg they are all so upset about. Now what say they all find that egg, put opinions aside and—
That moment, there is a detonation and they see Magneto and Xorn battling for the Phoenix egg.
Hank admits this is bad. Jean! Scott and Logan shout. Typical, Emma groans disgusted. Esme finds it beautiful and Angel and Beak worry about their kids.
Xorn senses something in the Phoenix egg and probes. There is more to this. Not just Grey, but black and white. Surrender is the answer, he decides and is sucked into the Phoenix Egg.
Magneto stands there confused until the Phoenix egg falls on him and squashes him.
Quentin awakes with a gasp. The egg has stopped crackling and Hank figures it has gone dormant. There is no great power to be derived from this. Looks like Magneto was wrong after all. No, my handsome friend, Magneto was right, comes a familiar voice. They turn to face an army of Beasts from different realities.


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[Assistant]
Supernova
Are these words from the past?It started with Charles Xavier and his sister Cassandra battling each other in the womb.
Years later, sitting in Cerebra, Charles Xavier finds himself about to be possessed by Cassandra Nova. He threatens to shoot himself if she doesn’t withdraw.
In another room, Hank McCoy worries about Jean Grey, who suddenly seems dizzy. Jean assures Hank she’s fine. Her alarm clock didn’t wake her and the whole day has felt off. She senses something wrong with the professor. He orders her out of his mind, even as he fires a bullet into his head. Too late! Cassandra Nova leers. Mind-linked to Xavier, Jean’s mental form fries.
On the astral plane, Charles, dressed in a white version of his X-uniform, grieves for what he has inadvertently done to Jean. Jean now as a child tells him it’s all right. It will be time to wake up again soon. Charles asks where they are. A cosmic egg, she explains. It’s where Phoenixes always go when they die. But he is not supposed to be here and neither is his sister. She points to another direction. Where Cassandra Nova is, dressed in black.
Cassandra smirks and warns Jean she should be very afraid. Charles orders Jean to stay behind him. He tells Cassandra it’s over. Their bodies are dead and they are just psychic ghosts now. She’s always been a psychic ghost, Cassandra reminds him. Her body was just a formality. She did plan to take over him and ruin his precious plan of mutant / human harmony, but this is so much better. So much power gestating here. All hers to control. His dream is meaningless. She’ll ruin everything! Xavier warns her he’ll kill her again before she is born, like last time.
It was like this for years, a secret war raging in the egg. The black and the white for the soul of the Grey.
The present:Guess who won? Jean Grey dressed in a black Phoenix outfit smirks to the gathered X-Men.
Charles Xavier, in Quentin Quire’s body, warns that Cassandra Nova now has all of his telepathic abilities plus—
Cyclops interrupts that he can handle this. He tells Jean he knows she is still in there. They still share their psychic rapport. They are still technically married.
Emma wants to intervene but Xavier tells her this might work.
Scott urges her she can do this. Come home! Ha! Cassandra laughs and disintegrates him, to Xavier’s and Emma’s horror.
Cassandra tells Xavier she has slaughtered his favorite son and taken control of his star pupil. No one is safe from the judgment of the Phoenix!
Knowing that Xavier can only protect a limited number from her, she switches the Cuckoos, Dust, Basilisk and several of the Beasts to her side. This is his nightmare! she gloats. Welcome to the Black Bug World! The order where his pitiful life never mattered.
He vows he will stop her and orders his X-Men to hold the line while he fights this battle on the psychic plane. The former body of Quentin Quire is his anchor. Protect it at all costs!
Glob Herman finds himself attacked from the inside, by Martha’s brain, which Xorn put inside him for healing. The resurrected Beasts go for Wolverine and try to guilt-trip him. Logan announces he made his peace with what he does. He unsheathes his claws. And what he does ain’t pretty. He doesn’t mind killing somebody twice.
Holding his visor, Emma grieves she really loved Scott. She hopes he knew, even if she was incapable of showing it. The possessed Dust attacks her with a sandstorm. Emma doesn’t even defend herself, not knowing what she has to fight for.
Angel and Beak’s kids are also possessed. At least they are relatively harmless, their parents figure, until the kids find some weapons…
The possessed surviving Cuckoos confront Beast and goad him to kill them, like he killed Esme. Kill them before they kill him! Hank screams.
The possessed Basilisk addresses Ernst. He knows about her secret crush on him. She denies it. He’s always known. Casandra is just making him say it out loud. She’s gonna hurt her the worst. Hyuk! He fires an eyeblast at himself, much to her horror.
