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SM/DC Chapter 153 : Arkillo
🕑 Added 2025-06-19 23:19:12 +0000 UTCGOTHAM - ARKHAM
Arthur pushed open the metal doors of Arkham, the emergency lights flickering overhead. A faint hum of electricity buzzed through broken intercoms. Smoke lingered in the air like an old ghost refusing to leave.
Arkham smelled of iron, sweat, and fresh blood.
Kara hovered behind him, her boots lightly tapping the cracked floor tiles as she landed. Her nose wrinkled at the stench, and her eyes scanned the ruined hallway guards slumped against the walls, some with twisted expressions frozen in death. Inmates in nearby cells whispered nonsense or laughed into the darkness.
One guard lay sprawled against the wall, neck bent at a grotesque angle. Another’s visor flickered weakly his lifeless eyes staring up at nothing.
Kara stepped forward, her fists tightening.
“This place is worse than I remember...” she muttered, voice low with disgust.
From within the cells, the mad began to stir.
“Are you real?” came one voice, cracked and gurgling with blood. “Can you come over here?”
Another cackled. “Pretty girl... pretty golden girl, I’ll tell you secrets if you smile at me!”
A man smeared with blood and chalk grinned through broken teeth. “She can fly!, oh the pretty one can fly! maybe she can take us with her somewhere nice!”
Kara stopped. Her patience snapped.
She turned sharply, eyes glowing a burning red, heat vision pulsing at the edge of release. The hall was suddenly awash with crimson light, casting shadows like demons across the walls.
Every mad whisper in the block fell silent.
The inmates backed away into the dark corners of their cells, trembling, some falling to their knees, others raising their hands in surrender.
“S-Sorry!” one croaked.
“Don’t burn me!” another whimpered, clutching a ratty teddy bear like a lifeline.
“I’ll ask one question, and you better answer.” Kara said, voice low, heavy with authority. “Where is he? The one who did this.”
Her tone left no room for lies.
But before any of them could stutter a reply, Arthur, standing slightly ahead of her, spoke his voice steady, cool, and quiet.
“Don’t bother.”
He hadn’t even turned around. His eyes, glowing softly with that faint blue hue, were fixed down the far corridor. His jaw tightened, and his fingers flexed slightly.
Kara turned to him.
“What is it?”
Arthur’s gaze sharpened.
“He’s already here.”
A low clink echoed from the shadows. Then another. And another.
Heavy footsteps. Slow and confident.
From the far end of the corridor, the shadows twisted unnaturally as something stepped into view.
A figure in a black and yellow uniform, his hand gleaming with the Yellow lantern ring, dragging behind him the half-charred body of a guard. His face was partially obscured by a cracked visor, but the sickening yellow glow around him pulsed like a heartbeat of terror.
He released the body, letting it thud against the cold tiles.
“Ah... visitors,” the Yellow Lantern said, his voice slick. “I was wondering when you’d show up, I was getting bored with this scum. None of them are worthy you see..”
The cells around them grew deathly silent.
Even the madmen stopped breathing.
Arthur took one slow step forward, his eyes glowing brighter now. Kara mirrored him, still hovering slightly, heat shimmering off her skin.
The corridor pulsed faintly with the yellow hue emanating from the ring. There Arkillo stood tall hulking, reptilian, and vile. His jagged teeth were bared in what could barely be called a grin, more akin to a threat. Kara’s eyes moved from the corpses strewn across the floor to the lumbering brute before them.
Her lip curled.
“I don’t particularly have a problem with other species, since I'm an alien myself..” she said, her voice sharp and utterly unapologetic. “But you.. you’re one ugly bastard.”
Arkillo paused.
For a beat, even the ever-creaking Arkham seemed to go still.
Then Arthur standing a few steps ahead let out a single, quiet chuckle. A smirk tugged at his lips.
“I mean,” he said, without even glancing at Kara, “I can’t argue with that.”
The Yellow Lantern’s smile fell. His massive jaw clenched, and his glowing yellow eyes narrowed with venomous insult.
“You don’t know who I am... do you?”
Arthur’s smile thinned into something colder. He tilted his head slightly, shadows curling faintly around his figure. Without a word, he raised his right arm and in a flash of violet-black mist, the Kamish Twinblade appeared. Its long, curved edges gleamed ominously in the flickering light, pointed now straight at Arkillo.
“It doesn’t matter who or what you are.”
