Murderworld Arena

Runaways: Nico Minoru, Chase Stein

Stonehenge: Kid Britain, Anachronism, Nara, Apex, Bloodstone

Talon, Darkhawk, Red Raven, Camille Benally, Death Locket

## Background

### Prelude

After realizing he was a joke among the super villain community & hitting rock bottom, Arcade decided to build massive island arena underground in Antarctica with the assistance of Miss Coriander. With the designs of the arena completed, Arcade exercised total control over the of the environment & terrain of his new Arena Murderworld.

To fully enact his plan, Arcade kidnaps sixteen superpowered teens (consisting of Cammi, Darkhawk, Hazmat, Mettle, Nico Minoru, Reptil, Juston Seyfert & his Sentinel, Chase Stein, Talon, Apex, Nara, Kid Britain, Red Raven, Death Locket, Cullen Bloodstone, & Anachronism) & brings them to his latest version of Murderworld. He forces them to fight to the death for Arcade's enjoyment over a series of 30 days in a game of kill or be killed. Unknown to everyone, Arcade has replaced the captive teens with Life Model Decoys to prevent anyone from becoming suspicious of their disappearance.

Upon releasing them from stasis, some of the teens attack Arcade but to no avail. The teens stop when it appears that Arcade can't be defeated. Arcade instructs the teens that if they want to survive they will have to kill for it. Instead, Hazmat openly defies Arcade, believing they can form a coordinated attack. Arcade then start the contest off by killing one of the heroes for them, choosing Hazmat. Red Raven argued that he can't just kill one of them like that, leading to Arcade disintegrating her by snapping his fingers.

### Let The Games Begin

As the games start, Rebecca Ryker is forced to face off against Hazmat then fights Cammi soon after. Rebecca begins to remember her origins & joins the Stonehenge group (consisting of Apex, Kid Britain, Anachronism, Bloodstone & Nara) despite death threats from Kid Britain & Nara.

While the young heroes sleep for the night, they are stalked by an unidentified cybernetic creature. Juston is attacked & the Sentinel he is working on folds around him apparently crushing him to death. After a brief fight, Cammi teams up with Darkhawk to find the stalker but is ambushed by Laura, who has been hunting the mysterious stalker as well. Darkhawk is then injured by the cybernetic creature when it manipulates his armor & tears his amulet from his chest, regressing him back to Christopher Powell.

After several days in the area, Arcade shuts off the food supply to make survival more difficult. Chase & Nico survive by creating a tree bearing magical fruit but decided to team up with the children of the Avengers Academy. The alliance stabilized until Reptil was severely injured by a large blast of fire from the woods. Talon & Hazmat blame Chase then kill his fruit-bearing tree. Nico decides she can't trust Chase anymore & leaves him in the woods.

Arcade makes the weather conditions hazardous in Murderworld, but notes there are safe zones at the edge of each quadrant for the competitors to rest, as well as food and medicine in Quadrant 2. The death toll is now at four, with two officially dead & two missing. An earthquake suddenly erupts, separating Bloodstone & Anachronism from Apex, Nara, Kid Briton & Death Locket. Hazmat, Mettle & Talon bring Reptil to the edge of Quadrant 2 for medical supplies, where he reveals it Death Locket & not Chase who attacked him. Suddenly, Hazmat activates a cloud of smoke, engulfing her, Talon & Retile. The smoke is in fact the "trigger scent," leading to Talon going feral & attempting to kill her friends. Reptil shapeshifts into a Pterodactyl & evacuates him, Hazmat & Mettle away.

Meanwhile, Death Locket goes dormant as her cybernetics take over & she blasts Nara off a cliff & into the ocean. Kid Britain is enraged by this & tries to kill her until Apex orders him not to, revealing that she knew about his affair with Nara back at Stonehenge.

Nara, Anachronism & Bloodstone manage to survive the fall & come to the conclusion that Apex is manipulating Death Locket & Kid Britain. The trio is then teleported by Arcade to the supply cache at Quadrant 2 just as Apex, Death Locket & Kid Britain arrive. As everyone argues, Apex confirms she ordered Death Locket to attack Nara. Nara begins calling Kid Britain a "weak puppet," who attacks before being subdued by Anachronism.