Cassandra Nova gloats that the X-Men are losing and tells Charles to surrender to the Black. Wolverine announces he has a plan. Fighting Cassandra, Xavier replies some problems can’t be solved with his claws. Just read his damn mind, Logan orders. Why does he think he can get through to Jean when Scott did not? Xavier demands. ‘Cause he never stopped loving her! is the reply, and they are out of other options. Xavier agrees. He decides to shed this body and occupy Logan’s mind. Now they are truly Weapon X.
They face Cassandra / Phoenix. Finally his Hail Mary, Cassandra mocks. How disappointing. She is Mummudrai. She is Phoenix! She is the death of all things. There is no possible attack that could stop her. She calls them fools.
This isn’t an attack, Wolverine replies and kisses her. Jean’s personality begins to stir.
Xavier informs Cassandra that she never won anything. They fought to a standstill inside the Phoenix egg but he knew he needed help. He knew he needed his students… his family. His real family.
Confused Jean asks what’s going on. No time, Logan replies and asks her to read his mind. Only one thing left to do. He unsheathes his claws. She loves him too, Jean replies and mimics claws with her telekinesis.
Together, the X-Men always save the world, Xavier announces as he stabs Cassandra on the astral plane, while Jean and Logan stab each other in reality. No matter what the sacrifice!
District X:The couple that asked Dr. McCoy for a mutant baby find out they are expecting a child. She announces, if Dr. McCoy did it, they are going to be proud parents of a mutant baby. What’s wrong? He is looking outside the window and remarks there were some fireworks outside the city… They should name the baby James if it’s a boy. What if they have a girl? she asks. She always liked the name Jean…
At the site of the former Atom Institute, Xorn rises, a Phoenix rising where his head should be. Balance is restored, he announces. Only Grey remains.


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[Assistant]
I know how you feel
Nina McCabe kneels over the body of her dead father, blaming Elektra for his death. She calls Elektra a murderer, before picking up a piece of wood to attack her with. Elektra defends herself, but the arrival of a police car brings the fight to a quick halt and Nina returns to her father. A large metal pike sticks out of his torso. Elektra tries to apologize, but Nina tells her that she’s evil. Her father never hurt anyone. Two officers step out of the patrol car and order them to freeze, but Elektra doesn’t want to stick around.
She leaps onto a fire escape and disappears into the night, as questions run through her mind. Who primed her nemesis, her assassin Bullseye, so that he knew so much about her? What lies in his apartment? What ineluctable law of physics or psychology makes shoving your boot through a solid door so therapeutic? The door crumbles under Elektra’s strength, and she enters the seemingly empty apartment. It’s like walking into a museum where she is the only exhibit. There are photographs of her, clothes, letters and other items scattered around. How dare they raid her life like this?
She picks up a photo of herself standing between her father and Stavros. She recalls how Stavros helped make the necklace she has picked up; later torn from her papa’s neck. She senses movement behind her and quickly leaps into action, raising her sai above her head. It swings at her opponents, but slides right through them. Elektra realizes that they are perfect Elektra holograms. She laughs at the thought of fighting herself; the real deep-down soul-deep enemy? She imagines how months of training with these ghost Elektras gave Bullseye his ability to read and predict her every move.
As she looks at one of them, a figure exits the room, a man in a mask and cape. Elektra follows him as he runs through the streets, leaping from building to building with ease.
(elsewhere)
Nina McCabe, a sixteen year-old redhead, has tears streaming down her cheeks as she is rushed through a hospital corridor on a trolley. A member of staff tries to reassure her that everything’s gonna be okay, and that they’re gonna give her something to make her feel better. Nina replies that she doesn’t want to feel better. She can still see in her mind’s eye her father with the metal pike perforating his body.
Meanwhile, Elektra trails the man to a club across town. A party is going on inside and the dancers are moving to the sounds of the Prodigy’s Firestarter. As she steps through the doorway, a voice calls to her, almost sounding English, asking her to join him. She finds the mask and cape on the floor. The man informs her that the masked man has gone, but the chap behind all this, the Architect, is on his way. She grabs him by the collar and demands to know what an architect has to do with this. The man smiles back at her. “Not an architect… The Architect,” he tells her.
He explains that the Architect is older than the Ancient One, and he hedges his bets under a starry firmament of names. He is the center of the fire… lord of treachery and illusions… master of snakes and ladders. A woman interjects, informing Elektra that he makes them speak. They are his loyal puppets. The Architect is gathering assassins, psycho-killers and riders of the dark way, like Bullseye. He calls them to New York to battle for an honorable prize, she adds. The man tells Elektra that she proved herself by defeating Bullseye. “And we gave him all the help we could,” adds another man.
