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Strange Bedfellows, part II
The blue-skinned supposed doppelganger of Dr Stephen Strange wears a hat with a red, white and blue stripe around it. He grins, and calls out ‘Welcome’ in several languages, as he stands on the edge of a small stage. A demon hoists the apparent true Dr Stephen Strange up off the stage, while in the audience, a horde of a demons watch on, as do four of Dr Strange’s mystical allies - Wanda Maximoff a.k.a. the Scarlet Witch, Alpha Flight’s Dr Michael Twoyoungmen a.k.a. Shaman, the mage Dr Anthony Druid, and the aged witch, Agatha Harkness. ‘Welcome to the wild and wooly and wonderful and wacky world of Dr Strange (that’s me!)’ the doppelganger exclaims.
The other mystics are held in magical bonds, restricting them from moving, as Druid declares ‘Listen, friend - you call yourself “Dr Strange” - but the real Stephen Strange is the one he’s got hanging there!’ But, Shaman tells Druid not to be too certain there, and Agatha agrees, stating that a magician more than most should remember that things are far from always what they seem. The doppelganger grins and announces that he is precisely what he seems. ‘I.e. Dr Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts! While this pour soul was and is Dr Stephen Strange, which turned out, in the end, to be no more than a meaningless title’. He orders his demonic minion to raise him higher, to give their captive audience an unobstructed view.
Wanda narrows her eyes and decides that this is an unqualified disaster. She recalls that they came here to try and free Earth’s populace from the Magus who rendered everyone else totally immobile, and even joined forces temporarily with that weird Sleepwalker character, who, in turn, was linked up mentally with Professor Xavier and the other psychics - Jean Grey, Psylocke and Moondragon - on Galactus’s ship. ‘But so far, all that’s happened is that evidently we’ve been rendered helpless by the doppelganger of Stephen!’ she tells herself.
Suddenly the doppelganger orders her to pay attention as he moves forward and holds his hat out.
‘Release us for two minutes and you’ll see who’s -’ Druid begins, but Wanda interrupts him, pointing out that he will not goad the doppelganger into freeing them. ‘Indeed not! Actually, my victory over all of you has put me in rather an expansive mood… but the principal member of the audience in whom I’m interested persists in sleeping the day away’ the doppelganger exclaims, turning back to Dr Strange hanging above the stage. ‘And just because I struck him with the Sword of the Ultimate Shadow, too’. He decides that a wake-up call is in order, and a whip appears in his hand, which he then uses to crack against Dr Strange, ‘Rise and shine!’ he calls out. ‘Time’s a wasting, and you just dangle there like a slab of beef!’ The attack of the whip does cause Stephen Strange to stir. ‘That’s more like it’ the doppelganger remarks.
‘Wh - what?’ Dr Stranger utters as he looks around, before remembering that everyone on this plane is frozen, then minor demons poured out of his mansion, then this doppelganger getting past his mystic shield. ‘You look like me - like I once did, anyway - but - who are you?’ Dr Strange asks. ‘If it looks like a Doc, walks like a Doc and quacks like a Doc - then it must be a Doc! I’m you, Strange! I told you that before, remember?’ he grins. ‘Liar! There is only one Dr Strange - I ought to know, since I was his precursor - his forerunner!’ Druid calls out. ‘And perhaps there was another of you, as well, even on my home-world - on Counter-Earth!’ the doppelganger muses. ‘Counter-Earth?’ someone asks. ‘Ah, that got your attention, didn’t it?’ the doppelganger remarks, before launching into a story.
The doppelganger’s narration:
‘Or perchance some of you didn’t know about that nigh-absolute duplicate of Earth’ the doppelganger comments. He reveals that once it shared this planet’s solar orbit, hidden from all detection, on the opposite side of the sun. He states that the High Evolutionary meant it to be his ultimate creation, an Earth on which violent evil would never gain a foothold. ‘He was a fool!’ the doppelganger exclaims, revealing that the Man-Beast, one of hid New-Men, soon proved to be the serpent in that particular Eden. He explains that from that day, the new world also repeated the less savory aspects of their history, though usually with a subtle difference.
For instance, on Counter-Earth, as here, one Stephen Strange became a brilliant but greed-driven surgeon. ‘They say he’s still got the first referral fee he ever earned’ someone remarked. Then, Strange wrapped his sports car around an unyielding tree, and his operating days forever ended, but eventually, he found his way to Counter-Earth’s Ancient One, who asked him to stay and study with him. Even in those Himalayas, a Baron Mordo was already the greybeard’s disciple. Just as here, he schemed to ultimately unseat his mentor, even slay him - but unlike on the other Earth, this Mordo soon succeeded. Strange avenged the Ancient One’s death, killing Mordo ith a spell Mordo did not suspect he knew. By then, Strange had learned much from the old man.
Present:
This world’s Dr Strange hangs his head as he listens to the story, as the man who claims to be the real Dr Strange states that by then, as he knows now, he had duplicated many of his early exploits, though he had never been taught how to cross over to alien dimensions. ‘The Ancient One must have suspected you’d one day succumb to your darker instincts - as you did when you killed Mordo, instead of capturing him’ Dr Strange explains. ‘That’s why I never learned of you!’ he adds, remarking that, Counter-Earth was on his astral plane - there was not Counter-Earth versions of other dimensions. ‘If you’d met Dormammu, Nightmare on their ilk - they’d surely have told me about you’ Stephen explains. ‘And vice-versa’ the “new” Strange replies, before continuing with his story:
Flashback continues:
With the old man gone, Strange studied his spell books, without his “loving guidance”, and when he decided to return to the world, he took this disguise that he wears now, and with the alter ego of “Necromancer”, there was no hiding his light under a bushel for him. In time, he meant to conquer his planet, this world also, once he learned about it through magic. To do that, he needed more power, and the Book of Vishanti made certain oblique references to an entity called Eternity, so Strange decided that with Eternity’s might added to his own, he would be invincible. He took a chance on a spell for dimensional travel, and soon faced Eternity - some time before this world’s Dr Strange ever did.
Eternity asked Strange what he wanted, and the reply was ‘Your very essence - and I mean to wrest it from you!’ This time, it was Strange who was the fool, as the paltry incantations he gleaned were as nothing next to Eternity’s power. Eternity simply stretched out his great star-filled hand, and pulled strange inexorably into his own gigantic frame.
Present:
Dr Strange listens still, as his doppelganger reveals that he was still inside Eternity’s frame to behold him, when he first encountered Eternity many months later. ‘Clearly, he didn’t think your presence worth mentioning’ Dr Strange replies, calmly, as the doppelganger remarks ‘My ego to the contrary, you are probably right’ , as he continues his story:
Flashback continues:
Strange remained locked inside Eternity’s massive universe-containing form through all Counter-Earth’s trials and tribulations - until not so very long ago, it exploded. Deep within Eternity, Strange grieved for his poor, destroyed vision of Earth. But, fortunately for him, there was another one, on the far side of the sun, and recently, when Eternity was rendered catatonic by the Magus, Galactus sought to cure him, by hurling the Gamora into his midst, as she was told by Galactus that on this day, she is a healer, and her patient all of reality. As Gamora sought a way to help Eternity, Strange observed her, unsuspected, quietly affixing his own essence to Gamora’s, so that when she spewed forth again later, he managed to escape on her psychic coattails - something he could never have done if Eternity had not been weakened by his ordeal, and Strange made his escape undetected while Gamora raged: ‘Blast you, Galactus - you used me!’ she screamed, while Galactus explained he would have done the same to anyone, to save his reality.
Propelled by his own mystic energy, how enhanced by some of Eternity’s as well, Strange hurtled away, fearful lest he be seen and apprehended, before he could make good his escape. ‘Free! Free at last!’ he shouted, but discovered that his fierce exertions had hurled him into another dimension. This dimension was ruled by the witch Shazana, whose weaker sdister had been put on the throne in her place, by none other than this Dr Strange. But, what one Stephen Strange can do, another can undo, and Eternity’s purloined power enabled to him overcome both siblings.
Present:
‘It is their demon subjects you see all about you, even now!’ the doppelganger Strange announces, while continuing his tale:
Flashback continues:
It took Strange little effort after that to locate this world’s place of power, and pass through all dimensional barriers to it. He had lost his own Earth during his long confinement within Eternity, and he meant to have a replacement. He arrived at this world’s Dr Strange’s mansion, there were no protective spells nor even a locked door. He moved towards a figure which seemed from the back not unlike himself. ‘Dr Strange!’ he called out. But it wasn’t Stephen Strange who turned around. ‘Yessss?’ a demon replied. This, not himself, was the Dr Strange doppelganger who served the so-called Magus. He had taken over Dr Strange’s mansion and meant to take both his talismans and his life. Strange was recognized as a natural enemy and the doppelganger attacked - but was easily defeated.
Present:
Strange tells Dr Strange that he saved him the trouble of defeating the doppelganger, by killing him himself. ‘Your precious talismans were safe - even your Counter-Earth alter ego, as it turned out’. Suddenly, he drops a book, and cries out in pain. Dr Strange tells the Counter-Earth Strange that this book of the Vishanti is attuned to his vibrations. ‘The Magus may have found a way for my doppelganger to imitate them- but yours would be subtly different’ he explains. Shaman asks the alternate Dr Strange if he is not the Magus’s lackey, then why did he launch an assault on the original Dr Strange? ‘Not to mention us!’ Druid points out, while the Scarlet Witch asks him to free them, so they can work together to protect the universe. ‘Good people - I said I wasn’t a Magus-created doppelganger - not that I wasn’t in the Magus’s employee!’ the alternate Dr Strange exclaims.
He continues, stating that, in point of fact, he has already offered his services to the Magus telepathically, and has been accepted. He remarks that the Magus is a very practical fellow, and that his major requirement was that he kill Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme. ‘Something I’ll be happy to do - since then I’ll be the only Dr Strange, which may easy my way to his talismans’ the alternate Strange announces, before casting some magic at the chained Dr Strange. Stephen knows that there is no use telling his counterpart, as the Vapors of Valtoor start to surround Stephen, that the Magus will eliminate him when he has no more use for him. But, Dr Strange does no an incantation which he has been muttering under his breath, which can utilize the familiar spell being used by his other self, so that when a sudden flash of light blinds the alternate Dr Strange, he believes he has obliterated this world’s Dr Strange, and his companions - and the alternate Strange smiles.
