Miss Locke: âNot quite, Ms. Lee.â Arcade, in his green ugly Christmas sweater, and Miss Locke, in a skimpy elf costume, walk up to the three tied-up heroes. Sparrow nudges Jubilee and Jono. Sparrow:Â âAudible footsteps. Visible shadows. Theyâre not holograms. Jono, you getting a read on their minds?â Jono: âYup.â Sparrow:Â âAlright, so not androids either. Itâs really them.â Miss Locke is also wearing Sparrowâs utility belt. Miss Locke: âItâs more like a housing.â Arcade: âQuite right.â Sparrow gives the two a death glare, seeing her stolen utility belt. Arcade: âGlad youâre all reacquainted now. See Jubilation, I told you Iâd bring Mr. Starsmore to Murderworld one day, but he is not easy to capture.â Miss Locke: âItâs quite annoying, trying to catch someone whoâs immune to knockout gas and tranquilizer darts.â Jono shrugs, pleased that he made life difficult for them. Arcade: âBut anyway, this tree will finally get rid of our little X-Men problem.â
Arcade: âYou see, there was a time when trapping heroes in my little games was all good fun. It didnât matter if my victims lived or died. The problem is⌠Iâm not doing enough business these days. Potential clients find my inability to kill you weirdos laughable.â Miss Locke shrugs. Miss Locke: âItâs nothing personal, itâs just bad for business.â Arcade: âAnd for one percent-ers like us, we donât like having to choose a favorite private jet when we can normally just buy them both!â Miss Locke: âWhat weâre trying to say is that we need to make a statement to our potential clients. If we can kill a whole group of heroes, everyone will want to hire us.â Arcade: âAnd then we can go back to not caring if our victims live or die.â
Arcade: âWhatâs inside that tree is one of Tony Starkâs old Jericho missiles from his weapons-dealer days. Of course, these beauties are no longer in production because Mr. Stark has one of those annoying moral backbones, but I grabbed it as an early Christmas gift from one of hisâŚlate former associates. The tree will take you three to the X-Mansion where itâll reduce you and the rest of the insufferable X-Men to rubble!â Metallic clamps emerge from the âtree,â securing Jubilee, Sparrow, and Jono to it. Sparrow: âYouâre insane!â Arcade smiles and shakes his head approvingly. Arcade: âYouâre too kind!â
Sparrow whispers to Jubilee and Jono. Sparrow: âI can barely control my powers so I wonât be much use yet, but you two can break these clamps before the missile lifts off. Once weâre free, Iâll take Locke. Jono, you stop the missile from launching. JubileeâŚArcade is all yours.â Sparrow smirks. Sparrow: âReadyâŚNOW!â Jono generates a psionic flame, directing it onto the clamps but keeping it from burning Jubilee and Sparrow.
@amazing-jubilee and coordinated with @deathurgeoverdrive