Elektra grabs this man by the neck and lifts him from his seat. She asks what they’re talking about. Who gave Bullseye her father’s necklace? Does this Architect know who killed her father? The guy replies that he is coming. Through the fire he does travel. In fire he was fashioned. The shining one. The glowing one. Elektra looks around to see flames inside the club up to the ceiling. They seemed to have come from nowhere and everywhere. People; automatons, stand there oblivious to their fate, but Elektra knows that she must escape the inferno. She runs from the club and gets clear, before turning to see the figure of a man standing in the doorway, enveloped by flames, watching her.
(later)
The streets are abandoned. Elektra’s mind races with thoughts of her father and the gathering storms. She wishes, in a rare moment of weakness, that she had someone to talk to – someone she could be open with. Someone she could be silly and childish and honest to. She thinks of King Lau and McKinley Stewart, but doesn’t feel right burdening them. She thinks about Stick, but he is her mentor, not her friend. Wolverine’s face appears in her thoughts. He has enough on his plate, but Matt Murdock? There was a time, once, a long time ago, but time passes and things change.
She walks to Karine’s bar and wishes she could just walk in there, order a beer and find a nice under-achieving boyfriend to laugh and dance with. She could forget about death and duty, about redemption, and about a fire-starting Architect. She continues on to the dojo and hesitates outside its window before entering. Stewart and Lau rush to her, thankful that she is all right. Stewart asks about Bullseye. Elektra replies that he has been dealt with. Lau asks what that means, but she only replies that he’s out of the picture. She asks about Rat. Stewart explains that he’s critical but stable. Bullseye did a real number on him. Lau asks her to sit down. They’ll fix her something to eat and get some hot water to clean her wounds. She looks like she’s gone twenty rounds. She replies that she’ll just go straight to bed. The wounds will heal themselves.
Liar, she thinks. Why can she not accept their help? she thinks. Another voice in her head reminds her it’s because she can’t allow them to get too close. She’s already almost got them killed. She feels her body about to give in, but remains upright and strong. She asks them to check the news to see if there was a fire last night near the Bowery. She then asks to be woken at first light, which is only two hours away. She begins to tell them that she needs to help a girl that she has to find but, as she speaks, her head feels faint and she collapses into McKinley Stewart’s arms. He asks why she has to put on that show for them. King Lau has a feeling that it’s as much for herself. They’ll let her sleep for as long as she needs. Stewart thinks she feels to light – like she’s gonna break up in his arms.
(later, at the hospital)
Nina lies recovering in bed, pretending to be asleep, as her grandparents and a couple of police officers look on. The grandparents explain to the cops that Nina’s father couldn’t cope and went to pieces when his wife passed away from leukemia in her early forties. They will look after now, and bring her up just like they brought up her mother. A female officer tells Nina, despite pretending to be asleep, that when she feels well enough, they’d like to ask her some questions.
Nina’s mind runs through her father’s death over and over. She recalls the time, four months ago, when she heard the news about her mother, the funeral that followed and her father telling her that they were broke from the medical expenses. He told her that they’d have to live with her grandparents in New York for a while. They mean well, her father used to say.
Her grandfather informs the officer that they’ll let him know as soon as she’s ready to talk. Her grandmother thinks she’ll get better one they get home and they give her plenty of loving. The officer’s leave the ward. “Poor kid,” remarks the female officer. “Yeah,” replies her colleague, “Seeing your own father killed.” She looks back at Nina. “That too.”
Elektra wonders what she can do to stop Nina from turning against the world as she did. She hooks up with Wolverine once again outside the destroyed bar. Wolverine tells her that, if she’d walked away from that fight with Bullseye, he’d have caught up with her sooner or later. She’s no more to blame for the death of her father as she is for this mess. He asks how many kids died in the fire. Thirty-three and counting, she replies. Is he sure he’s never heard of the Architect? Logan is sure. But, if he’s claiming to be older than the Ancient One, and if he can start fires out of nothing, she should have a world with Doctor Strange. As for a bunch of assassins and psycho-killers converging on the big apple, who’d notice? He asks if she’d like a ride, but she tells him that she has a hospital visit to make. It’s to see Rat, the wannabe gangster she told him about.
(soon)
Elektra is in the hospital visiting Rat. A machine beeps away as he lies there, unconscious, following his encounter with Bullseye. She talks to him regardless, telling him that it’s Elektra - the one who gave him the big speech about turning his life around. Elektra who is so keen to sort out other people’s problems, but sometimes loses grip on her won. It seems the only requirement for having someone to listen to her is that they be in a coma.
Elektra then returns to Nina’s ward and finds that she has gone. How can this be? Her grandparents had already discovered this. Her clothes and possessions had gone too and her grandparents had threatened to get a lawyer.
