June 17th, 2021

Standing at the center of the newly-formed arena in the ice, Gzad decreed that the eyes of "the Empress" were upon them, and that his patroness had blessed their battle. He invited the Contenders to announce themselves, and Cameo gave a stirring recitation of their glorious accomplishments. Impressed, Gzad invited him to throw the first punch, and Cameo obliged with his strongest uppercut to the alien's chin. Although Gzad was sent flying, he got to his feet seemingly unhurt, and vowed that one way or another he would force the Contenders to show their true strength.

As the fight commenced, the Contenders tried their best to overcome Gzad's obvious resilience with coordinated team attacks. Cameo would throw a mighty punch that sent Gzad flying, and the alien would be struck in mid-air by lightning bolts, beams of holy fire, and Hardback's rapid-fire martial arts strikes. The plan was sound, but the Contenders (relatively inexperienced with such coordinated maneuvers) had difficulty pulling them off. Meanwhile, Gzad fought back with his own impressive martial prowess, aided by his incredible strength and the animated chainwhip attached to his gauntlet. The Contenders not only had to evade his mighty blows but also had to watch for loops of chain that tried to entrap them with seemingly no input from Gzad.

As the battle grew heated, Gzad managed to catch the teleporting Cameo and suplex him neatly through the ice, plunging him into the Arctic ocean below. He disarmed Justicarius and disparaged his Goddess in a single stroke, and he tricked Hardback into a risky attack by pretending to be blinded by a Saronite flash (his space-hardened eyes were naturally resistant to such things). Despite numerous setbacks, however, the Contenders were holding their own, and a few well-timed coordinated attacks sent Gzad sprawling. As a combination of healing spells and nutritious bugs brought Cameo back into the fray, it seemed like the Contenders were well on their way to victory.

Suddenly, their battle was interrupted by by the arrival of the Northern Guard, led by Forceknight. Although the Contenders tried to get the interlopers to withdraw, Forceknight made it clear that they had no intention of leaving. The Canadians objective was to defeat Gzad or at least keep him busy while their allies elsewhere removed his interplanetary beacon (the meditating Eid Prince). Gzad, furious at this unsporting turn of events, abandoned his high-tech arsenal in favor of devastating power blasts and homing spheres of crimson energy. With little other choice, the Contenders rejoined the fight, and the combined might of the many heroes began to overwhelm Gzad's defenses. Forceknight was felled during the combat, but his allies pressed on, and eventually Gzad was knocked into the icy waters to sink like a stone.

His rescue came, however, with the intervention of his space craft, which sped across the icy plains to race into the water (plowing through Justicarius in the process) and recover its pilot. Gzad returned to the surface, nearly catatonic with his injuries but holding aloft the giant ball of crumpled Mechanon robots. Although the contenders managed to dismount Gzad and hurl him unconscious into the jagged ice field, the sphere remained mysteriously aloft.

With a sudden premonition of doom, Ghost Dance looked to the sky and saw a symbol traced in gold flames similar to Justicarius' own. The symbol was that of a lidless serpentine eye, glaring down onto the battlefield with displeasure. A voice rang out of the heavens, beginning a strange proclamation. It said,

**"A Reading from the Book of Martok:**

***and Lo, the Empress saw the dishonorable rabble***

***and was greatly displeased by their wickedness.***

***And so she bade their weapons to turn against their masters,***

***and thus their tools become the instruments of their execution."***

As soon as this bizarre pronouncement ceased, the long-deactivated Mechanon robots reactivated, screaming electronically for the deaths of all organics and bidding the heroes to "Bow before the Empress!" As the heroes fled for safety, the robots simultaneously overloaded their reactors. The Contenders sidestepped into the Spirit World for safety, where no terrestrial danger could threaten them, and the results of the robots' self-destruction remains momentarily unknown...

## Table Talk

"He probably earned those names. Mine were more marketing terms."

-Cameo measures his titles against Gzad's

He looks around in confusion, not knowing what the feeling of hunger is.

This is America. We'll teach him the meaning of hunger.

We're hungry for freedom!

-The team vows to educate Gzad on what it means to be American

I am so... fed up... with chance.

-Justicarius laments his rolls

Well when I went to make this ability, there was no option to make it ranged power! No, wait. There it is.

-Hardback realizes his folly

I'm even scared of the guy from the gas station. There's no way I'm sending a magic alien to learn spirit magic.

-Ghost Dance rethinks his tactics

"I'm checking some numbers..."

"Yeah, 911."

- Brian & Eric

"One gamma ray's as good as another."

"You've always said that."

- Joe & Nick