Jan 14th, 2021

## Going Into Overtime

As the battle raged on, both the Contenders and Sludge's forces were feeling the strain of their lengthy combat. Sludge himself was beginning to show numerous cracks in his armor, while Cort was felled by a handful of lucky blaster shots. Justicar, immobilized in sticky webbing, was helpless before a carefully aimed karate-chop to the neck delivered by one of the spider mutants.

Hardback managed to throw Ghost Dance's amulet but his aim was off: rather than reaching his teammate, it landed near one of the armed guards watching over the hostages. The hapless man, unable to resist the lure of the magic amulet, put it on and immediately fell under the thrall of the powerful forces bound inside it. He leapt at one of the Disintegrators guarding the hostages. The two men struggled until the Disintegrator burnt the man to ash; once he was gone, Ghost Dance snatched up the amulet and once more assumed its powers.

Reacting faster than the guards anticipated, he banished the other Disintegrator, hurling him to an unknown fate in the shadowy and dangerous Spirit Realm. With nobody to maintain the deadly cloud of radiation, it quickly dispersed, allowing the Champions to make their move. Kinetic raced in, disarming the remaining guards, while Defender erected forcefields to protect the hostages from outside threat. Witchcraft began to herd the hostages through a portal to safety.

Slush, distracted by these rapid developments, was caught off guard. Hardback, outnumbered and surrounded on all sides, slipped through his enemies' guard and landed a devastating blow on Slush's already weakened armor. Unable to contain his liquid form, Slush quickly collapsed.

## That's It, Good Game! Everybody Go Home

With Slush down, his troops became uncertain. His female companion, floating into the fray, assumed command and called a halt to the violence. Over Slush's weak protests, she insisted that the battle was over and offered to parlay with Hardback. Introducing herself as Radiant, she traded a few rhetorical jabs with Hardback before striking a deal: she would allow the heroes to take all the non-mutant mercenaries into custody (including all the power armor users), and in exchange she and her mutant allies would withdraw from Chicago. In order to make sure the deal was final, she offered to let the Contenders hash things out directly with her father, the only person who could control Slush in the long run. The team agreed, and after some quick words with the Champions and a job offer for Rebound, they all megaported away from Chicago in a column of blue flames.

The Contenders found themselves on a mysterious tropical island, inhabited by strange genetically engineered animals and a small population of contented mutants. These mutants included refugees from all over the world, including the former inmates of the Chinese internment camp that the team had helped liberate some time prior. Radiant called the island New Canaan, and The Contenders were soon introduced to the island's architect, Dr. Alphonse Rodin. Rodin, although wheelchair bound and curiously disabled by his calcifying mutation, welcomed his guests warmly and offered to "cure" Cort's undead condition, regardless of Hazel's presumed objections. He also agreed to keep Slush (who was beginning the lengthy process of reconstituting himself) confined to the island, in order to prevent any further troublemaking on his part.

## A Fairly Decent Proposal

After allowing the group to explore the island and administering a progressive cure to Cort, Rodin invited the group to dinner. He expounded a bit on mutant history, the life of the islanders, and his own work on such projects as Visage and the Gorgon (and an ominous reference to something called "Project Leviathan"). He noted that, in his decades of research, he found that the children of mutants with activated mutant genes nearly always inherited the mutant gene, but in a more positive form. In effect, the mutant gene was "honing" itself in each successive generation, moving towards a 'perfected' form. He established New Canaan not only so mutants could have a safe haven from the intolerance of mankind, but also so he could help the gene reach perfection faster than would be possible by random chance matings in the outside world. He asked Hardback to donate his DNA to the New Canaan gene pool, as his unique mutant power of infinite adaptability would bridge the gap between incompatible mutant genes and accelerate the program from 90+ generations to find the perfected mutant gene, to just two. Hardback readily agreed, and a fast friendship was formed between the Contenders and Rodin.

Wishing their friend a temporary farewell, the rest of the team were whisked home by Tesseract, another New Canaan mutant and joint-chief of island security.

## And In Other News...

In the course of the upcoming days, several startling and surprising events unfolded. The Plutonian resurfaced, now in Hong Kong, defying the Chinese rule of the city and uniting the Hong Kong supers into a single unified front. The Chinese responded with a forceful denunciation of the Plutonian and a vow to "bring him to justice" by any means necessary.

Meanwhile in America, Senator Sutherland announced his independent candidacy for the Presidency of the United States. Immediately denounced by Donald Trump, he enjoys a great deal of respect in the conservative and moderate voter base and will surely be a force to be reckoned with in the upcoming electoral cycle.

Lastly, Phil Moray called Cort to share some exciting news: *The Contenders* three-part cinematic epic has been green-lit by Sony Pictures! In fact a first treatment was already complete, and preliminary casting for the key roles was already underway:

* Chris Pine as Hardback (confirmed)
* Karl Urban as Cort (tentative)
* Joaquin Phoenix as Mentat (confirmed)
* Mot Sknah will be a motion-capture CGI puppet, with mocap by Andy Serkis and voiced by Paul Giamatti (confirmed)
* John Krasinski as the Atlantean (tentative)
* Colin Firt as Nighthawk (tentative)
* Sam Rockwell as John Wolf (tentative)
* Gina Carano as Hellion (confirmed)
* Amber Heard as Perfidy (tentative)
* Ray Park as Bugaboo (confirmed)
* Liam Hemsworth as the Plutonian (confirmed)
* Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Old Time Wizard (negotiations ongoing)
* Russel Crowe as Old Mentat (confirmed)

## Table Talk

"In fact, I don't *have* to jump. I just walk my happy ass over there."

- Hardback

"Someday, I will reference this."

- Cort

"Cort switches into someone less religious and follows the monkey."

- Cort neatly sidesteps questions of religious propriety

"Was it a fiasco? I look back on it fondly."

- Nick