But, in truth, Dr Strange, Wanda, Shaman, Druid and Agatha Harkness are floating on a small piece of rock through the stars, as Dr Strange added his counterpart’s eternity-enhanced force to Strange’s own, propelling himself and his friends, and even his cloak, to an asteroid floating somewhere in space, along with the aura-held oxygen in their immediate vicinity, of course. ‘Thank Hoggath - you’re all safe! And yet - we’ve failed. The Magus has won this round’ Dr Strange tells his companions. ‘But - Earth?’ Shaman asks, to which Dr Strange tells him that he suspects Ms Harkness’s cat can get them back there in short order. ‘Her cat?’ Druid asks. Wanda realizes that the cat is missing, and that Agatha is not moving. Dr Strange replies that Agatha’s soul has left the building, and he only prays that she accomplishes the task the two of them agreed upon, before they run out of air - or before that ersatz Dr Strange wreaks total havoc back on terra firma.
At that moment, the alternate Dr Strange tells his demons that they have done well tonight, and thus they deserve a treat. ‘Go forth and do anything you like to the immobilized mortals without!’ he instructs them. ‘I shall be here, familiarizing myself with -’ he begins, when he hears something creak behind him. He turns and sees a curtain half-pulled, and a shadow resembling that of Dr Strange’s. ‘Dr Strange/ Did you barely survive my bolt of oblivion somehow…and return to force me to dole out more of the same?’ the alternate Dr Strange calls out, but gets no response.
Back on the asteroid, the oxygen aura is running low fast, as the heroes gather around Agatha Harkness. Wanda remarks that she hopes Agatha is all right, as she has always seemed to frail. ‘Only her body - not her spirit’ Dr Strange explains, while proceeding to contact Ebony, Agatha’ cat. He sees Ebony in Times Square, dodging demons who are terrorizing the area. Some of the demons throw a taxi car over, while Dr Strange confirms that Agatha’ soul is inside Ebony, but in the furor, their minds have become intertwined and confused. Dr Strange states that Agatha is their anchor, their pathway home, but this way, there is nothing in her mind that they can grab onto. Shaman asks Dr Strange if they can make the great leap back to Earth, but Dr Strange replies that he is not sure, and that if they try and fail, it could prove fatal to them all.
Dr Strange informs his companions that one of the demons has captured Ebony, and although the chase began as a vicious prank, the demon now senses a powerful witch’s mind intermingled with that of her familiar. ‘Another second and it will have squeezed the life out of Ms Harkness!’ Dr Strange declares, while telling his fellow wizards to hang on to his hats, as they are going to make the jump. An instant later, a portal opens in Times Square, and Dr Strange, Shaman and the Scarlet Witch leap through it, energies cast forth to battle the demons. One of them drops Ebony, while Strange shouts ‘By the direful Demons of Denak - I now abjure thee - hurl thee back!’ and Shamana tells Strange not to waste his powers any further one these minor monsters. ‘Let us deal with them - while you seek our your evil counterpart’ he tells the Sorcerer Supreme. Dr Strange smiles, and replies ‘Just what I was going to suggest, Michael Twoyoungmen’.
As if through the open-air halls of a museum full of statues carved in peculiarly awkward poses, Strange hurls himself towards the eerie domicile which he has called home, ever since his first return to America from Tibet. But now, its beckoning doorway seems not unlike the wide-gaping haws of a mammoth shark. And to enter through that portal, is to enter the belly of the beast. Still, one needn’t walk in blindly, Strange decides, not when one can dispatch his senteint sendings before him, to search for the hidden foe. Three green, glowing sendings appear before Strange, and he disperses them to do their work. Strange recalls that Wong and Imei are safe, and that Sara Wolfe, Morganna Blessing and his vampire brother Vic are all out of town at the moment. Strange races up a flight of stairs, as far as he can tell, that means there can’t possibly be anyone else in the house except himself, his alter ego, and perhaps, ‘Rintrah?!’ Dr Strange gasps as he enters another room, and finds the bull-like, green-skinned alien floating in the middle of the room, chained with mystical bonds.
Dr Strange tells his old friend not to worry, as a simple spell should free him, and does so, but Rintrah casts energy back at Dr Strange, ‘A thousand thanks “Master”!’ Rintrah declares as Strange slams against the wall. ‘Can we spell “doppelganger”, boys and girls? With or without the correct German umlaut over the “a”?’ the Counter-Earth Dr Strange grins as he appears behind Rintrah, before attacking Strange, stating ‘Now that I’ve restored your Magus-given double to its original form “Sorcerer Supremo”, I’m sure you’ll agree there are a few Dr Stranges too many. But, fear not - for in a second, we’ll be back down to two again!’ the doppelganger shouts gleefully as the doppelganger disguised as Rintrah vanishes, and the evil Magus-doppelganger Dr Strange pushes the real Dr Strange upwards. ‘Why stop there? Let’s go all the way back to one!’ Dr Strange replies, as he retaliates by casting energy down on the doppelganger, who screams, as he is trapped inside a crust of energy, rendering him stone-like. Dr Strange then throws the stone-like doppelganger at the Counter Earth Strange, knocking him back.
‘Do not confuse me with this hunk of mystically animated clay, wizard - he was but a carbon copy, with all the imperfections that technologically outmoded term implies. ‘While I, on the other hand, am you - with none of your sentimental weaknesses, which I have burned like dross from my mind’ he boasts, as he casts the stone doppelganger back at Strange, smacking it into him. ‘Now follow me - if you dare!’ the Counter Earthy Dr Strange calls out, as he flies out of the mansion and into the air. ‘You’re the one who cut and ran, fella!’ Dr Strange tells his impostor as he follows him. ‘I only pretended to flee, you fool - so I won’t wreck my future home when I unleash the last of the residual power I still retain from my sojourn within Eternity!’ the alternate Dr Strange explains.
‘By the Winds of Watoomb - NO!’ Dr Strange gasps, as Eternity’s universe-like state emanates from the alternate Dr Strange. This world’s Dr Strange tells his impostor that he doesn’t have the experience to know how to handle that much power, to which the alternate Strange replies ‘What’s to handle? Mystic power is mystic power - and with some of Eternity’s at my disposal, mine is definitely far greater than thine!’ he claims. Dr Strange realizes that his alternate self is right, as far as it goes. ‘I’ve always known that, even as Sorcerer Supreme, my power couldn’t hold a cosmic candle to that of Eternity. But, as I desperately call on every entity I can think of in the Multiversal phone book, it suddenly occurs to me - that maybe I don’t have to be as strong as my overly-ambitious counterpart in order to defeat him’ Dr Strange realizes.
In fact, Dr Strange decides that perhaps he has defeated him merely by answering his challenge. His spells prodded the alternate Strange into, as he put it, “unleashing” any of Eternity’s power still inside him, and this alternate Strange is too inexperienced to realize that even an infinitesimal shard of Eternity’s essence is far more than any human being could possibly hope to control. Dr Strange realizes that his counterpart has thought of himself as some living storage battery, when, in fact, he is really more like a doorway through which Eternity’s trans-dimensional will flow into this universe. A doorway which is far too small, and which the power within instinctively, inexorably, unendurably begins to widen. The Counter-Earth Dr Strange screams as he cannot handle what he has set out to accomplish, and, in an instant, it is all over. As the Counter-Earth Dr Strange vanishes.
‘It all feels - dare I say it - strange. For today, I’ve defeated myself - and I wonder - would the universe really have noticed the difference if I had lost?’ Strange asks himself as he flies back to the others. ‘Welcome back, Stephen. It is you, isn’t it, and not ol’ Blue Eyes in disguise?’ Druid asks. ‘It is he, Dr Druid’ Agatha confirms, while Wanda, Shaman and Druid use their combined powers to trap the demons in a bubble. Shaman tells Strange that it was an uphill fight, but he thinks they have corralled all of the demons his semi-double set free on Earth. ‘With their master distracted, that was the easy part’ Wanda adds, before asking ‘If New York thinks getting rid of its garbage is hard - what place is going to take these guys?’ Strange tells Wanda that, actually, there is no place like home, and casts a spell over the demon bubble, sending the demons back to Shazana’s reality.
Wanda reminds Strange that the demons’s rightful queen is imprisoned back in their own dimension, so Strange announces that he will free her with another spell, on their way back to Galactus’s ship. Dr Druid asks Strange if he thinks their work here is done, to which Strange tells him that, to the Magus at least, all this was only a side show, and asks the others if they are ready. Agatha states that she shall remain here, to deal with the odd left over demon who may pop up after the others leave. Strange tells Agatha that is a good idea, while Agatha turns to Wanda and tells her to take care, for she sensed weird emanations when she touched her before. ‘What kind of emanations?’ Wanda enquires. ‘If I were certain of that, my child, you may be certain that I would tell you’ Agatha replies.
Dr Strange opens a portal and orders everyone through before it collapses on itself. He tells Wanda that if she wants to stay here, but Wanda replies that her place is fighting for her world, for her universe. Dr Strange turns back to Agatha, ‘Wish us luck, Ms Harkness’ he calls back. ‘It is not luck which will sustain you, Stephen, but rather courage’ the old woman replies, and as the portal closes, with the four heroes gone, Agatha turns, and holding her cat, Ebony, announces ‘And that is one quality to which no man living can lay more worthy claim…than Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme!’


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Provide a full summary of the comic book.

[Assistant]
Be With Me
A shuttlecraft carrying X-Factor members Forge and Polaris flies over Yorktown, and the two are still engrossed in their argument from last night’s conference on human / metahuman relations. Lorna Dane insists that humans will fear mutants as long as mutants hang on to their deep-seated fear of humans. They are all afraid of what they don’t understand. He’s just mad because she disagreed with him in public. He’s become politician first, individual second, she accuses him. Steering the plane, Forge retorts that the politician is working! Before he became liaison, would they have even been invited to present mutants at that conference?
