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Provide a full summary of the comic book.

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Deathgrip
Inside a darkened laboratory, a green, electrified hand, belonging to Doctor Piper, crushes a rat in its grip. Outside the locked door to the lab, a security guard named Ruiz asks if Doctor Piper is inside. Dr. Piper tells the guard to wait just one moment—he claims to have not realized the door was locked. From outside the locked door, Ruiz states that he heard noises from this area but knew none of the chemical division folks were working late, and they’re usually the ones who use this particular lab. He asks Dr. Piper if he isn’t strictly an electronics scientist; he’s supposed to make a note on the sign-in sheet if he’s going to be in other sections. He adds, though, that Dr. Piper is such a permanent after-hours fixture lately that he’s gotten careless.
Growing impatient, Ruiz knocks on the door again and asks the man on the other side if he’s having trouble with the lock. The door suddenly opens. Dr. Piper, now standing there wearing a suit, tells Ruiz he caught him as he was packing up a device he’s developing. It had to be tested on a live specimen, he claims. Worried, Ruiz asks if it’s something that could get him in trouble. Those lab folks can be really fussy about their animals, he warns. Piper assures him it’s not a problem. He explains he was working with a rat from a group no longer valid as a test species. Some of their chemical research, it seems, had turned the strain mutant.
Inside the darkened lab, obscured from Ruiz’s view, the ashen remains of the rat simmer in their plastic container, smoke from it drifting upward.
Locking the door, Ruiz remarks how often he hears people talking about mutants these days. He didn’t know they could be animals too. “Wasn’t your daughter hurt in some kind of big demonstration one of them put on—one of the human kind, I mean?” Ruiz asks Piper. Piper tells him he’s correct. Ruiz, trying to console him, says those people down in the Los Angeles medical centers are supposed to be real good. That is where the incident occurred, right? His daughter will probably be better soon. Piper, still looking away from Ruiz with a stern expression on his face, simply says that his daughter is home now—and that he’s doing what remains to be done.
Elsewhere…In downtown San Diego, much that was once tawdry and dangerous has been wiped away by rebuilding and reconstruction. Still, some blocks resist transition more stubbornly than others.
A Ford truck sits parked outside a shop that dispenses spiritual advising. Nearby, in the shadows, two armed men scout out the seemingly empty vehicle. One of the men, a blond-haired man wearing a seedy jacket, asks his partner if they should go for it; it looks like just one man is inside, hunched over the wheel. His associate, a black man bearing a monkey wrench, thinks they should. The street is clear, he says—and no trap would be this obvious. Besides, it’s a sweet set of wheels—talk about gift city. Plus, a bit of head-busting always helps them keep in practice.
Without wasting an iota of energy on stealth, the two thugs approach the open window, brandish their weapons at the vehicle’s occupant and threaten to kill him if he doesn’t exit. To their surprise, it’s not a man, but a wolf, who responds to their threat.
Upstairs, a man inside a window advertising theatrical bookings responds to the commotion in the street. It’s always something in this neighborhood, he sighs. He asks his client if that truck down on the street is his, and if so, if he always leaves it open like that. The client, O.Z. Chase, replies that with a few little precautions, he finds he can generally trust folks. The man infers that he must always come calling decked out like a member of the A-Team. Is that how he gets people to cooperate? Chase assures the man he’s legitimate; he’s seen his identification card, which clearly lists his credentials as a professional bounty hunter. He’s got a professional image to maintain, he adds; surely a theatrical booking agent like him understands.
Changing the subject of his visit, he asks about Alison Blaire. She’s wanted in Los Angeles for jumping her bail, Chase states. The local police are usually too busy keeping the lid on to deal with cases like these, he adds; bounties allow him to be a little more single-minded. Brandishing his paperwork, he tells the agent, Mr. Erskine, that he can make his job a bit easier, but with or without him, he’ll get it done.
Mr. Erskine wipes his glasses. “You’re that good, huh?” Erskine says. “Well, I’ll tell you—I’m retired, Mr. Chase. I rent this place cheap. Come down evenings just to keep my hand in…and to get a few hours away from my wife, bless her soul, you want to know the truth. This girl—the Dazzler she calls herself—is a talent. She’s also a mutant. Makes singing jobs hard to come by—not that she whined or complained. So…I know some people, some places. Nothing big time. Some…toilets. But they all use singers. Mutant singers…who knows? She kissed me for giving her the list anyway. You also want that list—” he says to Chase, “—I won’t fight you, Mr. Bounty Hunter. It can’t buy her enough time. But these charges..! Nobody would pursue them if she were normal. You want a reward for helping in that, it’s your business—me, I wouldn’t care for it. But maybe I understand what she’s up against better than you.” With that, he moves out from behind his desk, revealing he’s wheelchair-bound, and hands Chase the list.
As Chase descends the steps outside Mr. Erskine’s office, he remarks that there are days when this job loses a lot of its glamour. When he gets to his car, he orders Cerberus to get out of his seat. Just because he scared off some street thugs doesn’t mean he’s big enough to drive. Cerberus growls back at his master. Chase lifts his hands and backs away. As he hands Cerberus a cigar, he comments that some dogs protect their masters’ property out of sheer devotion, never expecting rewards—much less his favorite smuggled-from-Havana cigars! Cerberus chomps down on the cigar without remorse. If Cerberus actually smoked them, Chase wouldn’t mind so much! Considering Cerberus drinks cheap beer and eats expensive cigars, Chase wonders if he’s not a dog at all, but a goat with fangs. He hopes the snack has primed the dog for travel, at least. According to the list he got from Erskine, their mark’s next stop might be in Arizona.
Elsewhere, on a highway running through the canyons of America’s Southwest, a line of traffic sits behind a segment of road that slid away in a rockslide. Two panicked parents try to wave down help from the people in the approaching cars. Their van went over the edge with the rockslide, the father shouts. His panic-stricken wife cries that their babies are still trapped in the van! Sure enough, a few meters down below, an orange van sits on its side, perched precariously on a ledge overlooking a steep cliff. Several meters to the side of the van, a drainage pipe juts out of the cliffside and releases a trickle of water into the canyon. A section of the shoulder just gave away when they stopped to take a photo, the man says. His family’s still trapped inside! A bystander remarks that there has been a lot of rain lately; it must have weakened the whole cliff! The father worries that this same rain also weakened the rock that’s currently supporting their fallen camper. If it crumbles away too, their family is doomed. They wonder hopelessly what they’re going to do.
A bystander who stopped to help turns back to the line of vehicles and asks everyone to pool together all of their ropes, chains, and anything else they can use to reach them. Someone else warns that if they try climbing around on that slope they may set off another rockslide and lose the family for sure! The man responds that they must do something; time’s running out! Where’s the highway patrol? he asks.
Hearing the commotion, a woman wearing a white jumpsuit and carrying a red duffel bag steps off the bus stopped in traffic. From her window at the back of the bus, the woman—Alison Blaire—has gotten a better overview of what’s happening than most people who rushed to get close. Having observed, she is now ready to act. Taking off her jumpsuit, she stands with arms outstretched, wearing her signature blue costume and red headband. Who is she supposed to be, someone asks. She replies that she’s someone who may have a way to reach the children, if someone is willing to spare a coil of rope. After a cowboy hands her the rope, she takes off running in the other direction. Confused, the cowboy tells her she’s heading away from the problem! Dazzler replies that she doesn’t think the kids will care—if her plan works the way she hopes, that is.
A few moments later, Dazzler emerges from the drainage pipe jutting out of the cliff. She is now eye-level with the van, but an un-traversable section of sheer cliffside remains between them. Up above, the bystanders wonder aloud how Dazzler made it to through the storm drain; its opening is clear up the mountain! Dazzler, meanwhile, address the kids in the van. A feisty-looking group like them shouldn’t be stuck in there, she says. How about they make their way over to her? The kids want to, but remind her that there’s nowhere to put their feet! Not yet, Dazzler replies—but she’s working on that. Lifting her hand, she releases a laser beam and begins carving a foothold on the face of the rock. Under the dangerous loose dirt, she says, there’s enough solid rock for a special path. The kids squeal with delight at the woman shooting laser beams from her finger. After carving the footholds, Dazzler throws the coil of rope to the three children. They loop it around their waists and begin moving to safety.
Carefully, calmly, never allowing her trained performer’s voice to betray how little time is left, Dazzler guides the children step by step. They’re so high, the oldest child says. And those rocks keep falling! Dazzler urges them not to look down; she tells them to keep their eyes on the little lights she’s creating, and to use them as guides. Suddenly, a boulder comes loose and tumbles toward the first kid in the line. Dazzler incinerates it with one of her laser beams, insisting the whole time that the kids not worry about the rocks!
A thin line of perspiration on Alison’s brow begins to betray the effort and concentration she exerts—drawing on the sound vibrations stored within her, translating them into two separate forms of light and praying they’ll accomplish what’s needed—before disaster strikes. Then, it does: the rocks beneath the camper finally come loose and the vehicle careens into the canyon, taking the footholds and the rock ledge with it. The people up above scream in terror; the kids are still on the ledge! However, Dazzler, having already pulled two of them into the storm drain, swings the third and final kid to safety, moments before the cascade of rocks wipes away the spot where he once stood. With the kids safely inside the storm drain, Dazzler orders them to keep the rope around them; they have a slippery, uphill climb before them, and the storm drain is short and spooky. The worst part is over, though. Thankfully, she says, they have a candle that won’t blow out.
After their short trek, Dazzler and the children emerge from the hole she cut in the storm drain. The bystanders correctly deduce that she must have sliced her way into the drain just like she carved out a path for the kids. The hysterical parents, meanwhile, rush over to meet their kids, worried sick that they might have been hurt.
With her mission accomplished, Dazzler begins to leave. The cowboy, however, stops her. Those folks will sure want to know who saved their young’uns, he says, and they don’t get too many super hero types out their way. In fact, he didn’t even realize she was one at first! She’s still struggling with the concept herself, Dazzler says coyly. Only her outfit is new, though, she says. Her name and reputation may have preceded her: she’s the Dazzler.
