October 8th

## Housecleaning

After Mentat's sacrifice, the rest of the team returned to Chicago with heavy hearts. Upon arrival they immediately set about building a memorial statue to the fallen psychic's honor, built out of scrap metal and rusted vehicles in the junkyard.

The Alchemist informed the team that he had been in mystic communication with some of his peers, and a summit was being called in Europe to devise a magical scourge for the remaining alien fungus on Earth. He also mentioned that he needed to "pay back" the phoenix power he'd used when he performed his resurrections, and as a result he would be leaving the team for a while. To the surprise of the team, Mot also indicated took his leave, citing his dissatisfaction with Earthlings, his concern for his home planet, and grief over the loss of Mentat. After ensuring that the base was in working order with full power restored, the undead Alien bid his friends farewell and departed for the stars.

## Distress Call

While resting from their labors and planning what might come next, the team's communications computer picked up a frantic call for help. Although the police had not reorganized, and as a result could not call for super-assistance, a citizen had manned a CB radio in order to report a violent attack by mutants on a local bank. The bank was empty, but several witnesses on the street had been killed. Although their team's strength was sorely depleted, the remaining Contenders raced to the scene to render assistance.

When they arrived at the bank, they saw a strange sight in the lobby: a fire-wielding figure was in combat with several assailants, holding them at bay on his own. While Hardback circled around the building stealthily, Cort charged directly inside.

Upon closer inspection, he saw that the figure was a man in ancient-looking plate armor, swinging a flaming sword. He was locked in combat with a gang of brutish shadow creatures, who swarmed seemingly endlessly. On the opposite side of the lobby, Cort saw a pair of mutants, one a teenage boy and the other a huge, hideous man-lizard hybrid. The boy was conjuring the brutes from his own shadow while the lizardman barked encouragement; Cort teleported directly in front of the boy and shot him with a stunning bullet at point-blank range.

Hardback leapt through a pair of windows to join the fight, while Cort next shot at the lizardman. The armored fighter quickly began to dispatch the shadows nearest to himself, but several were able to break away and attack Cort. As they did so, a strange transformation overcame the cowboy, and he bodily transformed into a new version of himself: a heavyweight boxing champion. Displaying expert footwork, he avoided further attacks while ladling out devastating punches that pounded the shadows into vapor and ash.

## Round 2

Hardback, meanwhile, heard a commotion in the back of the bank and left to investigate. Breaking through a wall, he surprised a trio of mutants who had been approaching the lobby: a shark-man, wolf-man, and an enormous gorilla mutant, so huge he had to lumber on all fours even in the bank's high-ceilinged interior. The ape, clearly in command, gave Hardback a chance to stand down, but the hero refused.

Wasting no more time, the enormous mutant charged. Putting all his weight and considerable might into a savage punch, he slammed a fist the size and weight of an anvil into Hardback. Bracing himself, Hardback blocked the blow, absorbing some of the impact through his Saturnite inlay to supercharge his insectile muscles to new heights. While the other mutants gaped, shocked at Hardback's resilience, he retaliated with a flurry of punches so fierce that the gigantic ape was actually lifted from the ground by their force. As the ape smashed unconscious into a far wall, the canine mutant fled entirely, while his shark companion begged for clemency.

According to the shark, he was a recent mutant-- someone who's latent mutant genes had activated only due to the danger of the recent planet-wide crisis. He explained that he was one of many such new mutants, all of whom were scrambling to survive. He had agreed to come along on this heist only because he had no other means of gathering money; after some consideration, Hardback let him go, with an admonishment to contact the Mutant Equality League for help and to stay out of trouble.

## Justice Does a Lot of Things, But Sleeping Isn't One of Them

In the lobby, Cort observed the armored man place a mailed glove on the unconscious lizardman (who had fallen to a combination of stunning bullets and rapid punches from the Contenders). A golden glow flowed up the man's hand from the mutant, and he reeled as if witnessing some terrible internal vision. What Cort did not know was that the man was viewing the mutant's crimes, which included not only theft but wanton murder. His suspicions confirmed, the man took his flaming sword and unceremoniously plunged it into the mutant's chest, slaying him instantly and quenching the flames with his cold blood.

