blackhook

It all went wrong when he hesitated. He listened to Nimue threaten Emma Swan, and felt a nauseating surge of feelings. Of all the disgusting things he'd told her over the past several months through his broken, unhinged, vengeful actions, there was enough of him left that he couldn't take someone else causing her harm. He turned on the collected Darkness, using his own power to pull It back into Excalibur. It shook, tremoring in its hatred, ringing in piercing hallowed voices, emanating a pulsating red that threatened to explode free again at any moment. He'd given it to Emma- she could hear them too. She could feel it too. And she knew what must happen. He thought he'd heard her say she loved him, but he couldn't say it back. The Dark in him was far more dominant, and it was taking every bit of human that remained in him to let go of that sword. To give up power. To let someone control him once again.

She ran him through with that blade. He saw the Dark leave her, her light bursting in its warmth from every inch of her skin as it came to life again, unhindered. Yet, instead of the anticipated brief glimpse of relief, of freedom before he died, he became acutely aware of something much worse. The end of the blade cracked, falling to the ground behind him. The hilt remained flesh with his stomach- he tried to take it out- but she was hugging him. She was sobbing, clinging to him as he sagged and gasped in breaths that didn't become words. When she finally let him crumble the rest of the way to the ground, the hilt alone fell free, as if the blade had vanished.

But it hadn't. That fragment of corrugated blade inside of him, intertwined with the threads of his soul, was louder than ever, the Darkness pouring out of its shattered ends, both emboldened by its absent restraints and stifled by the blade's physical presence. Like a key, broken inside its own lock. Complete but dysfunctional. Powerful but unpredictable.

When he regained consciousness, Hades loomed over him, his hook swinging back and forth balanced on the God's finger. For ages uncounted, he endured the torture of the underworld. Swan failed to find a way into the underworld- or never tried, he couldn't be sure. He had long-since given up on a rescue. This was the ending a villain deserved, and he was resigned to it. That was until something jostled the Darkness, awaking it from the slumber his death had repressed it into. The underworld itself shuddered in the aftermath of the revival of Its power. The wounds of his torture healed themselves, and he clashed against Hades in an attempt to escape his realm. The god was destroyed in the violent display of power that ensued, leaving Killian saddled with yet another title he'd had no inclination to wear.

Ever since the battle with Hades, the Darkness was a somewhat fickle thing, as if the blade fragment inside of him had shifted, sometimes a chain on his wrists, and others a driving force of madness. He heard It, always- the hissing, growling, biting manifestation that clawed at the inside of his mind. Yet, the limitless Darkness came through an intermittent sieve. Where he could flatten a landscape at will in an instant, sometimes he could do no more than move an object a few feet or shift shadows.

Centuries more would pass as he remained imprisoned in Hell, reigning over it as its new lord, sailing the expanse of the Stygian River on his risen ship as his own eternal sea. Forever Damned, it would seem, until that day a mysterious door appeared.

Strengths
The Darkness is a limitless power, and even in its current state, it is a seemingly bottomless pit of terrible energy. It, combined with his time in the Underworld, has granted him a wide breadth of Dark and Shadow magic:
-Immortal
-Immune to most sources of physical injury
-Not affected by temperature
-Does not need to sleep, but able to
-Can see souls, or cores of magic, in the living after spending so much time among the dead.
-Dark magic: teleportation, telekinetic-like abilities, incredible speed and strength, manipulation of objects, summoning, dark spells
-Shadow magic: summoning and manipulation of shadows and darkness
-Shadowdemons

Limitations
-He can still be controlled or severely injured by the remaining part of Excalibur’s blade that was left in Storybrooke if someone is able to find it, but can no longer be destroyed or freed by it.
-The fragment of the blade within him has caused his powers to be intermittently stifled or interrupted. One minute he might be able to teleport across a realm, the next he can’t even draft a shadow.
-When present, he is drawn like an addict towards light magic. It is a love/hate relationship, where he both can't stand to be near it, and wants to get intimately close enough to destroy it entirely.
-As is always true for him, he is frequently swayed by his many vices.

#Fairytales Story or alternate-story associations.

#Dagger A new user of the dagger.

#BringtheLight Light magic users are fondly targeted.