Avengers Arena (2013 series) #2

Arcade has kidnapped 16 teen superheroes to his latest Murder World appearing to be on an island. He spent last issue telling them that they were going to kill each other until only 1 was left. And at the end he disintegrated Mettle to kick things off.

Now this issue will concentrate on 1 young cyborg girl labelled on his control board as Ryker. She's shocked by the blood splattered on her, as is Red Raven who backs into her and then spreads her wings to fly away. But there's no escape in the air because she runs hard into a barrier and plummets back down again to her death. And the villain over loudspeakers apologises for not telling them about the ceiling.

Ryker remembers her father telling her that it's better to have allies rather than friends, and she approaches Mettle's weeping girlfriend Hazmat who's being consoled by her friends from the Avengers Academy Juston Seyfert, Reptil and X-23. Kid Briton  wants Apex, who he calls Katy, to leave but she wants to see what happens. Ryker tells Hazmat she's sorry for her loss but Jenny Takeda reacts badly to that, accusing her of thinking she's weak and can be easily killed. So she prepares a radioactive blast, but Ryker's cybernetic arm automatically turns into a big gun and blasts 1st. Hazmat fires back and Ryker dodges and runs away apologising.

We get a flashback to Ryker swimming lengths in a pool. Her father sent her to be coached when she was 8 and she's been training early every weekday morning for 6 years, even though she doesn't like swimming. Her coach said she's 1 of the best swimmers in the State now. Then she went home to pick up something for school and found her mother and little brother being menaced by a Deathlok cyborg. And there was a big explosion.

Now we see her trudging through snow between trees. A voice tells her to freeze and Cammi in her spacesuit drops down from a tree and aims her gun at her. But then she tells her to pull her cyborg leg back from the landmine she was about to step on. She does so and effusively thanks her saviour. She'd been worried about having no friends here and introduces herself as Becca. But Cammi isn't about to trust a Deathlok-ette as she calls her. The only reason she saved her was because she didn't want shrapnel sprayiging into her tree. And she tells Becca to go away.

Another flashback shows Becca's cybernetics expert father trying to use his skill to save his wife Anna Ryker. He failed but their daughter Rebecca survived cybernetic symbiosis. He explained to the comatose girl that Deathloks had been sent back from the future several times to kill him before he could perfect the process, but they're not very good at getting the right year. He and his work were well-protected but he never expected them to target his home. His previous experiments had always had a cybernetic brain in a cyborg body, but he was exhilarated to now be working with a mostly human brain. But his government masters were now unhappy that he'd locked himself away in a bunker and cut off communication, so they sent in SHIELD to arrest him.

Next in the present Kid Briton finds Becca 'creeping' around in the woods and he brings her to the fire shared by his companions. He claims that she's a Deathlok who was going to kill them all in their sleep. She tries to explain that she was cold and saw their fire but the Atlantean Nara doesn't believe her. Cullen Bloodstone sarcastically says that the little girl with the panda t-shirt *sure* looks like a vicious villain, but Anachronism advises him to keep out of it. Kid B and Nara still want to kill her but a last voice chimes in. It's Apex (Katy Bashir) who tells the others to get on with cooking the rabbits they caught.

She takes Becca aside and tells her that she doubts that her boyfriend Kid B could kill *anyone* let alone a Deathlok. She explains that they all come from the Braddock Academy and she describes each of them. Kid Briton is a teenage Captain Britain from an alternate timeline with a flaming sword. Nara, the Atlantean in a breathing helmet, has 'abandonment issues' and *might* actually have killed her. Cullen Bloodstone comes from the Bloodstone family of monster hunters. He probably *is* capable of killing her but he seems more interested in annoying people. Aiden Gillespie 6 months ago 'inherited' the body of a Celtic warlord but is still an insecure kid inside and calls himself Anachronism. She herself can fly slowly.

Becca says she doesn't know anything about superhero schools. Her full name's Rebecca Ryker but the 'tiny space marine' called her something like Death Locket which probably suits her more now. Katy recognises the surname and asks if her father is Harlan Ryker, the 'Prometheus of modern cybernetics'? She's a big fan of scientific geniuses. And she's glad to call Becca her coolest friend, built and trained to outlast the apocalypse. Becca can't help laughing bitterly at the idea of being trained. And we get 1 last flashback ...

... to the day she woke up in a government hospital. Dr Kuhlmann asked her what she remembered:- A robot came back in time and blew up her house, killing her mom and brother. She got hurt but she guessed her dad fixed her. The doc told her that her dad can't help her now but no-one else can understand what he did to her. Then he gave her a mirror so she could see her cybernetic self for the 1st time. And that's when she was teleported to here.