The Secret Defenders, Shadowoman,
Luke Cage, and Deadpool are in the Chicago Museum of Art, battling the
creatures from the artworks which have been brought to life by the sorceress
Malachi. While Cage and ‘Pool bicker, Jillian finds out her powers don’t work
against the monsters. But Dr. Druid has not abandoned them; he has turned
invisible and detected that the monsters are not real but illusions. So he
tells Shadowoman to cast her darkness around, causing the illusions to vanish. Druid
now intends to trace the emanations of the fragment of the Moebius Stone to
find Malachi. He tells Cage that his services are no longer needed but Cage
intends to recover the stolen bit. The police arrive just as the heroes
teleport away….
Malachi returns to her lair where
she fills in her backstory for us: she was the disciple and lover of Korahn the
sorcerer and they stole the Moebius Stone to grant them immortality to love one
another in. But they were caught by Agamotto’s guardian who fragmented the
Stone and scattered it, turning Korahn to rock as well. Malachi now wants to
reassemble the Stone to restore her lover to life and she needs just one more
bit….
Meanwhile, Dr. Druid has returned
to his sanctum with his allies. As Druid makes the preparations for the next
part of their mission, Shadowoman tells Cage about her past with Druid: They
met when he lectured while she was in grad school. They discovered they were
reincarnated lovers from the time just after King Arthur, a Celtic alchemist
and an English noblewoman. The woman’s brothers killed the alchemist and now
after all these centuries they have found one another again. Then experimenting
with occult devices led to Jillian being granted shadow powers by a demon.
Final detail: In their previous lives, she was the alchemist, Druid the
noblewoman. Druid walks in and warns Cage that unless he follows instructions,
a similar fate awaits him….
A trio of teenage boys are hanging
out in a cemetery near Seattle, Washington, when Malachi appears, seizes one of
them, Cody, and kisses him to suck the life out of him, adding his years to
hers and leaving him a desiccated corpse. She then enters the crypt where the
final fragment of the Moebius Stone is hidden. The Secret Defenders arrive and
there is a battle and she makes the tombstone come to life to battle the
heroes. Cage uses muscle and Deadpool guns to destroy the walking statuary and
Shadowoman enters the crypt just as Malachi finds the fragment in a ring on a
corpse’s hand. Shadowoman snatches it away from her so Malachi blasts her and
takes it back. Dr. Druid warns her that the Stone is much too powerful for her
and will likely consume her and the world. She completes the Stone and bits of
energy fly out of it, one bit hitting Cody’s corpse and reviving him. He is the
instrument of Agomotto’s wrath and plucks a rib from his chest and it grows into
a sword in his hands. He smashes the last of the living monuments and enters
the crypt to challenge Malachi. But she now holds the completed Moebius Stone
and uses it to unravel time that her beloved Korahn may live again….