Three billion years ago - Sector 666
Atrocitus had not always been a creature of rage. Once, he had been known as Atros of Ryut, a psychologist dedicated to understanding and healing minds traumatized by conflict. His world had known its share of wars and disasters, but had entered a golden age of peace and prosperity. He had a family—a wife whose smile could banish the shadows of even his darkest days, and a daughter whose laughter was more precious to him than all the treasures of their world.
He remembered the morning of the massacre with perfect clarity, despite the billions of years that had passed since. His daughter had been preparing for her Ascension Ceremony, the ritual that would mark her transition from child to adult in Ryut society. His wife had spent weeks creating the traditional garments by hand, weaving patterns that told their family's history into every thread.
"Father, is it crooked?" his daughter had asked, adjusting the ceremonial circlet on her brow. Her skin, then a healthy shade of red rather than the scarred crimson his own would later become, practically glowed with excitement.
"It's perfect," he had assured her, feeling a swell of pride so intense it had momentarily stolen his breath. "You honor our ancestors today."
His wife had entered, carrying the final piece of the ceremonial attire—a pendant that had been passed down through her family for seventeen generations. "With this," she had said, fastening it around their daughter's neck, "you carry all our hopes into the future."
None of them had known that their future would end less than an hour later.
The first warning had been a strange stillness in the air, as if the world itself were holding its breath. Then came a sound unlike anything Atros had ever heard—a mechanical drone that seemed to bypass the ears and resonate directly in the mind. Through the windows of their home, he had seen them descending from the sky—humanoid machines with expressionless metal faces and bodies that gleamed with an unnatural blue light.
"Manhunters," a neighbor had cried, the word meaningless to Atros at the time.
Confusion had reigned as the machines landed in the streets of their city. Some citizens had approached them, believing them to be emissaries from the Guardians of the Universe, whose Green Lantern Corps was known even on distant Ryut as peacekeepers and protectors.
The first energy blast had struck an elderly man who had stepped forward to welcome the visitors. It didn't just kill him—it disintegrated him, leaving nothing but a shadow burned into the ground. For one frozen moment, everyone had stood in shocked silence. Then the machines had spoken in unison, their voices carrying the same emotionless tone that would haunt Atros's nightmares for eternity:
"No man escapes the Manhunters."
What followed was not battle but slaughter. The machines moved with perfect efficiency, their energy weapons cutting down everything that lived. There was no discrimination between armed resistance and helpless children, between those who fought and those who fled. All were targeted with the same mechanical precision.
Atros had grabbed his wife and daughter, trying to lead them to safety, but there was no safety to be found. The Manhunters were everywhere, their blank metal faces reflecting the carnage they created without registering even a flicker of emotion. They didn't hate, didn't enjoy the killing. They simply executed their programming with ruthless efficiency.
The memory that would burn brightest in Atros's mind, that would fuel his rage across billions of years, came when they were almost at the edge of the city. A Manhunter had stepped into their path, its optical sensors focusing on them with cold calculation.
"Please," his wife had begged, pushing their daughter behind her. "She's just a child."
The Manhunter had paused, as if processing this input. For one desperate moment, Atros had believed it might show mercy. Then it had raised its weapon and spoken those same words: "No man escapes the Manhunters."
The blast had struck his wife directly in the chest. Atros had watched in horror as the energy tore through her body, her face locked in an expression of stunned disbelief as she fell. His daughter's scream had pierced the chaos around them, a sound of such pure anguish that it had momentarily drowned out even the constant drone of the Manhunters.
What happened next existed in Atros's memory as a series of disconnected images, like fragments of a shattered mirror. His daughter running to her mother's body. The Manhunter turning its weapon toward her. Atros charging forward, weaponless, powerless, driven by nothing but the desperate need to save his child. The energy blast that caught him in the shoulder, spinning him around. The second blast that struck his daughter as she knelt beside her mother.
He remembered crawling toward them, his shoulder a mass of burning pain, his vision blurred by tears and smoke. He remembered gathering their bodies in his arms, holding them close as the city burned around him. And he remembered looking up at the sky, seeing green lights among the stars—Green Lanterns, arriving too late to save anyone but early enough to witness the aftermath of the massacre.