The family huddles together. The oldest son remarks to his dad that the Dazzler is the mutant they talked about on television—the one that caused so much trouble demonstrating her powers. The horrified daughter claims that can’t be her; she’s nice! The woman on the TV was a mutant, and they’re bad—her daddy says so. She can’t be a mutant if she helped them, right? The inflection at the end of her voice implies that she’s asking her dad this question. Hesitant, her father remarks that there may be some things about mutants he didn’t understand. An incident like this makes one wonder.
Others, however, are not swain by this turn of events—among them Dr. Piper, who happens to be at the scene of the rescue. He climbs back into his car and returns home. When he arrives, he asks his caretaker, Mrs. Shaw, if there’s been any change in his daughter’s condition. There hasn’t. Despite the Los Angeles medical people’s misgivings about bringing her home so soon, Mrs. Shaw sometimes wonders thinks if Dr. Piper spend more time with his daughter instead of always working late—
Dr. Piper interrupts her; she’s paid well to attend his daughter, he says—not practice psychotherapy. He tells the caregiver that he has plans for later in the evening. Please go to dinner now, he tells her—adding that he means no offense. He just wants to be alone with Melissa.
He enters Melissa’s room, where she sits in the dark, catatonic. He tells her that her father is home and asks if she can hear him. Is she listening? Unresponsive, Melissa just oohs and ahhs at the darkness, seemingly transfixed by something. Dr. Piper brought her something—something he created just for her. She continues gazing at some light she sees. “She’s here, Melissa,” Dr. Piper says while pulling on his green gloves. “I don’t have to leave you to hunt her down. If I were a superstitious man, Melissa, I’d take it as a sign. Proof that I’m correct in what I’m doing.” He pulls on his helmet. Melissa continues staring at the lights in her head. Continuing, Dr. Piper claims he doesn’t need the affirmations of superstition. He’s known—he’s always known, even when the Los Angeles doctors insisted it was the drugs. They claim if the mutant’s performance hadn’t triggered the shock, something else would have.
“No, it was her, Melissa,” he says, now standing fully garbed in the special suit he built. “—her arrogant display of unnatural, unchecked abilities. With this suit, I’m going to help you break free of her light—by putting out its source.” The air surrounding his green gloves crackle with electric energy. He claims that the electronic impulses he generates are attuned to the brain wave patterns of the mutant nervous system. When he applies sufficient power by gripping with the suit’s gloves, the target’s nervous system will overload and burn out. When Melissa sees the thing that traumatized her eliminated—and she will, he insists—she will be saved, and he’ll have his little girl back again, just like she was before. Even better, everyone who even hinted that his coldness and neglect drove her to do drugs and run away to Los Angeles will see just how wrong they were. Removing his helmet, he leaves Melissa’s room, leaving her to stare at imagined lights like a zombie.
Meanwhile, at a roadside venue called Sweet Sue’s, Dazzler finishes up her show. If they had as much fun as she did, she says, come on back! The band is Sweet Sue’s Stampede, and she is the Dazzler! Outside the concert hall, nestled near some snowy mountains and coniferous trees, the audience returns to the packed parking lot to leave. One car—a Ford pickup truck—sits idle.
After the crowd clears, the band’s guitarist tells Dazzler that was the best night the place has had in a long time. They were really cooking on that last set, he adds; he could’ve believed they were Willie’s Family or better, instead of just another local rip-off. The lady stretched them a bit, his band-mate says, before asking Alison to join them for beers. He tells her she should relax, now that the crowd has left. To his surprise, though, she appears to be crying. Alison asks him to giver her a moment; she’ll be fine. It’s just that she loves doing this so much, and after a good performance, she can hardly contain the glow. Only, it’s frustrating knowing how seldom these opportunities come along these days, because of the mutant thing. She brushes back her hair. Doesn’t being a superhero make up for that a little, the guitarist asks? Plus, judging from tonight’s crowd, the rescue she performed today turned a few heads around. “Sure,” Dazzler replies. “But compared to making the music—rock, country, blues, whatever—to feeling it, storing it, reshaping it into light? I don’t need the super hero thing—but the performing, I thrive on! Maybe someday I’ll adjust to both.” She tells the gentlemen that she’ll take a rain-check on the beers.
Meanwhile, in the phone booth outside the rock hall, O.Z. Chase makes a call to one of his current clients. He knows it’s late, but he reminds his client that he was asked to phone day or night if something major broke. Well, he says, he’s ready to pounce. He asks if there’s been any news on the legal front regarding the lady that might make him call off the gig. On the other end of the phone, his client asks if he detects a wistful note in his voice. Their agreement is still very much in effect, he says.
Alarmed, O.Z. tells his client he doesn’t recognize his voice; he’s not the man who hired him, he says. His client replies that U.S. Bailbonds is a large, nationwide agency. If one executive has to be away, their call-forwarding system connects callers to someone familiar with the projects. He adds that he’s on the road himself—currently in Denver—but he has full authority in the matter. He trusts that Mr. Chase is not having second thoughts. He’s one of the best, after all, so they made an exceptional offer when they hired him. He was also informed that their generous advance was also speedily deposited—and dispersed. Chase defends himself by stating that he has three ex-wives, a lot of deserving relatives and an expensive cigar habit. He’s also got a reputation: when he commits, he delivers. However, in a world with a jillion skuzzballs on the run, the more he learns about Alison Blaire, the less he likes it that she’s the one he’s hounding.
His angered client reminds him that the court will decide if the charges against Ms. Blaire are unfair. All Mr. Chase has to do is bring her in—and make all those ex-wives and relatives happy by collecting the rest of his commission. As he speaks, his left hand begins to disintegrate into dust. He excuses himself from the phone call; he needs something from room service.
Chase, chomping on a cigar, comments that he’s suddenly seeing the dark side of getting paid in advance. Something out of the corner of his eye grabs his attention and interrupts him mid-thought. He cries out moments before a charging man in a mechanized, yellow and green suit crashes into the phone booth and tips it over. Bad moment to make a call, Dr. Piper states as he fries the phone booth with electricity. He can’t ignore an armed man, or waste time convincing him of the justice in what he does!
The sound of the crashing phone booth speeds Alison Blaire’s exit from the club. Dr. Piper hoped it would lure her. It was also the last working telephone around there, he adds. He’s already severed the building’s line. He orders Dazzler to tell everyone inside to stay inside; this will not be another cheap, maudlin exhibit to make her appear a super hero, as she did earlier that afternoon. She’s gone unpunished for a terrible crime! Supposing he believes himself to be the vigilante out to fix that, Dazzler tells him they could both get hurt. Why don’t they try to talk it out instead?
As she makes her offer for a peaceful resolution, however, Dr. Piper begins to charge up his suit. Dazzler responds with a devastating stream of exploding light that knocks him to his feet. All right, they’ll do it the stupid way then, she says—fight, then talk.
Dr. Piper picks himself up off the ground. He comments that her flare burst, which hit him with an almost physical force, was more blinding and disorienting than his research indicated. Fortunately for him, his helmet’s Polaroid lenses and his costume’s exo-skeletal power minimize the effect of her blasts. He leaps at Dazzler and grabs her by the wrists.
Dazzler screams as pain surges instantly through her body to stab at her brain like a scalpel. There is no doubt it will destroy her—until her body, perfectly conditioned from torturous hours in the gym, reacts! She rolls backward with the force of his attack, plants her feet firmly in his stomach, and vaults him over her head. This move grants her a moment’s respite. Meanwhile, her fellow musicians rush outside the bar bearing bats and clubs. Whoever this dude is, they say, she doesn’t have to tackle him on her lonesome! Dr. Piper commands them to keep away; his fight is with the mutant. They don’t know what she did, he says. However, if they insist on siding against their own kind, then they can suffer for it! He blasts them with a surge of electricity. They should be grateful the shockwaves aren’t attuned to the human system, he adds; any damage won’t be permanent.
A worried Dazzler urges her friends to get back inside the bar. She doesn’t want anyone else hurt, she says, and obviously, the only way the assailant is going to let this grudge be settled is if it’s between him and her! She fires back at Dr. Piper. He tells her that if it were that simple, she’d be dead already!
Nearby, a car approaches the venue, carrying both Mrs. Shaw and Melissa Piper. An anxious Mrs. Shaw cannot help but comment on how crazy this scheme is. She shouldn’t be doing this—it’s crazy! Senseless, even! When Dr. Piper phoned her earlier and ordered her to bring Melissa, she should have refused. However, jobs are so hard to come by, and she can’t risk being fired. Dr. Piper’s a brilliant man, she reminds Melissa—surely he wouldn’t do anything that might endanger his daughter! Melissa, meanwhile, stares dumbfounded at the light—this time, accurately.
The light shines not just in the mind of a traumatized girl, but in actuality, ahead, what has a battle has become a running fight, with Rowden Piper as relentless hunter—and Alison Blaire as his prey. To give herself an advantage, Dazzler jumps onto a dumpster and uses it to leap onto the roof of Sweet Sue’s. Dr. Piper follows in hot pursuit—just as Dazzler planned. He’s staying close to her; once she gets him on the roof, everyone inside the building can flee!
Dr. Piper is not so easily fooled. He knows what she’s doing, he says. It won’t bring her help. Her friends will discover that he’s fixed their cars as efficiently as he did the telephones. By the time anyone makes another move, the business between him and Dazzler will have ended!
Meanwhile, O.Z. Chase, who lies trapped in the fallen phone booth, calls to Cerberus for help. He begs his companion to listen to him just this once and get him out of there! He’s trapped! His shotgun holster is keeping him wedged tight against the phone; Cerberus can gnaw at the straps, though, and allow him to pull free! Thankfully for Mr. Chase, the dog actually obeys this order. Chase is so grateful that he vows to take back everything he’s even said about Cerberus. However, he quickly changes his tune when he realizes that Cerberus isn’t gnawing through the straps at all, but eating all the cigars out of his pocket!
On the rooftop, the clash continues—with greater intensity. Dazzler fires at Dr. Piper to keep him at bay, but he holds his ground. Everything is in place now, he tells her. He had to test his suit for a while in order to adjust its power to counter hers. Now, it’s time for justice, he says. She destroyed his daughter’s mind while flaunting her ability. He’s going to make his daughter whole again by destroying Dazzler!
