An attractive, yellow-armoured creature sat patiently in the plexi-glass cage, quietly tapping his feet together nervously. All around him, Skyan police and soldiers stood on guard, weapons drawn and pointed at him. None of them had moved for at least an hour, not since they’d captured the yellow being and brought him to his little cell.
“You uh, do realise this won’t hold me, right?” the creature spoke, eyeing one particular soldier, a blue and orange armoured Skyan who was clearly in charge right now.
“It will do for now!” the Skyan snapped, his weapon still drawn. “As long as you remain quiet and civil.”
“Oh, of course…”
The yellow being looked away, staring at his feet as if they were strangely profound. He then started fiddling with his armour plating, playing with an obvious gash on the bottom of his chest plate. Old wounds were still there, wounds he hadn’t gotten around to fixing yet.
Suddenly, the soldiers moved to one side. Three more heavily armoured Skyans stormed in, making their way to the front of the cell. Rather than look nervous or scared, the yellow-armoured being smiled, shifting his appearance to appear more like a Skyavok himself.
“Ah! Hi! Been a long time!”
The larger of the three, a black and red Skyan with what almost looked like flames on his shoulder plates, stepped forward.
“We have a lot to discuss. Before we start talking though, we will need to gather DNA samples to prove who you really are.”
“Uh, no, can’t do that, sorry…” the yellow creature sighed. “Just can’t. Not unless you can guarantee that any samples you take from me will only be used for identification purposes and will be disposed of afterwards, preferably in an incinerator.”
The larger Skyan glanced at his two comrades.
“Can we do that?” the smallest of the three, all black but with odd, lime-green glows to parts of his natural armour, asked.
“Of course, standard procedure…” the orange and silver Skyan tutted. “All identification samples are always destroyed after use.”
The yellow creature smiled some more, this time fully committing to his Skyan look. Some of the guards audibly gasped, realising what this creature now looked like. He sat up from the stool in the centre of the cell and approached the edge of it, pressing his hands against the glass. Despite such a simple gesture, every Skyan in the room suddenly found themselves on edge, unable to think clearly.
“Thantophor, whatever you are doing, cease it now!” the silver and orange Skyan demanded.
“Oh, sorry…” the Thantophor stepped back. “Didn’t mean to unsettle you. Just trying to get used to being a Skyan again. Being connected telepathically and all that.”
“Why are you here?” the elder Skyan asked. “Why have you taken that form? The form of one of our greatest heroes?”
The Thantophor glanced downwards. “What? This is my form. I mean, Arkay was me and I’m Arkay. That’s how it always was. Frankly, the fact that none of you realised that Arkay, the sharpshooter of the Dessaron, was in fact a death god surprises me because I did a shit job of keeping that a secret… I mean, I just shortened the name Arkadin down to Arkay, for fuck’s sake…”
“Why are you here though?” the elder Skyan repeated himself. “Why has the Lord of Death come to our humble home lands?”
Arkadin shrugged. “Honestly, I’m only here because that’s where you buried Arkay. If you’d buried him on Palaestra, I would have ended up there instead.”
“BUT WHY?”
“Oh. Because I’m… resetting myself…” Arkadin shrugged some more. “I’m making myself into Arkay again. Because I think we can all agree that Arkay was always far better than Arkadin, right?”
The Skyavok all flicked glances at each other, not sure what to do. Finally, the silver and orange Skyan took the lead, standing in front of the Thantophor.
“What do you want, Arkay?”
“I… I just want to start again…” Arkay sighed. “I’m not here to hurt anyone…”