Avengers Arena (2013 series) #16

Arcade has kidnapped 16 teen superheroes to his Murder World island, and some of them are already dead. In #14 he released X-23's trigger scent which turned her into a berserker but Cullen Bloodstone took off his Bloodstone ring and became a giant monster called a Glartrox to save everyone else from her. Last issue the beast defeated the 'Wolverine' but then turned on the others until Atlantean Nara sacrificed herself to turn it back into Cullen.

Arcade has been watching this from his underground control room. Now he comments to his robot attendant Unit Locke 2.0 that things have actually gone better than he planned. He was expecting the teens to turn on each other from the start but instead the death rate has been disappointingly slow. But now he remembers that all the best contests build towards a climactic end. He gave the game 30 days to break their spirits and now on Day 29 he may have succeeded.

On the Quadrant 3 beach Anachronism (Aiden Gillespie) cradles the dead body of his love Nara (although their relationship was far from the rosy picture that paints). And then he grabs his large stone axe and smashes it into Cullen's naked body. His friend accepts this punishment but 'astronaut' Cammi tries to stop Aiden by threatening him with her gun. Chase Stein, Humberto Lopez and Nico Minoru are watching from a distance. 'Berto says they should help Cammi but the other 2 refuse. However Cammi shoots Aiden with her blaster and seems to have things in hand. But then Chase (turning into Darkhawk) and Nico (the 2 chars from the Runaways) combine to take Lopez down. Nico says she'll take the next step and uses her magic to fly in and grab injured Cullen from Cammi's helping hands, and carry him out to sea.

Meanwhile in the nearby woods Hazmat (Jenny Takeda) is suffering from the injuries X-23 (Laura Kinney) gave her after the trigger scent gas struck (#14). But also her hazmat suit is ripped and releasing her radioactivity and toxicity. She forces herself to get up and limp away from the fire surrounding her, only to come across Laura's equally damaged body (after her defeat by the Glartrox last issue). But of course X-23 is a Wolverine clone so *her* body is recovering, so Jenny staggers away. However Laura wakes up and the trigger scent forces *her* to get up and follow to kill her.

While Arcade watches these events Death Locket (Becca Ryker) is watching *him* from 1 of the air vents these places always have. The villain is a slave to his schedule and she was expecting him to leave his control room at this time to go for a bath, but he's too engrossed in the scene on his screen of X-23 now attacking Hazmat but her victim blasting her in the face with radiation/toxicity. Behind her in the vent Apex, currently with the mind & body of Tim Bashir, has been cobbling together a replacement cyborg arm for the young girl (which Nico destroyed in #12). He attaches it, saying that it functions as a cannon but not as a hand. She relays to him that the other teens have started fighting each other, so they *have* to shut Murder World down *now*. They share companionship until Tim's 'twin sister' Katy 'replaces' his mind & body with her own and pushes Becca away. They have an argument by continually swapping control, but Katy reminds Tim that the plan to shut down Arcade's computer system requires *her* superior technopathic skill.

Becca tells them to shut up before they alert Arcade, and wait by the vent while she goes to create a diversion to get the villain to leave. She traverses the ventilation system to a room where there are caged animals (for experimentation or just for stocking the island?). She lets them go and they run through the complex, some of them reaching the control room, but Arcade just tells Locke to shoo them away. Now Death Locket enters the room containing the bodies of the dead 'contestants'. She finds Kid Briton's sword and uses it to smash the tank preserving his headless body. Arcade hears the noise and tells Locke to deal with *that* as well, but Becca destroys the robot with the sword. However it explodes and the blast sends DL to smash into another preservation cylinder. And it's occupant wakes up.

Arcade hears Becca scream in shock and finally leaves the control room (and a bottle of wine) to investigate, muttering that he'd better not miss the best part of his game. Katy drops into the room and starts work on the control system but Tim wants them to save Becca. Katy insists that shutting the whole thing down is more important. She gets through several levels of security but fails at the last hurdle, and then Arcade joins them dragging the young cyborg along with her new arm detached. He applauds them for providing him with more unexpected entertainment.

Arcade sits them down to watch more of the Hazmat/X-23 match. Laura's skin is blistered and her hair burned off but she's about to disembowel Jenny with her claws. He also shows them Nico dragging Aiden through the water, Cammi preparing to shoot Chasehawk, and Reptil as a triceratops fighting Anachronism. But then the villain gets hit on the head  by a metal object wielded by someone else. Arcade comments that the artificial superpowers that the topside environment give him unfortunately (for him) don't work down here in his control complex. And we see that the wielder is the guy who woke up in his containment tube - Chris Powell the original inhabitant of the Darkhawk android.