Nina has woken up and made her way onto the streets of New York City. Before she came, she thought that New York scared her. Now, she feels invulnerable. A couple of guys in suits approach her as she sits against a wall and introduce themselves as Andrew and Dmitri. Andrew asks if she wants a roof over her head and food in her belly. Nina watches television and has even seen Taxi Driver. She knows that they’re scum. If she goes with them she might end up just another crime statistic. “Sure,” she replies. “Nothing to lose.”
Elektra trawls the dark side of the city where the lost, lonely and vulnerable eventually turn up. More than once, a girl’s face transmutes into Nina’s. More than once, Elektra thinks, ‘There but for the grace of God.’ Meanwhile, King Lau and McKinley Stewart check out the bars and clubs. Elektra wonders what chance she has of finding her in a city so large. Just one chance, she reckons. Her past.
She makes her way to one of the Kingpin’s clubs and meets with some old acquaintances. She asks for their help, and because she worked for the Kingpin once, their leader, Larry, says he’ll put the word out. But, the big man will be back soon and she’ll owe him for this, he adds.
While she waits for news, she continues her restless search and finds herself outside Konrad Weiss’ dance theater. She enters and Konrad is pleased to see her, despite her being absent for a few days without telling him. She apologizes. He shows her the stage and tells her that he took the liberty of creating a set for her. It’s idealized Greece: the Theater of Dionysus. Elektra is impressed. Konrad asks her to do a few spins, just so he knows that her dancing wasn’t just a wonderful, cruel dream. Elektra doesn’t feel like dancing right now. He offers her tea and asks if she wants to talk about it, but she isn’t in the mood for that, either.
Word soon reaches her, and she visits the Kingpin’s club to see what the score is. Larry informs her that a couple of Ukrainian guys with some ex-Russian hardware are trying to make a name for themselves. They handle drugs, prostitution and protection, but nothing nasty. He gives her the address and she thanks him. She then asks if he’s heard about any assassins coming to town. Larry thinks there are a few heavyweights around. Maybe something’s cooking.
Elektra returns home and prepares herself. This is what she is good at. This is why the Kingpin employed her. She’s really good at this. Elsewhere, the Ukrainians and some of their friends are gathered together, and Andrew is telling Nina that he wants her to be nice to an important gentleman for the evening. Nina replies that she was real crazy when she met them and probably shouldn’t have come along with them. She’d like to go now. They all have a good laugh at that one. She asks what’s so funny. Andrew’s demeanor changes and he tells her that there’s nothing funny about this. She will start playing ball or when he’s finished with her, no gentleman in their right mind is gonna be interested in her.
The door suddenly shatters as Elektra’s boot destroys it. The goons open fire at their unseen target, and Andrew soon calls for a halt to the noise. A cough behind them alerts them to Elektra’s presence. Andrew is impressed by her appearance, but Nina wonders if she should be relieved, or even more scared. Elektra informs Andrew that a big part of her would like to hurt him, a lot. But, she’s just going to leave with Nina. Andrew raises his pistol and tells her he has a much better idea. Elektra leaps at him in an instant, kicking the weapon from his grasp. Sais are thrown into the palms of two men and, in a second, the fight is over almost before it has begun.
Nina recognizes Elektra as being the one who killed her dad. Elektra says they can talk about it later. All that awaits her there is prostitution. Andrew looks up from the floor and asks her not to knock it. In a few years, she’ll be able to set herself up. She’ll be his special girl and get plenty of money. He asks her to hand him his gun, but Nina is recalling how the metal spike killed her father. Elektra tells her that she knows how she feels. She knows how she wants to hurt the world and herself.
Nina picks up the gun and aims it at Elektra. “No!” she screams. “You can’t know how… Exactly how I…” Her words trail off and she lowers the weapon. She apologizes and Elektra assures her that it’s okay. It’s going to be all right, just as soon as they get out of there.  Unfortunately, they look up to see themselves surrounded by gangsters, all aiming their guns at them.


[User]
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Provide a full summary of the comic book.

[Assistant]
Flowers & Flamethrowers
Elektra is in bed but not quite asleep. An inner voice cuts through her dreams and tells her that she is not alone. An eye opens and adrenaline kicks in. Elektra leaps from the bed at a large shadowy figure, wondering if this is a dream. She doubts it. A kick is accompanied by a loud crack, as the shadowy figure hits the floor. Elektra clicks a lamp switch and relaxes.
Lying on the floor is McKinley Stewart. He looks up at her and says that she was asleep and he didn’t want to wake her. “I think you did,” she replies. Stewart gets up and checks the scratches on his face in the bathroom mirror. He tells Elektra that sometimes, sleeping with her is like sleeping with a tigress. Elektra dresses. She doesn’t hear any complaints. Stewart asks if she can stay the night. They can catch some breakfast. Elektra reminds him that she always sleeps alone. The scratches on his face should tell him why. Stewart says he’ll take his chances, but Elektra makes for the door. “If the arrangement doesn’t suit you, we’ll call it… oh. I don’t know Mac,” she replies, “We’ll see. See you at the dojo.”