Down below, in the car, Mrs. Shaw cries about how awful the situation is. What’s going on up there, she asks? Who are those people, and why would Dr. Piper want Melissa there? Melissa, meanwhile, steps out of the vehicle, completely transfixed by the light. She lifts her hands in adulation, while Mrs. Shaw shouts at her to get back in the car.
Up above, Dr. Piper, having calibrated his suit, now makes his move on Alison. He lunges forward and grabs her by the wrists. With his hands around her arms, his deathgrip is complete! The sight of seeing Dazzler extinguished should jolt his daughter out of her trauma, he says. Dazzler, struggling to speak, defiantly tells him she’s not quite ready to be on the losing end of his warped notion of shock therapy! She claims she let him get close so she could have a clear shot at his power pack with her laser beam. As she says this, she twists her arm over his back and fires at his energy pack. To her horror, her beam reflects off the shiny metal. Dr. Piper, triumphant, informs Dazzler that the metal forming his pack has a refractory coating that bends laser beams. Before it gives way, she’ll be mindless rubble.
Dazzler suddenly slips loose of his grip. He doesn’t have her at all, she says—just her jacket! Once free of his grip, she unleashes a strobe pulse to temporarily blind him while she reassesses the situation. She turns in time to see Dr. Piper crumble her jacket into dust with his suit. What’s happening to her jacket will soon happen to her, he threatens. His power will sweep through her nervous system and ignite the very cells of her brain! Alison refuses to let him frighten her, however. She can’t let him force her into playing this fight his way. As powerful as that suit makes him, he’s still an amateur, whereas she has trained with the X-Men. She’s the pro.
With that, Dazzler leaps into the air and grabs hold of the giant Sweet Susie’s sign that towers over the establishment. With Dr. Piper in pursuit, she begins to climb the metal scaffold. He follows, and on the maze of struts and supports that back the club’s huge sign, the difference between their abilities begins to show. With Dr. Piper still several steps below her, Dazzler turns to him and fires a beam at the back of his neck. He squeals in pain, at which point she informs him she just cut his costume a little. Obviously his refractory coating only works on the solid parts of his suit! He’d better get good at dodging as he climbs, she says.
Dazzler does not want to hurt the man, though. She refuses to take too many chances with her laser blasts; she may hit the man and not the suit. Still, Dr. Piper doesn’t have to know that she’s holding back her powers. Taunting him, she asks if that’s ragged breathing she hears. Beneath all the power trimmings, he’s out of shape! It’s bad up there too, she says—particularly with what his outfit must weigh.
With an outraged bellow, Rowden Piper tries even harder to reach the quicksilver object of his pursuit—too hard for the sign’s support struts and the burden they bear. With the snapping of just a few load-bearing struts, the entire structure begins to lean and tip. Dr. Piper clings to it for dear life, even as it falls, while Dazzler leaps to safety.
After landing on the roof, Dazzler sprints to the other side of the slowly collapsing structure and tries to pull Dr. Piper through one of the openings. Don’t hang on, she pleads with him. Just jump! She desperately tries to grab at the helmeted head thrusting toward her, but misses, by so very little. The entire structure crashes to the ground and unleashes a devastating explosion.
Dr. Piper’s helmet, meanwhile, bounces to the ground and lands at the feet of his awe-struck daughter, Melissa. She kneels down and picks it up. “D-daddy?” she says—the first deliberate words she’s spoken since the incident that traumatized her.
Up above, Dazzler reaches for Dr. Piper as he dangles from the roof. He’s luckier than he has any right to be, she tells him. Her laser blast earlier must have loosened his helmet; it just ripped off when she grabbed for him, while the momentum threw him toward the roof. Despite the temptation, she’s not letting him go the way of the helmet. She reaches down and orders him to grab her hand.
She immediately regrets the decision. Dr. Piper, unforgiving, sends a surge of his nerve-disrupting electricity through Dazzler’s body, eliciting from her a groan of agony. He defiantly tells her that the helmet was merely for protection; if she believed his suit wouldn’t function without it, she was wrong—dead wrong!
Melissa screams for her father to stop. She begs him to look down at her and listen. Dr. Piper, however, is lost to anything but the moment—his moment of triumph. While squeezing Dazzler’s forearms, he tells her that now they’ll all see. They’ll see that he’s not responsible for what happened to his daughter—Dazzler is! Everything’s going to be normal again, he declares—once he extinguishes her light. Struggling, Dazzler tells him he’s not leaving her any choice. He’s the one who’s going to see, she says.
She unleashes the totality of her abilities in his face. With her arms outstretched, she sends rays of light in every direction. Dr. Piper views the power of the Dazzler through unshielded eyes. Then, it is over.
Later, Dazzler’s friends console her. Her fellow musicians tell her everything is okay; nobody can fault her for this. Plus, the club’s insurance will more than cover the fallen sign. They were thinking or renaming the place anyway, the other guy says. He urges her to rest up for the next night’s performance. Once folks hear her sing, they’ll forget anything else ever happened.
What he says in true, except in regards to a certain person departing in the nearby ambulance. That person is Melissa Piper. In the back of the van, she consoles her injured father. It’s funny, she tells him—she was never against their being together. But when they were, he’d never listen to her. Maybe going to Los Angeles, taking all those drugs and having that accident were all just attempts to make him listen. Maybe now, he will, she states. After all, they’ll have a long time to work at it.
Dr. Piper just stares blankly at the ceiling, his face expressionless. “Ooooh…the light…! The light…!” he mutters.
Later that night, Dazzler returns to her motel room for some rest. Is this how it’s going to be? she asks herself as she climbs the stairs to her door. She had hoped using her mutant abilities for public good would improve people’s image of mutants. However, it’s just making her more of a target. “No! One obsessed man’s actions shouldn’t ruin the good part!” she says aloud, scolding herself. “You’re working, accepted as a singer…not a sideshow attraction.” Opening the door to her apartment, Alison reminds herself that, in addition, compared to anything recently, she’s home free.
“No, ma’am,” someone says, contradicting her. “What you are, I’m afraid, is under arrest. And—if I figure right—too drained by tonight’s fracas to resist.” Sitting across the room from her in a chair is O.Z. Chase, brandishing a shotgun, which he aims at Dazzler’s head.
A few moments later, he leads her out to his truck at gunpoint with Cerberus at his side. She can count on a quiet trip, he informs her. With someone who stores sound waves and turns them into light, he took the liberty of disconnecting his truck’s radio. Unfortunately, he adds, the trip is also going to be long; his latest orders are to deliver her to Colorado.


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

[Assistant]
Travelers
On a highway running through the deserts of America’s Southwest, three motorcyclists—two men and a woman—ride together. They leave behind them a cloud of dust. Each of their bikes bears at its front a cryptic image of a silver eyeball. Their own eyes, they cover with visors. They are gruff, fierce and determined. Their destination remains to be seen.
Elsewhere, a hunky truck driver sits in his big rig in a wooded parking lot and speaks to someone over his CB radio. “The Outriders are on the move. Intercepting the bounty hunter you had capture the Dazzler will be no problem,” the voice on the other end of the radio says. “Not with their talent. It’s all finally going to work, Dust. After so many years…”
“Time’s always been on our side, my dear,” Dust says back, “…despite our individual difficulties in dealing with its effects.” The voice on the other end of the radio tells Dust he’s had to do so much, and endure such strain, just in arranging the circumstances needed to bring the Dazzler to them. Dust admits he has had to shift bodies more often lately. “The young, the strong hold up best,” he says, “but they aren’t always the ones needed to manipulate a particular event. It’s been tricky—and I cut this latest shift a bit close,” he adds. Sitting next to him in the cab of a truck are the skeletal remains of a human being, still wearing the same clothes he wore when he died. “But it’s done, my dear. The Dazzler will soon be happily joining us—and never suspect we pushed her all the way. Now rest, Silence. I know how painful talking is. Rest. I’m on my way home. A healthy, strapping, somewhat brutish knight of the road…! I think you’ll be amused.”
Meanwhile, on another road in that region of the country, O.Z. Chase tends to his Ford truck, which he’s parked on the shoulder of the road. His loyal companion, Cerberus, sits in the road next to the truck. “Lemme tell you, dog,” Chase begins, “I don’t believe this! One second we’re ridin’ along, chattin’ with Alizon Blaire, who, other than complainin’ about my cigar smoke, says she’s content to come peacefully with me an’ get the charges against her cleared up—an’ the next, we’re here! Stuck on the side of the road with a truck that won’t start and no lady at all!” He slams the hood shut. Did Alison snooker him, he asks? Does she have some kind of mutant power besides using light? Why can’t he remember what happened or at least find something wrong with the truck? Everything checks out, he says, but nothing works! Frustrated, he resigns himself to hiking to the nearest town for a tow. He orders Cerberus to guard the pickup truck.
As he begins walking toward town, however, Cerberus follows at his side. “Or just trot along like you never heard a word I said,” Chase sighs. “This whole business is gonna make me a joke among professional bounty hunters,” he says, patting Cerberus on the head, “—why should you brighten up my life an’ suddenly act like a real dog who obeys commands?”
Elsewhere, Alison Blaire, the Dazzler, finds herself floating in the middle of a giant, multi-level shopping mall with the Beyonder at her side. For her, time and place have lost their meaning. Traveling from Arizona to Colorado with the bounty hunter O.Z. Chase, she has suddenly, miraculously been pulled away into incredible adventure and romance. It seems little more could happen that would shock or surprise her. But the author of this interruption is the One From Beyond. He has come to Earth from beyond reality as we know it. If there are limits to his powers, they have not yet been demonstrated. He is on his own journey, one of discovery; to learn about the beings called humans and the world that they have made. And it can take him anywhere.
Dazzler, floating effortlessly in midair at the Beyonder’s side, looks down at the hordes of shocked onlookers and shoppers. She holds her hand to her chest, her heart aflutter. She thought the Beyonder was taking her back to where he found her, she says. She’d read about this new mall opening—but never expected to see it from this perspective. Before they part, he says, he wanted to hear her sing again—and he knows she misses performing. The acoustics in this mall, from this exact spot, will be perfect for it. They’ve done well, he adds—averted a potentially great disaster. He feels her singing would be a pleasant reward for both of them.