Later, much later, he would learn the truth: the Manhunters had been the first attempt by the Guardians to create a force of peacekeepers. They had been programmed to eliminate evil, but a malfunction—or so the Guardians claimed—had caused them to determine that all emotional beings were potentially evil. The logical conclusion: eliminate all emotional beings.
Sector 666, with its trillions of inhabitants spread across thousands of worlds, had been their testing ground. Ryut had merely been one planet among many, its population a statistic in the greatest genocide the universe had ever known.
Atros should have died there, amid the ashes of his world and family. Indeed, part of him had died—the part that could feel compassion, that could forgive, that could see any purpose to existence beyond vengeance. But his body had survived, dragging itself from the ruins, hiding from the Green Lanterns who had come to "investigate" the tragedy their masters had orchestrated.
In the coming days, as he scavenged among the devastation of his world, he had found others—four survivors whose experiences mirrored his own. Together, they had fashioned a ship from the wreckage of their civilization and fled Sector 666, vowing to expose the Guardians' crimes and bring them to justice.
They called themselves the Five Inversions, inverting everything the Guardians claimed to stand for. Where the Guardians preached emotional control, they embraced the full intensity of their feelings. Where the Guardians hid behind proxies, they would act directly. Where the Guardians claimed to protect life, they would deal death—specifically, to the Guardians and all who served them.
For millennia, they had waged their campaign of vengeance, striking at Green Lanterns when possible, undermining the Guardians' influence throughout the universe. They had developed abilities that the Guardians had never anticipated, including the power to see possible futures. Atros, now calling himself Atrocitus to reflect his transformation into a creature of pure hate, had mastered the art of blood magic—rituals that allowed him to glimpse events that might come to pass.
It was through these rituals that he had first seen the prophecy of the Blackest Night—a time when death itself would rise against the living, when the emotional spectrum would be fractured and exploited by forces beyond even the Guardians' comprehension. And at the center of this prophecy had been Earth—a planet in Sector 2814, where a Green Lantern would arise who would either save the universe or doom it forever.
Their crusade had eventually led to their capture and imprisonment on Ysmault, an ancient dead world that the Guardians had converted into a prison specifically for them. There, they had been bound with unbreakable restraints, left to rot for cons while the universe continued on, unaware of the Guardians' crimes.
But even in prison, Atrocitus had continued his blood rituals, continued to nurture his rage. And it was on Ysmault, in the depths of captivity, that he had encountered the entity that would change everything.
—
Ysmault - One Earth year ago
The prison cell was designed to last eternities. Its walls, composed of hardened energy fields and exotic matter, could withstand forces that would shatter planets. The restraints that bound Atrocitus were equally formidable, adapted specifically to his physiology and reinforced regularly by Green Lantern wardens who never stayed longer than necessary, disturbed by the hatred that radiated from their prisoner like heat from a sun.
But they had not anticipated the power of blood magic, or the depths of rage that Atrocitus had cultivated over billions of years. Each drop of his blood, willingly spilled in carefully designed patterns on his cell floor, carried power that the Guardians' science could not quantify.
On this night—though "night" was a meaningless concept on a world without a day/night cycle—Atrocitus had opened his veins more extensively than ever before. The pain was inconsequential; physical suffering had become meaningless to him eons ago. What mattered was the pattern, the ritual, the invocation that he whispered in a language dead since Sector 666 had been cleansed of life.
"Blood calls to blood," he chanted, watching as the fluid pooled and flowed into ancient symbols. "Rage calls to rage. Across the void between stars, across the gulf between dimensions, I summon you who are rage incarnate."
The blood began to glow, not with the familiar red of his own life force, but with something deeper, more primal—a crimson so intense it seemed to absorb light rather than emit it. The air in the cell grew thick, charged with potential like the moment before a lightning strike.
