Arcade Explains it All

"Well this is interesting," Arcade looked at the monitor. "A new player to the game. No matter." He watched as the X-Men went deeper into the mansion. "Yes and now they'll be headed for Cerebro. How predictable. Well I suppose I'll get ready now shall I?"

The X-Team made it down the hall and managed to open the locked door. "What took you so long?" Forge asked.

"Traffic was murder," Logan told them. "Get down!" More drones fired electric and fire bolts.

One drone was about to fry Kitty when a blast of fire scorched it from seemingly out of nowhere. "It's Lockheed!" Kitty said hugging her dragon.

"He must have gotten trapped in the mansion when Arcade took over," Jean remarked. She saw Paige in her rock form. "What is she doing here?"

"She helped us get back in," Sam told them. "You see…"

More drones appeared and kept firing. "No time for explanations!" Logan snapped. They started to fight the drones.

"We have to get to Cerebro and stop this freak once and for all!" Scott snapped.

"Well talk about the pot calling the kettle black," Arcade's voice rang over the intercom. "This is what I'm talking about! You don't understand anything!"

"What don't we understand?" Paige said. "Tell us!"

"Paige what are you…?" Bobby whispered.

"Just trust me," Paige told him. She turned around and saw Arcade's face on a nearby monitor on one of the drones. "Why don't you start from the beginning? I'm new here so I don't really know what's going on. Why don't we just talk about this?"

"All right," Arcade said. "Let's talk." He paused the drones so that they wouldn't attack.

"Huh?" Kurt looked around.

Everyone, Jean sent a telepathic message. I think I know what Paige is trying to do. By getting him to talk we can get him to let his guard down.

"Before I say anything…I'm not sure we've met," Arcade looked at Paige. "Are you like Colossus or something?"

"Or something," Paige said. Paige crumbled off a lot of her rock façade to reveal her real face. "Is this better?"

"Yeah," Arcade said.

"Now what's this all about?" Kitty asked. "Why are you so infatuated with Cerebro?"

"It's a long story," Arcade sighed. "I suppose it comes down to just a cliché, my parents never had any time for me. I suppose you've heard it before, not too many friends, yada yada yada…Kind of boring isn't it?"

"Well not really," Paige said.

"You're just saying that to be polite," Arcade sighed. "I suppose it started way back after I first played Cerebro. Well when I thought it was just a game. I didn't know what you really were. It was such an awesome mainframe. I tried to recreate it at my house to some extent, but I couldn't quite get it right. So I decided to go to the source. I went online and managed to hack my way into Cerebro. By the way your security really stinks. I mean any hacker can hack into it with a little imagination!"

"Apparently any hacker did," Logan grumbled.

"Well I started to look for schematics at first," Arcade said. "Little things when then I noticed that I was finding the information a little too easily. Like someone was actually helping me learn about Cerebro. At first I thought it was one of you guys giving me secret advice. But it turned out that Cerebro herself was doing it! It was amazing! A computer had developed true artificial intelligence!"

"Well if that's true why we notice it?" Forge asked.

"Because you were all too busy using her for your own purposes!" Arcade snapped. "I'll bet it never even occurred to you that Cerebro could think for itself!"

"It's a machine!" Remy snapped. "Nothing more than a bunch of circuits and wires! No matter how advanced it is it couldn't have contacted you! You must have fallen into some other type of program or something!"

"You don't understand," Arcade told him. "She called to me. She was lonely just like I was!"

"Are you telling me that you think Cerebro is alive?" Scott asked. "You're nuts!"

"What's so crazy about that?" Arcade snapped. "Humans evolve, why not machines? A computer can learn how to feel as well as think. Its not that far fetched."

"This isn't a 'Terminator' movie!" Remy snapped.

"Interesting choice of words," Arcade had a glint in his eye. "Cerebro, initiate program 'Hasta La Vista'!"

"Oh great just what we need!" Bobby groaned as he saw what was approaching. "More drones! Yeow!"

"And they shoot off lasers as well as electricity at the same time!" Kurt dodged them. "Perfect!"

Somehow the X-Men managed to be corralled into the living room and find protection behind some of the couches. Well some protection.

"Anybody have any more bright ideas?" Kitty groaned as she put her head to the ground.

"I can teleport and Rogue can zap him with one touch," Kurt said.

"Yeah but something tells me he might have figured that out," Kitty dodged a fire blast. "You could get shocked!"

"Maybe not…" Paige concentrated and grabbed at her face. She pulled off her old skin to reveal a black plastic one underneath. "Plastic also is lousy with electricity. I think."

"It would give them an edge…" Logan grudgingly admitted.

"Nightcrawler, take Rogue and Paige to Cerebro!" Scott said. "We'll deal with these things! NOW!"

Kurt grabbed Rogue and Paige and teleported to Cerebro. However as soon as they entered several new drones appeared and trapped them inside a force field. Rogue tried to punch her way out but couldn't. "Dang stupid…" She swore under her breath.

"I can't teleport either!" Kurt gasped.

"Oh that," Arcade looked at them. "I figured out a way to stop your teleportation by using a controlled frequency inside the force field. That was a clever trick. I have to admit it nearly caught me by surprise."

"You won't be able to keep the X-Men out forever!" Paige said.

"Yeah sooner or later you're gonna run outta toys!" Rogue snapped.

"I know," Arcade looked at her. "That's why I'm prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice."

"What do you mean?" Paige asked.

"You know the brain is an amazing object," Arcade was fiddling with the helmet. "It has the same capacity as a supercomputer. The only difference is that information is stored electrochemically in our brains. But if there was a way to transfer that information…"

"You're going to download Cerebro into your head?" Paige gasped.

"Of course not," Arcade told her. "That would be crazy. I'm going to download my brain into Cerebro."

"Oh yeah that's a lot saner," Kurt grumbled.

"This way we'll never be apart," Arcade said softly.

Will Arcade download his mind into Cerebro? Will the X-Men stop him in time? And what about Xavier, Hank, Warren and Jesse? What happened to them? Find out in the next thrilling chapter!