He misses the point! Polaris insists. Their argument was a demonstration that mutants are like everybody else: they are all different! She made it look like mutants couldn’t stand together for just one night, he snaps. Does she think that will help matters? “Disagree” with him on her own time! Her public display in New York was a betrayal of mutant and humankind!
That moment, an alert sounds that anomalous energy readings are detected. Polaris asks for more information, but is told it is unable to identify them at the time. The energy discharge from the entity poses a “level nine” environmental hazard due to proximity to the Yorktown chemical plant.
What kind of energy discharge? Lorna asks. The computer is unable to identify it. Impatiently, Lorna asks Forge to fix the machine. Forge points out it gives off conflicting readings. So far it didn’t detect a life form within the chaos. In other words, Lorna spits, the whole town could get cooked in a chemical stew because this stupid machine can’t make up its mind!
Ignoring Forge, Lorna jumps out of the plane and attacks the curious creature at the heart of the energy maelstrom, the creature calling itself Strange. She orders him to stop. She contains his energy spikes with a magnetic fields and orders Strange to identify himself.
He moans he must find the one. Strange liquefies under Polaris’ magnetic pressure and recalls how he got here. Strange is an aetheric doppelganger, the elemental magical equivalent of a robot, created by Dr. Stephen Strange in a time of crisis. As that crisis approaches its climax, however, Strange clings desperately to a masquerade of life, though that life is nothing but decaying magicks.
Flashback:
Last night, rejected by his “brother,” the doppelganger Vincent Stevens, Strange fled from New York. Strange mused that Stevens said his magick would have given them true life and that Strange ruined his last opportunity. He vowed to find one more deserving to merge with. Let that Vincent Stevens unravel… Strange will endure!
Strange streamed across the sky, beginning to despair that it was too late to find another. His deterioration didn’t cease and everything he touched warped too. He wondered if Steven was correct and he could only destroy.
Angrily, he burrowed into the earth to learn underground that he could not warp the earth. Strange realized that, being of elemental magick, he has a kinship with the elements: water, earth, air, fire. This alone may not save him, but it means Stevens was wrong. He can learn, and perhaps recreate himself!
He saw a herd of deer and tried to merge with one. He enjoyed the wild grace and power, but realized the deer was complete in itself. He had to find another in pain as he is. Then the merging would make them whole.
He tried to think… sift through Dr. Strange’s memories though it hurt him. Using his newly discovered cognitive powers meant agony and the loss of what little physical control Strange had left. He stumbled through the trees, warping as he spun, incinerating everything with aetheric fire. The moment he emerged from the half light of the woods, the blinding sun and the blasting Polaris were more than he could take.
Present:
Polaris expels hardy enough energy to keep herself aloft. Her foe is now a puddle of color flattened beneath her magnetic trust. She was only trying to hold him in magnetic stasis, not kill him!
Feeling Polaris is the one he was looking for, Strange reconstitutes himself. Mutant outcast in need, he senses. Lorna is relieved he is alive. What is he? she asks confused. He is Strange, he replies. Like her he craves completion. He is for her! Be with him… merge with him! he orders and reaches out for her.
Lorna magnetically repels him. Calling him a pervert, she orders him to keep his distance. She will put up with big babies on her own team, but a woman ought to be able to go into action without some testosterone machine harassing her!
He cannot hold on, Strange pleads, but he feels their needs are one. Lorna tells him she wants to help but he has to start making sense. Who is he?
End the pain! he orders. Merge! Lorna realizes he wasn’t hitting on her before. What’s wrong? She doesn’t get “merge.” Does he understand?
Attacking her, Strange replies that he understands that raw strength is all she understands. He has held the sorceress supreme at bay. His elemental magick can overcome all similar forces. For the last time, he invites her to merge and add this power to her own!
Lorna finds that her magnetism shields her from his energy, but realizes whatever fuels his power is so unstable, if he gets closer to the chemical plant, it will be a holocaust. She wonders why Forge isn’t helping.
Forge has landed the jet at a distance and request intelligence via the X-Men’s smart link system. He learns that the media speculate that Strange might be Dr. Strange, but all that has been confirmed is its unstable nature and destructive power.
He witnesses Polaris drawing Strange away from the plant. He scans the being and comes to the conclusion that Strange isn’t a living being, but an elemental configuration. He fears for Polaris, who makes herself vulnerable by treating it as a person and jumping into battle without any communication gear.
Strange tackles Lorna, beginning the merging process, promising that despite the pain they will live forever.
Aboard the shuttle, Forge begins reconfiguring a weapon.
Lorna asks Strange to stop. Why is he making her like him? She wanted to help! Strange points out that she is like him already. She needs to grow… to learn, but is afraid of the pain… of what she doesn’t understand. Just be with him, he pleads.
Merged into one unstable being, they sense each other’s loneliness. That moment, Forge comes running and fires his gun, decoding Strange’s energy structure. In other words: they get separated as Strange is caught in the blast. Forge orders Polaris to get clear. His micromachines will burrow into the entity copying and reworking its source code.
Strange complains that to Lorna he is alive! She wanted to be with him. Reaching for her, he explodes.
Lorna angrily swears at Forge. She knew what she was doing. If a child were throwing a tantrum, you’d try to understand her motivation, not blow them away with some ridiculous Ghostbuster gun! She reminds him of what she said aboard. She wasn’t just talking mutants and humans, she and Strange were breaking down walls!
Angrily, he points out Strange was a magickal construct. It wasn’t even alive! She reminds him that they fear what they do not understand. He didn’t understand this new form of person, so he shot him.
Oh no! she whispers when Strange reforms before them. Strange is taken aback. Despite her words, she feels fear at what she does not understand. Lorna tries to defend herself. She was just startled.
Strange turns away, sarcastically thanking her for showing him he does not seek an incomplete partner, but someone who meets him willingly. If his life is to come to an end, let it be far from the emptiness he feels when he sees her and remembers her hypocrisy. He flies away.
Lorna suggests sarcastically that Forge could chase him now, but he decides it would make things worse. The computer is downloading everything to the professor. Strange is someone else’s problem now.
Later aboard the plane, Professor X contacts them, asking if Lorna is all right. Forge assures him there are no side effects and adds that Polaris saved them out there and saved him from terminating a life form attempting to communicate. She challenged his assumptions in alienation more than a month of formal conferences could have.
Xavier suggests that he play that down in the federal part of their report. Since X-Factor allows humans and mutants to attempt to communicate, they’ll keep it positive.
Lorna is positively surprised and accepts the apology, hoping that Strange will find that kind of compassion within him as well…


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[Assistant]
Rise and Fall
Somewhere beneath a remote part of the United States, Milo Thurman sits surrounded by an ashtray, a book (Dante’s Inferno) and some domino’s lined up in a wavy line. He lists historical figures; Ramses the second, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon Boneparte, Otto Von Bismarck, Suleiman the Magnificent, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Emperor Hirohito, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Nikita Kruschev, Erik Magnus Lensherr, Charles Francis Xavier and Onslaught. He picks up a domino and, taking a drag on his cigarette, he says that, if the past teaches the future anything, it is that the tragic nature of all empires, however great or small, is to rise… and fall. The dominos tumble and Milo stubs his cigarette out.
The door to his cell slides open and the silhouette of Henry Gyrich enters. Milo tells him that he should remember that lesson, as it might save his tyrant career someday. However, Gyrich reminds him who’s keeping his sorry butt alive and reprimands him for not having warned them about something that happened recently. Milo is an early warning system but, to Gyrich, he is a bigger waste of taxpayer’s money than Chelsea Clinton’s braces. He tells Milo, “So the next time that hyper-developed brain of yours tracks a critical juncture in the shifting paranormal balance of power, you report it to me, immediately, or you get cut loose. Clear?” Crystal, replies Milo.
As he leaves, Gyrich says it’s a pity as he was looking forward to putting down a mongrel like him personally. With Gyrich gone, Milo decides to return to his book, Inferno, and reads a passage as someone else enters his cell. Her fingers are extended into claws and she says his name. Milo turns and says, “Beatrice?”
(Rio de Janeiro)
The carnival is in full swing and Domino, wearing only the skimpiest of green bikinis and black thigh-length boots, dances the night away amongst a throng of colourfully dressed revellers. She is known for often being wound a little too tight and is taking advantage of an opportunity to finally loosen up. If only Cable could see her now, she thinks, he’d probably have a hissy fit about her letting her guard down. It’s been an age since the last time she put her life behind her; surrendered herself to drinking, dancing and scantily-clad men drooling over her bad self.
She finishes her dance and moves away from the crowds, thinking about men, when a midget dressed in a jesters outfit cartwheels past her, asking her to dance with him. She tells him she’s sorry, but this diva is taking a powder from the party. The midget insists that he allow her the next twirl and promises her she will have a most electrifying time. He produces a kind of energy whip from each arm and suddenly attacks Domino, who leaps away from danger, thinking that this vacation just took a turn for the weird.
As she flees from the danger, the jester tells her to give it up; lover boy Cable isn’t coming to her rescue this time. He looks around to find she’s vanished but glances upwards to find Domino edging her way along a telephone cable to a nearby rooftop. She thinks that the midget’s voice is hollow, yet strangely familiar. She gets to the rooftop but is aghast to find him already standing there waiting for her. He tells her that his new boss doesn’t want any grief from x-dweebs like her, so he’s gonna make sure he gets none. With telescopic legs (Stilt-Man style), he thrusts himself at her, waving the electrified whips in front of him but Domino realizes that he’s played his hand too soon and grabs his mask as she avoids his attack. She’s shocked to discover that her attacker is… Pico?
His face is a mess and he sports a face mask which covers most of it. He informs her that he now has cybernetics, just betting that she and her boyfriend yukked it up after his untimely demise when he left him breathing out of the back of his neck after rescuing her. Well, he has news for her; he’s back and he’s twice as nasty. Domino smacks him in the face, which sends him reeling, but his stilt legs keep him upright and he faces her once again. “Oh, I’m sorry, did I hit a nerve?” she teases but he replies that he got used to her lip back when she was decorating Tolliver’s basement wall. He tells her she’s out of luck but, reacting instinctively, she produces several shuriken from nowhere and hurls them at her assailant. Twirling his whip at speed, he manages to deflect them as Domino wonders who could have helped him. Whoever it was, they’re no stranger to cutting edge cybernetics.
