Darkhearts

The Darkhearts are physical, living manifestations of the darkness within people's hearts. They have existed for thousands of years and serve the great evil himself, Chernabog, as the main units of his grand army of evil.

Story[]

Before The Keyblade Wars - The Age of Chaos[]

Before the universe as we know it today was created, there was only the Great Void of Chaos. Although the primary inhabitants were the Great Old Ones, beings of chaotic will and energy that defy the concept of order in our present time, there were lesser beings, smaller and less likely to be noticed, but no less dangerous to any who found themselves trapped in the Void. They were the Echthroi, living embodiments of chaos, masterless and free, gathering in the darkest corners of the abyss. Dark emotions fueled their development, and even darker ambitions granted them power. The Great Old Ones used them as their soldiers in their games and wars against each other and the lesser sentient races they enslaved.

It wasn't long before Chernabog, Alpha Being of Darkness and the former great paragon of TOWIAA's Alpha Knights, took notice of their abilities and began formulating plans to use them to his advantage, combining his own power over dark magic with their properties to twist and shape them into a truly formidable force to be reckoned with. Although his use of them in his intended rebellion against TOWIAA failed tremendously, leading to his inevitable exile from the Heaviside Plane and fragmentation into the 13 Dark Kings, his core mind and personality, which had coalesced into the familiar figure from Bald Mountain we know today, was still ever plotting his revenge with the Echthroi remaining a key element, even as the universe was brought into existence during what is now known as the Age of Legend.

With the coming of our modern human race to populate the Lands of Legend and its neighboring Summer Country, Chernabog saw a new means of fulfilling his vengeance against TOWIAA, seeing in humanity as nothing but a great collective pawn in said scheme. Twisted by the years spent in exile and already of a different alien mindset from our own, Chernabog could not truly understand what drove each of us in our daily lives to do what we do to live and survive, merely projecting his own selfish hateful desires and needs onto us. That, in turn, was what gave him the idea to transform the Echthroi, back then in a physical form different from their current state, into noncorporeal states made from dark energy, and then sending them off to possess and corrupt the heart-souls of humanity, infecting and transforming them into twisted beings in order to enslave them as a new army that he could use to conquer the Lands of Legend and then move on to the Heaviside Plane from there. For the first thousand years of this experiment, Chernabog was primarily responsible for the direct corruption of humankind, lending his unique personal touch in every Echthroi spirit he sent to mutate a living soul into a new slave. But as time passed and the Echthroi's numbers grew in size, humanity's own fear, despair, and hate within their own heart-souls, born from living and dealing with such constant threats to their lives every waking moment, began to fester a new kind of darkness all on their own without Chernabog's direct influence. And thus came to rise a new kind of Echthroi: the Darkhearts, the darkness of human souls all of their own making, and the final coup de' grace in the Black God's plan to build an army under his command; and that, ladies and gentlemen, was something Master Solego could not stand for...

The Keyblade Wars[]

Between X and BoANE[]

Birth of a New Era[]

A Fragmentary Passage[]

The Journey[]

The Chain of Memories[]

A Year of Misery[]

An Empire of Dreams[]

Encoded Truths[]

The Fantasmic Dreamtime[]

Return of the Keyblade[]

Nature[]

Pureblood Darkhearts are natural creatures, born from the evil nature found in people's hearts. They are ink-black in color, with yellow beady eyes. They are more common in places that are close to or saturated in shadow magic. Upon their destruction, they simply disappear in puffs of black smoke, without a heart leaving its body.

Emblem Darkhearts, on the other hand, were originally created from machines that reproduce the process of a heart being consumed by the Negaforce. Afterward, stolen hearts can become Emblems. They have more varied shapes, colors, and are branded with Chernabog's symbol to differentiate them from the Pureblood ones. They are more common on the worlds within the Realm of Light, and usually mimic the shape of creatures or objects within that world.

Darkhearts, Emblem or Pureblood, possess several key characteristics that define them as such. Most Darkhearts are created when the darkness that resides in a person's heart consumes him or her due to letting themselves descend into villainy, thus giving it shape and form; this process will also form White Husks, which are born from the body and soul left behind when the heart is lost. Being born from black aether, they are mindless and act on instinct, their only goal is to find hearts, and consume them to create more Darkhearts. But what they desire above all are the hearts of worlds, and thus they enter worlds in search of the way into the hearts of the worlds. When they consume these colossal hearts, the remains of the world form new worlds, such as Traverse Town and the End of the World.

At the same time, Darkhearts seek out the users of the Keyblades, since a Keyblade holds the power to lock and unlock hearts. In order to stop the users of the Keyblades, the Darkhearts use the Keyblade itself as a homing beacon, but ultimately desire to take the heart that commands it. Because of this, Keyblade wielders are under constant attack.

