He stepped through the mirror—into whatever waited for him on the other side.
A sliver of pallid light wavered across a tangle of black, pulsing threads that clung to everything like a living veil. The ground breathed beneath him, a mud-thick slurry that rippled as something pushed upward from its depths.
A figure—almost a man—rose from the tar, slick with reeking sludge that steamed as it touched the air. He choked on the fumes, clawing upward, but the mire did not release him willingly; rotted limbs and splintered bones coiled around his torso, guiding him, gripping him, shaping him. The dead wore him like a second skin.
His scream bent strangely in the air—cut short as a metal-clad hand, black as starless iron, plunged into the muck and dragged him free.
He collapsed, trembling, smearing the floor with the residue that clung to him like a forgotten memory. Inch by inch he forced himself upright, drawn toward the presence that stood waiting—silent, immovable.
When he finally lifted his head, he found himself face-to-face with the one whose shadow had already claimed this place.
The Unholy Knight of Darkness.
And in that warped reflection of armor and void, he understood with a hollow certainty who—and what—he was becoming.
The Unholy One.
Circa 2008. Chapter 6: The Resurrection Era....
The scenes flooding into the mind of Darkspade... of the past... leading up to his acceptance of The Unholy Darkness.
Darkspade's Diary
With the sudden, dramatic changes in her father's demeanor, Charon decides to visit the Death Family's abandoned Cathedral and locates a hidden room used by Darkspade —she finds Spade's long-lost diary...
The broken seal on the diary bore the Death Family crest, heightening the mystery and making the realization that a madman's thoughts are inside even more compelling, drawing readers deeper into the story.
Charon pulled a chair out and lit a lantern on the table. Surprisingly, the diary was well written, revealing details she didn't expect. As she turned each page, she kept noticing the name 'Sir Mortis,' initially a trusted family friend, then an adviser and tutor. Her eyebrows furrowed as she quickly made the connection-this was Mortismere, a revelation that deepened the plot and character secrets.
But how on Earth could the Death Family not sense a demon lord in their midst? Let alone his enormous presence.... but the details in Spade's diary painted a vivid picture of a humble old gray-haired man who had to use a cane to hold himself up because he had a bad back. Mortismere's dark magic was the reason why the Death Family could not see who he really was, and Sir Mortis kept his distance from the Elders.
This wasn't all of it- Charon carefully read each page and saw how it was Mortis that introduced Julie to Spade.... and Mortis took the position as World History professor to stay as close as possible to them..... to 'protect' them.
Charon's anger rose.... Mortismere knowingly knew what he was doing, but why Julie? What was special about her. The diary did not say... it eventually turned into pages of love stories the two shared back and forth... Charon skimmed a few passages until her thumb caught on a different-textured page... the page was marked up with a lot of black ink, and now Spade's handwriting was unreadable... it was chaotic and mirrored the man she would expect to write such a thing.
The words that followed were those of religious babble. And almost every single paragraph ended with the word, "AMEN."
Charon didn't know what to think of this..... The diary then revealed that Mortis had been planting the seeds of evil long before Spade accepted the Unholy Darkness.
The pages became unbearable now.... but upon the last few pages- Charon discovered that it was thoughts from Spade after Julie's death..... clear thoughts... he writes,
"J...Ju...Julie is DEAD!, I vow to inflict a fate worth than death 10 fold on the killer!! The Dark voice that lured me out to this Chapel is that killer.... and Mortis will lead me to him. I was banished by my family for nothing more than protecting my love..... but I know that I have the good lord on my side in this campaign of righteousness. Amen."
Days later.... Charon checks into a mental rehab.
"My name is Angel Charon Death and I'm a massive heroin addict."
Charon of Death turned to heroin to lessen the pains inflicted on her by Mortismere for many, many years. The entire Death Family was always worried about her, and now that things seemed to have settled, it was time to do something about the drug use... Charon agreed to go to rehab. Kizmat and Grey drive Charon to a rehab clinic.
Several days later, Charon was exhausted from the constant withdrawal symptoms, which the medication didn't seem to ease in the slightest, and the constant emotional upheaval of the continuous talking through memories of her childhood and the constant torture she was put through at the hands of Mortismere. She was lying on her bed trying to focus her thoughts when someone knocked on her door. Darkspade came to visit his daughter, but also to retrieve his lost diary... Darkspade was taken aback by Charon's willingness to hand over the diary without a fight, and then she fell asleep.
Hours later, Charon woke up to the buzzing of the orderly and nurse James, along with the Doctors who were trying to save her from a drug overdose... however, the entry point of the needle was found to be in the back of her spine, which is impossible to do... Eventually, as Charon is rushed to the intensive care room, she twitches and goes berserk, muttering binary chatter, and her pupil glows a lime green color. Grey is immediately called and appears 15 minutes later and finds Charon in a life-threatening state. Grey notices that a USB hub port protrudes from Charon's skin and decides to connect his laptop to it. Once the connection was established with his computer, the EVA_corp binary code and prompts began appearing on his screen. Grey logs into the EVA system and finds that something caused Charon to overdose, and the nanobots inside her body were reactivated and are attempting to repair her. A cybernetic technology 010 program is mentioned to stop this deliberate overdose..
