Avengers Arena (2013 series) #8

Welcome back after the Arcade break last issue. Our teen superchars are still trapped in his latest Murder World. In #6 he sprayed Hazmat and Reptil with the trigger scent that causes X-23 to go feral, so now she's keeping out of their way in the desert Quadrant 2 of the 'island'.

She remembers how her instinct made her work out how to kill all the other 'contestants' as soon as she saw them on Day 1. Now she spots the remains of Juston Seyfert's Sentinel. She can't imagine how the boy could have survived the destruction and a week alone in the desert, but climbs inside it to investigate and smells peanut butter. She calls his name and something blasts her. Juston appears and apologises for the blaster triggered by a motion sensor. The junior Wolverine says her healing factor will handle any damage. He tells her that the Sentinel deliberately fell in such a way to save his life even though it meant *it* got heavily damaged. He's been living on PB bars while he's repairing it, and he seems to be paralysed from the waist down.

In the Q2 safe zone the teens from the Braddock Academy found Arcade's promised cache of goodies in #6. But it all ended with Anachronism killing Kid Briton to save the Atlantean Nara from him. Now those 2 are alone with the body and Cullen Bloodstone while Apex and Death Locket have run off. Cullen is using medical supplies from the cache to patch up Nara's wound that KB gave her with his sword. Aiden Gillespie says he didn't mean to kill him but Nara commends him for at last finding his inner warrior. And she removes the faceplate of her helmet, spilling its life-giving water, to kiss him as Cullen looks on with a scowl. Cammi, Chase Stein and Nico Minoru are watching them from a short distance away, until Bloodstone walks across to them with the bazooka he got from the cache too. Cammi pulls out *her* gun but he asks if they'll help bury Brian Braddock in exchange for half the food in the cache.

Meanwhile Apex and Death Locket have crossed over to the snow in Q1. Katy Bashir is running to get away and Becca Ryan is following to get answers. In #6 Cullen said that Katy was controlling Becca's cyborg implants and made her blast Nara off a cliff (in #5). Katy says she doesn't understand and collapses in the snow. Becca runs to help her but finds that Apex is now a male who says his name is Tim.

Juston and Laura Kinney have teamed up to work on the Sentinel. X-23 uses her adamantium-coated claws to cut through metal where Juston tells her.

In Q2 Kid Briton has been buried in the sand with a cairn of rocks over him and his flaming sword as a headstone. Nico tries to commiserate with Nara over her lost love but the Atlantean says that he was a coward who messed with her and got what he deserved and she stalks off. Chase asks Aiden why he's not an (American) football player with his build, but Aiden says he's Scottish and their football is different. Then he rushes after Nara accompanied by another scowl from Cullen. Then Cammi suggests that Cullen's a loner like her so why did he really offer to share food. He sure didn't care about KB but she figures he does care about either Aiden or Nara. And his reaction tells her it's Aiden, but she warns him he's not going to make it here if he allows any attachments. He asks her why she thinks she can psychoanalyse him when they've only just met. She replies that she spent 3 months conning Badoon alien lizards and compared to them humans are easy to read. And she promises not to tell anyone about the big ugly secret he has locked inside.

Later at night Juston and Laura have the Sentinel working. It still can't fly but it can use its boot jets to jump. It has no head so J sits between its shoulders to work the controls, and X-23 perches on 1 shoulder. He tells her that he knows he can't win this game but he can get revenge. He drops her off and bounds towards DL and Apex and shoots at them (because we know that it's they who've been attacking other players, including him and his Sentinel, over the past few issues). Cammi, Chase, Cullen and Nico are lying in the cool snow at the edge of Q1 when they hear the explosion and see the duo running towards them chased by the Sentinel. Nico magics some water at it but it blasts her. This angers her fellow Runaway Chase and to everyone's surprise he turns into Darkhawk (only we know that the amulet and armour came to him in #4).

X-23's mind is still calculating ways to kill them all but she figures she can just let them kill each other.