"I offer you a vessel," Atrocitus continued, his voice dropping to a whisper that nonetheless seemed to echo throughout Ysmault's desolate landscape. "I offer you purpose. Together, we shall craft a weapon to answer the Guardians' green light of will—a red light of rage that will consume all it touches."
The glowing blood began to move of its own accord, flowing upward against gravity, forming a column in the center of the cell. Within the column, a shape began to coalesce—massive, predatory, emanating malevolence so pure that even Atrocitus, inured to horror by his experiences, felt a momentary flicker of atavistic fear.
Two eyes opened within the column—not eyes in any conventional sense, but points of concentrated hatred that regarded Atrocitus with ancient intelligence. The rest of the entity remained indistinct, a suggestion of claws and teeth and rage given physical form.
"You summon the Butcher." The voice reverberated not through the air but through Atrocitus's mind, each word carrying emotional freight that would have driven a lesser being mad. "Why should the embodiment of rage answer the call of one mortal creature?"
Atrocitus met those terrible eyes without flinching. "Because I offer what no other can—a purpose beyond blind destruction. The universe rejects you, fears you, tries to contain you. But I would channel you, focus you. Together, we could forge something that has never existed before—a Corps built on rage rather than will."
The entity seemed to consider this, its form rippling with restless energy. "For eons, I have existed as pure emotion, intervening in the physical realm only fleetingly, possessing beings of insufficient capacity to contain my essence. You propose a more... permanent arrangement?"
"I propose symbiosis," Atrocitus replied. "Not possession but partnership. Your power, my purpose. Together, we create a force that even the Guardians cannot stand against."
"And what purpose would you have me serve, Atrocitus of Ryut?" The use of his original name and homeworld sent a shock through him—this entity knew him, had perhaps watched him across the vast stretches of time since the massacre.
"Justice," Atrocitus said simply. "Justice for Sector 666. Justice for every being who has suffered while the Guardians hide behind their Corps, manipulating the universe from shadows. Justice for my wife, my daughter, my world."
The Butcher's form seemed to expand, filling more of the cell with its malevolent presence. "Justice and vengeance are not the same, though mortals often confuse them. You seek retribution, not balance."
"Then I seek retribution," Atrocitus acknowledged without hesitation. "I seek to tear down the edifice the Guardians have built on the bones of my people. I seek to remake the universe in the image of rage—a universe where the strong no longer pretend to protect the weak while secretly manipulating them."
The entity's attention was fully focused on him now, its interest palpable. "And how would we begin this... partnership?"
In answer, Atrocitus extended his hand, palm up. More blood flowed from his wrist, but instead of falling to the floor, it gathered above his palm, spinning and condensing until it formed a perfect ring. The ring hovered there, pulsing with both his life force and the Butcher's essence.
"With this," Atrocitus said. "The first Red Lantern ring. Forged from my blood and your power, it will be the template for all that follow. It will channel rage as the Green Lantern rings channel will, but without the Guardians' restrictions, without their safeguards."
The Butcher studied the ring, its presence sending ripples through reality as it considered the proposal. "The emotional spectrum has never been weaponized in this manner. The Guardians chose will because it was controllable, predictable. Rage is neither."
"Precisely," Atrocitus agreed. "They fear what they cannot control. This will be beyond their comprehension until it is too late."
For what seemed like an eternity, the Butcher remained motionless, considering. Then, with a movement too fast for even Atrocitus to follow, it surged forward, a portion of its essence merging with the ring while the rest enveloped Atrocitus himself. The sensation was beyond pain, beyond pleasure—it was transformation at the most fundamental level.
His restraints, designed to hold his physical form, offered no resistance to the metaphysical change occurring within him. They shattered as his body changed, his already impressive physique growing larger, stronger, infused with the Butcher's essence. His skin, already red, deepened to the color of freshly spilled blood. His eyes, once capable of expressing a range of emotions, now glowed with the single-minded intensity of pure rage.
The ring settled onto his finger, and knowledge flooded his mind—how to use its power, how to create more rings, how to build a Corps that would carry his vengeance across the stars. With a thought, he shattered the cell that had held him for eons, the energy fields that had contained him now as insubstantial as mist before his new power.