James held his head in his hands. There was a knock at the door and a lab technician walked in.
"We've checked the results on the sample we received from the main lab and the sample we took when Charon arrived. They're not the same. Someone either sent the wrong sample to us or it was done deliberately. Charon's blood type is pretty rare, its AB negative and the sample we were sent from the lab was A positive. The sample we took when Charon arrived was significantly higher in opiates than the one we received from the lab. I'd also say that the fact she was taking in so much opiate probably saved her life in the long run, her body would have had a much higher than normal tolerance."
James thanked the technician and watched the man walk from the room; he then looked up at Gray.
"I think that settles it. Someone has been planning this for some time."
Gray was already on the phone, he didn't like bringing in the police but he felt it necessary as he was already stretched resource wise. He finished his call and then looked up at James.
"You can't mention the cybernetics to anyone, its the one advantage she has now and it should make it much more difficult for the individual or individuals who've done this. You have to understand that Charon hasn't got the full picture concerning her childhood. She sometimes thinks she remembers things and then they turn out to be false memories put there by a second party to try and deflect her from the truth. Up until a couple of months ago she always considered Damien Death to be her real father, then things got complicated. Somehow Darkspade discovered he was the twins real father and yet Damien was always led to believe he was their real father and he raised Charon and Kali until they were 3 years old, then they were kidnapped and disappeared. Those of us who searched for the twins often speculated what had happened, it seemed to send Darkspade into an even darker spiral towards the unholy darkness but at the time we never connected the events."
James ran his fingers through his hair.
"So this Darkspade is her real father? What happened to Kali, the other twin?"
Gray shook his head.
"Kali turned to the unholy very quickly. Darkspade had no knowledge of Kali until she turned up years after Charon had returned. Charon returned with both mental and physical scars, she was very difficult but Damien persevered with her and eventually got her back on the right track. I was bought in to help train her and instil discipline but it quickly became clear she had more knowledge than Damien could even guess at. She was always secretive and distrustful and it wasnt until Moebius turned up that the reason for some of the secrecy became clear."
James flipped open the files sat in front of him.
"Moebius is her son and yet she told no one about him?"
Gray smiled.
"Moebius was very unusual, he was a small but powerful child with genius level intelligence. Charon led us to believe that Moebius was the product of Mortismeres rape of her but there was always that small doubt that sat at the back of everyone's mind. Eventually, when Charon found Moebius again, he was a grown man and they finally admitted that Moebius father was actually Kizmat. Charon and Kizmat had been together for quite some time, it would seem that Kizmat despite his appearance had formed a bond with Charon when she was very young and she too had grown to love him as she got older. She'd feared that Damien wouldn't approve of her relationship with Kizmat and so had hidden it under layers of lies. The problem is Charon is now finding it difficult to separate her real memories from those that were somehow implanted. She has constant nightmares; she only recently had a memory surface of being injected with drugs at about the age of four years old. I think shes probably talked with you about that?"
James nodded.
"I wasn't sure why that particular memory would surface now, at this particular time. Shes had a lot of success despite her problems and with a new influx of wrestlers perhaps her self doubts about her own ability to cope without drugs may have brought it to the surface to help her understand that the problem wasn't created by her but by someone else? I cant be sure."
Charon's usage of drugs escalated right after Kali was "killed" but it was mentioned that no one was certain that Kali died... Charon impaled Kali but Kali was thrust into a portal made as a result of Kizmat appearing during the fight. Mortismere sent Kizmat to go "rescue" Charon but in reality Mortismere knew that he could channel his Unholy Darkness through Kizmat and conjure up the portal to save Kali.
James and Grey then further contemplate the past in great detail which explains the engagements between Mortismere, Darkspade and Charon. It was Charon who told Grey this:
"Fine. Now, bear in mind this is what Charon told me, so I have no clue exactly how much she told me or how much she dealt with it, but basically at the age of eight or nine, she wasn't entirely sure how old she was at the time, but she said she was young and that it seemed like a long time ago. Mortismere tried to force her to accept the unholy darkness, but she once again refused. He ordered his druids to chain her down to the floor by her wrists and ankles. They did as they were commanded, despite her struggles and her screaming. They also clamped a metal ring around her neck and attached it to the floor so she couldn't see everything that was happening, but it kept her still. Mortismere ordered the druids to fetch Darkspade. Several minutes later, Darkspade entered the torture chamber and stood facing Mortismere. He ordered Darkspade to carve the pentagram into Charon's back using a blunt, rusty knife. It was part of his own acceptance of the unholy darkness, but at that time, he couldn't complete the task. He cried and asked Charon to forgive him, but she could do nothing more than cry and wish herself dead."