As Pico slowly approaches, she thinks back to her Six Pack days and recalls something that Cable used to pound into their heads; hi-tech problems require low-tech solutions. She reaches round to the cable attached to the roof, just as Pico launches another attack. Just as he reaches her, Domino manages to wrap the wire around his arms, thereby rendering his energy whips useless. She ties his arms behind his back and warns him that he’d better sing fast, cos’ the more he cuts into her downtime, the more body parts she’s gonna use his funky ticklers to cut off. Helpless, Pico stutters his words, telling her he was just playing, but she replies it’s not her idea of fun and games. She asks who sent him but he sweats profusely, saying that he can’t tell or he’ll kill him. He doesn’t wanna die again. Suddenly, from behind her, another voice says, “Punks like that sure give us vertically challenged folks a bad name, eh?” She looks around and recognizes her old friend immediately.
Meanwhile, Henry Gyrich returns to see Milo Thurman in his cell. As he wanders into the compound on his way to getting a DNA scan from a couple of guarding Mandroids, he thinks that, with the Avengers and Fantastic Four gone, anyone with the proper resources could take advantage of their absence. He enters the cell and is shocked to find it empty. He asks the computer where on Earth Thurman is but the computer tells him that he is in containment cell delta-thirteen. That’s where he’s standing, so he asks the computer who gave the order to deactivate the security grid in the cell. It replies that the deactivation command was logged in by authorization code Alpha-Iota-Mu; designate: Henry Peter Gyrich. They have an intruder and Gyrich calls for all stations to go on red alert.
Back in Brazil, Domino is delighted to see her old friend, Puck. “Nice to see you, Eugene,” she says with a smile. Puck replies that, as far as Brazilian Customs is concerned, the name’s Belmont, but she can always call him Puck. She picks him up and asks him what in the world he’s doing here. “C’mon now Neena, if I told ya, y’know I’d haveta kill ya.”
Greetings over with, the pair of them sit on the rooftop with a clear night sky providing the backdrop. Domino holds Pico upside down by the cable, swinging him back and forth as she chats to Puck. She says the name’s Beatrice these days and he asks where she picked that one up. Her face drops as she replies that it was from the “One that got away.” Anyway, she adds, this isn’t a social call is it? Puck produces a miniature gadget with a holographic projector and says he’s afraid not. He poked his nose into some of Department H’s affairs he probably shouldn’t have. He lights up the projector and Milo Thurman’s face appears. He asks Domino if she recognizes him. Of course, she does and she asks what’s happened to him, what’s wrong? He puts his arms around her, having never seen her as spooked as this. He asks who the Rastafari is. “Aww, he’s nobody Judd, just the one that got away.”
A tear edges its way down her cheek as she turns to Puck and tells him to try not to laugh but, once upon a time, Dr. Milo Thurman was her world; she’s talking love with a capital L. He assures her there’s nothing funny there; she has a heart as big as the moon but is just afraid to show it. While he hates to break her heart, she should know that something fishy is going down inside the department and her buddy’s due for a streak of seriously bad luck, soon. She asks what he means and he replies, “Termination.” She assures Puck that Milo’s luck is about to change.
Domino makes her way to the desert, presumably on the reluctant word of Pico. While the cover of night blankets the desolate land, a nigh-on impossible mission begins. Domino is dressed in a tight body suit and uses some night-vision binoculars to scope the compound. Three guards stand outside chatting. They appear to have beefed up security since she was last here, back in the days when she was stationed here undercover. Something must have really hit the fan. She makes her way closer and moves onto the building’s roof. As she slides down a rope towards them, she manages to take all three out before she reaches them, with poison tipped darts fired from a tube she carries in her mouth.
As she lands, she thinks it’s weird. Not only did she never expect to return to this hellhole, but she certainly never thought her and Milo’s paths would ever cross again. She removes her headgear, wondering how he’s been and whether he still feels the same about her. Her thoughts are a mess but she tries to concentrate on the task at hand, focusing on decrypting the lock. She’s feeling nervous as a small device she carries works on the control panel. It’s M.I.A. She’s never seen that encryption before but military codes never change, not unless an installation has been compromised from within. But who else besides Uncle Sam knows about this place?
Out of nowhere, two giant golden Mandroids appear and warn her to halt as this is a restricted area. She feigns submission and tells them that she’s going to reach down real slow and lay her weapons on the ground. She brings her hands down to her holsters and whips two phasers out. As she fires, she knows they’ll barely scratch the surface of their armor but she fires nonetheless. Things have a habit of falling into place for her. She cartwheels as the blasts ricochet from wall to Mandroid to wall again and her gambit is justified as a blast catches a Mandroid from behind and forces him to take out his partner. Domino knows that had to hurt and hated doing it, but she has a political prisoner to rescue. So, she heads inside the building, only to find numerous dead bodies lining the corridors. It reeks of death. She remembers Cable telling her that, “You’ve seen one disembowelled corpse, you’ve seen ‘em all.” As a merc, she saw plenty but she still gets sick from the stench, and only hopes that Milo had the good sense to get out of there before someone turned the place into a slaughterhouse.
She passes more Mandroids crumpled against the walls and notices claw marks on their armor. She wonders what could be sharp enough to slash titanium. Moving into the room that once held her former lover, she realizes that Milo is indeed long gone but can’t believe he left behind his prized possession, Dante’s Inferno. He used to read it to her for hours on end. She reads a passage from the book, “I was a soul among the souls of limbo, when a lady so blessed and so beautiful…” Another voice completes her sentence for her; “And so deadly!” Domino turns to see the ominous figure of a feared opponent standing before her. She asks where Milo is and what she’s done to him. She replies that she’s done nothing to her precious heart, save deliver him to his destiny. Now, she will deliver Domino unto death, “So vows Lady Deathstrike!”


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

[Assistant]
Death be a Lady Tonight
(The desert)
Lady Deathstrike confronts Domino. She is a cyborg, an amalgam of flesh and circuitry, made so by a procedure so gruelling, most do not survive the transformation. Those who survive, like Deathstrike, become ruthless, relentless; unstoppable. She leaps towards Domino, telling her that her beloved Dr. Thurman is no longer with us and, in a moment, neither will she. Domino falls back, blasting her point blank with her weapon. She makes light of Deathstrike’s attack, trying to throw her opponent off balance. “Big talk from a woman who looks like death warmed over, Lady! Guess a good hard whack with the ugly stick’ll do that to a person huh? But didja really have to go back for seconds.”
Domino knows she has her work cut out. She tells herself to keep the patter up; maybe it’ll take her mind off Milo. Not! She swears that if this ‘Ghost in the Shell’ wannabe has harmed a single hair on his nappy dreadlocked head, she’ll scrap her for spare parts. Deathstrike takes the blast in her stride, saying that Domino moves and fights well for a gaijin, but it’s as plain to see that she and her toys can do her no serious damage. Her wounds are already beginning to knit themselves together, as she extends her cyborg arm to Domino’s face and closes her vise-like fingers around her throat. Domino can hardly breathe. Deathstrike wonders how long it’ll take to deplete her foes brain of the oxygen it so desperately requires; how long before she becomes a mindless, drooling lump of flesh. Dom continues the jokes, replying that her calendar’s free and she can go all night if she wants. Deathstrike grins, saying that she’ll be dead long before dawn.
Sweat trickles down Dom’s face. She tells Deathstrike that she can kill her, but she should know one thing; “If I go down, you’re coming with me!” She reveals two thermite explosives hidden in the palm of her hand but Deathstrike knocks them free with her spare hand, telling Domino that she not only tries her patience, but now insults her honor as a warrior. She pushes Domino against a wall, her fingers still maintaining their grip on Domino’s throat. She taunts Domino, saying that her ex-lover as been disposed of. Soon, this entire facility shall be naught but a bureaucrat’s faded memory and Domino shall perish with it. Unseen by Deathstrike, the thermite explosives hit a nearby wall and rebound, luckily, right back to where they came from.
Domino sees them by her assailant’s feet and realizes what is about to happen. Deathstrike wonders why her opponent’s manner has changed but, upon seeing the charges beneath her, tells Dom that it appears she has sealed her own fate. Domino teases her about her impending destruction but Deathstrike is resilient, saying there is nothing that she can do to stop her. Domino smiles at her and simply wishes her goodbye, or as they say in her native Japan, “Sayonara sucker!” The explosions throw Domino several yards but she remains relatively unscathed by the incident. She is one L.U.C.K.Y. gal. Amongst the rubble, she bends down to pick up the book Thurman always read; Dante’s Inferno. As she skips away from the scene, she thinks that it’s funny, as she always thought she was the one who had trouble moving on. She sprints along a tunnel. Being down there is pretty weird for her, and not just because Deathstrike turned it into a charnel pit. This was the place there she first fell in love; but this is a different time and she is a different person now.
(Flashback)
A younger, shorter-haired Domino sprints along the tunnel, past a couple of scientists, and looking like she’s in a big hurry. Her C.O. has assigned her to a scut job that none of the other security officers wanted. It is her duty to guard some egghead so proficient at analyzing historical trends of the past, he can make nearly 100% accurate predictions about the outcome of the future. This gift not only makes him extremely valuable to the government, but also very dangerous to be around. She arrives at his door, readies her weapon and enters his room, standing silhouetted in the doorway. She knows that Milo Thurman is no clairvoyant and he sure as heck isn’t a mutant. He’s smart, plain and simple. She wanders into the room and, on a large rug, finds some kebabs cooking on a small barbecue, a bottle of champagne and some candles providing the atmosphere. Dominoes stand in curved lines around the room, waiting to be toppled. Milo knows he’s smart, she thinks, and maybe that’s one of the reasons she is so attracted to him, sometimes.
Behind her, the cigar-smoking Milo tells her he did the math on this one. Calling her Beatrice, he tells her that someday she’s gonna be on a shadow op in Rio during carnival. She’s gonna fall madly in love over a bottle of Dom Perignon with a dark, handsome, expatriated genius. He asks what she thinks of that. Domino grabs him and throws him onto the floor. She yells at Milo, saying that she doesn’t like people predicting the direction her life might take someday and he should know that she hates the name Beatrice. She straddles him, warning him that if he ever wants to see the outside of this facility again, from above ground level, he should stop calling her that. “Whatever you say, my lovely little Domino.”
