BIOGRAPHY page 6
As a free agent again, Domino began working mercenary jobs for her own profit and pleasure. She was contacted by Hope Summers, though, who needed help tracking down the recently returned Cable. When they found him, Hope and Dom discovered Nate was experiencing critical seizures. These were a side effect from a new power of precognitive visions he was receiving 
about future threats. Forge and Doctor Nemesis had been working on Cable’s condition, and so they and Colossus formed the nucleus of a new X-Force team prepared to deal with the threats Nathan was foreseeing. Dom recognized the seizures were bad enough that Cable was dying from them, so she tried to counsel him into taking retirement and spending time with his daughter. The visions came with an impulse to act, however, and Nate couldn’t ignore what he was seeing.
To deal with a potential virus outbreak, X-Force prepared to infiltrate a fast food factory and destroy the tainted meat. Cable wanted Hope safe and out of the way, however, and had Nemesis tranq her instead of arguing. Domino was dropping Hope back at her foster family when their base was attacked, and Domino was trapped on the wrong side of the transmat portal. Their timetable was thrown off entirely for the factory job, and the virus was released before they could stop it. The factory staff was transformed into murderous psychotic beasts called the Girth. Nemesis had to euthanize the infected, who turned back to normal after passing away. As a result, X-Force was found at the scene of an apparent mass murder and forced to become outlaws to remain free. [Cable & X-Force #1-4]
X-Force split up to evade the authorities before regrouping, and so Domino and Colossus got lost in Mexico together for a few days. Piotr had been undercover at the factory and considered some of those who died to be friends, making him take the situation harder than the others. He and Domino got drunk on cheap tequila and spent the night together. Colossus felt obligated to turn himself in for their alleged crimes, but he told Domino before he left that he genuinely enjoyed 
their time together. [Cable & X-Force #5] Domino still felt abandoned, but that didn’t stop her from visiting Piotr in prison (during a jailbreak). Technically, she was the distraction, making it look like she was breaking Colossus out while Boom Boom freed X-Force’s real target in another cell. When their alien prisoner got the drop on them, Domino and Boom Boom were kidnapped and Colossus felt the need to break out for real and help Cable’s team rescue them. Piotr was thrilled to reunite with Dom, but she was cold towards him, essentially saying he had missed his window. [Cable & X-Force #6-8]
As X-Force split up to cover multiple pending visions simultaneously, Domino teamed herself with Boom Boom. Tabitha’s chaotic style was painful for Domino and her mission planning, but they accomplished their assignment. At the same time, Tabby injected herself into Dom’s personal life and told her to give Piotr another chance. Maybe they hadn’t gotten on the same page at the same time at first, but sometimes you just gotta wing it, ya know? Domino listened to Boom Boom and caught up with Colossus on his mission to stop a demon invasion. She was still defensive about her choices and thought anything resembling a real relationship was impossible for outlaw 
black ops super-heroes. Piotr’s optimism won her over, however, and they decided to give their relationship a shot. [Cable & X-Force #11-12] Domino and Colossus stayed together through the end of Cable’s X-Force. The team reformed in a new direction and neither of them were a part of the next incarnation. [Cable & X-Force #15-19] Piotr returned to the X-Men, but Domino visited the mansion occasionally to keep their time together rolling. [Amazing X-Men (2nd series) #15]
Domino became a freelance mercenary again but wound up taking serious work for Advanced Idea Mechanics. A.I.M. had access to information she desperately needed and Dom did a few jobs for them under duress. She had an encounter with the Punisher in Los Angeles, and later hunted down a new Deathlok opposing A.I.M. from the rival Biotek agency. After getting the intelligence data she needed from A.I.M. and cutting ties with them, however, Domino helped S.H.I.E.L.D. and the previous Deathlok named Michael Collins track the new cyborg, Henry Hayes, and aid him in severing his connection to Biotek. [Punisher (10th series) #4-6, Deathlok (5th series) #2-10]
[Note: The data A.I.M. provided to Domino was not revealed, but it was heavily implied to involve her long missing brother, Lazarus. Her A.I.M. handler mentioned he hoped she could find “the child,” and Dom later tellingly advised Deathlok to never let anyone use his family against him. However, the plot was never pursued further.]