Mortismere ordered the druids to take Darkspade to the dungeon and chain him there until he was available to deal with him. Just as they dragged him out through the door, Mortismere had a change of heart. He had Darkspade chained to the wall of the chamber, with several druids holding his head. As they did this, Mortismere finished the carving of the pentagram himself, taking great delight in doing it as slowly and as painfully as he could. He even went over areas to drag the whole thing out longer. Charon maintained her consciousness for the entire time and listened as Darkspade sobbed, often begging Mortismere to stop.
When he was satisfied with his handiwork, he stepped back, but it wasn't Darkspade he asked to accept the unholy darkness, it was Charon he asked. She said at that point she wanted the pain to stop, she wanted to die, and came very close to accepting at that point, but she knew it would piss Mortismere off more if she said no. She told him to go fuck himself. Darkspade was released from his shackles and dragged from the room while Charon was left chained to the floor. Mortismere spent several more hours torturing her. I have no idea what else he did that day; she never went into any more detail.."
The scene shifts to a desolate highway restaurant... it is raining outside, and you can see Darkspade pull into a parking lot. He exits his red sports car and enters the restaurant. The waitress is helping some hicks, but then looks toward the odd visitor... Darkspade stood out easily with his long black leather trench-coat... it was studded with black chains and even included Kevlar padding on the shoulder and elbow regions. The Gothic-looking Spade sits down in the back booth and then takes out an empty vial. As he was mesmerized by the vile, a gray-bearded man came up and sat in front of Spade. Darkspade slowly moves his eyeballs up and stares a hole straight at the individual....
"Yeah. I visited her, and I have the diary." - Said Spade.
"::COUGH:: Ack..ack...kkk... Let me ask you Spade. The night, the night that it happened. When you disobeyed your Lord, what was it like to know Charon was being tortured for your insolence? You could have made it easier on yourself you know. You could be truly whole if you had accepted the Unholy Darkness without resist. It's not ass..ackk...kkkk asss hard for you.... considering you murdered Julie. " - Said Seer.
Darkspade is furious by the outrage and then evokes his Unholy Cardinal form and claims that he is "complete" however, Seer responds by bringing up additional knowledge of past events:
"I'll explain.. Dear... ackk.. Spade. That night, as Mortismere shackled you to the dirty.... wet..... walls of the torture chamber... heh... I was there watching. I always watch tortures... consider them, heh, a past time favorite of mine. Mortismere was done etching a pentagram into Charon's back.... but you, cowardly fell to the floor and crawled on all fours to your Lord. You begged for mercy... not for yourself.... but for that child. Mortismere had just about enough of yoouuu... Mortismere wished for Charon to accept willingly and your role in all of this was merely an example of what would happen if she didn't accept! After your failure to do your part in fulfilling the pledge to the will of the Unholy Darkness.... dear god, he beat her..... HE BEAT HER ALL NIGHT LONG!! The screams from that child still echoes in myyyyy distant and gone mind hehehehhe..... later, when the screams stopped... you escaped your prison. You planned to betray your Lord and Master and kill him."
Present Day. The scene re-materializes in the present day, in the tunnel of black... The Unholy One rose from a sea of images pulsating in his cranium- there, in the distance, stood the Unholy Knight with its back turned. The Unholy One made a mad dash, cut through the Knight, and appeared on the other side. The Darkspade turned around to see the Knight with its helmet then off; Ricky Tenant's face smiled back at him, taunting him, challenging him.
"I... I do... do not understand... "
A flood of small images flooded Spade's mind again, many, many decades ago, laid across a black slab, with Mortismere cutting into Spade Deathen's body.... to remove his body, spirit, and soul.
"That is right. You represent a piece of me. You are my soul.... but why... why are you in the form of Ricky Tenant?"
Ricky said nothing- instead- he slowly rose his right hand and pointed at a hallway... a faint vision of Ricky - a Rude Fucking Awakening ensuring....
“It seems like the only way to get ahead is to welcome some of the darkness in, to marry your shadow to your flesh and let nature take over.”
Unholy Knight of Darkness:
"So here it is, I am calling my shot..... DARKSPADE..... it won't stop. EVER."
Darkspade's body was beginning to merge with The Unholy Knight.... while saying a loud...
“This ends. The mind games, the panic, the plague you've brought upon me for your own amusement? It's over. All of it.”
Until Darkspade was all that there was, grinning at the camera.... with a wink:
"Ricky. Ricky... Riiiiiiiiiiiiiickkkkkkyyyyyyyyyyyyy yEssssssSSSSssssss.
Devour the darkness with me, become one with the shadow,
sanity becomes you not."