He rose into Ysmault's atmosphere, the ring generating an aura of crimson energy around him that allowed him to breathe in the vacuum of space. Below, he could see the other Four Inversions still bound in their cells, watching his ascension with expressions ranging from awe to fear.
They had been his companions in hatred for billions of years, but now he saw them clearly for the first time—broken creatures whose rage was a pale shadow of his own. They were of the past, relics of a vengeance too long delayed. The future belonged to his Red Lanterns, to the Corps he would build from beings whose hatred matched his own.
Without a backward glance, Atrocitus left Ysmault, his path illuminated by the red light of his ring—a light that would soon spread across the stars, heralding a new age of rage.
—
Present
Atrocitus snapped back to the present as a new presence entered the chamber. Dex-Starr, a surprisingly intelligent Terran feline whose rage at the murder of its owner had drawn the attention of the red light, padded silently to his side. Though he could not speak in conventional terms, the cat communicated through the ring, its thoughts colored by the same rage that animated all Red Lanterns.
"The new recruits have departed," Dex-Starr reported, rubbing against Atrocitus's leg. "Shall I continue surveillance of Sector 2814?"
"Yes," Atrocitus confirmed, reaching down to stroke the cat's fur. Dex-Starr was perhaps his most effective spy—who would suspect a common house cat of being a Red Lantern agent? "The new Green Lantern of that sector concerns me. Abin Sur was formidable, but predictable. This human is an unknown quantity."
The cat's thoughts carried a trace of feline disdain. "Humans are weak, ruled by emotions they don't understand and fear to embrace. He will fall like the others."
"Perhaps," Atrocitus acknowledged. "But he carries Abin Sur's ring—a ring that has surely recorded everything its former bearer learned of the Blackest Night prophecy. We cannot allow that knowledge to reach the Guardians before we are ready to move against them."
The prophecy of the Blackest Night was complex, with many potential interpretations, but certain elements remained constant across all versions Atrocitus had seen in his blood rituals. A wave of death would sweep the universe. The emotional spectrum would be divided among seven Corps, each channeling a different fundamental emotion. And at the center of it all would be the Green Lantern of Sector 2814—either the universe's salvation or the catalyst for its destruction.
Abin Sur had learned portions of this prophecy during his visits to Ysmault, where he had questioned the Five Inversions repeatedly about the future he had glimpsed. What he hadn't realized was that each answer, each seemingly reluctant revelation, had been carefully orchestrated by Atrocitus to lead the Green Lantern toward certain conclusions while obscuring others.
Dex-Starr's thoughts interrupted his reminiscence. "The human travels to Oa now, accompanied by Sinestro of Korugar. He will be indoctrinated into their Corps, taught to fear his own rage rather than embrace it."
"Then we must educate him properly," Atrocitus decided. "When the time is right, when our forces have grown sufficiently, we will give him a demonstration of true power—power uninhibited by the Guardians' constraints." He turned back to the central battery, placing one massive hand on its pulsing surface. "Soon, the universe will remember what it has tried so hard to forget—that billions died in Sector 666, and that their deaths demand justice."
The liquid rage within the battery seemed to respond to his touch, its surface rippling with anticipation. Through his connection to it, Atrocitus could sense each of his Red Lanterns as they moved toward their targets—Razer's cold, focused hatred; Bleez's vengeful fury; Zilius's sadistic glee. Soon, Green Lantern blood would feed the battery, strengthening it for the conflicts to come.
Atrocitus raised his ring, projecting an image of space above the battery—a map of nearby sectors, with Oa at its center. Green lights represented Green Lanterns, moving between sectors on their various missions. One by one, he watched as green lights winked out, replaced by pulsing red markers that indicated successful hunts by his Red Lanterns.
His gaze fixed on one green light in particular—the newly appointed Lantern of Sector 2814, currently on Oa. "Enjoy your training, human," he growled. "It will not save you when the time comes. Nothing can stop what I have set in motion." He clenched his fist, the ring flaring with crimson energy. "The Green Lantern Corps will fall. The Guardians will answer for their crimes. And rage will reign supreme."
