24

The Ghost Rider screws up while trying to get Reyes and the others out of the pocket universe. Johnson isn't sure if the others got back...but she knows that she's gotten lost, and she's all alone.

She's not scared...much. She's used to being alone. Alas, she doesn't know where she is, or if this is the reality where there's only one of her. This could be the future. Or another galaxy. She starts to get the bleeps, she starts to get the sweeps, and she starts to get the creeps...

She's surrounded by tech. She doesn't recognize any of it. Although the shapes of some of its parts seem familiar... She needs to find her way out of here so she can look around and try to find her way back to Murdock and Reyes.

She looks around. At long last, she sees a familiar sign on the wall. It's of Rand Enterprises. She's not as far from home as she dreaded.

A fragile man comes running out of a room nearby, and startles Johnson. She puts up her guard. She's right to do so. When the man stops and acknowledges her, they recognize each other.

"Nightshade," he shouts.

"Leader," she mutters.

He turns green, and his head swells. Johnson leaps back, giving him some space. He finds the most dangerous gadgetry in the room he can find, and he assembles it behind him, like an arsenal. He points all their pointy ends at Johnson.

"Herbs won't save you from these," Leader announces, "O Tiny Prick of the Niger-Congo! HOLD STILL!"

Johnson runs. Leader gives her a volley. He barely misses. The chase is on.

There's a tank with rockets. Leader uses his vast mind powers, and activates it. He levitates himself, and hovers just behind it. He rotates the gun, and points it at Johnson.

Johnson sees an elevator. She pounds her fist on the button, expecting a long wait. Alas, the elevator doors open the instant the button's pressed. Johnson gets in, and punches the only button there is on the control panel.

Like in a horror movie, the Leader closes in on her as the elevator doors close. The turret on the tank nearly has her in its sights. The doors close. The elevator shoots up.

Beneath her, Johnson hears the noise, and feels the impact, of the explosion that would've been the end of her, if not for mere moments. She's not sure how the Leader can follow her up here...or if she can expect to find refuge wherever the elevator's taking her.

It takes her to the top floor, of course...which is, apparently, also a lab. Johnson gets out, and calls for help. No good; there's no one up here. Somehow, she'll have to take on the leader on her own.

She runs around the lab, looking for a miracle. There's a lot here...and yet, there's a lot of unoccupied floor space as well.

From strings from the ceiling, a winged harness hangs. It's dark-colored, like a nightjar, and looks stealthy...

At long last, Johnson finds some chemicals. She gets to work. She hurries. She's got no idea how long it's going to take for Leader to find a way up here.

Outside, Leader hovers near the glass wall. There's a glass cleaner on duty. He turns around, sees Leader, and screams. Leader uses his powers to mangle the cleaner's body behind recognition, before using the platform to "take a dump" onto the street below.

Leader sits on the upward part of the platform as he dumps the "euthanized" window cleaner. He smiles.

"The toilet of the future," he comments. "Much more fresh air in it...than in those stuffy claustrophobic primitive human mini-saunas!"

Using his mental powers, he carves a circular hole into the glass wall. He gently removes it...and lets it fall onto the floor inside, smashing it into many shards. They'll come in handy, he hopes, in his last business with Nightshade. He hovers around the top floor lab, calling out Nightshade's name...

He looks around. This place looks like the Winter Palace. Glass fixtures hang from the ceiling. There's snow falling outside. Tall softwood trees, decorated in white, stand here and there...

Sterns looks at himself. He looks like Jason Biggs.

Out from behind a tree, a Czech beauty makes herself known. She's in a pink robe. She giggles when she sees him. "Nice rose pattern," she says in a sweet Slavic accent.

Sterns/Biggs looks down. He's in nothing but a pair of rose-patterned boxers.

"What is this," Sterns asks, "Czechian Pie?! Whatever happened to good ole homemade American Pie?!"

Nadia takes off her robe, revealing her sheer white lingerie. She poses for him, and smiles.

Below, Sterns can feel a tent pitching. He feels like he's back in 1993-in Biggs's body.

He looks back up. She's right in front of him. Her bare arms are around his neck. Her sweet Czechian odor penetrates ever nth of him...

"Please," Sterns begs. "I might prematurely ejaculate...like last time!"

"Mm, calm down, mishka," she croons Slavly...I mean softly. "I promise I'll be your angel."

All around, music begins playing. Sterns looks around. There are small groups of musical instruments everywhere. They're playing by themselves.

All around, heavenly sunlight pours through the glass walls, and irrigates the whole room. The walls are painted in broad black and white stripes.

Sterns looks back. Natasha Bedingfield has joined him.

She sings, to him, "Angel." For it, she spreads a broad pair of white wings-a pair that'd make Warren Worthington III bleed green.

She wraps her bare arms around his neck, and sings to him seductively. Sterns looks like himself again.

Bedingfield teleports all over the room, confusing him. She multiplies herself, and stands in formation, in an arrowhead pointing at him.

She wears a zebra-striped bra beneath a leather coat with a low-cut. Sterns stares down it.

Sterns looks around. He's falling through the sky...towards Central Park.

All around him, Captain Panties chases a little snowy owl. She looks like Dreama Walker, from Don't Trust the B- in Apartment 23. Her panties and cape are both pink. Poor little Hedwig there sure doesn't look like he stands a chance...or on a perch, for that matter...

He looks like he's about to splash down in the California sea lion exhibit. Alas, an angel appears from out of nowhere, and saves him...

She teleports him...to a dark hall with purple walls and rails. Bedingfield's wearing a bride's dress now. She hasn't stopped singing to him. Sterns is in love now.

Bedingfield leads him by the hand, to the exit at the end of the hall. It leads into a bright wedding hall, where multiple clones of Bedingfield offer him nice glasses of white wine. They're all still singing. They all sound like one of her at times.

Sterns is dazed. He's not rebounding anytime soon.

In real life, Nightshade has led him to Harlem's Paradise. He's reverted to Samuel Sterns. He sits still, with big eyes. He still thinks he's in a wedding hall full of multiple Natasha Bedingfields.

All around him, black locals in Harlem club and have a good time. The nightclub has a very special guest singer: Paul Thorn. He stands on stage and sings one of his classics: "Bull Mountain Bridge."

While singing, Thorn points at the dazed Sterns, as if having a fantasy about doing the same thing to him. Sterns doesn't even react.

During the chorus, the nightclub guests sing along-best they can, considering that normal humans can't sing. It's as if they can't even tell he's not black.

Up in the box, Luke Cage watches the performance, and smiles. Foggy Nelson and Marci Stahl sit on either side of him.

"This is sweet," Nelson admits. "Do...white singers usually perform here?"

Cage smiles, and shakes his head. "But just to keep Harlem happy, I don't think we'll make this a habit."

Stahl shrugs. "I sure wouldn't...unless I wanted Abomination to come in here and put me out of business."

Nelson tries to ignore her when she says things like that. He doesn't think she could possibly have a crush on Abomination...alas, he's met weirder women.

Cage sits, and listens to the performance. It's hard to believe he's not the same man Claire Temple fell in love with.

Downstairs, Johnson scurries into a ladies' room, and re-prepares herself. She's never worked with those chemicals before, and therefore has no idea how long she's got before Sterns realizes he's fallen for another one of her seductive hallucinations.

"Wow," Johnson mutters. "I've never imagined I was a blonde before."

She prepares herself. Once done, she hurries and checks the toilet stall. She heaves a relief; it's still where she left it. And to think it has wings.

It's the Nighthawk wingpack from Rand Enterprises, which she used to bring Sterns here. And right now, she can think of more than a few people who could use its services...