Cort was shocked by this brutal behavior, and stood in the way when the man approached the teenage mutant next. The man thanked Cort for his assistance in the battle, and explained that he had observed the lizardman's guilt directly and meted out appropriate justice; this did not satisfy Cort, who warned him in no uncertain terms to stay away from the boy.

As tensions rose, Hardback emerged, dragging the semi-conscious gorilla with him. The ape had chastised him, explaining in a weak voice that Hardback was on the wrong side; the mutants were rising up and overthrowing the oppression of the "normals." He had also claimed that Defender was dead and the Champions were broken, a disturbing claim indeed. But seeing the situation with the other heroes, Hardback put these thoughts out of his mind and rushed to intervene.

The armored man, calling himself the Justicar, claimed that he had the ability to directly examine the guilt of a person and the divine authority to hand out justice. The others were hardly convinced, but he demonstrated his power by showing them all the sins of the unconscious teenage mutant, which mostly amounted to petty theft and minor assault. Passing judgment, Justicar indicated that imprisonment would do for the boy and let the matter rest.

Eventually they managed to contact someone at UNTIL who arranged to collect their prisoners. Through the use of a portal hub operated by Ramshackle, UNTIL agents were able to remove the remaining mutants and take them to a secure facility. Considering that Justicar, who was a Blazing World refugee like Cort had been, was a danger to himself and others until he acclimated to Earth, the Contenders tentatively offered to take him in and the warrior accepted.

## An In-Tents Discussion

Concerned over rumors of Defender's death, the group worked their way across town, surveying the damage until they reached Champions Plaza. There, they held a debriefing with an UNTIL liaison and Kinetic, the most-senior member of the Champions present. Kinetic clarified that while Defender was *not* dead, he was in critical condition; he had suffered massive radiation poisoning due to defective reactor shielding in an experimental powersuit. The damage was so severe that not even the attention of Dr. Nano was not enough to ensure Defender's survival, which was still in doubt.

In turn, the Contenders gave a (mostly) full accounting of everything that had happened since the Time Wizard's fall to the UNTIL agent, confirming rumors and unsubstantiated claims from various sources. The only report that confused the agent was that of Nighthawk's death; the agent claimed that several reliable reports had placed Nighthawk fighting the aliens in Chicago all week. Other than that, however, he was satisfied and grateful with the reports, and assured them that UNTIL would show its gratitude for all that the Contenders had accomplished on behalf of Earth.

Finally, the group arranged for Neutronium, still in their holding cell, to be retrieved by UNTIL agents and returned to their base to recuperate, indicating their plans to go and help organize the recovery of the mutant-held neighborhoods on the south side in the morning.

## Final Departure

Upon returning to their base, Hardback was greeted by Bugaboo, who explained (via a private pheromonal conversation) that he had finally perfected a beetle that was capable of capturing a rogue chroniton. This innovation would allow the bugs to capture temporal energy and convey it back to Bugaboo, in theory allowing him to travel through time and hunt down the Time Wizard wherever he was outside of the time stream. He gave one of these bugs to Hardback, who devoured it and absorbed its DNA in order to allow him to reproduce the beetles if necessary, and then prepared to collect the chronitons necessary to leave and continue his long campaign against the Time Wizard.

## Table Talk

"I guess I can't *say* anything... I send him calming vapors. Whatever my de-escalation smell is."

- Hardback struggles with being mute

"I can *transmit!* I can transmit with smell AND taste!"

"But they can't *receive!* You're just farting in a variety of flavors!"

- Will and Nick arguing over pheremonal communication methods

"Justice never sleeps but I *can* be bored to death."

- Joe