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The hum of the triple-redundancy dampening field had been Xen's only companion for three cycles. It was a sound of constant defeat.
When the massive, circular door of his isolation cell finally groaned open, the change was instantaneous and overwhelming. The debilitating hum ceased, and the oppressive, sickening cold that had gripped his dead heart eased slightly. A fraction of the Red Lantern Ring's power immediately returned, surging into his veins like a toxic shot of adrenaline. The familiar, glorious heat of purified hatred returned, giving the world a welcome, blood-red tint.
Two Nova Corps guards, accompanied by a third carrying a large, metallic rod that crackled with blue energy, entered.
"Anomaly K-402," the lead guard announced, his voice muffled by his helmet. "New classification: Extreme Physical Hazard. You are being transferred to the General Population Yard for supervised labor. Any attempt to access or utilize the energy artifact will be met with immediate, lethal force."
The threat was laughable. Xen stood, his armor still scuffed and darkened, his eyes burning with renewed fury. He was no longer bound by a specialized confinement beam; he was bound only by the walls of the prison itself. And walls, he knew, were made to be broken.
"You have prolonged your pathetic lives by denying me my vengeance," Xen grated, his voice a low, mechanical snarl. "Now you have given me something else to kill. You have sealed your mistake."
The guard ignored the threat, jabbing the crackling rod at Xen's chest. The device was not a dampener, but a painful deterrent. Xen flinched, but the pain only fueled the fire.
He was escorted down a series of blindingly bright ramps and into the vast, cavernous heart of the Kyln. The sheer noise and chaotic energy of the General Population Yard struck him like a physical blow.
It was a terrifying, tiered bowl of humanity and alien life. Thousands of species—green, purple, insectoid, reptilian—were crammed into the colossal space, climbing, fighting, trading, and screaming. The air was thick with the stench of unwashed bodies, alien sweat, and despair. It was exactly what Xen needed. It was chaos. It was volatile. It was a target-rich environment.
His crimson armor made him an instant focal point. A silence, heavy with curiosity and menace, fell over the nearest tiered levels as the prisoners watched the new arrival.
As Xen was marched through a narrow thoroughfare, a small, heavily muscled creature with mottled green skin and four arms deliberately stumbled into his path, knocking his shoulder.
"Watch it, meat," the creature spat, revealing a mouth full of filed teeth.
Xen didn't hesitate. He swung his right forearm, a movement fueled by instinct and the Ring's kinetic augmentation. The blow was clean and brutal. The four-armed creature was flung backward, slamming into a thick partition wall with a sickening crunch. The small silence that had followed Xen's arrival snapped, replaced by immediate, raucous noise: the sound of a brawl being anticipated.
The Nova guards immediately activated a sonic alarm, trying to regain control. "K-402, cease hostile action! Return to designated labor assignment!"
Xen didn't hear them. His attention had been caught by two figures who were watching the resulting commotion from atop a nearby stack of maintenance conduits. They were the two strangest, most pathetic things he had seen in this alien universe.
One was a bipedal, talking raccoon. It wore a patched jumpsuit and carried a complex-looking, customized energy rifle that looked wildly oversized for its tiny frame. It was chattering animatedly, pointing a tiny, furred finger at the creature Xen had just thrown.
The second figure was a tree. A colossal, shambling, vaguely humanoid stack of bark and moss, with slow, bovine movements.
The raccoon leaned over and yelled down in a high-pitched, sarcastic voice that cut through the surrounding noise:
"Oh, look, Groot! Another big, red idiot who thinks the Nova Corps is impressed by his muscles! Should we take bets on how fast they fry his ass for that armor, or just wait for him to start crying?"
Xen's gaze snapped to the raccoon. The sheer cynicism of the creature was a corrosive insult to his trauma. It was an intolerable mockery of his struggle. He would kill the raccoon first.
But before he could pivot, the large creature he'd hit, now joined by two equally large, heavily armored members of his gang, scrambled back to their feet. They were not interested in the raccoon; they were interested in the notoriety of beating the new arrival.