The strength of a Darkheart is proportional to the depth of the evil from which it was born. The blacker the heart forming a Darkheart, Emblem or Pureblood, the more powerful and more monstrous the resulting being will be. An exception to this is the Horned King, who retained his human appearance for unknown reasons. This is a contrast to White Husks, which determine rank according to the strength of the heart, and whose appearances become more human as they increase in power. Furthermore, as beings of elemental shadow, the Darkhearts are able to take possession of other beings or even inanimate objects, granting them immense power and often reshaping their very forms to suit their purpose.

The Darkhearts, being mindless, usually have no master to direct their actions and instead act on the instinct to gather more hearts. However, there are some higher beings who can command them. Darkhearts will obey those with an affinity for evil magic and a strong will. If many people attempt to control them, the Darkhearts will side with whomever is most powerful. Those with hearts, such as Maleficent, endanger themselves however, as the Darkhearts are attracted to their hearts and if they show weakness, the Darkhearts will not think twice of consuming their hearts.

On the other hand, higher ranking Darkhearts, like the Horned King, can fully command other Darkhearts without endangering themselves. Also, the Dominion XIII is able to command them as well with their strong wills, but are not endangered of being consumed by them for their lack of a fully developed heart.

Darkhearts make use of the "shadow corridors", inter-dimensional pathways that connect the many worlds. These pathways are located in the Dark Realm of Tartarus, and thus are very dangerous to use if one is not accustomed to the abyss.

Types - List Description[]

(Cited from Tyrannux's idea on Deviantart)