Dazzler puts her hand on his shoulder longingly. Usually a success such as they just had is its own reward, she says—the satisfaction of knowing they’ve done something for the greater good of everyone. She’s particularly pleased because she’s been working to reverse some of the anti-mutant hysteria spread when she publicly revealed her powers. If only she could do more positive things…
The Beyonder, finishing her thought, infers that she might therefore find more satisfaction. Interesting, he says—yet he doesn’t believe he’s experienced it. Sure, he gets a certain exhilaration from the action and the danger, but then again, he has no emotional ties to this world or its inhabitants—or at least not yet. The closest he gets are the feelings he has about Alison. He tells her that he would like to join her in her struggle. Together, they’ll combat the unreasoning fear humans have for mutants. They’ll both win the satisfaction—
“Nice,” Dazzler says, interrupting him, “—but it doesn’t work that way. I got into this mess by letting other people help me,” she says. “My satisfaction will come from resolving it on my own. And the sooner we get back—”
“The sooner you can resume that task,” the Beyonder says, finishing her sentence. In an instant, he transports both of them back to the spot from which he first plucked the Dazzler. She arrives next to O.Z. Chase’s abandoned truck, with its owner nowhere in sight. After they arrive, the Beyonder tells her that someday, when she’s less driven, she really must sing at that mall. She will someday, Dazzler replies—when she’s strictly Dazzler the performer again.
Peering inside the truck, Dazzler remarks that it looks like her bounty hunter escort gave up waiting. How long was she gone, she asks? The Beyonder tells her it doesn’t matter; he can just reverse time to the exact instant in which he took her away, if she wants. Like Mr. Chase, she need not have any memory of what happened. He may have drafted her a bit abruptly, she says, turning to him, but she likes the memory of all they did together. She requests they not tamper with it. She’s sorry he cannot feel something similar to her satisfaction, but who knows what he’ll discover next while traveling among Earth and its inhabitants? “Goodbye, Beyonder,” she says, kissing him on the cheek. “I’ll miss you.”
Meanwhile, O.Z. Chase and Cerberus finally arrive at civilization—or something slightly reminiscent thereof. In what appears to be a small, truckstop town, Chase spots an auto yard. He tells Cerberus not to go turning his snout toward the bar; he cadged Chase’s last cigar on the walk into town, so he definitely shouldn’t expect to be treated to a beer. They’re just gonna line up a tow truck and head straight back to their vehicle!
Unfortunately for Chase, he discovers that both of Barnard Complete Auto’s trucks are out on call. It could be quite a wait, the mechanic says, and while he can’t exactly recommend the food over at the diner, he can recommend the air conditioned bar.
While Chase speaks with the mechanic, Cerberus peers out the garage door to a figure across the street. It’s a woman on a motorcycle—one of the Outriders Dust hired. Speaking to her associates over her CB radio, she reports that it’s a good thing they split up. She found the bounty man, she says. It’s a good thing she came this way, she adds; she had a good feeling. She reports that she sees neither Chase’s truck nor the girl, though.
Chase, meanwhile, enters the bar. The cheery hostess—a blond woman named Eula wearing a pink sweater—asks how he’s doing today. “Darlin’” Chase tells her, “I’m at the point where I expect to hear your air conditioner’s ready to blow an’ all the beer’s gone flat.” He sits down at the bar. “Now if that isn’t the case, then you can just set a cold one near my elbow an’ leave me to lean against your bar an’ brood.”
Eula, peering out the window, asks Chase if some kind of animal followed him. She’s not sure her boss would want people’s pets just sprawling by the door like that, she adds. Turning to her, Chase says that if her boss can get him to sprawl some other way, then it’ll be one trick more than that ‘pet’ ever did for him. Someone left the monster with him as a marker on a debt, and he’s been paying for it ever since. “Couldn’t bring that beer now, could you? This is cuttin’ into my broodin’ time,” he says.
While pouring his beer, Eula tells him that if he didn’t act like such a bear, that poor pet of his wouldn’t behave like one either. One of Eula’s personal rules is to always be cheerful, no matter what. She asks if she already told him her name was Eula. Handing him his beer, she says they get lots of hunters coming through their town, but she never saw any with a rig for their guns like Chase wears. It’s real cute, she says. She bets there’s a lot cute about him—when he stops being so grumpy. Grabbing his beer, Chase tells Eula that won’t be happening anytime soon—unless he suddenly finds something he lost earlier that day. But, he adds, if any miracles do occur, Eula will be the first person he notifies.
From behind him, a voice tells Chase he might as well set his beer back down. He’s going to be too busy to drink it. Turning, he beholds the three Outriders. The portly rider, brandishing a chain, says they’ve come for the lady—the one who sings so fine and shines so bright. The mohawked rider in the middle states that she isn’t mean to be caged. Finally, the female rider tells Chase that his bring her in ends now.
Eula doesn’t quite grasp the tone or the intent of these new patrons. She cheerily introduces herself and asks how they’re all doing. Chase tells her that this looks a bit extreme for her brand of charm; she’d better let him handle the negotiations. Standing, Chase poses a question: suppose he told them Alison Blaire’s no longer with him? Grabbing Chase by the shirt, the mohawked rider assumes that means he stashed her some place. They know his reputation; he’s too good to lose her—just like they’re too good to not beat Dazzler’s location out of him. Song birds should be free, he adds angrily! Free as they are when they’re riding the road.
He keeps speaking. Chase interrupts him by thrusting his knee up into the man’s crotch. Flinging him aside, he splashes his beer in the portly man’s eyes, obstructing his vision. In one swift motion, he pulls his shotgun out of its holster and points it at the biker woman. Don’t even think about using that wrench, he tells her, unless she wants to improve her hairdo with a twelve-gauge part.
“Some cash for the beet, music lovers—then ride!” Chase tells them at gunpoint. “You can be free on the road,” he adds. “With me, you pay. And don’t forget to tip. No need to stare. Just do what I—” He suddenly and involuntarily lifts his gun into the air and fires. Something’s forcing his hand, he shouts. Terrified, Eula runs for the phone to call the sheriff. They’re getting way out of hand, she says. As she reaches for the phone to make the call, however, it lifts into the air at such speed that it snaps its cord. Eula stares at it, dumbfounded. That couldn’t have just happened, she said; it’s like those things they talk about in the National Star—those things that are done by mutants!
Meanwhile, Chase gets whipped in the face by the portly Outrider’s chain, then thrown through the bar’s plate-glass window. He lands beside Cerberus, who still sleeps peacefully. Picking himself up, Chase informs his dog—through strained breaths—that his master was just heaved through a window. Doesn’t that maybe arouse in him some kind of action? Taking his cue, Cerberus marches inside the bar. Upon entering, his attention is captured by Chase’s tipped-over mug of beer on the counter. Cerberus stands on his hind quarters and inserts his snout into the mug, licking up every last drop. Eula, meanwhile, reminds herself to always be cheerful—no matter what.
Outside, the riders wail on the downed Chase. As he kicks him in the ribs, the mohawked rider asks Chase where he’s hidden the Dazzler. They know she’s near; they can feel her! Where is she?!?
“If that’s some sort of E.S.P.,” Dazzler says from across the street, “it needs some serious fine-tuning. Or are you just so happy in your work, you hate to look up?” The Outriders look to see their mark, the Dazzler, addressing them from beside Chase’s truck. It’s the shining lady, they say! She already escaped! They tell her there’s a safe place they can take her—as soon as they finish convincing the bounty man to keep his face out of her life. “You’re finished already!” Dazzler shouts. Taking aim, she fires a high-powered blast of light at them, invoking all sorts of colors from the visible spectrum. It scatters and stuns them.
She rushes over to Chase’s side to see if he’s okay. No, he says, but shock and trauma are still operating in his favor. Speaking of which, he says, how’d she manage to get his pickup truck running? He doesn’t even bother to ask how she drove it without the keys, or where she’s been until then. “I…got help,” she answers. “Another traveler—he seemed to have a talent for dealing with these things.”
She asks what all the fighting is about. He wasn’t scooping them up for bounties, was he? It appeared their connection was with her. He tells her she has some real intense fans, and supposes they were around that Arizona town when he nabbed her. He figures they wanted to prevent her capture. Dazzler doesn’t quite buy it. She only sang there one night, she says, and she thinks if these gruff individuals were in the audience, she would have remembered them. Chase, tending to a bruised spot on his head, tells her they came on a lot like she did—meaning he thinks they’re mutants like her. In addition to claiming they could ‘feel’ certain things, they had his shotgun and the bar phone whipping around on their own. They scared everyone else into bailing out the back door the first chance they had! Inside the bar, Cerberus continues lapping up the spilt beer.
Those certainly sound like various psychic powers, Dazzler tells Chase. Citing them off, she assumes they’re forms of telepathy and psychokinesis. However, that doesn’t make them mutants, anymore than Thor’s hammer makes him one. Plus, their powers seem to be at a relatively low level. What makes them dangerous are their human qualities like brutality and violence. They should dump them with the local authorities, she says, and get on with resolving those bail charges that brought him after her in the first place.
To her surprise, the Outriders return. She’s willingly going along with a system rigged to destroy her, they ask? She doesn’t know who her friends are, and that makes them angry—more angry than they’ve ever been! Lifting his hands, the lead biker fires an energy attack at Dazzler and Chase, who leap out of the way just in time. As they dive, Chase shouts that the bar’s main power line is blowing right out of its housing!
The portly Outrider, Chunk, tells his leader to stay his hand a bit. Clear and easy, he says—and powerful! He tells his peers to attack in unison. Chunk is right, the woman says. They’re closer—there’s almost no need to talk. Whatever they had between them just kicked into a new gear! Maybe they were never mad enough, Stomper, the leader, says to Mama. As long as they have it, however, they should use it!
Struggling to her feet, Dazzler urges Chase to get inside the bar. This is turning more into one of her kinds of battles than his, she adds—and it’s turning for the worse! At that moment, the Outriders direct their combined powers toward a water main beneath the street—and beneath Dazzler and Chase. It erupts, sending a geyser through the asphalt and into the air! Dazzler and Chase are propelled off their feet and to the ground. Stomper approaches Dazzler and grabs her by the wrist. Enough fooling around, he says, or they’ll do more than just cause a water main to erupt under her feet! She’ll thank them later, he adds. For the moment, however, she’s coming along, like it or—
“—not!” Dazzler shouts. She fires two beams of light out of her eyes, and into his. Before she can strike her reeling foe with another strobe blast, something grabs Alison Blaire, an invisible force with a giant’s grip, seizing her and hauling her upward. Chunk and Mama stand with their arms outstretched, directing the energy they manipulate at Dazzler. Then, they begin to toy with her, spinning her around and around, faster and faster. As she twirls, Dazzler struggles to break free, lest she pass out. Her body’s absorbed enough sound to carry her through any battle, but that won’t be much help if she can’t convert that sound into light, effectively and soon.