(soon)
Elektra heads to the dojo and notes that Wolverine is there, leaning against his motorbike. Without looking at him she asks if he’s staying there or coming up. Logan asks if she saw him waiting. She jokes that she smelled him from a block away. He asks if it was his after-shave, or his animal charisma. She tells him it was a little bit of both. Logan takes that as a compliment.
Watching from across the street, hidden in the shadows, is the martial artist known as Shang Chi - the Master of Kung Fu. Though he has fought alongside Elektra in the past, recent events have made him question her. He longs for peace and tranquility; the simple life of a fisherman, but he fears that Elektra is in some way still bound to the Hand. Until he knows the truth, he can not return to China, and can know no peace.
Elektra and Logan relax. Elektra informs him about her and McKinley Stewart’s conversation, and she thinks she might have been a little direct. “If you wanna dump him, you should just say so,” replies Logan. Elektra smiles and says that she doesn’t want to. Mac is decent and kind. He’s trustworthy and good company. Logan crushes a beer can and asks what his last name is - Lassie? Elektra laughs and tells him for that, he can go.
Logan starts to depart, but tells Elektra that, all joking aside, he thinks he knows what’s going on inside that head of hers. Elektra doubts that. Logan continues to say that since she was reborn, she’s had to relearn how to do stuff that other people take for granted. If a guy comes at her with a flame-thrower, she instinctively knows what to do. She’s in control. But, if the same guy comes at her with flowers, she’s all at sea. Logan checks out the flowers in the vase. He didn’t think she liked cut flowers anyhow. Elektra holds the door and replies that they were sent by, “Mac!”
Standing in the doorway is the hulking figure of McKinley Stewart. He scans Wolverine and thinks he gets it. This is why she wanted to be alone tonight. She wanted to be with whiskers, here. “Hey,” snaps Logan. “That’s Mister Whiskers to you.” He grabs Stewart by his pullover and tells him he should be grateful Elektra even looks at him. Stewart thrusts Logan against the wall and asks who the heck he is. Logan clenches his fists and replies that he’s the new breed of relationship counsellor. “C’mon Lassie. Let’s see if you think she’s worth fighting for!” Elektra places her hands on her hips. “Boys.” Stewart throws a right which Logan easily stops. Stewart prepares to throw the left, but Elektra steps between them and pushes them apart.
Elektra assures Mac that Logan is just an old friend. He apologizes for making such a jerk of himself and acting like a jealous kid. She asks him not to worry and she’ll see him tomorrow. Once he has departed, Logan says he was just testing his mettle. He’s okay. Elektra thanks him for the endorsement with a smile. Logan bows. “Glad to be of service, o-sensei!”
Meanwhile, in the park, Nina McCabe and Konnie (formerly Konrad) Weiss are taking a stroll. Nina still carries the memory of her seeing her dad being killed by Bullseye. Konnie still carries the memory of being a man. She doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to it. Even walking around feels peculiar. Nina asks if she means anatomically or psychologically. Konnie would rather not go into details.
A guy named Frank approaches them and gives Konnie a hug. He calls her Judith. He tells her that she’s not due back from India for weeks. Konnie stumbles over her reply, but says she had a little business to settle. Frank introduces himself to Nina, explaining that he’s the only guy Judy’s ever really loved. Konnie tells Frank that she’s a little busy right now. Frank says they’re all busy, and when she’s through with the slacker she dumped him for, he’ll still be busy for her. He waves adieu and departs.
Nina reckons he’s kinda cute in a Eurotrash sort of way.  Konnie thinks he’s a jerk… a jerk that’s taught her a valuable lesson. She never stops bumping into people she knows in this town. She’s got to change her looks completely. Nina likes the idea of a makeover and drags her away, asking what her size is. Konnie has no idea. She’s never been a woman before. The comment elicits a strange look from a passer by.
Six stores, five piercings and a few tape measures later, and Konnie is a new woman. Wearing camouflage trousers, a tight fitting T-shirt and with her head shaved… in Nina’s words, “You rule!” Konnie wonders if she should have gone for the DKNY businesswoman with a touch of chic look. It might go down better at the theater.