She stands, twirling her pistol around, telling him to listen and listen good. Sophomoric pet names may have won the prom queen and the captain of the cheerleading squad over, but he’s gonna have to try a lot harder to win her heart. Milo reclines on the rug, saying that he knows. “Dom Perignon?” Domino walks slowly over to him and as a candle slowly burns away, something tells her she’s gonna regret this.
Several hours later, the candle is almost gone. Domino holds the champagne, asking Milo to tell her again how he ended up there. It cracks her up how bad his luck is. He decides to tell her anyway, despite the teasing. He started tracking sports; baseball, football, basketball, everything and before he knew it, he made lots of friends, and those friends made lots of cash from his predictions. He got to the point where he got cocky and thought the law couldn’t touch him. Unfortunately, he hacked into a top secret government database and got busted predicting encryption code sequences. Well, he tells Dom, he then made some new friends in very high places. He turns the questioning around to her. Why all the guns and grenades and gratuitous violence? If she keeps guarding herself like this then she’s just gonna end up alone. Looking away, she tells him that he doesn’t wanna know why.
(Present, the desert)
It broke her heart not being able to tell Milo the truth; that she was the one who didn’t want him to know. Yet, here she is now, all these years later and still keeping people at arms length. Is she that predictable?
(The Yukon, Alaska)
Meanwhile, deep inside the Yukon, in a bunker that was once part of the secret Weapon X program, Skullbuster watches Milo Thurman on a monitor. Milo appears to be in pain as he monitors his captive’s data. Psionic absorption units are on-line, electrolyte fluids flowing steady; he tells his boss that everything seems to be in working order, but asks what happens if the meat can’t hack the process? His boss tells him that if he wanted his opinion, he would give it to him. For now, he should just concentrate on the task at hand. If Thurman dies, so does Skullbuster. With the slightest of resigned glances, he acknowledges his boss and engages the primary psi-transfer. Skullbuster, like Lady Deathstrike, used to be a human being, until he himself underwent the cybernetic procedure that turned him into a living engine of destruction.
Milo’s body spasms and he screams in agony as wave upon wave of electro-chemical energy courses through his broken body. This brings with it the first of many levels of pain he will experience over the next few hours. Skullbuster is happy; Milo has survived the initial cybernetic connection and his boss orders him to begin the second phase immediately. As Milo peers through the window at his torturers, a single thought gives him a reason to hold on for dear life. “Beeaatriice…” he mutters. Skullbuster wonders why he’s thinking of a chick with a dorky name when he’s facing becoming a full-on cyborg but his boss replies that he shouldn’t be so surprised. The first word out of Skull’s own miserable mouth as he ‘resurrected’ his cybernetic mainframe was ‘mother.’
Besides, he continues, poor Mr. Thurman has been a prisoner of his own government for so long, it’s only logical that he clings to some pleasant memory. Fortunately for him, his indentured servitude to the government ends this day and, once the Psionic transfer is complete, so does his life.
(The desert)
Back in the United States, Domino plants a bomb amongst some vast pieces of machinery and set the timer for four minutes. She wonders why she didn’t think of this years ago. She could have busted Milo out and run away with him forever, but instead she put ‘the mission’ ahead of her own feelings. Man, she thinks, I was naïve. As she flicks the timer on, a metallic tentacle arcs around her left leg and the gruesome cybernetic form of Lady Deathstrike appears to continue the fight. The lower part of her left leg is missing and much of the flesh she had is now gone. She tells Dom that a score of thermite detonators could not destroy her, let alone a single grenade. She is a creation of the best in both the science of man and the sorcery of magic, and she shall be her death!
“Gee, and I though we were going to be friends!” replies Domino, as she reaches into her pack to fetch a metal spike a couple of feet long which she thrusts into Deathstrike’s arm with a ‘shunk.’ Time is running out and she hopes her luck doesn’t. Deathstrike has only scorn for her efforts, taunting her, saying that she expected more of a challenge from a seasoned warrior like her, but she realizes that Domino is unworthy of the honor that death by her hand bestows upon her soul. Domino continues to talk her way through the pressure of the situation, asking why they can’t just spare her the dishonor of soiling her precious rep with the bad-guy community by taking off and never crossing paths again. She twists and bends the steel spike causing Deathstrike to scream in agony. “I think you can see the point in that, can’t you? Otherwise, you had better tell me where Milo is, or it’s 120 seconds until combustion city.”
Deathstrike believes she’s bluffing, lacking the spine to carry out her threats, but Domino asks her if she wants to test her luck. Suddenly, Deathstrike reaches over and grabs the spike with her free hand and tears it from her arm, smacking Domino with it. With just one minute left until detonation, Deathstrike gains the advantage, pinning Domino against a large container and wrapping her cybernetic tentacles around her body. Her grip continues to tighten around Domino’s throat and Deathstrike tells her that in a matter of moments, she and her beloved will be reunited…in death!
She punches Domino in the face just to punish her and repeats the action, asking where Domino’s clever witticisms are now. “Where is the playful banter, laughing defiantly in the face of grim adversity but, most importantly, where is your vaunted luck? Domino falls to the floor, free of Deathstrike’s grasp and wonders where Milo is. She’s gotta stay conscious and free him. Deathstrike brings her face near to Domino’s and tells her that the it appears that the only thing falling for her at this moment are her chances of survival. The timer on the bomb ticks down from ten seconds, to three, to nought. A massive explosion rips through the entire complex, lighting up the night sky.
(Later)
According to the video logs recorded by the facility’s internal cameras, captured images which were beamed, via satellite, to National Security Council databases in Washington, two unidentified female intruders were responsible for the destruction of over a dozen government agents and at least a billion dollars worth of equipment. But, ten hours later, when the excavation crew finally arrives to search for these women’s corpses amidst the rubble and wreckage of a government project gone horribly wrong, the will find none.
(The Yukon, the next day)
Domino awakes with a stinking headache, asking someone to please tell her she’s dead, and that this is not the weapon X bunker. Milo’s face appears on a monitor behind her. A man in a flowing cape and creative headgear leans towards her and informs her that it is, and she is not, “And even though my underlings, Pico and Deathstrike failed to dispatch you to your eternal repose as I had hoped; rest assured that Donald Pierce will be happy to see to that task personally!”


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

[Assistant]
Hard Luck!
In an installation of the Weapon X project in the Canadian Yukon, Milo Thurman’s life hangs in the balance. Domino asks her host, Donald Pierce, what on Earth he’s doing to Milo. He replies that he is simply elevating her precious Dr. Thurman to a higher state of being and, once he’s finished with him, she will be next. Milo is strapped to the cybernetic conversion machine and, in a desperate attempt to free him, Domino attacks Pierce, telling him the only thing getting elevated today is the number of bad guys on her butts-whipped belt. Domino thought that Pierce was dead and, when he fires a blast of energy from his eyes at her, knocking her helpless to the ground, she wishes he still was. He stands over her, telling her a new day dawns for her beloved and there isn’t a blessed thing she can do about it.
He snarls at Domino, taunting her about Milo’s impending conversion and telling her that he will be better off this way. He will be stripped of his weak, corporeal existence; his brain given longevity beyond its fleshy restraints. “And then what?” she asks, “Does he become yet another ‘techno-slinky’ like the rest of you cyberdweebs?” Pierce’s eyes light up once again, as he grabs her by the neck. He lifts Domino up by coiling his cyborg arms around her body and tells her that Milo will soon see the outcome of his soon-to-be-historical predictions. Once Pierce has rewired his mind, he shall reap the benefits of those predictions. Domino struggles to breathe, gasping for air as her much more powerful opponent toys with her, wondering where her luck has gone when she needs it.
Pierce tells her that she is probably surprised by his resurrection, but she replies, “To be honest Donnie-boy, I couldn’t give a flying…” She screams in pain as he sends an electrical charge down his arm and through her body. A tear springs from her eye, as she wills herself to not black out; not when Milo needs her. She bows her head as Pierce puts his face up to hers. “Ahh, I love a captive audience…” He trusts that her x-compatriots have regaled her with tales of the bloodbath that occurred when his previous team of Reavers was compromised. Suffice it to say, that the accounts of his death were greatly exaggerated.
(Flashback)
Donald Pierce succumbs to the Sentinels in the Hellfire Club during one of the clubs darker days. He is taken hostage by the upstart Trevor Fitzroy and his Sentinels spirit him away. All his available data is uploaded for reasons he can only guess at, leaving little more than a lifeless shell, a pale shadow of the cyborg he once was. However, while his mind lays dormant, a clandestine exchange takes place. His new benefactor restores his original memory and programming while adding a new prime directive, one more compatible with the recent shift of paranormal power on Earth. He also partially recreates his cyborg body.
(Present)
Pierce tells Domino that, with Dr. Thurman in his thrall, that directive shall finally be executed. He turns away from the weakened Domino and instructs Lady Deathstrike and Skullbuster to execute her, and they are happy to oblige. Behind Domino, Milo comes round and asks the woman before him if it’s really her. The Feds swore she died many years ago. She doesn’t even turn around, but asks him to shush and close his eyes; this is all a bad dream. Milo is excited by her presence and tells her that they can be together again, demanding that Pierce gets him out of there, but Pierce responds by telling him the only thing he’s in a position to do now is die. He flicks the switch, sending electricity coursing through Milo’s body once again, causing Milo to scream in agony. Domino tells him to hang tough; she’ll get him out of here somehow, even if she dies trying, but she keeps that last part to herself.
The two cyborg subordinates grab Domino by the arms and lead her away. Pierce says their guest could do with freshening up and Deathstrike says a ‘bath’ will do her a world of good. “If she’s got the spine to survive that is,” adds Skullbuster. Pierce turns his attentions to Milo, extending his neck a couple of feet so he can speak to Milo (still strapped to a machine) face to face. Milo demands he let her go as he’s the one Pierce truly wants. Pierce acknowledges this, but asks why he should settle for adding one new member to the Reavers, when he can add two. Milo needn’t worry, though, as if she’s half the girl Milo gives her credit for she’ll find the cybernetic transfer process most liberating. Again, he flicks the switch and Milo’s torture continues.