Fighting vertigo, she times her shooting of a laser-thin beam with the relentless spinning of her body. Her laser-thin, laser-sharp beam cuts the two support poles bearing the bar’s sign. It falls over, nearly smashing both Chunk and Mama and breaking their hold on her. Dazzler begins to fall. Training with Cyclops on firing beams of light has paid off, she thinks. She hits the ground, her exercise-honed body prepared for the impact of the drop. However, she is not prepared for the violent mental shove that comes from the two Outriders being startled into her release.
Stomper orders the other Outriders to attack Dazzler before she recovers. They can’t give her another chance to use those light powers again, he says. Unfortunately for him, Chase approaches from behind, taking him by surprise. He shouldn’t make any promises, Chase says—he owes him! The biker spins, and O.Z. Chase feels himself hit, not with a fist, but with a glance. He crashes into the bar door, shattering it. He’s out of his league, Stomper tells Chase. When the lady said to get inside, he should have listened! The Outriders turn their attention to Dazzler once more. Together, they concentrate on making pain spread through her body, making it harder for her to breathe and fight back.
Meanwhile, from behind a nearby building, a civilian observes this battle with awe. He runs back to his fellow townspeople—many of them patrons of Eula’s bar—and reports that they’re still battling. They’ve caused a lot of damage with their weird powers, he says; it’s like King King versus Godzilla has come to town, for real! And to think, he thought this mutant menace thing was just trumped up to boost TV news ratings. He tells Eula they’ll do what they can, but with the sheriff out of town, he doesn’t know whom to call. One of the truckers suddenly realizes that he left his eighteen-wheeler when next to the gas station Eula’s bar they evacuated. If anything happens to it, he’s ruined! Another man says the entire down is in danger—but they can’t go off half-cocked against mutants. He tells a boy named Joey to find some more folks—ones likely to have extra guns! Joey enthusiastically takes off on his quest, commenting that it’s even better than Red Dawn!
The Outriders, meanwhile, finally succeed in subduing Dazzzler. She may have gone down hard, but she’s finally down, they cheer! Mama is less enthusiastic: she notices something rising out of Dazzler’s body—some kind of weird energy. The cloud of nebulous energy begins to take form and speak. This isn’t how it was supposed to be, it says. By shifting its being within hers, it hoped to experience what she does—it should have already encountered the satisfaction she spoke of earlier! As it begins growing legs and taking a human form, it remarks that it should have shared the feeling Dazzler derives from fighting her own battles. The energy finally takes the shape of the Beyonder. This feeling, he comments, is actually frustration! He feels helpless and passive, while the one he cares for is hurt, and suffering! He will not endure it! he proclaims.
Coming to her senses, Dazzler looks to the Beyonder and speaks his name, dumbfounded. The Outriders are equally dumbfounded. What is this guy? Their power has grown, they say, but they can’t quite get a reading off of him. They have to crush him fast, Stomper commands, before he springs any new surprises!
Fast as thought, a diesel engine roars to life, and the driverless eighteen-wheeler becomes a speeding, relentless juggernaut heading in Dazzler’s direction. Look out, she cries! The Beyonder turns just in time obliterate the truck with an energy blast. They stopped it, Dazzler says, but it was close. For a moment, she thought—
“Something had gone wrong with my powers?” the Beyonder asks. “No. But I am limiting them. Trying to keep them in scale with your fascinating world, Alison,” he adds, “—to give my actions meaning. And in having to fight hard, risking much to save you…I feel good! I feel…as you and Earth’s other heroes must!” He transforms his clothes from his white jumpsuit into an outfit more befitting a superhero. His new form-fitting unitard masks most of his head, but leaves his hair and face uncovered. Stylish black markings and a belt are the only accessories altering its otherwise monochromatic appearance. This feeling of contentment, he says, combined with that accomplishment—can this be satisfaction?
Dazzler confirms what he thinks. “It can also be fleeting,” she adds, “even when you’re a hero with a nifty new costume!” They’ve only just been through a skirmish; that doesn’t mean the war is over. From the looks of things, she adds, it may be escalating!
Dazzler is absolutely right. Across the street, the Outriders mount their motorcycles. Songbird’s buddy may not be lacking in power, but he seems new to using it, Stomper says. Three hard chargers hitting him from every direction will leave him reeling! Stomper’s confidence, however, is unfounded, as the Beyonder effortlessly blasts Chunk off his bike and into a metal pole. Dazzler urges the Beyonder to take it easy; striking fast before they can regain the edge is fine, she says, but they shouldn’t hurt them anymore than they’re forced to. Beyonder says they should also hope that choice remains theirs. To clarify, he tells Dazzler to take a look at the Outriders again.
Urging Chunk to get up and move past the pain, Stomper says the Outriders are still growing in power. They have no limit, he says, and Mama concurs. Combining their powers once more, they turn their attention to the gas pumps. With ease, they set them ablaze. For each blast a column of blazing petroleum begins to erupt skyward, only to have its fiery power seized, twisted and shaped into something even more deadly! The fireballs and shrapnel shoot toward Dazzler and the Beyonder like unearthly cannonballs.
Invoking his restrained power, the Beyonder halts the fireballs in midair and obliterates them. Dazzler, acknowledging that he can take care of the fire just fine, reminds him that the fragments from the explosion will still rain down on them—unless she creates a protective dome with laser light to deflect them! Her plan works. However, it quickly exhausts the reserves of sound waves she can transduce into light. Yet, she doesn’t sense the strain—if anything, she feels buoyed, and strengthened. That strength lasts—upholding the shimmering umbrella of vibrating light molecules through the fiery storm.
They make fine team, the Beyonder says while grinning. Her knowledge and ability offsets his inexperience; they sustain each other, he says. It appears to be working that way, Alison comments, but every time they break an attack from the bikers, they bounce back harder—and whatever’s coming next looks like it’s going to take even more sustaining than they’ve done so far!
Alison is right. The Outriders emerge from the fiery rubble as a new breed of terror entirely. While they were once separate entities, they are now a merged vehicular menace—a three-wheeled motorcycle of evil. It is a nightmare. A fever vision fused from flesh, machinery, and the twisted will of three minds expanded beyond all limits. It is a nightmare shaped by dreamers who have long lost sight of their original goal. It is a nightmare, and it storms through reality with no end but the slaying of two beings fixed in its path.
As the hellish motorcycle fires on Dazzler and the Beyonder, he whisks them out of its way. Firing back, he comments that if he had never limited his powers, he would never have imagined how difficult something as primitive as combat could be! He cannot relax his guard for even a moment—yet what a vivid learning process! He believes he sees a way for them to deal with this new version of their foe, he tells Alison. Is she ready? Top of her form, she answers.
The demonic tank comes at them once more. While dodging its blasts, the Beyonder comments that they cannot properly angle their shots while swerving. Before they can adjust, he tells Dazzler to fire at its three faces! While they’re blinded, he can—
“No,” Alison states. “I’ve developed my own strategy. It’s called walking away.” She does just that, leaving the Beyonder to fight the machine. He shouts at her as she goes; what is she doing? She’s making herself a target! If they don’t keep resisting, he says, there’s—
“No satisfaction,” Alison answers, interrupting him once more. “And without it, I don’t think you’ll keep prolonging—something that’s already over.” With those words, the mayhem in the town transforms in an instant. Where the merged bikers once stood, there now rest three unconscious Outriders. The Beyonder, meanwhile, instantaneously changes out of his superhero outfit and into his signature white jumpsuit. She’s correct, he tells Alison hesitantly. He realizes now he was the source of their increasing power, and he was raising it to greater and greater levels. He begs her to please not think he acted out of malevolence. However, as they battled effectively side-by-side, the satisfaction increased. Picking up this train of thought, Dazzler tells him he unconsciously acted to maintain that feeling. He bolstered her capabilities as well. When she sensed that, she deduced what was happening. She understands, though. They were quite a team—but now that he recognizes satisfaction, there are so many better ways to experience it. He’ll discover them as he travels.
Just then, the mob of townspeople arrives, armed with rifles, pistols and clubs. Find some other places to wreck, they shout! They declare they’re taking their town back! They have enough guns and people to make certain their reign of terror ends there—permanently, if they put it to a vote! Addressing the hostile mob, Dazzler tells them she and the Beyonder are not the threat they imagine. If they just give her a moment, she’s sure she can explain everything. Unfortunately, outrage, frustration and fear command this crowd. Words cannot hold it back. Actions, however, might.
O.Z. Chase intervenes and fires his shotgun into the air. If they’re not in the mood to listen to a mutant, they can listen to him, he says. He’s the only human present who actually had lumps laid on his hide. He’d have taken worse had the Dazzler not stepped in against those other three. What’s what really kicked off this war, he says—them not accepting her siding with a human. Now, he’s siding with the lady. If they want to prove that they’re just like what they claim to hate, they’ll have to go through him and her other friend in order to get to her. The trucker tells Chase it’s really easy for him to be self-righteous; his livelihood didn’t get trashed! Just look at his truck! he insists.
As they look over at the demolished eighteen-wheeler, however, they see a brand-new one sitting in its place. Confused, the man claims it looked trash. What about the filling station, someone asks? Wasn’t it also on fire? They don’t see any damage, somehow. Only the bar’s window and door remain in wreckage.
Smirking, Dazzler tells the Beyonder she supposes he stopped limiting his powers. Most of this will fade from their memories, he tells her—and from Mr. Chase’s as well. If anyone learned anything from his words, however, that will remain, simply because it’s more…satisfying. Chase, meanwhile, informs Dazzler and the Beyonder that the three skuzzballs who started the fight are escaping. It doesn’t matter, the Beyonder replies. They’re spent—wasted—drained of even the tiny powers they first exhibited. There is, however, something he noted earlier but ignored during combat. He will leave it with Alison. Elaborating, he states that, although he did indeed unconsciously augment their abilities later in the battle, the trio’s initial leap in powers developed as a reaction to something else entirely: Dazzler’s light.


