Chapter Text
The robots brought three children in, their mother was out of the picture and their father had sold them out to save himself, his body would probably be found sometime within the week. Two of the three were in exceptionally good condition, as Arcade would say, but the third was in very poor shape, as though living on the streets. Jade, the girl once known as Theresa Maeve Rourke Cassidy now the daughter of Arcade, watched impassively as the crazy inventor raged against his humanoid servants for grabbing the wrong kid.
Calming down, he ordered the healthy pair be taken to his pride and joy, Murderworld. The third was taken to his lab, Jade stayed close, where she was safe from accidentally entering the deathtrap. In the lab, Arcade muttered to himself as he gathered supplies, occasionally barking orders to Jade. He cut the boy open in places, injected him with strange substances in others and did many things in a horrifyingly impassive manner.
Leaving Jade to wait and watch, he returned to the control room to watch the supposedly brilliant brothers die like so many before them. The youngest, something Ford if Jade remembered right, not that it mattered, healed. The cuts Arcade left open closed themselves, his body underwent a detox to remove all trace of illness and he sat up. As soon as the process began, the mad scientist hurried back to his lab. Before the boy could do more than sit up, confusion clouding his expression, Arcade sedated him and he was moved to a different antechamber than his brothers had been left in.
In the control room, Jade watched with mild curiosity as the brothers’ bickering led to their demise. Her father was babbling about how much harder the youngest would be to kill with his enhancements. The small part of her that was still Theresa hoped he was right, hoped this one would survive and beat the game. The bigger part of her, the part that gave in and became Jade couldn’t find it in herself to care. Live or die, it doesn’t matter, nobody wins this game. Eventually, they left. He kept her ignorant of their location at all times. A holdover from when she was a hostage, when her family yet lived and she was the prize they were playing for, from when she was more than Junior arcADE. She was neither alive or dead, not a person or animal, she was nothing now. Maybe she'd never been anything to begin with. After all, how can you make nothing out of something?
The psycho was disappointed in his protégé. She got over that pesky, stupid human compassion but that was it, she hadn’t grown as he expected she would. Well, that was what he got for taking a little orphan instead of making a kid. It couldn’t be that hard, plenty of people did it, morons who don’t deserve to live. And calling him a terrorist was also unfair. Most of his victims were coming after him, he was just defending himself and his property by trapping them in Murderworld. Maybe he shouldn’t have removed the bodies, letting them go missing would have prevented this problem. While he may not be a terrorist, he did so love the title of supervillain. It was worth letting that one little rat go, letting him think he’d tricked his captor into prematurely disposed of his body. Really? If he was smart enough to build Murderworld, he ought to know the difference between dead and alive. Did human stupidity know no bounds? He was more than a mere terrorist and if they couldn't see that, they didn't deserve to exist.
They kept moving like always. Arcade wasn't afraid of being caught, he just loved having the whole world terrified. After tinkering with some robots to bring them back online, he began an experiment with his chemicals and noticed Jade's interest in these kind of experiments. His human looking robots, androids, raided a shantytown to get disposable specimens. Locking them in some of the empty chambers he had throughout his bases, in case someone got through the labyrinth itself, he kept them fed and watered as he analyzed them. Healthy specimens were washed then brought to his lab where he told them he was going to make them feel better, inject a tracer and let them go. The promise of release made most docile enough, though they were still strapped down. Arcade let Jade make the serums he injected into each specimen, which she watched him do from the control room. He narrated what he was doing, explaining the effects with a disturbing glee. Aside from solving the vagrancy problem, Arcade continued to play his demented games. In two years, over a hundred people were killed by him.
Until they returned to the base where the sick boy was experimented on, Jade hadn't realized they were making rounds. The boy was still there, he looked as bad as any street kid Arcade had killed. His clothes were tattered, blood was everywhere and he was shaking from his curled up position. Murderworld provided food as long as Arcade was around to acquire it, the mazes went into a kind of stasis without his direction. They hadn't been back in so long, he should've died of starvation if nothing else. Pressing his lips together in a line, Arcade sat back and resumed his game. He provided food, the walls making a terrible sound as they shifted after so much inactivity. The boy scurried, afraid he would be boxed in forever. His balance was terrible, his shivers had not ceased and he kept his head on a swivel. Definitely like a starving street kid.
Arcade sometimes took those people- poor, starving and/or homeless- and provided for them, made them feel safe or even lucky, thinking they were in good hands. Slowly resources would become scarcer, turning scavengers into hunters, found family into bitter enemies. He made the place more treacherous, creating paranoia. Sometimes, he'd pull a survivor out and play mind games more directly. He isolated and overwhelmed, a cruel monster and curious scientist in equal measure.
The boy, she struggled to remember his name but couldn't because Arcade never bothered with them. Eventually the madman grew tired of watching him, frustrated even by his easy navigation of Murderworld. High on emotions, which he himself called weakness, he made the walls box the boy in, pushing him to a holding cell. Locked in, he was choked unconscious as the air was forced out by a safety protocol which was canceled once the boy was out. The robots cleaned him up and brought him to the control room. He mouthed off moments after waking up, Jade asked "Do you ever shut up?" She'd seen him mutter to himself a lot.
Looking at her, he said "Only for you, luv." Unfortunately, Arcade remembered his soulmark from his experiment and knew hers well. Afraid for both of them, Jade let out a sonic cry. The robots were destroyed, the base became unstable and her soulmate ran into her. Moving without thinking, she pulled him out of the base. Being forced under his tutelage, she knew plenty of exits to every base because the androids use them to enter. Rather than take the risk, subsequently escaping to a well populated area, she took the route she knew best and threw another sonic scream at the base. They both collapsed upon getting out, utterly exhausted from the emotional rollercoaster and escaping Murderworld. Laying on the dirt, she forced a stronger cry skyward, remembering Arcade talk about radar. They'd be safe from exposure once the wrecked base was found, nobody would care if either one had powers because they'd done the impossible by surviving Arcade.