As he reels from the pain, he thinks that once more he is going to lose her. With this idea in his mind and wave upon wave of electrical energy torturing his body, his slowly fracturing mind retreats to a time and a place it has subconsciously avoided for years.
(Flashback)
A.I.M troopers storm a top-secret facility, acting on information someone high up in the bureaucratic chain has leaked to them. The night-time raid sees several government guards die protecting Milo, who quietly reads his book, oblivious to the action outside. A.I.M wants this ‘artificial intelligence’ but little do they realize that the alleged intelligence isn’t artificial at all. Milo’s door explodes as they break into his cell. He wishes he could have seen the looks on their faces when they realized they’d been set up. As they round on him, Domino appears through a hole in the wall, and tells them to step away from the Rasta and to get into single file. “Let a real woman take first shot at him! After all, he is my husband.”
He always knew his little Domino was tough, but he never knew how sexy she could be when she was throwing down. Domino leaps above the troopers and avoids their gunfire with effortless ease, shouting at Milo to get his butt out of there. He tells her he loves her and, even though his instincts tell him to run, he doesn’t. He stands there and watches Domino holding off the troopers for as long as he can and, in a final moment of clarity, he realizes that he is looking at a moment in time that holds historical significance for the future, maybe not the future at large, but to her future, his future and their future together. A large explosion knocks Milo to his feet but as he picks himself up, he thinks Domino has died saving him. The Feds tell him she is gone, that she has died honorably in the service of her country; that she’s sacrificed herself for him.
(Present)
He now knows that was just a lie. It’s just too bad for him that it’s too late to do anything about it. Pierce has them both dead to rights; there’s no way out of there, unless…
Pierce has delusions of grandeur, using Milo’s abilities to help shape the events of America’s future, and then the world’s. Over in level 6 (Disinfection), Skullbuster walks with Deathstrike, carrying Domino on his powerful shoulders. He seems to think that the process shouldn’t take long as Domino looks wimpy enough, but Deathstrike has learnt never to underestimate an opponent or the strength of their will. She informs Skullbuster that her resolve rivals her own and, yet, while she remains able to repair her internal and external systems, Domino does not. She welcomes the challenge of bending her will and shall savor watching it break.
They stop next to a metallic body armor hanging from the ceiling from chains and Skullbuster tells her that the exoskeleton’s ready. “Dress her,” she commands. A harness is placed around Domino’s waist and a T-bar hooks onto it, with which Skullbuster uses to haul Domino up to the suit, which hangs ominously over a large vat of steaming green electrolyte bonding solution. They evacuate the area, leaving Domino to her fate, locking the chamber behind them. Lady Deathstrike grins as she watches proceedings from a control booth, high above the chamber, taunting the barely conscious Domino that this is payback for the damage she inflicted upon her during their previous encounter. She will enjoy watching her suffer.
Domino groans as she awakens to the taunts. The last thing she remembers is Milo being tortured but this quickly fades from her mind as the realization dawns that she is in it deep. She looks down at the liquid and is petrified at the thought of being flayed alive, asking herself, what’s the worst that could happen. Suddenly, her question is answered as the harness around her snaps and she begins to fall. “I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m…” she thinks as she drops but, suddenly, her top manages to catch on at the last moment to the broken harness, leaving Domino hanging, knees bent over the corrosive bath.
Deathstrike turns to Skullbuster and calls him an imbecile for not fastening the harness correctly but he replies by saying that she is the one operating the controls. She dashes down the corridor to stop Domino before she escapes, closely followed by her fellow Reaver, but, as they emerge through the chamber’s doorway, Domino is nowhere to be seen. She thinks that Pierce will have their heads if he discovers that she hasn’t been turned but, suddenly, Domino leaps at them from behind holding onto a rope and tells them that’s the least of their worries. She kicks them both in the back and they fall towards the acid. “Don’t forget to wash behind your ears,” Domino says, “Assuming you still have any.” The two cyborgs disappear into the acid as Domino looks down, thinking that just because things fall into place for her, they didn’t have to take it so literally.
She looks up at the body suit and knows that the only person standing in the way of her and Milo’s future is Donald Pierce. She lowers the suit and rips off a really big gun, which was attached for her future use, and thinks that, if this bad boy’s as powerful as she suspects, then by the time Pierce’s goons swim their way out of the acid bath they’re going to be in the market for a new employer.
Elsewhere in the complex, Milo recites Dante’s Inferno, as more waves of electricity course through his body. Pierce wonders what this repetitive recitation could possibly mean, but the words coming out of Milo’s mouth seem to imply he is praying for Domino to save him. Pierce, though, is pleased, as nearly sixty percent of Milo’s memories and consciousness have been downloaded into his neural net. He is impressed though at his resilience; his mind being even more formidable than he had hoped.
Suddenly, the wall explodes in a plume of smoke and breaking masonry. Domino steps through the gaping hole carrying the weapon and Pierce is shocked to see her. “You! But what about the bonding process?” She tells him that it’s the darndest thing, but that cybersuit just wasn’t her size. She gets him up to speed, telling him that she left Moe and Larry drowning in the toxic kiddie pool of his and, from where she’s standing, “It’s curtain time for you and your stooges, Curly.” While she can’t say that this little game of his has been fun, she can tell him that no matter how many times he sets her or the people she cares for up and knocks them down, there’s always gonna be one Domino left standing. She raises the weapon and blasts Pierce in the chest, point-blank, and he screams in agony before falling to the ground in a pool of blood and other assorted fluids.
Milo, in his weary state, asks if it’s her and she replies that it is, but he shouldn’t talk, just rest, assuring him that everything’s gonna be fine. Pierce is history and she’s getting him out of there. However, he looks down at her and tells her it’s too late for him; Pierce saw to that personally. He informs her though that she can still stop him if she destroys the mainframe. A tear rolls down her cheek as she replies that if she does that, she’ll lose him forever. There’s got to be something she can do, something her powers will allow her to do, even her luck. Milo closes his eyes, and says that his luck ran out the first time he lost her.
As the two lovers face the awful truth about their future prospects, Pierce extends a cable from the top of his skull and connects with a circuit in the wall nearby. His eyes light up as he downloads his mind and he grins as he thinks that he’s won. Milo, meanwhile, reminds Domino that, whatever she does, she shouldn’t forget him. She kisses him, telling him that she could sooner forget her name. Milo tells her he loves her. Domino looks away and tries to hold back the tears and replies that she knows, but she somehow cannot bring herself to truly open up to him and she chastises herself for being unable to drop the bad girl and tough as nails attitude. For once in her lonely life, she should open up and tell Milo how she feels. If she can’t do this for him, then how is she ever going to tell Cable?
Tears once again begin to stream down her pallid cheeks, as she fiddles with a timer switch, which she connects to some circuitry in a wall panel. Whether she cares to admit it or not, there have only been two men that Domino has ever wanted to hear say those words; one of them because she believes deep in her heart that, when the time is right, they will have a wonderful life together, but only when the time is absolutely right. The one minute countdown ticks away as she rushes towards an outside wall and blasts her way through it. Even though she and Cable have both been through hell and high water, Domino knows they have a long way to go before either of them is ready to make the commitment to something as great as the cause they fight for; each other.
She leaps through the hole in the wall to freedom a split second before a huge explosion rips through the complex. The Weapon X facility’s internal defense system engages the self-destruct sequence she programmed and Domino bids farewell to the first man whose feelings ever truly mattered to her. She has come to the realization that the reason she simultaneously fears the wonderful life she so eagerly anticipates is because it is something she must be willing to give herself to, completely, unconditionally. Even before that, though, it has to be something she is willing to live for and, when necessary, to die for.
(Rio de Janeiro, the following night)
A full moon basks the bay in a warm glow, as Domino sits in a bar, reading from Dante’s Inferno. “My guide and I crossed over and began to mount that little known and lightless world to ascend into the shining world again. He first, I second without thought of rest, we climbed the dark until we reached the point where a round opening brought in sight the blest and beauteous shining of heavenly cars, and we walked out once more beneath the stars.” She closes the book. Milo told her once that all he ever really wanted, that the only thing the government ever really took away from him, was the freedom to gaze up at the stars at carnaval and the dream of a better tomorrow. Funny, she thinks, but they just don’t seem as bright as they used to.
Suddenly, a midget in a jesters costume leaps in front of her and says, in Portuguese, “ahoy mistress! Why the long face? It is time for fiesta!” She screams Pico’s name and pulls a dagger from nowhere, tossing her reading table aside as she rushes him, angry as hell. The man puts his hands up and realizes his error, pulling the mask back to reveal the face of her old friend, Puck. She smiles and says that he just wanted to see if the info he passed on to her came in handy and if any of her luck managed to rub off on old Doc Thurman. She looks into the distance as once again, tears begin to form. She tells Puck that she failed; she failed Milo and she failed herself. He replies that she couldn’t fail if she tried and takes her hand. They walk in to the distance as Puck tells her that he knows it hurts now and all her luck isn’t nothing but hard but, if he knows her, things will fall back into place for her, someday. “I guess you’re right Puck. I just wish I knew when…”


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

[Assistant]
Perfect Weapon - part 1
(day one)
Domino is on a mission in Hong Kong. Wearing a tight-fitting blue costume, backpack, forearm protectors and a pair of sturdy boots as well as an earpiece with a tiny camera attached, she is abseiling down the side of a building and preparing for action. Domino’s mutant ability revolves around luck, odds and percentages. Somehow, things tend to land in her favor and this provides her with a measured degree of confidence when carrying out dangerous assignments; like this one for example. As the rope goes slack, she skips her final checks and falls backwards, landing against the building with assured ease. She is used to life on the edge.
Peering into a window, she spots six suited men which reminds her that this is her first solo gig in a long time. She communicates with someone through her ear-piece’s microphone attachment and asks if she has authorization to commence the operation. The replier confirms visual identification and authorization is granted. Domino thinks that it’s funny that only a few years ago she was heading up a mutant strike force, but hey, it was the nineties - who wasn’t? It feels good to get back to the thrill of mercing, though she has to admit that her luck altering mutation takes away a certain amount of guesswork. She readies her pistol and pushes away from the window. Counting down from four, the first second takes her away from the building, the chances being that the goons inside won’t notice her until it’s too late. The second allows her to take aim and the third see her fire several bullets at the window. Domino guesses the number of rounds she fires will be just enough to crack the glass enough for the fourth to allow her to swing in backwards through the glass and spin inside. If anyone on the other side tries to do her harm, well, it just won’t be their lucky day.