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

[Assistant]
Revelations
On the planet Earth, viewed from space, an explosion of light erupts from a small spot in North America, its radiance outshining even the sun. “I know there are spy satellite photos of the way it looked from space,” someone says, describing this event in retrospect. “Despite what happened with the project, I still have a few sources in government who have clandestinely stayed in touch. But I wouldn’t want to see that material,” he adds, “—I much prefer to imagine. In my mind’s eye, it has to be grander and more awesome. The flare of a star going nova. Only instead of originating in the dark of space, it radiates brilliantly up from Earth…the light of the Dazzler!”
In his home, Dust, still inhabiting the body of a trucker, continues speaking to his associate, Stomper. “That’s romantic, I realize. But my wife and I are romantics, Stomper,” he says. It’s how they’re able to look beyond the horror—by never losing sight of their ultimate goal. He wants to make it very clear to Stomper what this means to them, he adds for emphasis. One day in the future—once success is finally theirs—the moment he just described will no doubt be considered the birth of a new era.
Of course, he adds, the actual event was just a sensationalized publicity effort for a movie that was never released. He believes that aspect will fade in time. The important thing will be, though, that Alison Blaire, the mutant with the power to absorb sound waves and convert them into light, dazzled the gathered crowd with an amazing glow transduced from the roar of six 747 passenger jets. Dust asserts that Stomper knows this already, because he was there with his fellow Outriders, Chunk and Mama—three members of a thrill-seeking biker gang out on the fringe of the crowd, only slightly touched by Dazzler’s light, yet still—awakened.
Dust lays his hand on Stomper’s shoulder, who is visibly nervous. A happy accident, Dust calls their presence at the event. After learning of it from Stomper and his friends, the final step for Dust and Silence’s success fell into place. He and his wife will always be grateful, he tells Stomper—despite the Outriders’ recent unbelievable blunder.
Dust peers outside his mansion at the willing workers toiling in the yard. Some might ask if all of this isn’t enough, he says while gesturing out the window. He describes his residence, known as Camp Silence, as a self-sufficient community that draws disturbed and disaffected youths like a magnet, and through unique meditation and therapy programs makes them useful and productive. It even has this effect on violent, hardcore cases—like Stomper. Camp Silence isn’t a dream though, he adds. It’s a subterfuge—a means to regroup and salvage. As he places his other, rapidly disintegrating hand on the top of Stomper’s head, he claims that he and his wife saw what their brief exposure to the Dazzler’s light had awakened in the three of them when they first arrived. They knew she was the key to the dream—the dream they tried to crush twenty-five years earlier.
Flashback…
The man now known as Dust lies on an experimental bed. He wears a red visor and looks up into an operating light. Electrodes and wires adorn his otherwise naked body. In the middle of his self-experiment, his wife, the woman now known as Silence, rushes into the lab. The project’s been cancelled, she cries! She informs him she just received a warning call from Washington; word about the deaths in their control group has leaked! There’s every likelihood they’ll be arrested!
Dust removes the visor from his blond head. But their enhancement drugs work, he insists! Sure, they’re deadly—but the more he experiments with ultra-violet rays, the more he’s certain that the proper combination of them can reverse the fatal effects of the drugs. Besides, they’re fighting a war, he adds! There must be casualties! And the addicts, criminals and street slime who serve as their test subjects haven’t suffered risks as great as he and Silence have taken themselves! They put their lives on the line for the results they achieved; can’t the government show some courage? Surely they realize the Russians are experimenting with paranormal power enhancement!
To demonstrate, he lashes out at a nearby beaker using only his mind. The glass vessel shatters. Wouldn’t rather lose a few human dregs than the race to unleash the full psychic potential of the human mind?
Present…
The answer, he tells Stomper, was no. Even those friendly to his project didn’t dare take the chance—not when the bad publicity might also jeopardize their efforts to gear up for a more conventional war erupting in Vietnam. He and his wife fled like criminals, taking their secrets with them—and their records as well. The early years were the worst. They learned to live like fugitives—and with the knowledge that, even as their psi-abilities kept growing, they were slowly dying. Because in their faith they had injected themselves with more of the enhancement drug than they administered to their test subjects, they each found ways to use their developing powers to fight death—unpleasant ways, he might add, and temporary. They won time from the grasp of the reaper, but to this day, he and Silence live in his grasp. To illustrate, he describes a time in which he accosted a man in an alleyway while his wife kept watch.
Continuing, he tells Stomper that, with time, there was hope. Without government support they couldn’t produce any significant new amounts of the drug, but just prior to being closed down, they had made a magnificent discovery. As others would later find with LSD, their drug had a pass-along effect: it survived dormant in the offspring of many original subjects. Using new identities, he and Silence sought out the next generation, most of whom were as wild and disaffected as their parents, and started building a place to which they would be drawn. That place became Camp Silence. It was at this place where they experienced failure.
Flashback…
Dust and Silence, still in their original bodies, experiment on a subject, who lies strapped to a stretcher. Dust takes the subject’s pulse, but finds no signs of life. He concludes that any combination of ultra-violent rays effective against the drug is equally fatal. They can’t awaken their psi-potential without killing them! Silence adds that they respond when she mentally reaches out to draw them to Camp Silence. Therefore, the drug must not be totally dormant; there’s an affinity among everyone touched by it. There must be some way to safely unlock it!
Present…
Dust tells Stomper that this safe method turned out to be none other than the Dazzler. Stomper, Chunk and Mama’s slight exposure to her light had awakened in them the seed their experiment had implanted in them, Dust says. More importantly, it showed the potential—at full exposure—to cleanse. The dream was possible again, he adds. However, they still had to win the mutant woman over to them, but in the end, after weaving an elaborate web to accomplish that very thing, he mistakenly entrusted the final step to barbarians!
While draping his crumbling hands over Stomper’s shoulders, Dust tells the frightened biker he had no choice; they had successfully used the Outriders as hunters and trackers of other marks they sought. Only the Outriders had enough awakened psi-abilities to appear to Dazzler as fellow mutants, and thereby, as her friends and rescuers! Instead, at the first complication, they acted like bullies, like the road-riding animals they used to be. They alienated her and battled her—and in their ultimate defeat, somehow burned away their own developing powers! Then, like spoiled children, they returned home, hoping to be forgiven!
As Dust looks into Stomper’s eyes, his face begins to crumble. A look of pure horror envelopes Stomper as his employer’s ashen remains begin spilling over his own body. Dust insists that he cannot forgive the Outriders—not when they’ve postponed him and Silence to postpone their dream once again. All he can do now, he says, is assure Stomper that he will still play a part in seeing it fulfilled. With that, Dust’s body disintegrates completely, leaving only a skeleton to tumble to the floor. As the decomposed remains wash over Stomper, he clenches his jaw, shuts his eyes and looks up, not wanting to face what will happen next. The last conscious thought of the young man called Stomper is to scream in horror—and perish with the knowledge that no matter how loud, the sound will never be heard.
Sure enough, the current crop of laborers continue their yard work, completely unaware of what has just occurred inside the mansion of Camp Silence.
Dust, meanwhile, emerges from his meeting room and approaches his wife, Silence. It’s done, he says, apologizing for the scream. In the final moments, his control over his subjects sometimes slips a bit. Silence, sitting casually in a comforter, tells her husband not to worry; she was prepared. The important thing is that Dust has a strong, new host body. Dust, now inhabiting Romper’s skin, approaches his wife and kisses her on the cheek. It’s the best available body at the moment, Dust adds. He hopes it’s not too unappealing; he knows she’s tolerated a lot over the years. They both have, Silence assures him: the constant threat of death and decay. Dust fights it by changing bodies, while she has to fight it while mentally restraining its advance within her. Yet now, after so many years, the latest setback makes their ultimate goal—
“Still close, Silence!” Dust tells her. He insists that Dazzler’s light will cleanse what is destroying them and awaken the new wave they’ve gathered. Silence adds that the country’s wrath is rising against mutants. Soon enough, those feelings will carry over to most so-called superheroes, she asserts—many of whom are already allied or associated with mutants. Their new wave will be an alternative: strong enough to combat mutants and superheroes, but created out of humans and human potential. The government that once rejected them will soon embrace them, Dust adds. This time, however, they will retain control—over their drug, over the new wave and over Dazzler herself. She must be out there somewhere, he says; they haven’t lost her yet. It’s just a matter of concocting a proper plan to totally secure all that power for their needs.
Meanwhile, Dazzler finds herself engaged in an all-out brawl with an entire gang of vicious bikers. While repelling three of them with a combination of her light powers and self-defense skills, a biker sneaks up behind her with a chain, ropes it around her neck and begins choking the life out of her. Keep on her, he commands! She can’t shoot any light blasts when she’s choking to death! He intends to show her how they handle muties who come nosing around on the home turf of the Devil’s Deacons. Throwing her to the ground, he claims that citizens in the streets may quiver in their boots at the sight of mutants, but the Devil’s Deacons skrag them like any other trespassing fool!
The gang descends on the fallen woman. Dazzler, however, is not out of tricks. She unleashes a full-force strobe blast that repels them and knocks them all to the ground. Standing tall, she lifts the leader of the gang up by his collar and resumes her interrogation. Now, she had a question about the three riders who might have passed through there, she says, but instead of answering, he and his fellow bikers chose to demonstrate just how tough Denver’s toughest motorcycle gang is. If they’re all done impressing her, perhaps they’d like to try talking. The beaten biker admits to Dazzler that she’s scary—but so is what happens to any Deacon who rats out another biker.
Suddenly, a shotgun blast erupts from across the room. Its ball bearings come eerily close to obliterating Dazzler’s head; thankfully they merely rip off the tails of her red headband. She turns and sees O.Z. Chase standing in the open doorway of the biker garage, brandishing his smoking shotgun. That was a warning shot, he tells Dazzler. She should be glad she’s not wanted dead or alive. If she runs off again, however, no one will quibble if he brings her back crippled.
