Editing Colin Wallis (section)

===[[Gold Morning]]===
At the Cauldron meeting to discuss Scion, Defiant is grilling Saint about his string of failures since supplanting Dragon: Saint is failing and Defiant has placed the responsibility for numerous deaths - 2.2 million in New York alone when Saint failed to raise the defenses in time - upon his head.

Saint mutes him and Defiant claims that he will kill Saint and otherwise obstruct him in anything he will attempt, knowing that Saint has done everything he has done to get Teacher out of the Birdcage. And Defiant is the only one who holds the keys to releasing the prisoners. He agrees to the release of Teacher if everyone else in the room agrees to it.

They do.<ref>[[Extinction 27.2]]</ref>

Was present at the [[Oil-rig battle]], confirming the identities of the Birdcage prisoners released in the preparations to facial recognition, all were accounted for. He works with Tattletale to manage Dragon's programs and systems, and figures out something of a pattern to Scion's movements. Defiant instructs String Theory to scale up her F-Driver weapon but to minimize collateral damage. He co-ordinates the waves of attacks against Scion.<ref>[[Extinction 27.4]]</ref>

Defiant later brought Saint into custody, though the exact details are not known.<ref>[[Cockroaches 28.1]]</ref> Along with Narwhal he served as Saint's prison warden. When Narwhal claims that she needs to ensure that the Undersiders (and Canary) won't be any threat to Saint, Defiant vouches for them. Tattletale's interrogation of Saint is punctuated by verbal sparring from himself and Defiant throughout. When Tattletale informs the group that Teacher's plan was to obtain Dragon and/or her systems, Defiant heads off to investigate.<ref>[[Cockroaches 28.2]]</ref>

He later confirms that Teacher obtained all of Dragon that wasn't on the satellite backups. In the face of such monumental news he did not appreciate Imp's poor attempts to inject levity into the situation.

As the Undersiders plan, Bitch states that they might have to let [[Teacher]] have Dragon for the moment. Defiant is not happy about the prospect of Dragon being dismantled, tortured, rebuilt and so on in Teacher's clutches, but admits he has little choice.

Narwhal comforts Defiant. When Saint asks to be freed, claiming that it makes sense, Defiant protests again and again, claiming that he wants to believe that Saint can be held for just a little bit longer. Saint is released, but Defiant remains with him, double-checking any code the faux-tinker works on.

Defiant is piloting the [[Pendragon]] when Tattletale attempts to communicate with the Simurgh. When Tattletale attempts to form a psychological model of the mental patterns of the Endbringers, Defiant criticises her for using Freudian terminology, recalling a Psychology class he took at University.

Defiant later met with Teacher in the handover of Dragon. Teacher waves off Defiant's vitriol and goads the couple with the fact he has rechained her. Ensuring that she will leave him alone and even protect him. Defiant makes a rare promise that Teacher will pay for enslaving his girlfriend.

Later he tries to comfort Dragon, promising to remove 'every last chain'. This falls on deaf ears.<ref>[[Interlude 28]]</ref> Defiant spends some time recuperating from the events of the last few days,<ref>[[Venom 29.1]]</ref> presumably performing needed maintenance.

Despite not agreeing with Taylor's plan to infiltrate Cauldron, he does give her one of his [[Nano-thorn|disintegration knives]] along with incredibly detailed maintenance instructions, Dragon cuts him off.<ref>[[Venom 29.3]]</ref>

As [[Khepri]] does considerable damage to Dragon's systems, Defiant is ready to come to her aid - until Dragon tells him not to and to focus on Zion.<ref>[[Speck 30.4]]</ref>

[[Khepri]] utilizes Defiant's eyes and his combat prediction software to try and predict Scion's movements and plan a strategy. As with all the other Tinkers, he is put to work creating a weapon that is enough to kill Scion.<ref>[[Speck 30.5]]</ref> Upon its completion, before Khepri regains control of the group, Defiant is the one in place to activate the [[Tinker]] device that finally kills [[Scion]].<ref>[[Speck 30.6]]</ref>