The men inside instinctively reach inside their jackets for their weapons but Domino has the jump on them and fires through a mist of shattering shards of glass. They flail helplessly and papers fly out of an open briefcase but they still manage to fire their weapons. Domino however is simply too quick and too agile for them to cope with. After taking the first of them out, her mysterious contact tells her she is moving too slowly and all five should by now have been accounted for. Landing a clean left on another, she asks if this is fast enough for them. They reply that it is an improvement but she’s still thirty-six seconds behind time. Domino continues to flow through the room, shooting her pistol and using her athleticism to take out the remaining men.
She finally whittles them down to just one, an older gentleman who has the briefcase. She asks where it is and as she points her pistol at his temple, he raises his hands in surrender. He looks petrified and after a brief exchange with Domino in his native language he asks her not to shoot in English. He clicks a button on his desk and a cryogenic unit raises itself from inside it. That old trick, she thinks. Domino’s employer tells her to carefully remove the target from the containment area; it should be shatterproof but there’s no sense of urgency to test that claim. She picks up what appears to be a Petri dish containing three green spores. As she eyes her prize, her employer warns her that there are multiple heat signatures approaching from the outer hallway and tells her to secure and vacate immediately.
As she secretes the dish inside her backpack, she fires at the incoming assailants who are carrying an assortment of weapons, from pistols to machine guns. As Domino confirms she has their target, her employer tells her not to waste time exchanging fire and to just get out of there, initiating maneuver 36-c in three, two, one second. Right on cue, Domino leaps gracefully from the now non-existent window she came through and drifts high above several police cars in the plaza below, still firing her pistol into the building. She is eight hundred feet up and calmly removes a grappling hook from her belt. Now at three hundred feet, she hurls the hook towards a suspended window-cleaning scaffold and it hooks on tight. Just fifteen feet above the ground, she smiles at the police officers as her employer tells her to wait for the recoil. As it snaps the cable tight, she swings away from the officers and releases herself from it mid-swing, somersaulting over a large wall with the company name on it before landing several feet away from a yellow motorbike which her employer tells her they have placed there. She confirms she has a visual and says it better be fast. “The fastest money can buy, over” they reply. Powering the bike up, Domino races away, jumping the assembled police. Her employer tells her that a helicopter is at the pre-determined location and she has eight minutes to reach it or it will leave without her. As she nails the throttle, she replies that she’ll be there in six.
(day four)
Sat in a high-ceilinged room with two of Atlanta’s Peachtree Street’s most impressive hotels behind him, seen in the distance through a high arched window, a man wearing pop-up sunglasses is seated in front of a couple of computer monitors hacking his way into someone’s system, a disk resting by the keyboard. He comes across brick walls preventing his access but using his skill, he manages to break through and, seeing the binary code presented before him says, “Oh my god, I’ve struck the mother lode.”
(day seven)
Overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge on a typical misty day in San Francisco, Domino meets her employer, an unassuming fair-haired man with glasses carrying a silver briefcase. She tosses him the Petri dish and tells him it’s quite a sight. Unimpressed, he tells her that she’s late but she replies, “So sue me. You ever try getting infectious organisms into this country, it ain’t easy.” He places the dish inside his briefcase and says that she may have prevented the potential death of untold thousands (implying the spores were intended for some kind of biological weapon) but she doesn’t really care about that and tells him to skip the morality play, asking him for the agreed upon payment.
Before he coughs up though, he points out that during the assignment there were a few problems. Domino asks what the hell he’s talking about; she was perfection! She came, saw, kicked a little ass and got out and asks him to fault her performance. He replies that the results are fine, it’s the methods he is questioning. In battle she was a hurricane, hurried and violent. He tells her that she should be like the hurricane’s eye instead, calm yet formidable. She wastes so much of her energy in subduing a foe that she leaves herself vulnerable. He continues that in future she should guide her opponent’s energy and intent instead of trying to muscle him. She should allow him to do the physical work for her. Domino’s not buying into this and sarcastically replies, “Give me a break! What did you want me to do…use the force of a bullet to the gut against the bad guys?”
He then points out that there were three instances where the operation almost failed as a result of her impetuous behavior, and it only takes one to prove fatal. He adds that she can’t always rely on just luck. Domino replies that she did what she was paid to do; get the package from point A to point B. She asks him that if she needed him so much, then why even hire her and asks that next time, why doesn’t he just do it himself. Suddenly, she looks at the crutches he is holding and realizes her faux pas. She holds her head in embarrassment and says, “Jonathan…I…” He turns away and tells her to forget it as she looks to the ground in shame.
Without even making eye contact again, he hands her an envelope with her payment in, telling her it is what they had agreed upon. He wishes her luck in finding what she seeks and tells her he’ll be in touch if the need for her services arises. He then walks off as Domino says, too quietly for him to hear, “Like I’ll be waiting by the phone with one hand on the receiver, please.” She opens the envelope and removes the contents. She has a plane ticket, a cryptic note and a computer printout. Domino stares at the printout and says, “Now that’s a face I haven’t seen in  long time. I guess I’ve got a date in Atlanta.” In her hand is a picture of a woman, attractive with graying temples.
(day eight)
A man in a long black robe dashes through a pine forest towards a large mountain, a tall vertical rock which looks almost unnatural. On the front is carved a massive cross, hundreds of feet high. The man climbs the cliff face and reaches his destination, a clearing with many others dressed in a similar fashion kneeled before a kind of alter. At the foot of the alter is another man in a long red robe. “My lord!” says the first man, “All is in readiness. We now only await your word.” The man in red says that they have waited a lifetime for this opportunity and tells him to see that it is not wasted. He bows and clasps his hands together, replying that it shall be done.
(day ten)
A passenger jet lands at the airport of Atlanta which is bathed in soft sunshine. Soon after, Domino, now with a red wig and wearing sunglasses is waiting to meet someone. She’s had just enough of waiting having been there two hours waiting for him to show and says to herself he’s got about ten minutes to show his face or when she finds him he’s going to have to learn to sing soprano. Beside her, a man seated on an iron bench says, “You must be Domino.” She turns and tells him he must be the idiot who’s kept her waiting for two hours. She adds that he better have something worthwhile to show her or she’s going to get the two hours she lost back in ways he won’t enjoy. The man is the computer hacker, still wearing his pop-up sunglasses. Holding a pigeon in his hands, he apologizes but says he had to make sure she wasn’t followed. What he has to show her however, is going to more than make up for any frustrations she’s feeling now. Domino seats herself and the man releases the bird.
Sat in the middle of a large plaza with people wandering all around them, he first thanks her for what he feels is a truly challenging assignment and he doesn’t get many of those. It’s the most fun he’s had in ages. Domino tells him to cut the crap and tell her what he’s found. He proceeds to tell her that although she didn’t supply him with much information, just a few blurred memories and a name which Domino had correctly assumed to be an alias, he has discovered that her mother doesn’t exist. “That’s it?” Domino snarls before standing up preparing to leave. She says she can’t believe it, it’s beyond a waste of time and she had been told he was the best; that he could help her. He grabs her by the wrist and tells her to slip back into sleep mode as people are staring and neither of them want that kind of attention.
He then tells Domino that he did a search for the woman she believes to be her mother and found nada, no birth certificate, no social security number, nothing. For all intents and purposes she never existed. Still standing, Domino asks him to explain the picture he had sent her; imaginary people don’t leave photo ID’s lying around. He smiles as he explains that whoever’s going through the trouble of making sure her mom is never found are good, very good. He adds though that they were sloppy in the sense that they thought they were untouchable. Giving them credit, he tells Domino that he had to break out the super-deluxe nutcracker for this one but a code hasn’t been built that he can’t crack. Domino tells him that if he can crawl out from under his ego for a minute, maybe he can tells her where he found her. Still grinning and looking relaxed, he replies, “Let’s just say Area 51 is a public theme park as compared to where mommy’s camped out.”
He then offers her a computer disk and tells her to go ahead and take it, it won’t bite. As her fingers are about to grasp the disk, it suddenly shatters into dozens of pieces and he is shocked as he looks at his hand, still thankfully mostly intact. Domino reacts instinctively, leaping over the bench and grabbing him by the collar, simultaneously reaching for her gun which is tucked into the back of her pants. She tells him to get down and as he holds his hand which is bleeding slightly, she hides them behind a pillar and tells him they need cover. When there’s one shot, there’s usually a second and a third following suit. Unfortunately, before she can return any kind of fire at her assailants, two bullets come through the pillar and strike the computer whiz, killing him instantly. Domino can’t believe it and says she’s so sorry. She reaches down and picks up one of the bullets and looks at it, a bullet that has pierced a solid stone, two foot thick pillar. She’s never known lead to have that kind of umph. Her luck factor kicks in and she leaps sideways to the floor as another shot slices its way through the pillar where she was standing.
She knows her cover has been lost and covers her head, knowing she’s probably about to die. As debris becomes swept around her, she looks up, wondering why she isn’t dead yet and spots a black attack helicopter hovering just feet above her, machine gun pointing to the ground. In the pilot’s computerized display, Domino is centered in the targeting system and the words ‘target acquired’ comes up on his screen. Domino drops her weapon, about to surrender but suddenly changes her mind when she spots a fountain nearby. Sprinting towards it, she grabs the watch on her wrist as the helicopter turns to follow her. Still running, through the tiny sprinkles of water she clicks the watch buttons and starts a countdown from five, removes the watch and drops it behind her as she continues her run. With two seconds to go, she turns and holds her hands up at the pilot and shouts, “Stop!” The pilot stares back at her as her count reaches zero, and the watch explodes directly underneath the machine, causing some damage. “Sucker,” says Domino as the helicopter flies higher before falling into a tail spin. Domino whips her red wig off and looks again at the bullet, wondering what kind it is. As the helicopter explodes behind her in a massive ball of flame and black smoke, she wonders what her mom has gotten her little girl into.