Domino next took some work from Cable, who wanted to investigate the money trail for a surveillance network tracking mutants known as “The Yellow Eye.” However, in the time it took
Domino to locate the Eye’s data center, Cable had forgotten about her. Infected with a complicated explosive nano-virus, Cable’s real body went into cold storage while maintaining a presence in the new X-Force using clones supported by partially complete memory tapes. This ad hoc process meant that Domino’s long-term mission slipped his mind during one of the back-ups. Like a burnt spy cut loose without support, Domino was captured by the Yellow Eye. [X-Force (4th series) #7]
Cable and X-Force ended up getting an independent lead on the Yellow Eye and tracked them down. Domino was only inadvertently freed from the control of Mojo and the Eye when Fantomex turned on his teammates and disrupted the system. Nathan had gone down a dark path of ends justifying the means since Dom was missing, and he could barely shrug out an apology for 
forgetting about her. Domino helped X-Force wrap up their efforts to contain the threat of the Volga Strain but, in the end, she joined the rest of the team in expelling Nate from their ranks and choosing to follow his daughter Hope instead. [X-Force (4th series) #11-15]
X-Force disbanded again, and Domino went back to working for a living as a mercenary. She lent a shoulder to cry on to Deadpool, who was having personnel (and personal) issues with his own squad, the Mercs for Money. Wade’s style of leading with his face and trusting his healing factor didn’t translate well to leadership of a crew of less-indestructible professionals. [Deadpool & the Mercs for Money (2nd series) #1] Deadpool took a bad job, capturing nuclear-powered superhumans who were supposedly a threat to society but actually ended up being exploited by his employer, Umbral Dynamics. His team quit, and Wade was left trying to fix his mess alone. Domino assembled a new team of Mercs for Money to aid Deadpool, bringing together Massacre from the old crew plus Machine Man, Gorilla Man and Hit-Monkey. [Deadpool & the Mercs for Money (2nd series) #4-5]
They saved the day, but Neena remained in command of the Mercs from that point onwards. It was a sore spot for Wade, but he was too unconventional to trust with leadership decisions. A new member of the Mercs, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, owed Wade for saving her from Umbral, and helped him undermine Domino’s authority from time-to-time. Domino picked most of the team’s missions as well, farming a lot of work from the overburdened S.H.I.E.L.D. [Deadpool & the
Mercs for Money (2nd series) #6] In a short span of time, however, Deadpool went broke and his previous success was no longer bringing in other mercenary contracts. S.H.I.E.L.D. was going through its own crises and toppled soon after. Domino and the Mercs went their separate ways after Deadpool’s bride Shiklah led a monster invasion of Manhattan. [Til Death Do Us… crossover]
At loose ends, Domino intended to return to mercenary work and personal profit. More than anything she began to obsess over money and having lots of it. While using her luck to go treasure hunting off the coast of Baja California, though, Neena was assaulted by cyborg assassins from the Weapon X Program. The current version of the program had a list of targets whose genetic material would be copied and extrapolated from to produce more efficient mutant-hunters and killers. Old Man Logan and Sabretooth had already been attacked by Weapon X, and they arrived to provide Domino with assistance against her opponents. The cyborgs self-destructed and the trio decided to team up against Weapon X. [Weapon X (3rd series) #3]
The Weapon X Program had more serious targets, having already attacked Amadeus Cho, the new Hulk, for his gamma-powered blood. Cho and the mutants tested the scraps of one of the cyborgs the Hulk defeated and discovered genetic material from Warpath and Lady Deathstrike as well, indicating they had been captured. They freed those two from being test subjects at a concealed lab on an oil rig, but Weapon X already had samples from all of them. Further investigation uncovered Reverend William Stryker was in charge of Weapon X this time, using his church to funnel true believers into the program as guinea pigs. When the group found Stryker’s main base of operations, Subjects H-Beta and H-Alpha were released, the first attempt at merging Hulk and Wolverine genetics. Amadeus thought Stryker’s converts were misguided and could be
saved, which put him at odds with the mercenaries and killers he had aligned himself with. When he couldn’t stomach the killing anymore, the Hulk bailed. Stryker’s facility was destroyed and H-Beta was killed by H-Alpha, but the latter was still on the loose. Domino and her allies decided to remain together as a team, reclaiming the name Weapon X for themselves. [Weapons of Mutant Destruction crossover]
Domino and Weapon X pursued Weapon H for a time until they were sure he had shaken off his behavioral control implants. No longer an immediate threat to all mutants, they left him to sort out his own repressed memories. [Weapon X (3rd series) #7-11] As the team sought an excuse to stay together now that their initial mission was complete, Neena became compulsive about robbing banks and collecting money again. During the hunt for the Weapon X Program, Warpath had helped out some mutants in the dictatorship of Santo Marco, and they called him for help when American super-soldiers attacked the mutant village in the country. After learning Santo Marco had a national bank notorious for laundering drug money, Domino was suddenly eager to help Warpath and his beleaguered friends.
President Duarte’s super-soldiers were based on Nuke, the original Weapon VII and his enhancement drugs. The country was on the verge of revolution and Warpath was eager to pick a side. Domino led a raid on the bank as a distraction while the others attacking the pharmaceutical labs producing drugs for the super-soldiers. The original Nuke was discovered, and he joined the super-soldiers against Weapon X. Looking for an edge, the team took samples of Nuke’s red pills to power themselves up. On a high from the drug’s effects, Domino grabbed Warpath and 
passionately kissed him during a firefight. After Nuke ended up assassinating Duarte, Weapon X enjoyed the revolution festivities by the grateful people. Dom and Jimmy spent the party together, looking to see if they still had a spark together outside the heat of battle. [Weapon X (3rd series) #12-16]
By this point, Weapon X had established themselves as the X-Men’s official adjacent team of hunters, tracking and eliminating threats to mutant safety. Old Man Logan was getting weaker all the time, however, and he made the questionable decision to cede command of Weapon X to
Sabretooth. Warpath believed Creed was insane and couldn’t be trusted in control of the group. Domino was in a compromising position because Sabretooth talked about turning Weapon X into a mercenary group on the side, making that money that she was so interested in. Caught between Jimmy and Creed, Dom couldn’t make it work and Warpath quit the team rather than continue serving under Sabretooth. [Weapon X (3rd series) #17-20] The re-christened “Weapon X-Force” remained together for a short time performing (relatively altruistic) mercenary jobs, but fell apart after confronting Reverend Stryker again, and Sabretooth was lost to them. [Weapon X (3rd series) #21-27]