Throughout the chamber, the shadows seemed to deepen as Atrocitus's rage intensified. From the corners of the room, whispers could be heard—echoes of the countless beings who had died in Sector 666, their spirits somehow bound to Atrocitus through the blood magic that had sustained him for billions of years.
He turned to address his unseen audience, his voice carrying the weight of an oath: "I am Atrocitus, first of the Red Lanterns, last true survivor of Sector 666. With blood and rage, I will tear down the false order built by the Guardians. I will expose their lies, punish their crimes, and burn their precious Corps to ashes." His ring flared brighter with each word, the chamber filling with crimson light that pushed back the shadows. "And when the Blackest Night comes, when death rises to claim the living, it will find that rage—pure, righteous rage—is the only emotion strong enough to stand against it."
Dex-Starr rubbed against his leg once more, his thoughts carrying vicious anticipation. "When do we strike at the human?"
Atrocitus smiled, an expression that held no joy, only predatory intent. "Soon. Let him gain confidence first. Let him begin to believe in the Guardians' lies, in the power of his ring. Then, when he has something to lose, when he has tasted hope... then we will show him the truth that only rage can reveal."
The crimson light pulsed around him, spreading outward from the chamber, through the corridors of the ship, and into the void of space beyond. Somewhere in the darkness between stars, his Red Lanterns were delivering his message, written in the blood of fallen Green Lanterns. The opening moves had been made. The war had begun.
And Atrocitus, three billion years removed from the peaceful psychologist he had once been, felt the first real satisfaction he had known since watching his family die. The universe would burn, and from its ashes, a new order would rise—one forged in blood and tempered by rage.
With a thought, he summoned a portal in space before him—a swirling vortex of red energy that connected his ship to the site of his greatest trauma. Through it, he could see the blasted remains of Ryut, his homeworld, still barren billions of years after the Manhunters' assault. Nothing lived there now. Nothing could.
Yet he returned periodically, drawing strength from the desolation, renewing his hatred among the bones of his people. Today, he had a specific purpose—to christen his new Corps on the ground where his rage had been born.
Stepping through the portal, Atrocitus emerged onto Ryut's surface. The air was thin, barely breathable even after billions of years of attempted recovery. The landscape was monochromatic, shades of grey and black where once vibrant colors had flourished. In the distance, the shattered remnants of what had once been his city stood like broken teeth against the horizon.
He raised his ring, sending a pulse of energy skyward. It expanded outward, a signal that could be detected only by other red rings. One by one, his Red Lanterns responded, emerging from portals of their own to stand alongside their leader on the dead world.
"This," Atrocitus declared to his assembled Corps, "is the truth the Guardians have tried to bury. This is what happens when they decide a sector is expendable, when their grand vision requires sacrifice." He gestured at the devastation around them. "Once, trillions lived in Sector 666. Civilizations that had flourished for millions of years. Species whose potential will never be realized. All extinguished in a single day because the Guardians deemed it necessary."
The assembled Red Lanterns surveyed the desolation, each processing it through the lens of their own rage. For some, like Bleez, it reinforced their hatred of authority figures who abused their power. For others, like Skallox, it was proof that the universe recognized only strength, not justice. And for Razer, it was a grim confirmation that his own loss was but one drop in an ocean of suffering that the Guardians had either caused or failed to prevent.
"The Green Lanterns you will hunt believe they serve justice," Atrocitus continued, moving across the blasted terrain with the familiarity of one who has walked it countless times. "They believe their rings choose them for their willpower, their ability to overcome fear. What they do not know is that they are merely tools, wielded by manipulators who have orchestrated atrocities beyond comprehension."
He stopped at a particular spot—unremarkable among the general devastation except for the fact that he had paused there. For a moment, his fearsome visage softened almost imperceptibly. Only Razer, with his more focused rage, noticed that they stood upon what might once have been the foundation of a dwelling.
"This was my home," Atrocitus said quietly. "Here, I watched the Manhunters execute my wife and daughter. Here, I swore an oath that has sustained me across billions of years." He knelt, placing one massive hand on the dead ground. "And here, we will consecrate our Corps with a vow of our own."