Juston is revealed to have survived the attack, but is now paralyzed below the waist due to the injuries sustained when the Sentinel crashed. Distraught at the loss of his best friend, Juston salvages the remains of the Sentinel & creates a suit of battle armor which he uses to attack Death Locket. After Nico & Chase become involved in the battle, Chase transforms into the new Darkhawk & attacks Juston. Their battle is aborted by Apex's technopathic powers & the group's vote for her life or death. Recognizing she will be killed, Apex murders Juston by breaking his neck & steals his Sentinel. After being injured by Apex, Nico stays behind in order to get some of the other survivors to safety. She then uses her power to disarm Death Locket, knockout Chase/Darkhawk, destroy the Sentinel & defeat Apex by trapping her underground. While underground, Death Locket comes across an underground facility where she finds a mysterious room containing the bodies of Christopher Powell, Juston Seyfert & Red Raven.

### Game On

The remaining teens begin going through Murderworld to find each other. The group again encounters a calm Talon but another "trigger scent" is released, causing her to go on the attack. She ends up seriously injuring Hazmat, who stayed behind to save everyone. The trigger scent begins to surrounds the group & Talon comes attacking them as everyone run away. Cullen decides only he can stop her. Upon removing his family's ring, Cullen transforms into a monstrous form in order to save them.

As Cullen Bloodstone's monster form continues to fight X-23, Cammi, Nara and Anachronism look for Cullen's ring. Anachronism tells the group that Cullen is the form of a Glaratrox (which is a parasitic monster that engulfs someone's soul and feeds on fear). When the ring is knocked into the ocean, Nara ends up diving into the ocean to find it. Nara emerges from the ocean with the ring which attracts Cullen's Glaratrox form who ends up severely wounding her. Cullen's Glaratrox form is subdued by Chase Stein, Nico Minoru & Reptil so he can regress back to Cullen. Anachronism ends up attacking Bloodstone in retaliation for Nara, with Cammi resorting to blasting Anachronism to make him stop.

Meanwhile, Death Locket & Apex end up going further into the underground lair where they are attacked by Arcade. Death Locket accidently releases Christopher Powell, who is still alive. He then attacks Arcade & manages to knock him out. When Apex tries to hack Arcade's computers, Arcade talks Apex into letting the game play out in order to position herself as the sole survivor. Apex uses her ability to take over Deathlocket's systems & makes her attack Christopher. Although Apex plans to become Queen of Murderworld, an overloading Hazmat threatens to destroy it.

As Hazmat is close to exploding, Reptil swims her out to sea so that the explosion can't harm anyone. The explosion causes everyone to stop fighting each other. Apex then unleashes sand monsters, giant wasps & other hazards to attack them. After Death Locket breaks free, she's shoots Apex & shuts down Murderworld. Afterwards, the surviving teenagers are rescued by S.H.I.E.L.D. as Henry Pym had become aware of the teenagers' disappearances.

### Aftermath

Unbeknownst the participants, their every move was being filmed. Some individuals died (Red Raven, Juston Seyfert & Apex) while the survivors were left physically, emotionally & psychologically scared. Hazmat convinces the other survivors to make a pact to never share the secrets of their experience in Murderworld with anyone. However, Arcade released his footage of Murderworld onto the internet making the survivors reluctant celebrities. While on a talk show, Dr. Cliff Vanloch talks in his interview about his opinion of the abductions of the teenage superheroes & states that the adult superheroes are mainly to blame for what befell some of the teenage superheroes.

## Trivia

* Arcade claims he got the idea for the scenario from "a couple of kids' books I read in the pen." Some believed it to be Hinger Games but others also thought it could be Lord of the Flies.
* Cammi identifies Becca as a "Deathlok-ette" possibly referring to Becca being a smaller, female Deathlok. However, Becca misunderstood the term for its homophone "Death Locket."
* Molly Hayes is the first one to notice that Nico & Chase are missing & turns to Henry Pym for help. Though she is suspicious, the rest of the world does not think twice about it because Arcade has replaced the captive teens with Life Model Decoys to prevent anyone from becoming suspicious of their disappearance. After speaking with Wolverine, Captain Britain & Maria Hill, Henry Pym goes to investigate the disappearances. After seeing a mass power surge in Antartica from the powering of Murderworld, S.H.I.E.L.D. was sent to investigate & found the survivors.

## Notes

* Murder World Arena is based on the Avengers Arena miniseries of Marvel Comics.
* In the comics, Nara, Kid Britain and Mettle are also killed.