They enter the dojo where Elektra begins their training. Konnie can’t even pronounce the moves she’s putting in, let alone do them. Elektra finishes with a da hu yuan jiao. She tells them that they’re the basic foot techniques of Kung Fu. She’ll start them off with something a little simpler. King Lau enters the room and Elektra notices that Mac’s not with him. Lau inform her that he’s working at a project in Bed-Stuy. He doesn’t believe he’s had the pleasure of an introduction. “This is Konra… Konnie,” Elektra replies. Lau holds out his hand and says hello.
Soon, the three women are outside and Konnie says she is not ready for that in any sense of the word. Nina asks her not to get her knickers in a twist. He only asked her out to dinner. Konnie thinks they don’t understand. She’s a spy! She’s a cold war operative in the sex-war - caught behind enemy lines! She’s under cover. “I’m an impostor!” She doesn’t even speak their language properly.
Elektra packs them off in a cab and goes to work. She climbs up the outside of a building and encounters some bodyguards inside. She takes them out with ease before entering an apartment. A large guy wearing only a towel asks what all the hullabaloo is. He looks out the door and notices his guys lying prone on the floor. He figures they must have sent an entire army after him.
Elektra steps up quietly behind him and whips his towel off with her sai. “Feeling a little… exposed?” she asks. “I’ll be brief.” She shoves him against a bathroom mirror, cracking it with his head, and tells him that he’s been burning down tenements in the barrio. He’s been responsible for the hospitalization of several welfare families and runs several extortion rackets. Today is his lucky day, because she’s giving him one hour to pack his bags. If she hears of him again, she’ll come after him. If she does, he’ll lose more than a bath towel. There’s one other thing. “What?” he asks, nervously. “Don’t forget to wash behind your ears,” she quips.
(later)
Elektra meets Morrissey in a bar. He’s a cop, and sometimes he’s proud of the fact. He slides over an envelope containing her payment for tonight’s business. They couldn’t touch the guy legitimately. He hates all this underhand vigilante stuff, but it’s a dirty world and you gotta get dirty too if you want results. He asks Elektra if he could see her sometime, but not on business. She replies that she never mixes pleasure with business. He grins, and says she admits that dating him would be a pleasure. She strolls away and replies that what she did tonight was pleasure. The rest is just business. She wishes him a good night.
(elsewhere)
King Lau is out on a date with Konnie. Lau admits that in the past, he has dated both men and women. Does it shock her? Konnie smiles and replies that the truth is, she’s had a thing with one or two girls in the past herself. Lau holds her hand and says that he’s pleased that they can be honest with each other. “Isn’t it,” replies Konnie.
Meanwhile, Elektra meditates, but her concentration is broken by a scream coming from the bathroom. She enters to find Nina complaining about her hair, her spotty skin and her pudgy figure. Konrad’s been at the woman game for just a few weeks and he’s already better at it than she is. Why is that? she asks. Elektra assures her that she is not much help in that department. Nina replies that her dad used to say that. Whenever she mentioned sex he’d go a violet color and start talking about baseball averages. At the time it drove her insane, but she never thought she’d actually miss his awkward and silly ways.
Elektra informs Nina that her father lumbered her with bodyguards. He said they were to protect her from assassins. Their real purpose was to keep boys at a safe distance. Nina replies that she used to tell her dad, “Everyone knows all there is to know by the time they’re thirteen in this country.” She guesses you don’t really know anything until it actually happens. “And sometimes not even then,” replies Elektra.
(the next morning)
Nina is in brighter spirits, and wonders how Konnie’s date went. She needs to speak to him/her, and see about her working at the theater. It’s time she started doing something. A hot drink is placed in front of her, courtesy of McKinley Stewart. Nina realizes that it’s not Elektra’s hand and she looks up to see them both sat there, grinning. “How do you like your coffee?” asks Stewart. Nina smiles back. “Just the way it comes.”
(later)
Elektra and McKinley Stewart take a stroll. Stewart apologizes for getting jealous. It’s like a little switch inside of him. Elektra asks him to forget it. Nobody’s perfect. He suddenly runs off and returns a few seconds later with a bunch of flowers. She asks if he has a flame-thrower, too. Obviously, he doesn’t understand the reference. She admits it’s a private joke. She then adds that she doesn’t like cut flowers. They’re like corpses slowly rotting away. Stewart doesn’t take it personally.
He then notices a guy looking at her. She asks if he’s getting jealous again. He knows that she is right. The guy is blind anyway. Elektra turns but sees no one. There are a lot of blind men in New York, she thinks. It could have been anyone.
Nearby, Karen Paige asks Matt if he’s okay. He’s suddenly gone all sweaty. Matt rubs his neck and says that he’s fine. He thought he sensed someone he knew, but guesses he was wrong. The person he knew never walked around with flowers in her hand.


[User]
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Provide a full summary of the comic book.

