August 26th

## Aftermath

The Contenders took stock of the battlefield and captured Neutronium, who was unconscious at the bottom of a pool. Mentat scanned the villain's mind by way of an interrogation, revealing how the Time Wizard had intended to use Omega Girl in his schemes. The Time Wizard had theorized that her power was an even greater, more versatile version of Neutronoium's own gravity-manipulation powers, and he intended to somehow extract that power from her corpse. Mentat also found that Neutronium had defeated Kid Galactic, having ambushed him in space and left his body on the arid plains of Mars.

The heroes confiscated Neutronium's ring, a device similar in construction to the Chroniton Rod (albeit much simpler). This rendered Neutronium mostly powerless, but they carefully took him into custody anyway. Meanwhile the Eid Prince, feeling that he had fulfilled his duty by participating in the battle and unconvinced that Mot could help him off the planet, left to pursue his own means to return to his interstellar home. The Alchemist tried to resurrect Cort but his phoenix magic failed catastrophically, leaving both Cort and Mot trapped in their undead state.

Old Mentat offered some insight on the Time Wizard's operations in Dubai, revealing that unfortunately his research was inaccessible: the base's entire computer system was destroyed, left in a ruined state until the Time Wizard needed it enough to reverse the damage. Whatever information he'd accumulated was out of reach, and the compound itself was deactivated due to the energy field, and so the heroes decided to leave the useless facility and return to their own base.

## Homecoming

The Alchemist opened a portal back to the Contenders' base, which had been presumed to be swarming with UNTIL agents. Instead, however, a lone disguised figure met them in the darkened base, delivering a package and then quickly taking his leave. Cort challenged this courier to identify himself and explain his business; after he refused to do both, a tense standoff ensued, but eventually Cort opted to stand aside and let him leave in peace.

The package contained a secure hard drive which Mot examined. In it a wealth of information was compiled, along with a video file revealing that the drive had been prepared by the late Nighthawk. In the video he explained that the hard drive, which was one of many, contained a great deal of classified and clandestine information he had stolen over the years, along with the methods he had used and the security flaws he had exploited to get it. The drive had been delivered to the team in the event of Nighthawk's demise, with hopes they would use it to continue his mission of fighting crime from outside the boundaries of the law.

While the team digested this, Neutronium was imprisoned in their base's holding cell. Mot started working to repair the Octobot, while Bugaboo began a thorough examination of the partially-destroyed Chroniton Rod.

Meanwhile, Cort delivered Neutronium's gravity-controlling ring to Omega Girl, who was holding the south side of Chicago with the beleaguered Dr. Nano. He delivered the bad news about Audubon, and handed over the ring, despite Omega Girl's protests that she didn't want anything to do with it.

## The Rabble

After a few hours of laying low, the Contenders detected a large group of invaders heading towards their base. Whether or not the aliens knew that the heroes were hiding undearneath the Abletons' junkyard was unclear, but it was obvious that the place would be destroyed if the mob was left to its own devices. Mentat, Old Mentat, Cort, and Hardback left to intercept the invaders; Mot, unfortunately, had not yet completed repairs on the Octobot and was left behind.

The psychics attempted to collapse a large building on the mob, but were hampered by their lack of demolitions savvy. The building collapsed prematurely, before it could do any real damage, and Old Mentat was badly injured by an electric blast as the two of them fled. Hardback assaulted the aliens with his insects, but several were slain by heavy weapons-fire from the crude mech at the heart of the mob.

Eventually, Cort devised a strategy to lure the majority of the aliens away, while Hardback assaulted the mech directly. Although he was injured in the attempt, he managed to destroy the robot, stealing a large clump of fungoid alien flesh from its heart in the process. When their totem was destroyed, the aliens became dispirited and scattered to find other gangs to rampage with.

## Quotable Notes

Your stupid earth rocks are all broken. Did you break all the rocks to keep me here? -Hypothetical Prince Ide

Hey, I'm not a bunch of pussy! -Hardback

Hunker down? No, we'll Hunker UP! -Hardback

Moby references : 0