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

[Assistant]
Perfect Weapon - part 2
(day eleven)
An underground car park in Atlanta is eerily quiet. Three security guards have been taken out with tranquilizer darts and Domino has made her way up the stairwell while thinking about the last few days. Her assignment was supposed to be easy; meet the hacker, get the goods and finally find her long-lost mom. One ‘copter crash, a dead hacker and a helluva lot of unwanted publicity later and all she has is a picture of a woman who may not even be her mother and the local and federal government on her back. They say that the first step is the hardest, she thinks, let’s see what step two holds.
Using a laptop with a complex looking program, she manages to break the hacker’s security code governing his apartment which has been sealed off by police following his death. Her hacking must have included a little luck as the deceased would have placed a powerful door code to prevent entry. She enters his apartment and she finds that step two holds a big fat mess. The apartment is the typical hackers place, mess everywhere and nothing filed where it would logically be. Clicking on a couple of torches on the side of her head (Orbital style), she leafs through his filing cabinet and realizes that she’ll never find anything there. Though his monitors remain, the computers are long gone, evidence taken away by police. They’ll have some stories to tell, thinks Domino as she realizes that maybe luck just isn’t on her side tonight.
She checks the rest of the apartment, knowing that a hacker worth his salt would have kept a backup of the CD which was destroyed. He may have been paranoid but he wasn’t stupid. She thinks that if she was a friendless computer geek, where would she hide it. She spots a fish tank and reckons she’d keep it with her only friends. She dips her hand in the water and reaches inside the pirate chest laid at the bottom and her luck kicks in. The backup CD is there and she smiles for a second before the reflective surface reveals a robed man with a sword behind her ready to strike.
Domino ducks as the sword slices the air above her and cracks the fish tank. She tries to land a kick in her assailant’s face but he avoids her and a second man punches her. The guns she is holding are knocked clean out of her hands and one of them is caught be one of her enemies. She readies herself for a fight, grabbing a lamp stand and using it as a bo-staff. The swordsman snaps it in two but Domino still manages to break the rest over the second man‘s head and throw him over her back. She then uses her athleticism to flip her right leg behind her and over her own shoulder, landing a kick on the swordsman who is defenestrated. She quickly looks behind her to find the first man has vanished and a look through the window finds no trace of the second. She reflects on the fight and wonders what the hell that was about and why they were here at the apartment. It’s time to find some answers.
In downtown Atlanta, at the shapely Georgia Marquee Hotel in the Peachtree area, Domino returns to her room and flicks the light switch on, immediately saying, “Get out.” Seated facing the television set is Jonathan who replies that a hello would suffice. He says he came as soon as word reached him. Domino places her laptop on the television set cabinet and tells him that his name doesn’t appear on the hotel registry for this room and he should take the hint. He sits, fingers clasped together and seemingly not bothered by Domino’s slight hostility. He tells her he traveled through six time zones to be there and Domino replies that she appreciates the thought but he’s wasting his time; she can handle things on her own. As she heads into the bathroom stripping off her top, Jonathan asks her if she can handle the label ‘mutant terrorist,’ mentioning her presence in Centennial Park but she reiterates that she can handle it as she shuts the bathroom door.
As she cleans herself up and showers, Jonathan grabs her laptop and chats to her as he connects some leads to it. He asks Domino whether she uncovered any useful information in regards to her mother before their friend met his accident. She thinks for a second before replying no. He says he’s sorry to hear that as he downloads information from the computer onto a handheld device. He asks if he left her with any leads to explore, maybe a name but Domino says he left nothing and asks if he has anything to report from his end. Before he answers, he is left speechless as she emerged from the bathroom in a slightly revealing dressing gown.
Meanwhile, in the Florida Everglades, a man rushes through the swamp in terror, saying, “Dead. I’m dead, they’re right behind me,” to himself. As he is distracted by looking backwards, he fails to notice a branch sticking out of the water and trips over it, finding himself face to snout with an alligator. Suddenly, out of nowhere a man in military attire leaps onto the alligator’s back and rams a knife into its eye which causes the beast to flip him before swimming off in pain.
The soldier, wearing a black t-shirt, black beret and khaki trousers watches it disappear as the frightened man pushes himself against a nearby tree and says, “Anything you want! Just name it! Just please don’t kill me.” The soldier fires his pistol three times, missing the man’s head by inches each time. He looks petrified as the soldier lights a cigar and says, “Mr. Mallory. You are a dead man. You thought to pry into a matter of national security. I know your cover is a joke. I know the people you work for. You seek to undermine the security of this great country. I’m done screwing around. Soldier?” Another soldier aims his pistol at Mallory’s head and fires at point blank, killing him.
Back in Atlanta, Domino wants some answers and tells Jonathan that he promised her information and all she has is a picture. Jonathan is surprised she has the picture which Domino tells him came from the hacker. He asks questioningly whether she thinks a picture of her mother is important. Drying her hair, Domino replies that it’s a picture but it could be of anyone. Jonathon reminds her that the hacker was highly regarded and is about to tell her he seriously doubts it would be anyone other than her mother but she cuts him off, saying the bottom line is she has no evidence that what she’s getting is equal to what she’s giving. She wants results. Jonathan replies that if things were that easy then she wouldn’t need his assistance and anyway, she isn’t without resources of her own.
She turns and peers out of the window over night-time Atlanta and tells Jonathan that she has vague recollections of a woman, but she doesn’t know her, doesn’t know where she herself is from, not even who she is. She needs something more, unable to accept that this is all she knows of her life. He tells her he understands but adds that he didn’t just come here to make sure she was all right; he came because another mission of dire urgency has arisen. He asks her how familiar she is with the patrilineal clan network of Somalia. Domino uncovers her head from the towel and angrily questions this change of direction, telling him that firstly he doesn’t dictate her schedule or her life; she can come and go as she pleases. Secondly, she adds, the way she figures it he still owes her for the last time. The hacker boy didn’t cut it and she wants hard evidence, and she wants it yesterday.
He puts his hand up to calm her and asks her to curtail her anger and save it for the enemy. He will help her but first she must help him. Domino is furious by now and says, “Tell you what, why don’t you take your help and shove it right up your….” Jonathan grabs her wrist and shout, “Enough!” Domino glares at him, telling him he has two seconds to let go of her wrist before his gets broken. Jonathan tries to tell her something but stumbles over his words. “Domino…I..” Domino calmly replies yes, expecting a different response to the one she receives. He looks at the floor and holding his pager in his hand, tells her he has to go, and she should get some rest as they leave for Mogadishu in the morning. Domino looks upset as Jonathan departs using his crutches.
The room now feels empty as Domino thinks about getting back to business. She reaches for her laptop and switches it on. On the screen, the omega symbol appears and she reads the words ‘Project Armageddon: Weapon of Last Resort’ which arc their way around the omega symbol. Project Armageddon, she thinks, maybe she’s stolen a copy of next fall’s Fox television line up. Then again, maybe not. As she brings up numerous windows, she thinks to herself that if this project is as big as it claims, then how in hell has it stayed so hidden for so long. We’re talking about a weapon, a perfect weapon here which if she’s right, could destroy civilization. Something like this isn’t easy to hide but of course, her mother knows a great deal about hiding so maybe it’s not so farfetched if she’s involved. Suddenly she turns, looks at the curtains to her right and says, “Hello?”
Elsewhere, Jonathan enters a darkened room and connects himself to an earpiece which is in turn connected to an array of monitors and a computer system. He introduces himself by his pseudonym, Big Bad Wolf and reports that a link has been established with Little Red Riding Hood. He continues to say that he is currently uploading CD files and asks those on the other end to prepare to authenticate data. On the screens are representatives from all around the globe, all on monitors surrounding the omega symbol which appeared on Domino’s laptop. Jonathan continues, “Verify all known references to ‘Project Armageddon.’ Cross-reference CIA, FBI, S.H.I.E.L.D and Pentagon records and databases. Establish contact with our A.I.M and Hydra ‘resources’ for any potential intelligence sharing. Use the designated Swiss account if either party is favorable.” He continues to tell them to also explore any possible links between said project and the subject, Domino or any relations therein. They have ten minutes. He signs himself off as he watches Domino on another monitor, sat at her laptop.
As she types away, Domino wonders what her mom has gotten herself into; why couldn’t she have been a supermarket clerk or a Fortune 500 CEO or something else easy? No, she had to involve herself in some kind of black-ops end-of-the-world thingamajig which is too big for her. She needs to bring in the big guns. She contacts Cable and his face appears on her screen. He is on a mission and holding a rifle with telescopic sighting. She tells him what her problem is and he replies that he’s never heard of Project Armageddon. He adds that she shouldn’t bother him; she’s a big girl and should handle it. He has too many problems to deal with now and if she thinks she’s unable to cope, then she should maybe contact the X-Men or Avengers. Before Domino can ask anything further, he logs off and Domino is exasperated at his response. She swivels on her chair and looks directly at the camera Jonathan is using to spy on her. “I guess it’s just me and you Jonathan, you up for it?” she asks.
Watching this from his base, Jonathan thinks ‘she’s good.’ She knew he was watching her the whole time. Of course, he thinks, he shouldn’t be surprised as one should always be aware of one’s surroundings and he reaches for his crutch as two robed swordsmen approach him from behind. As the first sword is about to be brought down on him, he swings his crutch over his left shoulder and pierces the first assailant through the chest, his crutch going all the way through and out the other side, covered in blood. The man’s sword crashes into one of the monitors. Jonathan falls backwards from his chair as his second opponent tries to slice him but he uses the crutch, still in the other man’s chest, to block the blow and throws the first man over his head with the crutch taking his partner with him. However, the uninjured man leaps backwards and is about to bring his sword down on Jonathan as lying on the ground, he reaches inside his jacket pocket.
Domino meanwhile discovers some employee files on her laptop, files relating to her mother complete with a photograph. After all these years, she thinks, after all her efforts, she’s found her mother at last. Maybe her luck is about to change. At the same time, Jonathan pulls a small device from his pocket and before the sword can be plunged into him, the top floor of the hotel rocks with a huge explosion.