At Dr. Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum, Candy Southern finds the Gargoyle, who had been absent when the other Defenders assembled to go to Central Park. Gargoyle goes to join his teammates, but he takes a jewel from Strange for reasons even he does not understand. Gargoyle finds a party going on in the park, with people dancing around an open fire despite the fact that their skin and clothes have been ripped. He also finds the Defenders standing alongside a warrior woman named Andromeda against a demonic being calling himself Hotspur. The Defenders attack Hotspur, but he is merely amused. He transforms himself into an Asgardian troll and summons other trolls to attack Valkyrie, but it turns out to be an illusion. Hotspur then summons demonic warriors to battle the Defenders. Valkyrie and Andromeda try to overpower Hotspur, but he conjures up a machine called a “Hades-Engine” that neutralizes the Defenders’ powers and captures them all. Back at the Sanctorum, Nancy Turpin offers Candy Southern some tea, which renders Candy unconscious. Meanwhile, in Siberia, a pack of wolves prepare to attack a mysterious man in the snow, but they are scared away. Back in Central Park, Hotspur explains that he was once a man of some influence in 18th Century London who was able to get away with any crime he wished. Before dying, he made a pact with a demon that he would return to Earth if any mortal were foolish enough to summon him. Eventually, a young man who became interested in “life regression” tried to summon one of his past lives, and Hotspur was reborn. Suddenly, an image of Sgt. Nick Fury appears and frees the Defenders from the Hades-Engine. With their powers neutralized, Fury gives them all guns and leads them into battle against Hotspur’s demon army. The Defenders are about to open fire when they stop and realize that this is wrong. They realize that everything was an illusion, except for the guns; if they had opened fire, they would have shot Hotspur’s human partygoers. Hotspur says that the Defenders are heroes and will eventually be forced to kill, even if he has to create one illusion after another until they join him in his fun. Realizing that Hotspur is motivated solely by the fun of killing, Gargoyle forces Cloud to remember the pain that Moondragon caused her, which causes Hotspur to feel hut and despair for the first time. Hotspur disappears, leaving the mortal body he had possessed. All of Hotspur’s victims are also released from the spell he had them under. Valkyrie welcomes Andromeda to the Defenders, while Nancy Turpin appears—revealing herself to be Seraph—and states that Cloud is leaving the Defenders because of all the pain they have caused her.

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