Avengers Arena (2013 series) #15

Arcade has kidnapped 16 teen superheroes to his Murder World island, and some of them are (possibly) already dead. Last issue he unleashed a gas containing the trigger scent which turns X-23 into a berserker and she started attacking the others. But then Cullen Bloodstone took off his Bloodstone ring and became a giant monster to save everyone else.

This issue is built around the Atlantean Nara so she gets the initial voiceover as on the Quadrant 3 beach she sees Cullen's monster tearing chunks out of X-23 (whose power level now shows as 2/6). Nara loves violence but she surprises herself by instead watching Aiden/Anachronism, the youth she's chosen as her 'boyfriend' since he killed her previous squeeze Kid Briton (in #6). Conflicting emotions vie for expression on his face and she realises she wants to do whatever she can to help him. Against her nature she thinks she fallen in love. She asks Aiden what's happened to Cullen and he says he's let the beast within him take control. So she asks him how they get Cullen back, but it's Cammi who answers that the Bloodstone ring keeps the thing at bay (Cullen told her about it last issue), and Aiden agrees. But then she says he dropped it when he took it off, so they have to find it in the sand.

Meanwhile X-23 has gone into the nearby wood but the beast has followed. Laura Kinney realises that she doesn't know how to kill it, but she still manages to sever 1 of its giant claws. But then help arrives in the shape of Reptil, Nico Minoru and Chasehawk (Chase Stein in the android body of Darkhawk) who sets the monster on fire with his guns.

Back on the beach while they search for the ring Aiden explains that he and Cullen rifled through Cullen's dad's cryptology books and found that the beast is a Glartrox, an extra-dimensional parasite that feeds off fear and anger to become stronger and gain more control over its host. And Cullen was trapped in a nightmare realm (see last issue) for 2 years with it in him, so it's got pretty strong. Nara asks what if they can't find the ring. Aiden says there's another option he doesn't want to talk about, but he's spared because Cammi finds it. However the Glartrox chooses that moment to throw Reptil out of the wood and he knocks her over and the ring goes flying into the sea. And Nara offers to go retrieve it.

While she's swimming around trying to find the ring Nara remembers her past. Her parents were in the Atlantean Royal Guard and they trained her rigorously to be like them because they loved her. Then they were revealed to be agents of Attuma when they tried to assassinate Sub-Mariner. Namor killed them and then exiled her to the surface, with 1 more lesson - trust no-one. And then she finds the ring.

Up on land Anachronism, Cammi, Chasehawk, Nico and Reptil are all fighting the monster with very little effect. It spits out Chasehawk and his slime-covered body lands on Aiden. He claims that they've only survived because the Glartrox enjoys toying with them, but eventually it'll get bored and then kill them. He finally confesses that the only way to get rid of it is to kill its host Cullen and then it will leave this dimension or die. And his friend made him promise to kill him if the beast ever got out of control. So reluctantly the others distract the monster's attention while Aiden leaps on it to where Cullen is embedded in the flesh atop its head. He raises his axe to strike ...

... when Nara emerges from the water with the Bloodstone ring on her hand. She knows that she can't let Aiden kill his friend and she knows that she must save Cullen, because otherwise it'll break Aiden's heart and Arcade will have won because he'll have turned the youth into someone like her. So she brandishes the ring and stands her ground as the Glartrox lumbers towards her. It scoops her up in its claws and she asks Aiden what she has to do. He tells her to just touch the ring to Cullen's skin. She does that and there's an explosion and the beast is drawn into the boy's back ...

... and Cullen falls naked to the ground clutching the ring. Cammi tells him what happened and he's disgusted that he owes his life to Nara. But we see that her power reading is now 0/6. And Aiden clutches her lifeless body and wails.