It turns out that the Over-Mind, who took control of the Squadron Supreme and Earth-S, was himself being manipulated by Null the Living Darkness the entire time. Null explains how, after his battle against the Defenders in Christiansboro, he fought Ghost Rider and was again defeated. Realizing that he had not fully evolved, Null sought out a pawn and found the Over-Mind, who had been driven mad after being reduced to microscopic size by the Stranger. Travelling through the Microverse, they accidentally wound up on Earth-S, where Null guided the Over-Mind’s shattered psyche and put his plans into motion. All the while he hid within the body of President Kyle Richmond, gestating and growing stronger as he siphoned off the Over-Mind’s mental power. When Nighthawk blames Null for the President’s death, Null is confused and sees something wrong with his mind. Before Null can elaborate, the psychic being composed of Mindy Williams and the other telepath's re-appears and Hyperion attacks him. The Defenders and Squadron Supreme are helpless against Null’s power, until “Mindy” joins all of their psyches together in an attempt to harness their inner goodness to combat Null’s dark power. After a fierce psychic battle, the psychic link holding the heroes’ minds together begins to weaken and Null appears victorious. Unable to maintain their corporeal form as “Mindy”, the psychics defeat Null by turning his own inner goodness upon him—that goodness once possessed by the S’raphh race he was spawned from—and then they possess the body of the now-mindless Over-Mind. However, August Masters sees that President Richmond’s body has deteriorated, revealing that he was actually a mechanical construct created by Null. Nighthawk’s true memory returns and he realizes that he is not the Nighthawk from the Defenders’ Earth—he is the Earth-S Nighthawk a.k.a. President Kyle Richmond.

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