[Assistant]
A Hand Raised Against Her
Elektra rushes across the rooftops with her sais drawn. She means business. In her time, she has been a law student, an acolyte to an arcane order of mystic martial artists, an assassin for an occult ninja clan and a Broadway star. Lately, she can add freelance adventurer and an itinerant foe of inequity. Each night from the rooftops, Elektra pursues the evil that permeates the mean streets below. Tonight, she has returned to find that evil has reached into her home.
A fire blazes in her apartment block, and a fire crew struggles to douse the flames. Elektra crashes through her window and lands to find a ninja of the Hand inside, and he has Nina McCabe captive with a chain tightened around her neck. On one end of the chain is a large scythe. He introduces himself as Kuroyama, the black mountain. He has come to claim payment on Elektra’s debt. Nina calls out for help. Kuroyama explains that he grew tired of waiting for her return, so he set the place alight to amuse himself, and to act as a lure. He asks Elektra to watch as he redeems her pledge with Nina’s innocent blood.
Elektra replies that Nina is her responsibility, and he can’t have her. She lunges at him, sai first, and catches his scythe between the forks. The chain is pulled which yanks the sai from her grasp, but she uses her sword to attack. Her much larger opponent informs her that her outstanding account with the Hand has been audited and a schedule of restitution has been drafted. It is payable in full, and the only acceptable tender is a beating heart!
Metal strikes metal as the pair fight, but soon Kuroyama gains an advantage as he wraps his chain around Elektra’s neck as well. She falls to the ground, struggling to breathe, and he then uses one of her own sais to pin one end of the chain to the ground. With his scythe, he pins her arm, leaving her effectively helpless. She warns him angrily that she’ll get free and kill him, but he gloats that, if she struggles against his razor-honed scythe blade, she will only succeed in severing her hand. Did she think she could simply walk away from the Hand? Did she think that her debt was cancelled?
He now has Nina by her ponytail. Kuroyama asks Elektra if it was worth being brought back from the dead. She replies that she’s not afraid to cross the River of Woe again, but the girl has nothing to do with her debt to the Hand. She asks him to let Nina go. Her blood alone is payment in full. Kuroyama disagrees. He reaches behind him and pulls out his sword. He informs Elektra that there is interest accrued and penalties. Nina’s belabored death is but the first installment. Nina cries, begging the assassin that she doesn’t want to die. Kuroyama threatens to cut the beating heart from her chest, and Elektra shouts out, “Noooooo!!” She thinks that she must be dead and this a torment from Hell. But, the geysers of bright steaming blood are all too real, and the screams…
(three days later)
It is the day of Nina’s funeral. The screams are still reverberating through Elektra’s head. They drown out the muffled sobs of Nina’s grandparents, and the worn platitudes of a stranger in an ecclesiastical collar. Mac mumbles his amen’s just like he did when Nina’s father was laid to rest at the same cemetery. Elektra bears the guilt for that death as well, but she wears that guilt with forbearance. She is beyond tolerance and restraint.
She approaches the funeral party carrying a red rose. Nina’s grandfather sees her coming and orders her to get out of there. They don’t want her throwing her filthy flowers on her grave. Nina is being buried without a heart. What kind of depraved monster does a thing like that? asks her grandmother. She slaps Elektra hard across the face and snarls that she knew the danger she was in. She knew it and didn’t send Nina away. “You killed her you evil tramp!” She slaps her again.
(later)
It’s evening and the rain pours down on Elektra as she walks the streets, still carrying the red rose. She doesn’t remember leaving the graveyard, or how she got back to midtown Manhattan. She slowly becomes aware that her feet are blistered from walking aimless miles, and then she realizes where she is. She looks at the theater which has a ‘cancelled’ sign over the show’s name. A passing cab’s headlights throw light into the shadow of the marquee and she sees something. “Stick?” she asks. She glances around and finds the sidewalk empty.
She somehow finds her way to the dojo and bangs on the door. Mac shouts out of the window, without realizing who it is, that he is coming. He is surprised to see Elektra when he opens the door. He asks why she is knocking when she owns the place and everything in it. He sees how wet she is and asks her to come inside to get dry, but she replies that it would be too easy to do that. Mac says that the first step is never easy. She stepped across into his heart, and he swears that he will love her forever. “There,” he adds, “I said it.”
Elektra sighs, seemingly appreciating the sentiment, ill-timed though it might be. She notices the stick he is holding and asks where he got it from. He replies that he just grabs the Bo-Staff instinctively when he has to answer the door in the middle of the night. Elektra tells him that it wasn’t instinct tonight. It was something else. She tells him that she has to go away and might not be back for a very long time. As she walks away, Mac says that he can wait forever.