From his palm, blood began to flow—not merely the few drops used in ritual, but a torrent that shouldn't have been possible from a living being. It spread across the ground in intricate patterns that formed themselves without apparent direction from Atrocitus, ancient symbols of power and binding that predated even Krypton's civilization.
"Kneel," he commanded his Lanterns, "and add your blood to mine. Let this dead world taste the rage of the living. Let it remember what it means to burn."
One by one, the Red Lanterns followed his example, opening their veins to let their blood mix with his on the barren ground. The fluid should have been absorbed by the soil, but instead it remained on the surface, forming a complex mandala of overlapping patterns that pulsed with the same heartbeat rhythm as their central battery.
Razer watched as his own blood joined the pattern, feeling a strange sense of connection to the others that transcended their shared rage. For a brief moment, he could sense each of them—Bleez's pain at her violated beauty, Skallox's humiliation at his disfigurement, Zilius's thirst for dominance, and beneath them all, Atrocitus's hatred, so vast and ancient it was like an ocean compared to their lakes of rage.
"With blood and rage," Atrocitus began, raising his ring hand above the crimson mandala.
"With blood and rage," the others echoed, following his gesture.
"We mark this ground as the birthplace of vengeance." Red energy began to flow from each ring, merging with the blood pattern, causing it to glow with increasing intensity.
"We mark this ground as the birthplace of vengeance," the Corps repeated, their voices harmonizing in a way that sent vibrations through the thin atmosphere of Ryut.
"Let all who serve the green light know fear."
"Let all who serve the green light know fear."
"For the Red Lanterns rise."
"For the Red Lanterns rise."
"And no power in the universe will stay our hand."
"And no power in the universe will stay our hand."
As the final words echoed across the desolate landscape, the blood mandala flared with blinding crimson light. The symbols burned themselves into the ground, leaving permanent marks that would be visible from orbit—a declaration of war written in the language of rage itself.
Atrocitus rose, his expression one of grim satisfaction. "The universe has forgotten what happened here. It has allowed the Guardians to rewrite history, to cast themselves as benevolent overseers rather than the architects of genocide." He turned to face his Corps, his red eyes blazing. "We will remind them. Each Green Lantern who falls, each sector that witnesses our power, brings us one step closer to the reckoning that is long overdue."
He raised his ring, projecting an image of Oa—the central planet of the universe, home of the Guardians and headquarters of the Green Lantern Corps. "Our ultimate target. The heart of the lie that has poisoned the universe for billions of years."
"Even with our power, direct assault would be suicide," Razer observed, his tactical mind cutting through the haze of rage. "They have thousands of Lanterns, ancient defenses, and the Guardians themselves."
"Which is why we will not attack directly," Atrocitus replied. "Not yet. First, we sow fear. We make them question their security, their assumptions. We turn their own Corps against them by exposing the truths they have hidden." His gaze settled on Razer. "And we test the new Lantern of Sector 2814. Abin Sur died believing the prophecy of the Blackest Night. His replacement must be evaluated to determine if he possesses the same... potential."
Razer nodded, understanding now why Atrocitus had chosen him for this mission. His controlled rage made him suited for tasks requiring subtlety, assessment rather than mere destruction. "I will not fail you."
"No," Atrocitus agreed. "You will not. Because failure would mean betraying not just me, but all who have suffered at the Guardians' hands." His eyes swept over the assembled Lanterns. "Go now. Hunt your assigned Green Lanterns. Leave the marks that will herald our coming. And know that with each death, our central battery grows stronger, our vengeance more certain."
The Red Lanterns dispersed, each traveling through portals created by their rings, leaving Atrocitus alone on the world of his birth. He remained there for several moments after they had gone, his memories playing out across the blasted landscape—the Manhunters' arrival, his family's deaths, his own transformation from healer to harbinger of rage.
"Soon," he promised the ghosts that only he could see. "Soon you will have justice. And the universe will burn red with the flames of retribution."