Shadow Demon - The most common type of Darkheart, a living shadow twisted into insectoid and skeletal form caked in liquid dark matter, it is all that is left behind when a Darkheart devours a living mortal's heart. Though they appear in groups they are still barely a threat, there is little reason to fight them.
Neoshadow - A Shadow Demon taking physical form, yet still dripping with blackened blood. Otherwise weak and easy to kill, its rabid dog like behavior and tendency to appear in groups of three makes it most troublesome.
Soldier (Alpha) - The most common enemy encountered and thus the backbone of the Darkheart hordes. An absolute unit of a living suit of armor with a distinct stechhelm (frog mouth) helmet. Standing about twelve feet tall and wielding a beastly looking jousting lance.
Soldier (Beta) - This version of the Soldier wields a battle axe and small shield.
Soldier (Delta) - This version of the Soldier wields a spike ball on a very long chain.
Soldier (Gamma) - This version of the Soldier wields a scimitar.
Soldier (Epsilon) - This version of the Soldier wields a blunderbuss that fires laser bullets made from dark energy.
Soldier (Omega) - This version of the Soldier wields a scythe.
Large Body - A disgusting slobbish hulk that is always carrying a massive spiked club, using it as a bludgeoning weapon on top of its large swiping punches and gut bashes.
Powerwild - A massive gorilla like beast that is as violent as it is crude and uncouth. It will barf out blackened toxic bile to use as a thrown exploding bomb or as a simple high-pressurized water stream.
Bouncywild - A very feminine monkey girl monster wielding a compound bow that fires dark energy arrows. They tend to team up with Powerwilds in gangs of four.
Search Ghost - A wraith like apparition with three clawing arms and about five eyes that burst out of their eye sockets like lashing tendrils. It constantly phases in and out of human sight to try and sucker punch Taran.
Gargoyle - A monstrous apparition, half-stone gargoyle and half-plague doctor, with wings, it attacks with venom flinging claws, giving it an annoying bit of bonus range.
Wight Knight - An absolutely terrifying cycloptic slender man beast, its very body is like some evil tree made of human bones. It disappears into the ground as if it were sand and will attack with wicked branch like claws and whipping bandages.
Wyvern - A mighty dragonoid that towers at about twenty feet in height and is basically a t-rex with wings. It also has a human skull attacked to its tail.
Defender - A full-on skeleton armor knight with a shield that is as tall as it is. This shield is three circular saws made of curved swords placed on top of each other with a sentient hellhound skull protruding out of the center.
Fortuneteller - A mysteriously enchanting belly dancer who conjures up magic shouting crystal balls and a scimitar for close combat duels.
Luna Bandit - A full on skeletal brigand sporting a grim reaper like cloak and hood, it wields two sickles that can combine into a chakram-esque weapon.
Hot Rod - A most cartoonish and evil looking 1979 Camaro car that is able to use its spike covered tires as arms and legs, hoping about like a boxing kangaroo.
Magnum Loader - A robotic unicycle monster rocking a pair of high caliber rocket launchers for arms.
Fluttering - A nasty looking Dimorphodon-bat hybrid with little bat wings, two pairs of them in fact.
Living Bone - A literal zombie dragon that behaves like a more straight forward Tyrannosaurus Rex, it has a corrosive black fog breath.
Bolt Tower - A floating metallic pillar comprised of bronzed human bodies forming a cylinder cage around a living dark energy core. It will always try to keep its distance and continuously bombard the battleground with dark thunderbolts.
Tentaclaw - A literal hand jolting out of the ground and lashing about trying to grab Taran and Wart, so desperate in its attacks it will even push through the ground like a moving tree.
Wibble Wobble - A walking totem pole of goblin imps trying to fight in tandem as one, it can be knocked down and forced to fight as three smaller enemies.
Dual Durandal - A savage armored lizard-man armed with two giant drill-like katars. It was summoned by Khartoum to keep Solomon busy during a siege upon the Palace.
Hunter - A giant four prong cross-shaped buer that floats about and functions like one big snapping trap.
Reaper's Wheel - Five satanic looking roller wheels fitted on a single long axis with two motorcycle engines on both sides.
Morning Star - A giant walking spike ball with arms and legs, if not dealt with immediately, it will try to explode into a spread of magma that lingers.
Pot Spiders - Insectoids that disguise themselves as various objects such as clay pots, mailboxes, trash cans, casino slots, and treasure chests.
Pot Scorpion - A scorpion-like insectoid hiding in a giant red clay pot. It was formed from the remnants of the Pot Centipede's essence and made to serve Amuk Moonrah's orders.
Wicked Wick - A full-on three pronged candlestick vaguely fashioned after a butler, almost like a more disturbing evil-looking version of Lumiere.
Enraged Elk - A terrifying minotaur-esque phantom with a distinct great elk skull for its head, carrying around a giant club and a blunderbuss. It was summoned from the hunting trophies of Asgard by Malekith to do his bidding and keep the Keybearers busy while he attempted to kill Thor uninterrupted.
Trickmaster - A vile mechanical clown with about five laughing demonic heads stacked on top of each other, it has long accordion-esque tendril arms giving it a long reach.
Grim Reaper - A distinctly pirate-motif demon with a pendulum blade created by General Grievous using the power of the Cursed Aztec Gold to cause trouble in Port Royale.
Blizzard Lord & Volcanic Lord - A most troublesome duo of Egyptian deity themed wizards who were summoned by Pete, Abis Mal, and Koan to do their bidding. They move fast much to Taran's ire and hit even faster with their giant scepters.
Angel Star - A blasphemous re-imagining of the seraphim that attacks with divine bolts of light.
Darkball - A literal ball of darkness that is 70 percent giant tooth-riddled mouth.
Orcus/Invisible - The most dangerous of Darkheart soldier. A lesser demon with a large kabuto head crest and carrying a massive sword with an extending blade. It is able to keep up with Taran’s combo potential and is able to turn invisible for counterattacks.
Darkside - A giant dreadlock sporting troll with an open chest cavity containing the floating heart of whatever truly horrid soul it spawned from. It is aided in battle by a obedient swarm of Shadows that flow together like living water.
Guard Armor - Six robotic body parts floating close together forming a cybernetic war machine, all of these bits resembling a cross between H.R. Giger's artwork and the Transformers of Cybertron. It has all manner of concealed weapons including laser beams, heat-seeking missiles, mini-blasters and a dark energy orb shooting cannon. It was controlled by Edgar Balthazar in his attempt to destroy the Resistance from within their own ranks.
Parasite Cage - A nasty apparition that appears as an mechanically augmented organic life-form having come from the watery depths. It was formed from the heart of Coachman Barker after making his deal for magical power with Chernabog. Attacking exclusively with tendrils of flesh and steel with poison spewing mouths, it is hellbent on getting Taran inside of its cage-like maw where, if he remains inside for too long, he’ll be dealt disgusting amounts of damage.
Mysterious Onyx - An unsettling porcelain doll wearing a hairband of bunny ears that looks almost too human. It was once one of Hannah Phillips' toys before the Archmage and Lotso took it away from her and corrupted it with the power of Darkness to do their bidding.
Stealth Sneak - At first glance, it appears to be little more than a giant chameleon, but upon closer inspection, it is clear this creature is even worse than imagined. The most dangerous traits of the Velociraptor and the Tyrannosaurus bundled together and given a long lashing tongue, laser shooting eyes that can look in any direction and the ability to turn invisible, resulting in a terrifying entity that can only lead to an even more challenging confrontation. It was summoned by Clayton as per the deal he made with the Dark Sage to be able to get his revenge on Tarzan.