The Lantern’s ring flared, casting an aggressive surge of yellow across the corridor.
“I am Arkillo, savage of Vorn, wielder of fear, warhound of Sinestro himself...” His voice suddenly stopped. His expression shifted, no longer just offended but puzzled... then intrigued. He squinted toward Arthur, and something inside the glow of his ring pulsed, brighter. reacting.
Then realization.
“Oh... I see now,” Arkillo growled, voice laced with something near awe. “You’re the one. The ring...it’s not making a mistake…”
Kara hovered slightly higher, fists clenched, floating just off the ground now like a coiled strike waiting.
“The hell are you talking about, freak?” she snapped.
Arkillo didn’t respond right away. His ring shone brighter, yellow tendrils beginning to swirl up around him like flame licking from his skin. With one broad arm, he raised his hand high.
“Fear,” he rumbled. “That’s what you’ll understand... when you kneel soon.”
But he wasn’t fast enough.
Arthur moved.
One step. No heads up.
A snap of displaced air cracked the silence as he surged forward, his twinblade carving through space with deadly precision. The blow was aimed directly at Arkillo’s torso, the blade glinting with lethal intent.
Kara moved to follow, but Arthur’s voice cut through the moment like the edge of his blade.
“I got it.”
He didn’t look at her. His tone was calm but final.
“This is my fight. He’s not a threat.”
Arkillo snarled in offense, yellow constructs already forming around him jagged, brutish weapons of war: a massive serrated axe in one hand, a coiling whip of energy in the other.
“Arrogant,” Arkillo spat, spreading his arms wide like a gladiator welcoming death. “I’ll make sure to drill some fear into that skull of yours... once you’re wearing yellow.”
Kara floated back slightly, watching them with narrowed eyes but her concern was laced with reluctant trust. Arthur wasn’t being careless. He knew exactly what he was doing.
****
EARTH – ORBIT
A storm of light and willpower raged above the curvature of the Earth.
The void was torn apart by brilliant streams of emerald and gold, interweaving and colliding like furious serpents across the dark vacuum. Some Green lanterns alongside the Justice league and a big Yellow force clashed in the brutal silence of space, their combat echoing only in vibration and violence. Glowing constructs of jets, spears, beasts, and blades crashed into each other mid-flight, exploding into radiant flares that illuminated the endless black.
At the heart of it all Sinestro.
Glowing with a sickly yellow. The lines of his face remained still and severe as he deflected three green blasts with one elegant, crescent-shaped shield construct. With a flick of his wrist, the shield splintered into razors, darting back at their sources two rookie Lanterns who barely managed to raise barriers before being flung across the void.
Hal Jordan barreled through them in a streak of green, eyes blazing beneath his mask.
“You’re running out of puppets, Sinestro!” Hal shouted, construct gauntlets forming over his fists. “Just like you’re running out of time.”
Sinestro turned toward him slowly, ring glowing brighter, casting shadows along his angular face.
“You always were impatient,” he murmured.
Hal lunged, and the two collided fist against fist, green against yellow sparks of raw will bursting from the clash. They spun through the dark like twin comets, trading blows at lightspeed, each strike shaking the orbit with shockwaves of power.
Then just as Hal got in close, pushing Sinestro backward with a construct battering ram Sinestro’s ring pulsed.
A transmission cut through the battlefield, unseen by all but one.
[Arkillo has found him.]
[Stronger than expected. Possible match confirmed.]
Sinestro’s eyes narrowed.
“...So,” he said under his breath, glancing past Hal, not at him but through him.
Without breaking eye contact, he raised his hand to the side and spoke through his ring
“Very well. There’s no point looking for someone else.”
Another pulse of yellow lit up the void around him.
“Back up Arkillo. You three should team up and carry out the task. Together.”
The words were calm commanding and sharp.
“Remember…” Sinestro added, voice dropping an octave as the ring surged with grim authority, “we need him alive.”
He ended the transmission.
Hal’s fist came again, but this time, Sinestro caught it. His ring flashed brighter than a sun, and a surge of yellow erupted outward in a concussive shockwave that hurled Hal backward, tearing through several constructs behind him.
Hal spun wildly through orbit, stabilizing himself with a grunt and a flash of green.
Sinestro didn’t pursue.
He smiled cold, knowing, victorious.
“Time’s up, Green Lantern.”
Comments
DarkVerse
I mean, already?, anyway, thank you author.