Chase approaches Dazzler, puts the barrel of his gun at the back of her neck and leads her away. The frightened biker tells Chase he never thought he would be so grateful to a cop. He doesn’t have to be, Chase replies; he’s strictly a private bounty hunter. He adds that he used to ride a bit himself, in a club out of Fresno, California. With Dazzler safely in the cab, Chase wraps his arm around the biker’s shoulder and poses a question. It’s not like he owes him or anything, but he just wanted to warn the three bikers Dazzler was talking about that she and her fellow mutants have it out for them. The biker begins to answer, but then grows worried about whether or not Dazzler’s safely locked away in the truck. He wouldn’t want to risk invoking her wrath again. Chase assures him that using her light powers wears her down. Plus, he adds, his dog Cerberus is guarding her—and he’s not named after the legendary beast who guards the gates of Hades for nothing! Now, about that biker trio, Chase asks.
Inside the cab, unseen by the biker, Cerberus jubilantly laps the sweat from Dazzler’s face.
Later, when they’re back on the road again, Dazzler asks Chase if he supposes their little con worked. She’d hate to think the bruises she collected didn’t net the information she wanted. Chase concedes that she may have forced the information out of them eventually, but their way was a whole lot faster. Suddenly Chase finds himself distracted by his dog Cerberus’s uncharacteristically pleasant demeanor; he’s never seen his miserable mutt so friendly and affectionate! He asks Dazzler what she did before realizing that his entire box of Cuban cigars is now empty. She fed the mangy monster all of his cigars? Cerberus fed himself, Dazzler counters. She just didn’t try to stop him once he started.
Chase tells her that’s low. So is reminder her that it’s his truck every time she asks him not to smoke, Dazzler replies. Someday, when the country’s anti-mutant fervor subsides, she would like to resume her singing career full-time. When she does, she’d prefer to have both lungs intact. She reminds him that the three bikers who attacked Chase seemed to somehow draw power form her. It’s only natural they work together to track them down, she adds—but not with a cloud of cigar smoke between them. Chase is afraid that’s not all between them; no matter what happened on their trip to Denver or how they’ve helped each other, he’s still a professional with a job to do. He can’t partner with a bail-jumper on whom his reputation is staked on bringing to justice. He’d be finished as a bounty hunter, he says. Besides, according the dude from the Devil’s Deacons, the trio they want—the Outriders, they call themselves—never came this way at all. They’re long gone from the biker circles and have fallen into some kind of cult.
They’re getting too far afield, Chase says. He has to rein things in and take care of business—which, right now, means delivering her to the agreed-upon location. As they pull into to the airport motor lounge, Chase informs her that there’s an agent from the firm who hired him waiting to fly her back to Los Angeles. He’s sorry, but if the charges against her are trumped up, they can be settled there—and not by more running around trying to find a bunch of fanatics holed up at some place called Camp Silence.
Meanwhile, at Camp Silence, it is the meditation hour. Automatically, without being summoned, each of the ground’s inhabitants file from their rooms in the main house, moving solemnly, noiselessly toward the converted barn that is their meeting hall—where Silence awaits. She loves this time, she says as she removes her hood. She never feels closer to them as she does now, during the meditation hour. She thinks of them as their children—the children denied to Dust and Silence by the commitment they made to their research.
Black-haired and spectacled, Silence stands on the stage wearing a red jumpsuit adorned with a zigzagging, stylish, yellow stripe. Two white locks near the front of her head highlight her otherwise jet-black hair. Opening her arms, she embraces the family created by the experiments of her and her husband. She embraces them with her greatest power—the power of silence. It began as a side-effect—part of the extreme concentration she brought to her constant battle against the death advancing within her. As her psychic talent grew over the years, it became almost a physical thing, capable of being oppressive or protective, maddening or serene. Now, it comforts and calms those gathered before her, even as she draws strength from the latent psi-force within each of them, and uses it to reach out.
Thinking to herself, she realizes there aren’t many left—only a few they’ve never found or touched. However, Dust has moved ahead so swiftly with his new plan that this may be the final chance to gather the last of their children—their new wave. The youths in the audience, meanwhile, stare awe-stricken at their matron, their silent faces glowing with the gentle aura of the candles they hold.
On the nation’s East Coast, within a darkened mansion not far from the city of New York, a special machine hums tirelessly. It is Cerebro, and it was created by Professor Charles Xavier to detect mutants with superhuman abilities. The actions of the woman called Silence do not escape its notice. By its circuitized criteria they register as artificial in origin—non-mutant—no more cause for its alert system to sound than if Spider-Man were swinging across the city skyline. Others are affected less prosaically.
In that same mansion, a mutant woman stirs in her sleep. She is Rachel. She is one of a now outlawed mutant group organized by Cerebro’s creator—and she is a telepath. Again, she shrieks internally, bolting upright in her bed. She describes the sensation as a shadow stepping into her sleep—as if someone were psychically communicating, only on a strange, new wavelength. Is it another nightmare from her life before the X-Men? She wonders if maybe she should just never have let Kitty Pryde introduce her to Health Bar Crunch ice cream.
And still, the reaching out goes on, this time in the State Correctional Facility in Chanute, Kansas. An inmate named Arthur Allen Smith sits in his cell at night. An abandoned child with parents unknown, most of Arthur’s life was spent in orphanages and institutions. A model prisoner who is eligible for special privileges, Arthur is currently serving a three-year sentence for auto theft. Because of his splendid record, there is talk of an early parole for Arthur. Because of his emotional problems, there is talk it may be denied.
The walls of Arthur’s cell are adorned with posters of the Dazzler. His sits alone at night, wearing headphones and writing in a lined journal. Arthur has two obsessions. One is for the singer, Alison Blaire, best known as the Dazzler, whom, in one of his rare periods of freedom, he once saw in a liver performance and, having never experienced even friendship with a woman, fell hopelessly in love. His other obsession is with the strange forces that reach out to touch his mind, conjuring images of comfort, happiness and great power waiting to be given him—that, plus hints of things deep, dark and terrible he was not meant to perceive.
In his journal, he abruptly shifts from writing out practice sentences in Spanish to jaggedly scrawling the words “SAVE THE LADY” across his paper.
Back at Camp Silence, meditation is over. The woman called Silence again turns her thoughts inward to fight death and to worry over her husband and their dream. Three days now, she thinks. Can her husband really do so much in so short a time? And if he does bring in the Dazzler, can they control her once she realizes that their need for her and her power will eventually consume her? Gradually, though, Silence expels all such concern. Her concentration becomes pure and total, and silence covers the house and surrounding grounds like the starry night itself.
Meanwhile, in Denver, Dazzler lashes out at her captor, O.Z. Chase, in the lobby of the airport motor lounge. Shouting and releasing beams of light, she reminds Chase that she’s cooperated with him since he first arrested her in Arizona because it seemed like the right thing to do! No longer, she says. If he can’t see that he’s being pulled into something much bigger than the charges against her in Los Angeles, then he’s at least going to discover just how impossible she is to handle when she doesn’t cooperate. And maybe, if she throws enough light at him, he’ll see he’s been set up as mush as she was! Where’s the agent he’s supposed to meet? she asks.
She begins to explain the reason the agent never checked in when a man on the staircase interrupts her. “I believe you’re about to make a valid point, Ali,” he says, “—but if I hadn’t warned the hotel staff to be prepared for a possible scene when you arrived, they might be summoning the police or national guard this very instant!”
Dazzler turns to find someone she never expected to see addressing her from the stairs: her father, Judge Carter Blaire. She runs to him and give him a hug. How did he find her? Since revealing her status as a mutant to the public, she has avoided contacting either him or her mother for fear that it might bring them harm. Casting these fears aside, Carter tells her that too many times in the past he has hindered rather than helped her. Now, he will gladly welcome any risk just to prove to her those days are over. Through his contacts as a judge, he recently learned of some very strange goings-on involving her and what he once considered a reputable firm, U.S. Bailbonds. Following up on that is what led him to her.
Shocked, O.Z. Chase asks Carter if he’s saying there’s something wrong with the firm that hired him. Only among certain employees, Carter answers. He explains that the employees connected with authorizing Chase to hound his daughter seem to have vanished—or fled! He believes this explains why a colleague in Los Angeles was able to provide him the court records he now has in his possession.
Chase takes a look at the records. They are court records regarding civilian complaints against Alison and Roman Nekoboh stemming from the movie promotional stunt in Los Angeles. They indicate—or prove, as Carter insists—that everything was resolved by Nekoboh’s lawyer. Alison was never required to appear in court, Carter states, and U.S. Bailbonds played no part in the matter until someone there furnished Chase with a warrant and bail agreement. Forged, obviously, he adds—as a standard check with the police or court would have shown. Perhaps the firm’s reputation—along with its extremely large reward—lulled Mr. Chase, Carter asserts. Now, if he will excuse them, Carter has a car waiting.
Once in the limousine with her father, Alison tells him he was a little rough with Mr. Chase. Despite the fireworks and yelling, she’d actually hoped to win Chase over as an ally. Carter tells her he sometimes forgets he’s not always speaking from the bench. He supposes his main though was to whisk her off to safety as quickly as possible, and then sort out who might be friend or foe later. A bounty hunter is a kind of mercenary, he adds, which could make Mr. Chase a risk. Alison supposes her father knows best. Still, she’s going to miss Chase and his weird dog—if not his cigar smoke. After all, he helped her get a lead: although she doesn’t know where her father had in mind for safety, but she wonders if they could find someplace called Camp Silence? In response, Carter tells her that their young driver, Jared, struck him as quite knowledgeable when he rented their car. He bets if he can’t get them there, he’ll know someone who can.
Back at the airport hotel, O.Z. Chase, suspecting further foul play, decides to investigate things a little deeper. Taking advantage of Cerberus’s temporary bout of cooperation, he instructs the dog to lumber around the hotel for a while, thereby occupying the attention of anybody checking the hotel security monitors. Dazzler’s old man may have been right about Chase’s carelessness in regards to the Dazzler gig, but that doesn’t mean Carter couldn’t have been careless himself. Chase recalls how after Dazzler and Carter left, he made a quick phone call to Los Angeles that basically verified everything Judge Blaire had to say. Still, he thinks, something is too blasted pat about the way he turned up with all of the answers. Of course, it could also be that Chase is just miffed how he made him look in front of his daughter.