"You've got guts, red thing," growled the leader, a scarred blue alien with massive horns. "But you just bought a one-way ticket to the infirmary."
Xen finally had his outlet. He welcomed the distraction. He didn't need a single, isolated target for his rage; he needed a multitude. He needed to fight.
He crouched low, his armor—the crimson insignia of his eternal vengeance—standing out against the filthy, chaotic backdrop. He knew he couldn't use his Ring to form constructs. He couldn't risk the energy dampeners kicking in and draining the remaining percentage of his life force.
Fine. If I cannot burn them, I will simply break them.
The horned alien charged first, a massive fist augmented by a metal cuff flying at Xen's head. Xen ducked under the blow, his movements slow and clumsy compared to the lightning speed he commanded with the Ring at full power, but still efficient. He brought his elbow up hard beneath the alien's chin. The guard's neck snapped back with a wet, sickening crack.
As the two remaining gang members flanked him, Xen threw himself into the melee. This was not the elegant, plasma-fueled dance of a fully-powered Lantern. This was a messy, brutal, rage-fueled street brawl. He was slower. He had to breathe. He was vulnerable. But the hate in his soul was a physical enhancer.
He caught a knife strike with his left forearm, the blade scraping uselessly against the thick armor. He used the momentum to pull the assailant closer, slamming his helmeted forehead into the creature's face with bone-shattering force.
The remaining attacker—a creature with pale, clammy skin—tried to get behind him. Xen spun, catching the creature's leg in a vice-like grip and twisting. He didn't let go until the ligament tore with a sound that was universally understood as pain.
The fight had lasted less than twenty seconds. Xen stood amidst the groaning bodies, his shoulders heaving, the blood of the aliens staining his crimson armor a darker, more viscous hue.
The Nova Corps guards were rushing forward, but they were too late. Xen had made his statement. The Yard was silent again, watching the red-armored warrior who had just used brute force, not magic, to dominate the arena.
He looked up at the raccoon and the tree. The raccoon, for the first time, had stopped chattering. Its tiny black eyes were wide, and it lowered its weapon slightly, a flicker of professional respect replacing the sarcasm.
"Well, alright, then," the raccoon muttered to the tree. "Maybe he is a professional."
On a raised, catwalk-like observation platform across the yard, two other figures watched the spectacle with detached intensity.
Peter Quill, a rogue human with a battered leather jacket, held a bag of contraband meat strips and casually chewed on one. He was leaning against the railing next to Gamora, a towering, green-skinned warrior whose every posture was a study in lethal stillness.
"See that, Gamora?" Quill said, not taking his eyes off the red-armored figure below. "The new guy. He doesn't even have a name yet, and he's already taken out Grob's crew. Not bad for a big, walking traffic light."
Gamora, daughter of Thanos, watched the Red Lantern's labored breathing, the way his knuckles were clenched tight enough to splinter bone. She recognized the look in his stance.
"He is inefficient," she stated, her voice a low, gravelly whisper. "He relies on raw power and intimidation. His movements are sloppy, his defense is nonexistent. If he had been fighting a skilled opponent, he would be dead."
"Yeah, but he isn't dead, and look how angry he is," Quill countered, taking another bite of the meat. "That level of sheer, unfiltered rage? That's not a skillset, that's a power source. I haven't seen a guy this mad since… well, since you found out I ate the last pudding cup."
Gamora turned her emerald eyes away from the Red Lantern and to Quill, a hint of deadly amusement in them. "You will not compare your lack of manners to the suffering that fuels this one, Quill. Whatever that red light is, it is agony made manifest. It is a terrifying burden."
She looked back down at the Yard, where the Nova guards were finally wrestling Xen into high-security cuffs and dragging him away.
"He is going to cause trouble," she concluded. "And trouble, in this place, always creates opportunities."
Quill grinned, his eyes sparkling with mischief. "Trouble, you say? Well, now I'm definitely interested in meeting the new neighbor. Finish that strip. We need to go pay a visit to the big tree and his mouthy pet. I think we just found our fourth player."