She finally finds Stick in a stinking, litter-strewn alleyway. He is a master of the order known as the Chaste. He was Elektra’s mentor, before he died. He warms his hands around a brazier and tells Elektra that fire is like a solid thing to the blind. It has weight. It can be your friend or it can hurt you. At a certain distance, it feels warm and comforting, but don’t get too close. Elektra asks if he’s talking to her or himself. Stick replies that he was talking about fire.
Elektra is still clutching the red rose. She tells Stick that she was expecting him to show her the tortured revenant of Nina standing on the other side of the River of Woe. Stick spits and asks who he is. Teiresias the Seer? If he is, then where is the goat she owes him? He grasps the rose from her fingers and tells her that he can’t tell her what she doesn’t know or can’t figure out herself. All he can do is point the way.
He tosses the rose into a puddle and points at the rubbish nearby. “Ya want the River of Woe?” he asks. He explains that it isn’t flowing on the far side of the Pillars of Hercules. It’s right here in the alley. Those are the shades of yesterday standing on the other side of the river. Garbage. That’s what yesterday is, and that’s all ghosts and revenants are. What Elektra must deal with is tomorrow. She has to finish what she started.
(the next night)
Elektra meets Wolverine at the Brooklyn Bridge, atop one of the towers. She informs Wolverine that Kuroyama cut out Nina’s heart and was laughing as he did it. Logan figures that this is why she called him and asked him to sniff out any possible Hand hot-spots. There’s one in his own neighborhood, the East Village. He offers to show her. As they set off down the bridge’s suspender, he says it must be pretty heavy for Elektra to be asking for help. He wants her to know that he’s down for whatever it is.
Elektra tells him that she just wants him to watch her back. She was totally unprepared for Kuroyama and she doesn’t want to be caught off guard again. Wolverine informs her that the Hand has been a thorn in his side for a good long time. This is good. It’s time for payback. Elektra says that this isn’t simply revenge. She wants them to give her back her life. Wolverine tells her that she can’t ever get her old life back. That’s just grasping at smoke. She should just concentrate on kicking butt, taking names and getting answers.
Elektra takes his advice to heart. The seemingly abandoned tenement is virtually infested with ninjas. A while ago, Wolverine had succumbed to the animal that lurks inside him and she was tasked with returning him to humanity. “Put his feet back on the path,” Stick had asked her. Together, they walked the way of the Righteous Warrior. Tonight, she fears that they have strayed from that noble path. Tonight, her hands are red, her soul is black and anger burns white as an arc lamp in her breast. The two of them wade through the tenement, killing ninjas by the dozen. Each time, they fade away upon death.
Wolverine warns Elektra not to start liking what she’s doing. That’s a place she doesn’t want to go. Elektra jumps on Kuroyama and places her sai at his throat. She asks why now. Why is the Hand calling in its marker at this time? Why did they wait so long? she demands to know. The ninja replies through clenched teeth that the Hand need not justify its actions to one such as her. She pushes her sai harder. “Answer dog!” Wolverine warns him that she’s playing for keeps, and he should start flapping his jaw.
The ninja cries that the Hand is simply taking back what it gave her on loan. Did she think that the essence of life is that cheaply restored with no payment due? Each day she has been alive has interest added to it. Now that the note has come up, she so blithely reneges? Elektra replies that it is a lie. She owes the Hand nothing. She found her redemption through the Chaste. The ninja laughs. He believes the Chaste to be liars, cheats and deceivers. He can’t believe they never told her. The blind man, the one with the stick. He never told her? Elektra demands to know what. The ninja adds that when the dire necromancers of the Hand put her back together, they held something back.
Elektra is shocked at this revelation. She thinks it is a lie. Kuroyama asks if she hasn’t wondered why she can’t feel the way she used to. Why there is always an emptiness within her? That which can make her whole again lies hidden between mercy and wrath. Kuroyama then vomits up a chain and tells Elektra that this is of no consequence, since she shall not live to see it restored. He attacks, and is joined by two more ninjas that appear from nowhere. Wolverine asks her to take him down. He has her back covered.
Wolverine’s claws sink into the first ninja to drop down on him, and he slashes at the second, leaving Elektra to go one on one with Kuroyama. This time she is prepared, and she grabs his chain with one hand and shoves her sai through his chest with the other. All three ninjas fade away as their life essences leaves their bodies.
Elektra wonders what he was babbling about. Mercy and wrath - is that some kind of Biblical thing? Wolverine replies that they are mountains in Japan. Between them is a mist-shrouded valley that was the ancestral home of some major bad ninjas who later became known as the Hand. That place is bad mojo. Ninja central! Elektra sheathes her sword and tells him that she came back from the dead and she climbed the mountain of the Chaste. What’s a valley full of ninjas compared to that?