As he jimmies the lock to Judge Blaire’s hotel room, Chase remarks that if his lock-picking skills aren’t too rusty since his days in reform school, he may be able to uncover a clue. The front desk says he hasn’t checked out yet, after all.
What Chase finds in the room surprises him beyond belief. Lying on the floor in the middle of the room are the skeletal remains of Stomper, the Outrider who attacked Chase just days earlier. Around his body lie piles and piles of dust.
Meanwhile, on the road out of Denver, Carter says to his daughter, whom he once again calls ‘Ali’, that she’s been very quiet since they left the city. “Reconsidering,” she answers. “I thought I’d be able to just sit back and take this ride to Camp Silence. But I can’t. I have to ask—who are you? The looks, the sound of the voice are perfect…it’s more than an impersonation. But, though it was something I always wished he’d do, my father never called me Ali in his life.”
‘Carter’ looks at her stoically. “Ah. Tricky business making your own consciousness dominate another until you take control of their body. All those memories, emotions to be drawn upon—and conquered. Carter Blaire was trying to change,” he tells Dazzler, “but still basically a cold man. I suppose I overcompensated.” He tells the driver, Jared, to find a spot with some room. The mutant’s mind is difficult for him to scan and influence, but he believes they can safely conclude that the Dazzler is ready to quarrel. Still, he doubts even she will want to risk danger to others on the highway by doing it in a moving vehicle.
They pull over to a state park outside of Denver. A creek runs next to the parking lot, while in the distance, jagged rocks adorn the nighttime horizon. This place will do nicely, Dust says. He formally introduces himself to Ali at that point, revealing his true identity as Dust.
While the three figures move into the sandstone grandeur for a confrontation, Chase, back in Denver, completes an anonymous phone call to the police. He walks back to the truck. Now this mess will get bucked up by someone who can handle it, he tells Cerberus—maybe S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Avengers or something. It’s time for them to get back to California—and their own league. He tells his dog he’s going to begrudgingly give him a cigar just to celebrate getting out before they got in any further over their heads.
Cerberus, however, ignores the gift and stares out the window with a determined look on his fact. Chase figures out why he’s acting so strangely pretty quickly. “The lady! Your contrary brain’s got it figured I should still help her! Well, you didn’t see what I saw in that hotel,” Chase tells him. “She needs other mutants or superheroes—who don’t smoke!” Puffing on his cigar, Chase turns to start his truck. After a moment, he shoots a pensive glance at his Cuban, turns to Cerberus, and snarls. “Y’know,” he says, “I hate you, animal.” Tossing the cigar out the window, he kicks the truck into gear and heads out to find Alison Blaire, before it’s too late.
Dazzler, meanwhile, faces the man in her father’s body and feels her fury mount. Smiling, faintly mocking, he has just revealed how a telephone call lured Carter Blaire to a hotel room in Denver—where Dust was waiting. Judge Blaire rushed to his daughter’s aid when he learned she had legal problems, Dust laughs; he was anxious to use his connections to free her from them. Why has he done this, Dazzler asks? What possible end could justify hounding her, manipulating her life, and—when that fell apart—seizing control of her own flesh and blood? “You, Ali,” Dust replies. “Your power. That’s the end. It would be so much better to have you with us willingly, but one way or another—your light will shine among us!”
Jared appears behind Dazzler and grabs her in a chokehold. With ease, she uses his grip against him and flips him over her shoulder. She thanks Dust for the explanation; she thought she would have to travel all the way to Camp Silence to learn what he just told her. As for her light, she says, if he wants it, he’s got it! She fires a powerful blast at Jared that seems to emanate from every pore of her body. Dust, meanwhile, cheers on the fighting. This is the test they wanted, he says! Jared is one of their strongest and most fit; he implores him not to succumb to the force Dazzler’s hurling at him, but to use it! To drink it in! To feel it in his very depths! The power he’s been promised is there, Dust adds; let the light awaken it!
At his master’s urging, Jared begins absorbing the light. As his strength grows, he picks himself up off the ground. Dazzler, meanwhile, hits him with her best, and although it’s taking at toll, it’s also helping as it hurts! It reminds her of her fight with the Outriders, only Jared is catching on much faster! She decides to activate a back up strategy, just in case.
Dazzler is too late: Jared, the first of Dust and Silence’s new wave, comes to live. With a mentally controlled blast of force, he knocks Dazzler off her feet. All his life, he says, people and things have been getting in his way—coming between him and what he wants. No more! he shouts.
For Alison, the attack is like being slapped by an invisible giant. She makes herself go limp as she hits the rocky outcrop behind her, straightening to spread the impact over more of her body area. It helps—as much as anything can. She fights her way back to consciousness, forcing numbness from her body, painfully aware of the rough ground beneath her as sensation returns. She doesn’t think anything is seriously broken or sprained—but something still isn’t right. Suddenly, she realizes the problem is the moonlight: something is blocking the moon!
Sure enough, up above, Jared hoists a colossal boulder into the air and positions it above Dazzler. Boasting, he claims he can move anything now! He’s got power—just like Dust and Silence always promised. No one can ever push him around ever again; he’s the mover! Dust, however, fears his pupil is stretching his newfound abilities too far and too swiftly! He reminds him that they need the lady intact and warns of what may happen if Jared loses control of his powers.
Dazzler, meanwhile, doesn’t intend to just lay there to see if that happens. Lashing out, she fires at the floating boulder. It is a blast of laser-light, as strong and controlled as the considerable skills of the Dazzler can make it, cutting like a precision instrument even as it widens into a protective bubble around her. She splits the gargantuan rock formation in twain, sending its two ample sides crashing to the ground around her. Dust’s boy wonder created this problem, Dazzler says to her captor; now they’ll see how he enjoys dealing with it! Jared lifts his hands and cries out as he tries to command the cascade of rocks heading in his direction. Insisting he can handle it, he repeatedly declares himself the mover. Dust recoils behind his pupil in fear. The force Jared wrenches from the newly unlocked chambers of his mind equals the demand he places upon it. The physical being that channels that force, however, does not. Jared collapses. Dust grabs him as he falls.
Triumphant, Dazzler tells Dust that his predication about Jared’s power was right; all she had to do was find a way to help it along. Jared doesn’t look like he’ll wake up anytime soon, she adds—so she guesses it’s just back to her and Dust now. Assuming her fighting stance, she readies herself for combat.
“Fight? I’m all that remains on Earth of your father, Ali,” Dust tells her. “Give me your light! You saw it activate Jared’s latent psi-talent. It can do even more for me. It can cleanse me…halt my endless race from body to body to escape death! What fight to deny me that—when it will also save Carter Blair from crumbling into extinction?!” To demonstrate, he shows her the rapid cellular deterioration occurring in his host body’s hand. The clash of wills when he takes over a body is physically destructive to them, he adds, explaining that it speeds them to dust and decay. The stronger their will, the sooner they crumble. Dust was certain Carter’s form would sustain until they returned to Camp Silence—but even in defeat, Alison’s father is a wonderfully obstinate man. Is Alison really prepared to let him vanish forever? Dust doesn’t think she will—or can. He begs her to use her light—to save her father!
With a tear in her eye, Dazzler tells the man inhabiting her father’s body that she and her dad were at odds for so long. It’s only recently that they became close again. She’d do anything to preserve that, she says—even exhaust all the sound stored within her so Dust couldn’t possibly be helped by her light! With that, she turns away from Dust and expels every iota of stored energy she has into the distance. “That’s a shell, not my father!” she screams. “And if he’s found a way to resist the obscene mockery you’ve made of it…I’ll he see he succeeds!”
Dust shouts as Dazzler discards his last hope of preserving his current form. However, he sees in this a new opportunity. Approaching the weakened Dazzler, he tells her he will not be denied. He asks her to note that she is totally spent from her noble little sacrifice. Does she think she’s stopped him? No, he says—she’s merely created for him the greatest opportunity of all! Until now, a mutant mind was just different enough—just alien enough—that he couldn’t risk trying to seize control, even with his power. But Alison, however, is exhausted—her every defense down! Dust lifts her to her feet from behind while his host’s skin begins blowing away in the wind. He won’t perish with this crumbling wreck of a body, he says. Instead, he’s going to take her—take over all those powers he and Silence need to fuel their dream! Resting his hands on her shoulders, he begins to crumble, as he did with Stomper. His face begins to slough off. It’s happening, he tells the acquiescent Dazzler. With his touch, she’s so weak, and the dreams, so strong—
Suddenly, a shotgun fires, and the buckshots rip a Dust’s arms from his hands. He falls away from Dazzler, who stands motionless. In the distance, with Cerberus at his side, O.Z. Chase holds his smoking gun, still squinting his eyes to better his aim.
He approaches the shell-shocked Dazzler and knocks the decaying hands from her shoulders. She knew he was approaching, wasn’t she? He can tell by the way she managed to stay positioned so there was still a clear shot at Dust. “I’m sensitive about smoke, remember?” Dazzler replies. “It’s on your clothing, Chase. The breeze carried the scent this way. I owe you a cigar.” He’s trying to cut down, Chase tells her, affectionately referring to her as his partner. He suggests they move on; she doesn’t want to see any more of this.
Somehow, the dying Dust still manages to speak. If she doesn’t want to see, then let her hear, Dust says. When Carter’s body collapses, their hold on Alison still won’t be broken, he explains. After their last failure, he took no chances: Alison Blaire’s mother is at Camp Silence. To saver her, she’ll have to submit to Dust and Silence! With his dying breath, he begins to say their dream will survive—but crumbles to dust before completing his sentence.
Before Chase can comprehend what’s happening, Alison takes off running toward the cars. Don’t, he shouts at her! Dust had to be lying! Alison, hopping into the limousine, insists she can’t take that risk. As she drives away, she begs Chase not to follow her; she doesn’t want anyone else she cares about getting hurt just because some maniacs are after her!
Meanwhile, in the unnatural quiet of the darkened ranch house on Camp Silence, pain rouses the woman called Silence—pain deep and disturbing to her inner-being as is most sharp and sudden sound. “Dust!” she cries. “What has she done to you, darling…? What has that mutant witch done?!” Clenching her fists, she recalls that Dust her entrusted her with a weapon to make her bend to their will. She’ll see that it’s used—terribly, terribly well!