In order to fulfill a contract with his brother, Dr. Venture hires several dozen college interns to work on the Palaemon Project, an ionic ray shield to work on J.J.'s Gargantua-2. However, Venture must deal with Dean's new "emo" persona after having been dumped by Triana and with the ionic radiation mutating his interns into either four-armed telepathis or carapaced monsters that both have acquired a taste for the relatively unmutated "special" class who Rusty has been using as personal assistants. Billy Quizboy must deal with old rival turned Guild of Calamitous Intent authorized archenemy Augustus St. Cloud who has not forgiven Billy for winning an eBay auction for Rusty Venture paraphernalia after St. Cloud buys items off of Dr. Venture to finance the project, including several that are needed to deal with the mutants. And elsewhere, the Monarch hopes that 21 will return to him, despite having quit after the prom, and seeks a way to fight Venture's "army of mutants", while Dr. Mrs. the Monarch tries to get him to forget about 21 and help with the plans.